POST OFFICES & EXCHANGES
Research by Gordon Freegard    

CANNING MILLS POST OFFICE                          

By the end of July, 1891, the Canning Jarrah Timber Company had been incorporated and the first timber dispatched on the newly constructed railway to Midland. In the next few years the population reached four hundred and a thriving little community existed in the Jarrah forest. A newspaper report in 1893 gives the first reference to post and telegraph communication in this area, the author marveled at the fact the mill was connected by telephone with its Perth Office. The first postal facility was handled by the Canning Jarrah Timber Company’s clerks at Canning Mills without any remuneration. This unsatisfactory situation was soon rectified because on 1^st October 1894 a Post Office was established.

A Mrs. Ethel McLarty was Postmistress in 1896 This situation remained the same until 30^th October 1899 when the office apparently closed prior to the Commonwealth Government taking responsibility for postal matters. A “Receiving Office” was re-established on 17^th September 1906, but it’s status fluctuated over the next few years.  It became an “Allowance Office” on 1^st March 1907 and F. C. Hanna became Postmaster and remained in charge until 1911 during which time it reverted to a “Receiving Office” on 1^st January 1908.

CANNING MILLS IN 1982.
POST OFFICE SITE WAS SOMEWHERE IN THIS VICINITY    #1

FANNY HOWELL (nee Dickson)    #3

CANNING MILLS DUPLEX CANCEL STAMP 1898     #2

It remained as such until 1^st November 1911 when the amount of business must have increased giving rise to the “Allowance Office" classification again. From 1909 till 1911 F. C. Hanna also managed the Forest Inn at Canning Mills.

In 1915 Fanny Howell became Postmistress delivering mail on horseback. Her husband Fred was a contracter at Canning Mills and they had a daughter Violet.

 CANNING MILLS OVAL STAMP 1899     #4

A Transfer Statement dated 29^th July 1916 indicates that the office was transferred from Mrs. Fanny Howell to Mrs. May Saunders.

TRANSFER STATEMENT FROM FANNY HOWELL TO MAY SAUNDERS       #5

  EARLY STAMP POST MARKED CANNING MILLS    #6

On 1^st August 1916 it became a “Receiving Office” and Mrs May Saunders is still listed as Postmistress in 1918. Mrs. Kate Weyman became Postmistress in 1920 through until its closure on 20^th June 1927.

Sometime during his living at Canning Mills, George "Tichy" Richmond became the local Postmaster and delivered the mail on horseback.

MAY SAUNDERS       #7

PICKERING BROOK
POST OFFICE    

The Pickering Brook Post Office was the third to be established in the region after Canning Mills and Gooseberry Hill. An “Allowance Office” was opened in Thomas Humphrey’s Store on 15^th March 1904. It is probable that the Post Office operated out of the store from its inception in 1903, however, there is no record of this.

    HUMPHRIES  POST OFFICE STORE PICKERING BROOK    #8

THOMAS HUMPHRIES    #9
 

In the Post Office Directory of 1915, George Lindley and his sister, Florence are listed as storekeepers at Pickering Brook, however, it was their brother, Fred who actually ran the store.  In 1915 Fred Lindley enlisted for military service and Mrs. Helen D. Hewison of Barton’s Mill undertook to carry on the business for him. Fred was killed in France and the Hewison family purchased the store, Post Office and newspaper agency. George had shifted his interests to Karragullen. Mr. Ray Owen remembers in about 1913 that Mr. Fred Lindley and his sisters, Florrie and Ruby had the store and Post Office.

FRED LINDLEY   #10
 

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED PICKERING BROOK 1907
FOUR YEARS AFTER STORE OPENED         #11
 

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED PICKERING BROOK 1910
SEVEN YEARS AFTER STORE OPENED         #12
 

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED PICKERING BROOK 1908
FIVE YEARS AFTER STORE OPENED         #13
 

In the 1917 Post office Directory, William Hewison is listed as Storekeeper. Ruby Lindley married H. J. (Bunt) McCullagh of Kalamunda and helped in the running of the Kalamunda Post Office. Mrs. Flo Owen and Mrs. Alice Beard, daughters of Mrs. Helen Hewison grew up in the old home cum store. Ray Owen vividly describes its construction and appearance. “The Pickering Brook Store, with dwelling at the rear, was of timber frame, weatherboard construction with some additions to the dwelling being made of “face cuts” from the mill……. The store itself stocked a wide range of foodstuffs displayed on shelves around the walls and carried on a table in the centre of the room. There were also tools and hardware and some articles of apparel, mainly men's working clothes and boots. The goods were sold over wide counters which were on three sides of the store room; an adjoining room under the same roof served as a butcher’s shop ……”

