Vigilant- Motto of Royal Western Australian Regiment

as originally posted here
As pointed out many times previously i am a person who regards themself as a West Australian before being an Ausralian. as a consequence i have a great deal of interest in Western Australian history, epecially those areas which tend to get buried in the greater Australian mythos. one particular area where this is true is in military history.
Western Australia has a surprisingly strong military tradition; in 1831 the Governor of the Swan River Colony, Captain James Stirling, made it compulsory for all male colonists between 15 and 50 to register in the militia. in 1861 the colony formed the Western Australian Defence Force, with units of the WA Volunteer Militia initially located in Perth, Fremantle and Pinjarra. the Pinjarra unit was so successful that it eventually raised a second unit- the Pinjarra Mounted Rifle Company who survive to this day in the form of the 10th Light Horse Regiment. control of the WADF units was enhanced when the tradition of officer elections reposed in such volunteer units was removed in favour of appointments by the governor; by 1875 all officers had to pass a number of tests to prove their abilities. although seemingly obvious to a later generation these requirements for essentially reservist units were not merely revolutionary for Colonial Australia but the British Empire.
by the time the colony of Western Australia surrendered its soveriegnty to the new Commonwealth of Australia, the WADF had some 250 officers and 5000 men. this total includes those men engaged in action during the 2nd Anglo-Boer War, where they were highly valued units even amongst other Australian forces. this is an even more remarkable achievement given that population of the new state was barely some 40 000; or in other words 15% of the population was serving in a military uniform of one kind or another; compared to an historical average of 5% or less for most democracies.
unfortunately this is about as detailed as you can get on-line- not much more detailed once you include the two books published a decade ago dealing with the Officers of the WADF and some historical information on the WADF as a whole. the sad fact is that much of the relevant documentation of the WADF was sent East once Federation was underway. even the resources of the State Library are somewhat limited in this regard. and as anybody who has a passing knowledge of Australian history will tell you- the country stops exisiting once you move east of Victoria and New South Wales.
and it would probably surprise few people that this is a lot more than existed even 5 years ago. slowly the details are being reconstructed as sandgropers rediscover our role in our own as well as the nation’s military history- and this goes for our erstwhile brothers and sisters in the other forgotten states- Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. one project that is of particular interest out of the Territory is the attempt to establish Aboriginal Military history. the current ARA unit NORFORCE is actually a direct descendant of one such unit, also called NORFORCE and composed mostly of Aboriginals, in WW2. the old NORFORCE was responsible for North Queensland and the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of WA- details of its operations help to flesh out the details of the Pilbara Regiment’s history.
it is not simply in military history that WA washes out. much of the moneys dispersed under the Bicentennial committees for history projects went predominantly to Victorian and New South Wales or Indigenous candidates with a consequent bias in those directions. the one great positive in the explosion of the internet has been the realisation that we are in danger of losing our history in the West. as a high school student i did a history project on the City of Gosnells; the council and state libraries had three books between them and the council offices had a photocopied sheet with a couple of pictures. now the website for the City of Gosnells has a whole section devoted to the history of the municipality from Beckenham to Seaforth and Canning Vale to Orange Grove.
the funny thing about reading about the WA back in the 1890s and 1900s is how similar the circumstances were to now; in the 1980s census there were 800 000 people in WA; 25 years later it is almost triple that. the exact same thing happened between the 1880s and 1911. and both expansions were fueled by mining booms- gold in the 1890s and iron ore in the 1990s. ironically, also, both came on the backs of a financial crisis and were ostensibly ended by consolidation of the various individuals and companies into a few. equally fascinating is the history of the Forrest family; Western Australia was known as ‘John Forrest’s Empire’ in the 1890s and his great grandson, Andrew Forrest, is WAs richest man now. of course there are a great many differences, but it is the many similarities that fascinate me. Americans might want to scan the numbers of their citizens here for a future president- Herbert Hoover, 31st President, was an important figure in gold exploration in the 1890s, founding the first ‘Sons of Gwalia’ mine (5million ounces and counting).
if the internet has been a boon to the crazies and extremists it has also been a boon to local and amauteur historians. perhaps if you have a spare couple of hours you might like to look up your local history again- or even for a first time. it will be interesting at least.
as originally posted here