The ''Dictionary of Western Australians'' and the related ''Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians'' are two multi-volume

biographical dictionaries A biographical dictionary is a type of encyclopedic dictionary limited to biographical information. Many attempt to cover the major personalities of a country (with limitations, such as living persons only, in ''Who's Who'', or deceased people only ...

containing details of European and non-European settlement in

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

from the foundation of the

Swan River Colony The Swan River Colony, also known as the Swan River Settlement, or just Swan River, was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. This initial settlement place on the Swan River was soon named Perth, and it ...

in 1829 until 1888. Writer and historian

Rica Erickson Frederica Lucy "Rica" Erickson , née Sandilands, (10 August 1908 – 8 September 2009) was an Australian naturalist, botanical artist, historian, author and teacher. Without any formal scientific training, she wrote extensively on botany and b ...

was the head compiler of the books and coordinator of the project which ran from the late 1960s to 1988. The editorial committee included Reg Appleyard,

Geoffrey Bolton Geoffrey Curgenven Bolton (5 November 1931 – 3 September 2015) was an Australian historian, academic and writer. Life He attended Wesley College, Perth from 1943 to 1947. He published works on Australian history, authoring 13 books, his fina ...

, Margaret Medcalf,

Tom Stannage Charles Thomas Stannage, AM (14 March 19444 October 2012) was a prominent Western Australian historian, academic, and Australian rules football player. He edited the major work ''A New History of Western Australia'', which was published in 198 ...

, Pamela Statham, and Sandra Taylor. Few states in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

have been in a position to undertake such a project due to a lack of records and other logistical issues. However the presence, and comprehensive holdings of the volumes of the

Western Australia Post Office Directory The ''Western Australia Post Office Directory'', also known as ''Wise Directories'' or ''Wise Street Directories'', was published in Perth in 1893–1949. It was published by H. Pierssené and later by H. Wise & Co. It listed household, busi ...

(which commenced in 1893) have facilitated the checking of names and locations. The volumes are held as basic reference items in the State Records Office, the

J S Battye Library The J S Battye Library (more properly known as the J. S. Battye Library of West Australian History) is an arm of the State Library of Western Australia. It stores much of the state's historical records and original publications including books, ...

and many public libraries throughout the state. Western Australia's population in 1850 was approximately 5,000. In 1850, the first of approximately 9,600

convicts A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convict ...

arrived and these continued until 1868. With a similar number of free settler arrivals during the convict period, the state's population swelled nearly fivefold in less than 20 years. The discovery of

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in the

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

area of Western Australia in the 1880s led to further significant population growth during that period. For these reasons, the first series was separated by the significant years of 1850, 1868 and 1888. The combined series contain basic biographical details of over 20,000 individuals.

The Western Australian Biographical Index

In the late 1960s, historian, author and genealogist, Rica Erickson, who had previously authored a number of important books and papers relating to Western Australia's history, considered an expansion of her own historical records: In the early 1970s Erickson started working on establishing ''The Western Australian Biographical Index'' with the assistance of government funding. Requests seeking material were sent out through local libraries, historical groups and the local press in which members of the public were asked to provide genealogical information from the 19th century up to 1914 from their family records including arrivals in Western Australia, occupations, dates of birth, marriages and deaths of their ancestors. Historical material such as diaries, letters, business records, minute books, maps, family trees and photographs, were also sought for copying. Information relating to ordinary citizens, rather than just prominent identities was sought. Submissions for the index closed in December 1979. The highly successful project quickly accumulated vast quantities of

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...

material. Additional data was collected through passenger lists, church registers, almanacs and directories, the index to the WA Government Gazettes, and old newspapers. All the information was condensed and handwritten on individual cards and sorted alphabetically by surname and filed at the

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...

. Originally, it was planned that the Western Australian Biographical Index would be copied and made available in a limited number of locations including the J S Battye Library and some major country towns. As the information and interest grew it was decided to produce it in published form.

''Dictionary of Western Australians''

Using the ''Western Australian Biographical Index'' its source, the ''Dictionary'' series was produced in five volumes, the first three of which were published in time for Western Australia's sesquicentennial year of European settlement in 1979. The fourth and fifth volumes were published in 1985 and 1987. The five volumes were entitled: * ''Volume 1, Early Settlers 1829–1850'' * ''Volume 2, Bond 1850–1868'' * ''Volume 3, Free 1850–1868'' * ''Volume 4, The Challenging Years 1869–1888'' * ''Volume 5, The Golden Years'' Volume 1 was based largely on an extensive card index catalogue which had been collected over many years by Hazel Statham, and compiled by her daughter Pamela Statham. It covered the period of free settlement up to the start of the

Convict era of Western Australia The convict era of Western Australia was the period during which Western Australia was a penal colony of the British Empire. Although it received small numbers of juvenile offenders from 1842, it was not formally constituted as a penal colony u ...

in 1850. Volumes two and three covered the arrivals of convicts and free settlers, both during the period of convict arrivals respectively.

''Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians''

The ''Bicentennial'' series was done in response to continuing public interest in supplying genealogical material to the original Dictionary project team which had accumulated significant additional data which needed to be added to the original series. Due to the quantity of the additional material it was decided to publish an entire new series rather than a supplement to the earlier series. The project received federal government funding as part of

Australia's bicentennial The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1988. It marked 200 years since the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. History The bicentennial year marked Captain Arthur Phillip's arrival with the 11 ships ...

celebrations in 1988. The first part of the bicentennial series was published in five volumes as follows: * ''Volume I, pre-1829–1888 A–C'' * ''Volume II, pre-1829–1888 D–J'' * ''Volume III, pre-1829–1888 K–Q'' * ''Volume IV, pre-1829–1888 R–Z'' * ''Volume V, Asian immigrants to Western Australia, 1829–1901'' (1988, Anne Atkinson, ) The second part of the series (volumes VI to X) dealt mainly with Aboriginal genealogical records although Volume IX studied the specific subject of convicts and their impact on Western Australian society after the end of convictism in 1868 in more detail. * ''Volume VI, Aborigines of the Albany region, 1821–1898'' (1989, Neville Green, ) * ''Volume VII, Aborigines of

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, 1845–1914'' (1989, Neville Green and Lois Tilbrook, ) * ''Volume VIII, Aborigines of the South West region, 1829–1840'' (1990, Sylvia Hallam and Lois Tilbrook, ) * ''Volume IX, Convicts in Western Australia 1850–1887'' (1994, Rica Erickson, ) * ''Volume X, Far From Home – Aboriginal Prisoners of Rottnest Island'' (1999, Neville Green and Susan Moon, )

Notes

References

External links

''The Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australia'', Volumes I-IV, online
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Western Australian Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...