On 12^th December 1925 an office classified in the Post Office Guide as an “Office open for Telegraph and/or Telephone Business only”, was established at Number 1 Siding Pickering Brook. In June of the following year, the office was renamed Carilla and it operated until 30^th June 1931.

HELEN HEWISON         #14

In 1927 there was an approach made to have the Pickering Brook Post Office made a money order office. It was considered that the facility was not warranted seeing that the Kalamunda Post Office was providing such a service. The Department gave particulars of the business transacted for the year 1926/27. The population served by the Pickering Brook Post Office was one hundred and twenty. The services offered were postal, public telephone, savings bank deposits and the payment of old age and war pensions. The number of letters and cards posted was 10,478 and the number for local delivery was 21,123. The revenue from business transacted was 123 pounds 13 shillings and 7 pence ($247.35).

BEARD'S PICKERING BROOK POST OFFICE       #16

ALICE BEARD       #15

In 1937 at Pickering Brook, the allowance was 92 pounds and 15 shillings ($185.50). In this year also, the Commonwealth Saving Bank changed the Deposit Agency to a Private Agency, under the control of the Postmistress. Like most of the other Non-official offices during the war years, Pickering Brook was able to pay military allotments from 1940. On 1^st October 1943, Mrs. Alice Beard took over after her mother, Mrs. Hewison, died in September. The allowance at the time of the transfer was 149 pounds ($298) per annum.

In 1948 Mrs. Beard was approached by the Department on the matter of a telephone exchange at Pickering Brook. She indicated her willingness to attend to subscribers if an exchange was installed. In the Roads Board Minutes of 6^th June 1949 it was recorded that the telephone to the Pickering Brook area would be available as soon as equipment was installed.
 

In fact the exchange was never installed at the Pickering Brook Post Office, but rather at Carilla on 25^th January 1950. Mr. Ted Davey ran the manual exchange from his school tuckshop store in Pickering Brook Road near the now demolished Carilla Hall. In 1949 the allowance at Pickering Brook was 242 pounds 15 shillings ($485.50), which included 4 pound 10 shillings ($9) per year for cleaning the public telephone cabinet outside the Post Office.

In July 1949 the service on the Upper Darling Range Railway Line ceased, and henceforth mails were carried by road transport. This meant quite a change for the Non-official Post Offices, not only were their allowances reduced, but their hours of work became considerably more orthodox.

  TED DAVEY     #17

BERT BEARD       #18
 

    PICKERING BROOK STAMP 1976    #19

Mr. Bert Beard of the Pickering Brook Store became the mail contractor for the area. The contract involved taking the mail bags from Pickering Brook, Carmel, Bickley and Walliston to the Kalamunda Post office, and collecting the outgoing bags for distribution. The job was done between 8.00am and 9.00am and Mr. Beard was paid 10 shillings ($1) per week from Monday to Saturday. The mail for Karragullen Post Office now came by road from Kelmscott. It was probably about this time that the mail was sorted at the office of distribution, rather than the mail bags coming direct from Perth

At Pickering Brook change was on the way also. Mrs. A. Beard ended her career as Postmistress at Pickering Brook in 1959. And Mr. C. Bendall was appointed Postmaster on 1^st September 1959. Like the Wallis’s at Walliston and the Saunders at Karragullen, the Hewison family had been almost a permanent fixture at the Pickering Brook Post Office. With the handing over of the business to Mr. Bendall, so ended nearly forty-five years of the family’s connection with the Pickering Brook Store and Post Office.

