Aunty Heads West: The ABC in Western Australia

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the evolution of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Western Australia between the 1920s and the 1960s, covering the introduction and spread of radio and then television. It considers the visits of ABC commissioners and management to Perth, the appointment of commissioners from Western Australia, the building of radio and television studios, the creation of the ABC’s first state Advisory Committee in 1935, and the operations—in Perth—of the broadcaster’s last surviving capital city Television Viewers’ Committee. It examines local innovations in drama and in children’s, women’s and current affairs programming; the development of a broadcast news service and a symphony orchestra; and the work of key broadcasting figures, including Basil Kirke and Cathering King. The article argues that the history of the ABC in Western Australia was distinctive because of the state’s isolation and sparse population and, crucially, its time difference from the east coast.

KEYWORDS:

• Australian broadcasting commission
• ABC
• radio
• television
• Western Australia

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Leigh Edmonds, “Wireless Waves as Cultural Glue: Tethering the Bush and the City in Western Australia between the Wars,” Studies in Western Australia History 15 (1994): 92–94.

2 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1367.5 - Western Australian Statistical Indicators, Sep 2001, last updated 20 June 2006, https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/f024c642b2b659c7ca256db800731bb5!OpenDocument.

3 “50 years since Project Australia,” Television.au, 9 July 2020, https://televisionau.com/2020/07/50-years-since-project-australia.

4 Bill Carlson, “A History of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Western Australia” (unpublished thesis, Graylands Teachers College, 1962); E. W. Carlson, “A History of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in W.A. with a Special Emphasis on the Significant Role That the ABC Has Played in the Development of Free Speech as Envisaged in a Modern Democracy, Particularly since the Inception of Television” (Teachers’ Higher Certificate thesis, Education Department of Western Australia, 1975); Ronda Jamieson, “The Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Radio News Service and its Audience in Western Australia, 1947–1960” (BA Hons thesis, Murdoch University, 1980); Rebecca Ciallella, “The Shaping of a Voice: The Early Years of 6WF” (BA Hons thesis, Murdoch University, 1991).

5 Brian Shoesmith and Leigh Edmonds, “Communications,” in Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, ed. Jenny Gregory and Jan Gothard (Crawley, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 2009), 217.

6 Geoffrey Bolton, Land of Vision and Mirage: Western Australia Since 1826 (Crawley, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 2008), 116; Carlson, “A History of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Western Australia,” 10.

7 Edmonds, “Wireless Waves as Cultural Glue,” 98; Ciallella, “The Shaping of a Voice,” 1.

8 Edmonds, “Wireless Waves as Cultural Glue,” 98.

9 Western Wireless, 7 January 1925, quoted in Carlson, “A History of the Australian Broadcasting Commission,” 3–4.

10 Carlson, “A History of the Australian Broadcasting Commission,” 5–6; K. S. Inglis, This Is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932–1983 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1980), 11.

11 Ciallella, “The Shaping of a Voice,” 6.

12 Edmonds, “Wireless Waves as Cultural Glue,” 100, 105.

13 “Control of 6WF,” Daily News, 31 July 1929, 6.

14 “New Wavelength Allotted,” Mail (Adelaide), 17 August 1929, 28.

15 E. K. S. (Eric K. Sholl), “An Appreciation,” Radio Active, 16 December 1957, 5.

16 Ciallella, “The Shaping of a Voice,” 7, 18, 23, 26.

17 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 15, 26.

18 Ken McKay, “The 6WF Story,” @watvhistory, 20 August 2012, http://watvhistory.com/2012/08/the-6wf-story-part-2-of-3/.

19 Ciallella, “The Shaping of a Voice,” 17–24, 30–31, 49.

20 Ciallella, “The Shaping of a Voice,” 49–50. For more on Kirke, see “Meet Mr. Kirke,” Western Mail, 29 August 1929, 12; “In Memory,” ABC Weekly, 22 January 1958, 11; Clement Semmler, Pictures on the Margin (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1991), 69–71; John Charles Pollard interviewed by Ronda Jamieson, March–May 1979, State Library of WA, OH384 [transcript], 305–8.

21 Greg Craven, “Secession,” in The Oxford Companion to Australian Politics, ed. Brian Galligan and Winsome Roberts (Melbourne: OUP, 2007), 534–35.

