Harold Redcliffe And 'A Reminiscence...Early Subiaco' (1926).
A wonderful reflection on the early years of Subiaco by Harold Redcliffe. Harold Redcliffe was an agent in St, George's Terrace, Perth.
Harold and his wife travelled extensively. He wrote fiction and non fiction articles and books. His travel articles and lectures were published in local newspapers. He also presented travelogues on the radio.
Harold Redcliffe wrote a book called "The Yellow Cygnet" about his early years on the goldfields in Coolgardie which was published in 1930. The are a number of reviews on Trove, the database of the National Library of Australia from various newspapers. The following review was published in the Herald newspaper in Melbourne...
"THE YELLOW CYGNET, by Harold Redcliffe. (London : C. Palmer), Quite the best part of this Australian novel is that devoted to life on the Coolgardie goldfields. In the early days Mr. Redcliffe spent two eventful years of his youth In the search for gold, and his descriptions of the hardship and excitements of the life, and of the motley throng that poured there in thousands, are well and vividly done. It Is a pity that he did not base his novel on this aspect alone. The earlier chapters are particularly unconvincing.
Geoffrey Warron, the son of a defrocked clergyman, brought up In poverty. His search for wealth lends him to become the ringleader in a gang who are defrauding their employers. An attempt on the firm's safe lends to the murder of one of the partners, and Geoffrey and his friend, Roland Graham, go West. Their adventures on the goldfields have already been mentioned, but from then on the tail becomes improbable and unconvincing. Roland enters politics and becomes Premier of West Australia, but not before he Is accused In the House of the murder of his former employer. At the moment Warren comes forward and makes a confession that clears Roland of all blame, thus securing his friend's happiness for the future and making atonement for the past (Herald, 16 October 1930)". Reports on the sales of the book state it sold well in London.
In 1935 Harold Redcliffe became ill and was admitted to St John of God's Hospital in Subiaco "Gone into St. John's Hospital, Subiaco, to undergo a major operation, Harold Redcliffe, the very well known agent of the Terrace. In addition to being a refreshingly original raconteur; and lecturer, particularly on the subjects of the Holy Land, Ancient Greece, Egypt, Italy and Spain, H.R. is the author of a fine story of Australian life which did not get the publicity it deserved, its remoteness from the self appointed critics of the Eastern States precluding it from the personal contact so necessary for newspaper limelight. All who know Harold Redcliffe personally, and also those who have enjoyed his literary and platform genius, will wish him a safe and speedy convalescence..." (Sunday Times, 13 January 1935).
Harold Redcliffe died in 1935, aged 69 and was buried at the Anglican Karrakatta Cemetery.
The photograph is from the Daily News, 26 July 1930.
The article about Subiaco is copied from Trove, the database of the National Library of Australia. No copyright infringement intended.
West Australian, 12 March 1926.
EARLY SUBIACO
A Reminiscence,
(By Harold Redcliffe.)
"What place is this?" she inquired with a decided sniff of contempt as the train glided by the immature suburb of Subiaco. The lady who asked the question sat beside another on the opposite seat to that occupied by myself, in an alleged first-class, but in reality a very shabbily upholstered compartment. Her companion, gazing through the dirt-grimed window, drew her lips into a well bred sneer as she responded: "I don't know; I think it's an Afghan camp!"
It was in the year 1896, and, with the exception of one substantially built dwelling nearly opposite where now stands the Subiaco Hotel, all that could be seen in the way of habitation were a few tents, and here and there a hessian lean-to. Little wonder the lady sniffed, and little wonder that her companion should reply so disdainfully.
Mr. Austin Bastow since then Mayor and Councillor in Subiaco many times accompanied by his father, both of them architects, and the writer, were camped in a building containing only one room, a large one, the material of which my two friends had brought over with them from Melbourne. The block on which we erected it was in Heytesbury road, then merely part of the primeval forest.
Indeed, Subiaco the name of which was derived from an old monastery of Spanish Fathers in the district, which they in turn had culled from a road, then merely part of the primeval save where the already mentioned crude dwellings showed their isolated and inconspicuous outline.
In Rokeby road now the banking centre of the suburb, giant eucalypts spread their profuse follage, crowned in season by a rich clustering creamy bloom. In the hours of sunshine, wild bees sipped pollen from the blooms, depositing it in a hollow broken limb far up a huge-trunked tree, what time songsters small as humming birds flew from bough to bough in twittering gladness. Purple-bloomed hovea climbed in tangled mess over age-weathered logs, and the eccentric kangaroo paws grew brilliant in colours of green and red.