At Carilla the manual exchange was replaced by a Rural Automatic Exchange on 1^st May 1960. There were some sixty-three subscribers. This was a further step in the Department policy of extending the automatic network throughout the Commonwealth. It provided the residents of Carilla and Pickering Brook with a continuous service. However, it meant the closing down of Carilla, which was simply a telephone office.

In July 1949 the service on the Upper Darling Range Railway Line ceased, and henceforth mails were carried by road transport. This meant quite a change for the Non-official Post Offices, not only were their allowances reduced, but their hours of work became considerably more orthodox. Mr. Bert Beard of the Pickering Brook Store became the mail contractor for the area. The contract involved taking the mail bags from Pickering Brook, Carmel, Bickley and Walliston to the Kalamunda Post office, and collecting the outgoing bags for distribution. The job was done between 8.00am and 9.00am and Mr. Beard was paid 10 shillings ($1) per week from Monday to Saturday. The mail for Karragullen Post Office now came by road from Kelmscott. It was probably about this time that the mail was sorted at the office of distribution, rather than the mail bags coming direct from Perth.

In 1973 the Post Offices at Bickley, Walliston and Karragullen all had closed, however  Pickering Brook was to survive, but not in the same premises that had housed it for so long. In December 1970 well-known local identity, George Spriggs took over the business and Post Office at Pickering Brook. He was in the process of building a small supermarket on the corner of Canning and Pickering Brook Roads and subsequently, the Post Office was moved across the road. The old store was demolished in the late seventies. Mrs. D. Hosking was appointed Postmistress on 1^st August 1973, Mr. J. Anastakis on 20^th September 1976 and then Mr. C. Bond on 1^st October 1979.

SPRIGGS NEW SHOPPING CENTRE    #20
 

KARRAGULLEN POST OFFICE

In 1912 the railway line was extended to Karragullen to service the fruit-growing industry. On December 1st, 1913 a "Receiving Office" was opened at Karragullen. It is believed the Lindley Brothers, who had a store at Kelmscott, operated a Post Office/Store at Karragullen at about that time, because on the 1st April 1914, George Lindley signed a 99 year lease on a 1/4 acre lot No 27 at Karragullen.

GEORGE LINDLEY      #21
 

ORIGINAL KARRAGULLEN POST OFFICE    #22

GEORGE LINDLEY'S 99 YEAR LEASE    #23

George Lindley was also listed as the storekeeper at Pickering Brook, with his sister Florence. However George soon shifted his interests to Karragullen and the Pickering Brook Store was run Fred, George's brother and their two sisters, Florrie and Ruby. The Post Office was classified an "Allowance Office" on August 8th, 1916.

There is no record of who ran the Post Office in those very early years, however, it was probably George Lindley. In 1918 the Post Office Directory lists Mr. J. Saunders as Postmaster and Teamster. The Saunders family had moved from Canning Mills to Illawarra Road, Karragullen.

The house they occupied was built by Mr. George Lindley, who ran a store and newsagency there. The original building was partly destroyed by fire not long after the Saunders moved in and a new house was constructed on the same site. Mrs. May Saunders was actually the Postmistress and was responsible for the operation of the office.

This house that John and May Saunders lived in was about 100 metres west of the Old Karragullen Store (now Casotti’s Cool Store). A room on the verandah of the Saunders residence served as a Post Office which was ran by May Saunders.

It was the train that was the life line of the small Post offices. It allowed them to receive and dispatch a daily mail, something that would have been difficult to achieve without the railway line. The offices received allowances for after hour attendance and porterage of mail to and from the train. For example, in December 1927, Mrs. C. M. Saunders of Karragullen Post Office was paid an allowance of 6 pounds ($12) per annum for porterage of the mail between the Post Office and the Railway Station. Mr. Ted Saunders recalls that it was his job to carry the mail bags between the office and the station – his future wife carried out the same task for her mother at the Walliston Post Office.

At Karragullen, Mrs. Saunders was still Postmistress in the thirties and forties. In 1941 military allotments were paid at the post office and in 1942 air force allotments were also paid. In 1947 the telephone office hours were Monday to Friday 9.00am – 1.00pm and 2.00pm – 8.00pm: Saturday 9.00am - 1.00pm: and Sunday 9.00am – 10.00am. The allowance was 233 pounds ($466) per annum.

