A picture of history

BY Brooke Butler-Evans

IN OCTOBER 2022, a heritage map created by illustrator Mary Yates, entitled ‘Subiaco: Bush to Suburb 1851-1945’ was unveiled at Subiaco Museum and was commissioned by the City of Subiaco.

In order to ensure the accuracy of the details, Mary undertook many months of research, adding that a great deal of information came from the book Identity Prized: A History of Subiaco by Ken Spillman. She was also assisted by the Subiaco Museum staff.

In addition to ensuring the information she used for the map was accurate, attention was also paid to creating the illustrations. Every line on the map is hand drawn, including the script. “I used to teach calligraphy,” she adds. “I feel that people should value handwriting more. It seems to be almost a dying art these days.”

The end result is a treasure trove of information about our past – and local residents are likely to discover something they might not have known about their own backyard when they study this detailed map.

Mary is no stranger to creating local heritage maps as she has already worked on others, including for the Town of Claremont, The Fremantle Prison, Town of Mosman Park and Rottnest Island Authority. However, even after creating so many, she never tires of finding out extraordinary details and unique stories – and Subiaco was no exception.

When asked about some of her favourite parts of the map, Mary mentions the Benedictine monks, who established the Benedictine Monastery here.

“I specially wanted to include the monks as it is a Subiaco story that people generally don’t know,” she says. “The monks came from Subiaco in Italy, and this is from where our City takes its name.”

Another little-known story about Subiaco that Mary found was the existence of a torpedo workshop from the Second World War, tucked away in Daglish. “Few people seemed to know about it its existence due to its secrecy, despite there being about one hundred men living and working there at the time,” she says.

“I also loved the story of Otto Lipfert, the taxidermist, who used to live in York Street,” she adds. “He was the man responsible for rescuing the gigantic blue whale whose 24m long skeleton has been hanging in the Western Australian Museum. It is a specially loved acquisition. This whale had been washed ashore at the mouth of the Vasse River mouth near Busselton in 1898. Otto managed to get the whale to Busselton with a team of horses and cart and put it on a train for Perth. He could foresee the value of this colossal whale, later also named ‘Otto’ in his honour. Such a credit for Subiaco!”

There are many more stories depicted on the heritage map that show well-known parts of Subiaco, including the Subiaco Football Club, the opening of King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women and the opening of Perth Modern School – all within our boundaries.

Mary says she hopes that people who look at the map will learn something new to them. “I want them to look at it and think: ‘This is where I live – and look at all these events that have happened around me in the past!’”. When creating the map, she had to decide on one detail for each tiny section of the land between the roads and had to choose which one could be used, as almost every space had been over-built so many times over the years.

For those who would like their own record of Subiaco history, copies of ‘Subiaco: Bush to Suburb 1851-1945’ heritage maps are available as signed and unsigned prints, from the museum.