Not even a bush track crawled through the adjacent woods, and the members of our limited household at first found it difficult, in leaving the modest siding which did duty in those days as a railway station, to locate directly the camp we had built in that woodland retreat.
A Bush Concert.
My friends, both being musical, had brought to the State with them, in addition to the sectional house, an organ and a cello. On Saturday nights we held impromptu concerts, the few and widely separated pioneers being invited by signal to attend, such signal being conveyed to them per medium of a waving dead-bush flare. Each visitor carried with him or her a chair, or failing the ownership of so pretentious a piece of furniture, brought along as a substitute an empty kerosene case or any other odd thing suitable for the occasion. To locate our camp for the convenience of our guests, we invariably lit a bon fire, its blaze directing their steps through the intricacies of the forest in effective circumlocution.
Slowly Subiaco grew. Replacing the hessian lean-to and the tent, jarrah houses made their appearance intermittently, added to by the construction of brick villas. A road board came into existence, but was short lived, as the ambition of the residents soon widened, and the road board courageously developed into a municipal council.
Hectic Enthusiasm.
We who lived in Subiaco took our public affairs very seriously in those days, and the word "apathy" one hears so often charged against the public of today in connection with all legislative matters, was then, politically, or civically speaking, an unknown term. Indeed, our local legislation, far from being viewed indifferently by us, was conducted with an enthusiasm almost hectic in its intensity. That was the time, when no ban prohibited liquor from being dispensed free of cost on polling days to the thirsty electors in respective electoral committee rooms.
I remember well on one occasion a committee, of which I was chairman, possessed a well-stocked cupboard. Similarly stocked was the committee room of the rival candidate. A free and independent elector a supporter of our side had been helping himself at intervals during the afternoon in our room with undue liberty. Finally, a member of the committee flatly refused to let him have another drink. He rebelled. "I will get a drink at the other room," he hiccoughed," and vote for Jorkins." To the rival committee quarters he went. A committeeman there summed up his condition and decided he could "hold another pot." The voter was taken to the polling booth, but, sad to relate, as he reached, its doorway, he collapsed, and, when last seen by his quite disconcerted guide, he was being borne off by a policeman to the local lock-up.
A Memorable Election.
An election never to be forgotten by the elder residents was the fight for the mayoralty between Mr. Charles Hart at that time accountant with Messrs. Haynes, Robinson, and Cox, the well known firm of solicitors and Mr. Murdock, a prosperous and much respected saddler, then of William-street. From our respective platforms I was assisting the former— we, the respective committees, flung at each other invective and denunciation as deadly as a game of baseball. One of the speakers on Mr. Murdock's side happened to be a money-lender, and, on one occasion castigating us for our alleged bitter attacks, quoted from the advice of Polonius to his son:
Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear that the opposed may beware of thee.
The late Mr. Fred Whittle, one of our stalwarts a clever lawyer, and a keen student of Shakespeare - in a replying speech on the same evening, and from the same platform, caustically bewailed the fact that our critic had not continued the reading, as, had he done so, he would have fallen across the exhortation:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
From our opponent's platform came the charge that our candidate "was surrounded by a committee who would stoop to any trick, however despicable, and who would think no action too low in its endeavour to keep its opponent out of the mayoral chair." This flattering imputation brought from us a published set of dogeared verses which, however pungent, were at least innocent of all rules of prosody, and which may still be found in the archives of the council. The publication went forth to the world over the signature of "Bill Sykes: X his mark."
As a reprisal, the enemy, after taunting us with "publishing a vile lampoon and signing it with the most notorious name in fiction, widely issued a quasi-Shakespearian production entitled "The Tragedy of Roselea." The villain chosen for purposes of the play was a resident of that part of Subiaco still called Roselea. This resident was wrongly supposed to be the author of our "vile lampoon." Should I confess it? The guilty poet was myself.
Subiaco has prospered since those old days, and with prosperity has come dignity. Excellent reserves dot the suburb, a capacious post office is in course of erection, public buildings and churches are many, and sanitation will soon be equal to that of Central Perth. The streets are practically all metalled and quite up-to-date, and the tram service is rapid and effective.
But the lean-to, the hessian camp, the bush concert, held a charm, which one who has experienced them would not willingly forget. Our politics may have been hectic, our methods rough-shod, but at least they possessed the quality of interest; and interest, however crude, scores heavily against the luke warmness imputed, perhaps deservedly, to the public in similar affairs of today.