At Karragullen in 1951 the office had become quite busy with the telephone exchange operating until 9.00pm at night and for limited periods on Sundays and holidays. In mid 1951 Mrs. Saunders was absent due to ill health and full time relief was not available. The hours of attendance were curtailed from 1^st July 1951 to Monday to Friday 9.00am – 6.00pm and Saturday 9.00am – 1.00pm. Mrs. C. M. Saunders passed away on 5^th August 1951. Mrs. G. M. Herbert, a niece of Mrs. Saunders, had been carrying out the Post Office duties since her Aunt had fallen Ill, and on 23^rd August 1951 she was appointed Postmistress. Mrs. Saunders had operated the Karragullen Post Office for over thirty years.

JOHN & MAY SAUNDERS    #24

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED KARRAGULLEN 1922     #25

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED
KARRAGULLEN 1933       #26

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED
KARRAGULLEN 1951         #27

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED
KARRAGULLEN 1970     #28

Her son, Mr. Ted Saunders recalls how the Italian community revered her because of all the assistance she gave them over the years. Mrs. Herbert’s mother and Mrs. Saunders were sisters, the former had married into the Mason family of Carmel and had reared a family of nine children on their property in Union Road, Carmel. Mrs. Herbert and her brothers and sisters attended Carmel School and her first experience with Post Office work was helping Mrs. Baker on the Carmel exchange. Mrs. Herbert recalls as youngsters, walking across from Carmel to Karragullen to visit the Saunders’ Family. She remembers also taking the pony and trap down the hill to visit their Mason relatives in Cannington.

When she took over the Post Office, Mrs. Herbert recollects that the front room where the office was housed, was so dark that a lamp had always to be lit. Mr. Herbert put in a window to give some light, this was the first of a number of changes they were to make to the original building. However, it was not until April 1968 that they were finally granted freehold title to the land that George Lindley had leased from the Crown so long age, the Herberts had paid the lease for seventeen years.

In October 1951 the extended hours of operation for the telephone exchange came into force once more. In December of that year the majority of the subscribers requested that the exchange operate from 8.00am – 8.00pm, this meant opening and hour earlier and closing an hour earlier/ these hours were agreed to by the Postmistress. In 1958 the Armadale Exchange was made automatic and this left Karragullen responsible for full accountancy duties with regard to calls lodged by subscribers on the local exchange. Consequently there was an increase in allowance for these extra duties viz. 630 pounds 5 shillings ($1260.50) per annum. In early 1960 the Postmistress was asked if she could provide continuous hours of attendance for the exchange. She advised that this was impossible. As a result on 25^th May 1960 the Karragullen manual exchange became automatic – there was some forty subscribers.

Karragullen was to suffer the same fate as Bickley and Walliston with closure in 1973. Mrs. G. Herbert tendered her resignation on 31^st August 1973 and the office was permanently closed from that date. There had been a Post Office at Karragullen for seventy years.

WALLISTON POST OFFICE    

Like Richard Weston, John Wallis was a wheelwright and worked for Mason and Bird, and like Weston he also stayed on after the mill ceased production. He took up land on Canning Road, closer to Kalamunda. The area was called Wallis’s Landing and later Walliston. On 9^th July 1915 a “Receiving Office” was established at Wallis’s Landing and in December of that year the office was renamed Walliston. According to Mrs. F. Halleen, a Mr. & Mrs. Ben Pritchard ran the first Walliston Post office from their property in Canning Road. The Post Office Directory of 1917 lists Mr. Pritchard as a fruit-grower. His orchard was on the West side of Canning Road between Orangedale and Grove Roads. Later the Hunter family owned the property. On 1^st January 1919 the office was re-classified an “Allowance Office”. It was about this time that Mrs. Fred Wallis took over the operation of the Post Office.

Fred Wallis was the third son of John & Emma Wallis and his orchard was on the west side of Lawnbrook Road between Halleendale and Pomeroy Roads. The old home is still there although there is no sign now of the tennis courts or cricket ground and little evidence of the lush garden cultivated by Fred Wallis.

KATE WALLIS         #29

FRED & KATE WALLIS' HOME         #30

As was the case with most of these small post offices, there was a small room at the end of the verandah and the business was transacted through a window. The customers announced their presence by ringing a small bell which stood on the window ledge. Mrs. F. Saunders, the youngest daughter of Fred and Kate Wallis, remembers as a young girl having to collect and deliver the mail bag to the train each day. She says she ran all the way there and back in all weathers, except for thunderstorms – she refused to go when there was a storm in progress and she would persuade someone else to do the chore.

The exchange at Walliston catered for the people in the immediate vicinity, but also for the Piesse Brook area. There were also exchanges at Bickley, Carmel and Karragullen. Mrs. E. Padgett (nee Wallis) recalls that the Piesse Brook subscribers were on a party line and that each of the exchanges had their own call sign. A photograph of the Walliston Post office in the twenties shows the public telephone box with the price of calls advertised at 2 pence (1 cent).

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED  WALLISTON 1937       #31

At Walliston, Mrs. Kate Wallis was still in charge. The allowance in 1937 was 75 pounds 10 shillings ($151) per annum. In 1937 the Commonwealth Bank advised that the Deposit Agency at Walliston Post Office was to be closed due to lack of business. Military allotments were paid at the office from 1941.

On 1^st March 1947, Mrs. Wallis’ daughter, Mrs. F. Saunders, who had always helped in the office, took over as Postmistress. The hours of attendance were Monday to Friday 9.00am – 1.00pm and 2.00pm – 5.30pm, and Saturday 9.00am – 12.30pm and the allowance was 105 pounds ($201). The hours of attendance for the exchange were extended later in that year and the allowance increased to 170 pounds ($340).

In November 1947, the first move were made for the replacement of the Walliston Manual Exchange. The public telephone was to be left, as well as an instrument for the use of the Postmistress. In 1948 the transfer was under way, and the Walliston Citizens’ Progress Association expressed concern in a letter to the Department, that the removal of the Exchange might adversely affect the remain Post Office facilities. They were assured on this point and on 23^rd February 1949, the Walliston subscribers were connected to Kalamunda. The new allowance for the Post office at Walliston, without the manual exchange was 159 pounds 5 shillings ($318.50).

WALLISTON POST OFFICE AFTER HALE STORM         #32

 WALLISTON RUBBER STAMP 1947      #33

MORFITT'S HOUSE AT WALLISTON      #34

At Walliston Mrs. F. Saunders advised in January 1950 that she wished to resign the position of Postmistress. This meant that the office would have to be moved to new premises. Mrs. I. Morfitt was prepared to take over the running of the Post Office. Mr. and Mrs. W. Morfitt had built a new house in 1948 on the south side of Grove Road between Lawnbrook and Canning Roads. The house is still there and is directly opposite the Walliston Primary School oval. Mrs. Morfitt needed to construct a small room from which to operate the Post Office., and of course, at this time building permits and supplies were hard to come by. Eventually they managed to construct a suitable room at the western end of the front verandah. On 1^st June 1950 Mrs. I. Morfitt was appointed Postmistress for Walliston.

This brought to an end the connection of the Wallis family with this Post Office. For over thirty years it had operated out of Fred Wallis’ family home – a home that was well-known throughout the district for the hospitality of its occupants and as the centre of leisure activities. When Mrs. Morfitt took over the mail was brought by road from Kalamunda and the manual exchange had been superseded by the amalgamation with Kalamunda.

Walliston was still very much an orchard region in the fifties and sixties, Grove Road from Canning Road through to Lesmurdie Road was gravel and there were one or two houses on it. This was before the building boom, which has now made Walliston into a significant residential and light industrial area. It was a quiet place in those days – Mrs. Morfitt remembers Levi Wallis wandering up the track every week or so, to get the mail and to sit on her front verandah and have a chat. War pensions were able to be collected at Walliston from November 1953.

In 1957 Mrs. Morfitt agreed to clean the public telephone box for 4 pound 10 shillings ($9) per annum – the rate of payment had not increased since 1949 when Mrs. Beard had agreed to carry out the same task for the same amount! This was life before inflation. In July 1960 an ordinary coin attachment was installed in the Public Telephone at Walliston.

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED  WALLISTON 1971     #35

Mrs. I. MORFITT      #36

GREENS LANDING POST OFFICE  

Around 1912 other developments were taking place along the Railway Line. One of the first settlers to take up land at Carmel, or Green's Landing as it was then known, was Edward Owen. He settled in Canning Road in 1893 and founded the Methodist community in the area. Levi Green had a property at the end of Union Road, which he purchased about the same time. In 1906 the farm school in Glen Isla Road, run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church and later named Carmel College, began its operations. More orchardists were attracted to the area and on 10th February 1913 an "Allowance Office" was established at Green's Landing. According to Ray Owen, there was a store at the Carmel College in the early years and the first Post Office operated from there. In July 1915 the office was renamed Carmel.

A little further on at Bickley, then called Heidelberg, the very early settlers were being joined by others attempting to carve orchards out of the bush. In the early 1890's George Palmateer and Charles Ashcroft had taken land at the foot of Lawnbrook Road. Ashcroft sold out to A. C. R. Loaring in 1902 and the property was named Lawnbrook. The Palmateer orchard was called Heidelberg. In the 1915 Post office Directory, Heidelberg was listed simply as a “platform 24 miles east from Perth”, and the residents were included under Green’s Landing. However, on 1^st January 1916 a “Receiving Office” was established at Bickley replacing Green’s Landing.

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED  GREEN'S LANDING 1914     #37

BICKLEY POST OFFICE   

Mrs. D. Watson (nee Palmateer) recalls that Mr. F. Knowles ran the Post Office pre 1920. His home was next to the present day Seventh Day Adventist Church in Heidelberg Road. At that time the school and church were on the same site and children used to run through the orchard next door to the Knowles’ house to get the mail. The house had lattice through which the letters were passed. Mrs. Watson remembers that a sign proclaiming the “Bickley Post Office” adorned the front fence. “Dad” Knowles, as the children called him, would walk up and collect the mail from the train, no matter what the weather was like. Mrs. Watson recalls him striding down the valley with his bag on his back, as regular as clockwork. Mrs. E. McWhirter (nee Loaring) recollects having to walk up Lawnbrook hill to Heidelberg Road to get the mail. It’s a long steep hill, but as Mrs. Watson said: “We were used to walking in those days.”

At Bickley on 1^st November 1924 the office was made an “Allowance Office”. It was about this time that Mr. Bill Hand took over the job of Postmaster. At first he lived in the same house as Mr. Knowles had done and operated the office from there. Later he built a house on the corner of Lawnbrook Road and First Avenue and continued to run the Post Office from his new home. Mrs. D. Watson recalls that he had the telephone exchange in this house.

At Bickley Mr. A. E. Gamble took over the running of the Post Office on 1^st November 1940. He operated the office from the same place Mr. Hand had done. Mr. V. Douglas of Bickley remembers Mr. Gamble walking up to the Bickley Siding to get the mail bag. He recalls he would give Mr. Gamble about half as hour to sort the mail before going down to collect the letters.

The telephone exchange at Bickley closed in 1951 with the ten subscribers being connected to the R.A.X. at Lesmurdie. Mrs. A Gamble became Post-Mistress on 14^th March 1952 and Mrs. F. Wood took over from her on 1^st July 1952. Mr. Wood ran the Post Office from the house on the corner of Lawnbrook Road and First Avenue, which was the family home. The door to the Post Office led off the front porch – it was a large room with a counter at one end. In the late fifties Mr. Wood took over the Bickley Store, which stood on the corner of Nairn Road and First Avenue, opposite the Bickley Primary School. He then operated the Post Office from there, as did his wife, Mrs. J. Woods, who was appointed Postmistress on 1^st September 1962. The telephone box and letter receiver were moved from Wood’s house to the new premises. The annual rate of payment in 1962 was 378 pounds 15 shillings ($757.50). In early 1969 Mr. R. Schnaars was appointed Postmaster.

At Bickley Mrs. D. Chester had been appointed Postmistress on 17^th September 1970. In November of the same year she advised the Department that the contents of the general store had been sold by auction and that the building was to be demolished. As a result of this the post Office was temporarily closed on 6^th November 1970.A shopping centre was in the process of being constructed adjacent to the old store and it was anticipated that the Post Office could be relocated there. However, it soon apparent that this project had come to a standstill. There appeared to be no particular concern about the close of the office in the view of the Department, and so 6^th November 1970 was declared as the permanent closing date for the Bickley Post Office.

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED BICKLEY 1932        #38

BICKLEY RUBBER STAMP 1962        #39

CARMEL POST OFFICE

On 10th February 1913 an "Allowance Office" was established at Green's Landing. According to Ray Owen, there was a store at the Carmel College in the early years and the first Post Office operated from there. In July 1915 the office was renamed Carmel. Its second home was at Mr. S. A. Ingram's on the north side of Carmel Road East. The old house had a small room at the end of the front verandah that served as the Post Office.

In Carmel, in the early 1920's the Post Office changed hands and position, and was now run by Mr. J. Gray. Mr. Gray operated it from a house on the south side of Carmel Road at the top end of Annett’s orchard. The house is still there and is just below Mr. A. Anderson’s boundary. In the fifties Mrs. A. E. Annetts (nee Myerson) lived in this house, whilst her son, Wally ran the family orchard. The Post Office Directory of 1924 shows Miss Reid as Postmistress at Carmel. Mr. & Mrs. Ray Owen and Mrs. Alice Beard remember the two maiden ladies, Misses Reid and Brown running the Post Office.

INGRAM'S HOUSE CARMEL        #40

OLD ANNETT'S HOUSE CARMEL       #41

CARMEL RUBBER STAMP 1925        #42

On 15^th September 1927 Mr. R. Baker was appointed Postmaster – the office was still in the same house. Mr. Baker was a returned soldier in a very bad state of health. He had been gassed whilst serving in the A.I.F. in France and on 30^th May 1932 his wife took over from him as Postmistress. There was a telephone exchange at the Carmel Post Office in 1932. The revenue for 1933/34 was 59 pounds ($118) and for 1935/36 it was 100 pounds ($200). In the early thirties there were five subscribers on the Carmel Telephone Exchange board.

At Carmel on 15^th March 1936, the lease expired on the house occupied by Mrs. Baker, the Postmistress. An application for the transfer of the office to her new home was approved by the Department. The house in question was on the south side of Carmel Road, almost opposite the Methodist Church and the school house. There was no difficulty in transferring the exchange and the new location was closer to the railway siding. Mrs. Baker erected a separate room at the end of a long verandah for the Post office.

In 1938 Ada Margaret Fernie was employed as an assistant to the Postmistress. Alec Fernie, Ada’s father, had settled on a property in Repatriation Road, Pickering Brook in 1922, when Ada was a small baby. The Fernie children went to school at Carmel. The walk through the bush from their home to the Carmel Siding was about two miles. Mr. R. Baker died in 1940 and Mrs. Baker gave up the position of Postmistress in the following year.

 CARMEL POST OFFICE 1936 - 1965       #43

On 25^th March 1946, Mrs. F. E. Mitchell succeeded Mrs. Martin – the two families were connected, Mr. Alan Mitchell and Mrs. Martin were brother and sister and had grown up in Carmel. In 1946 the hours for the exchange were Monday to Thursday 9.00am – 12.00pm and 1.00pm – 8.00pm; Friday 9.00am – 12.00pm and 1.00pm – 7.30pm; and Saturday 9.00am – 1.00pm. The annual rate of payment was 189 pounds and 10 shillings ($379). In 1947 Carmel was able to make payments for Invalid, old Age and Widow’s Pensions, and in 1948 approval was given for the payment of War pensions.

At Carmel Mrs. F. Mitchell sold the property in 1953 to Mr. K. Alves who was appointed Postmaster in April 1953. The property consisted of an orchard, some cleared paddocks, and many acres of bush. The hours of work for the telephone exchange were Monday to Friday 8.00am - 12.00pm and 1.00pm – 9.00pm and Saturdays 8.00am – 1.00pm. Later the hours were extended from 9.00am – 10.00am on Sundays and Holidays.

In 1955 Mr. Bert Beard terminated his contract to carry the mail bags and Mr. Alves took over the job. This involved leaving the Carmel office sometime after 8.00am with the Carmel bag, collecting the bags from Pickering Brook, Bickley and Walliston depositing them at the Kalamunda post Office. From there the outgoing bags would be collected and deposited at the Post Offices, arriving at Carmel again at about 9.00am. The main route to Kalamunda from Carmel was via Canning Road, but this took the contractor well out of his way. It was possible to drive along the old railway formation from Carmel to Bickley and then join up with Lawnbrook Road and so on to Kalamunda via Walliston. However, the old railway track was always corrugated and generally very rough, so Mr. Alves arranged with the Seventh Day Adventists College to use their private bitumen road to get to Bickley.

The Carmel Post Office received and dispatched all the mail for Carmel College and the Sanitarium Health Food Factory. The two concerns had a private mail bag, which they deposited at the Post Office in the evening and collected again in the morning. The outgoing mail was taken out of the private bag, stamped and put in the main Carmel mail bag. The College was number 3 on the switchboard and the Factory, number 4.

EARLY STAMP POST MARKED CARMEL 1953       #44

BERT BEARD       #45

The manual exchange at Carmel in the mid fifties was attached to the wall and was operated from a standing position. There was provision for approximately forty subscribers, hence there were forty or so shutters at the top of the board. Below this were the corresponding plug holes for each number, and on a panel at the bottom were the cords for connecting the various subscribers. There were two trunk lines for calls outside Carmel area. In the late fifties a more sophisticated board was installed – it provided for more subscribers and was fitted with timers, earphones and a place for the operator to sit. Dockets had to be written out for each call, so to deal with even one call was quite a procedure. The switchboard could always be relied upon to put on a show during an electrical storm. A flash of lightning and a crack of thunder would often blow the fuses and send down the shutters, with accompanying buzzing and ringing!

The local residents collected their mail and transacted any business through a small window which opened onto the side verandah. At 3.30pm there would be a rush of children from the school over the road, they would collect the mail before setting off on their walk home.

On 20^th April 1960, like Karragullen and Carilla, Carmel manual exchange was replaced by a Rural Automatic Exchange. Consequently by mid 1960 all the manual exchanges under the control of Kalamunda, had been converted to automatic, thus providing continuous service to hills residents.  

In 1965 Mr. Alves sold the property at Carmel and the buyers were not interested in continuing with the Post Office. The Department closed the office temporarily on 18^th February 1965 and permanently on 31^st July 1965, fifty-two after its establishment. With the finalisation of the mail bag contract, the roadside delivery service commenced in the Bickley, Walliston and Carmel area, with Mr. Ted Saunders being the Contractor. Mr. Bendall ran a small delivery at Pickering Brook.

BARTON’S MILL POST OFFICE

When Millars took over Barton’s Mill they built a little Post Office and shop on a vacant piece of land, in between McCaskills and Mr. Cook’s house. The Post-mistress was Doris Gray, a sweet lady, not very old and always smiling. Doris was the daughter of the Hewison that ran the Post Office at Pickering Brook. She had the ‘Penny Tray’ and the ‘Hapenny Tray’ of lollies for the children, that she would bring out from under the counter, upon request. They were a sight to see. With musk sticks, sherbert bags, licorice sticks, toffee suckers, lolly balls, aniseed balls, humbugs, all neatly arranged in flat trays with a flap down lid. The children always took a long time choosing how they would spend their penny, while she waited patiently. On the counter was a brass bell, which you had to bang hard. Doris lived through the door leading into the back of the shop, behind a floral curtain. She would come as soon as the bell rang.

  EARLY STAMP POST MARKED BARTON'S MILL 1934     #46

Article:                  Jenny Lewis
                           Gordon Freegard

Images:                 1, 4, 5, 19, 23, 27, 33, 36, 39, 40, 41, 42      Jenny Lewis
                           2, 3, 7, 32, 34, 43          Kalamunda & Districts Historical Society
                           6, 11, 12, 13, 25, 26, 28, 31, 35, 37, 38, 44, 46      Mike Neave
                           8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 29, 30, 45        Gordon Freegard

Copyright : Gordon Freegard 2008-2020