22 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 31.

23 Keith Barry, “Perth Studios,” Wireless Weekly, 23 March 1934, 13; Clement Semmler, “Barry, Keith Lewis (1896–1965),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barry-keith-lewis-9443/text16603, published first in 1993, accessed online 5 July 2022.

24 See Craven, “Secession,” 535.

25 “Broadcast Plans for Perth,” Daily News, 9 August 1935, 5; “Broadcasting Plans,” West Australian, 9 August 1935, 23; “Better Broadcasts: Overcoming Perth’s Handicap,” West Australian, 13 August 1935, 16.

26 “Changes in WA Policy,” West Australian, 28 August 1935, 10; Ciallella, “The Shaping of a Voice,” 15.

27 “Broadcast Plans for Perth,” 5; “Broadcasting Plans,” 23.

28 Alan Thomas, Broadcast and Be Damned: The ABC’s First Two Decades (Melbourne: MUP, 1980), 130; Clement Semmler, The ABC – Aunt Sally and Sacred Cow (Melbourne: MUP, 1981), 59–60. See also memo from Cleary to Basil W. Kirke, 29 August 1935, 2–3, SP613/1, 2/2/7; memo from T. W. Bearup, 1 November 1940, 1, SP613/1, 2/2/7 PART II, National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA). All NAA material cited in this article is from the Sydney office.

29 WA Advisory Committee minutes, 28 May 1936, 1, and memo from Charlton, 28 March 1945, SP613/1, 2/2/7, NAA.

30 Bolton, Land of Vision and Mirage, 118.

31 “Educational Broadcasts,” West Australian, 30 August 1935, 23.

32 Memos from Kirke to Cleary, 10 September 1935; Cleary to Kirke, 11 October 1935; Kirke to Cleary, 2 November 1935, SP613/1, 2/2/7, NAA.

33 Ciallella, “The Shaping of a Voice,” 62.

34 WA Advisory Committee minutes, 19 August 1936, 1, SP613/1, 2/2/7, NAA.

35 Arnold Wheatley, “The West,” Everyone’s, 10 June 1936, 29.

36 Marion Consandine, “Kirke, Basil Everald Wharton (1893–1958),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kirke-basil-everald-wharton-10751/text19059, published first in 2000, accessed online 26 September 2021; Semmler, Pictures on the Margin, 76.

37 “Con Charlton,” Radio Active, 1 October 1949, 2.

38 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 46, 49; Thomas, Broadcast and Be Damned, 58; Ciallella, “The Shaping of a Voice,” 19.

39 ABC Fifth Annual Report, 1936–37, 17.

40 Advertisement, Wireless Weekly, 16 April 1937, 30; Inglis, This Is the ABC, 54; Leslie Rees, A History of Australian Drama: Vol. 1 (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1978), 159–60.

41 “Australian Radio Plays,” Canberra Times, 14 August 1939, 2; “Radio Drama,” in Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, 743; Rees quoted in “Proudest Moment When Taken for a True ‘West Aussie’,” Radio Active, September 1972, 2.

42 Bolton, Land of Vision and Mirage, 139–40.

43 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 26, 49; “‘Broadcast House’,” West Australian, 19 June 1937, 20.

44 WA Advisory Committee minutes, 23 June 1937, 1, SP613/1, 2/2/7, NAA.

45 WA Advisory Committee minutes and correspondence, 24 November–14 December 1937, SP613/1, 2/2/7, NAA. See also Pollard interview, 303–4.

46 WA Advisory Committee minutes, 16 March 1938, 1, SP613/1, 2/2/7, NAA.

47 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 48, 49; Brian Shoesmith and Leigh Edmonds, “Making Culture out of the Air: Radio and Television,” in Farewell Cinderella: Creating Arts and Identity in Western Australia, ed. Geoffrey Bolton, Richard Rossiter, and Jan Ryan (Crawley, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 2003), 212, 223; “6WN – and a Job Well Done,” Daily News, 12 October 1938, 7.

48 Edmonds, “Wireless Waves as Cultural Glue,” 106; ABC Fifth Annual Report, 1936–37, 3; “New Regional Station,” West Australian, 10 December 1936, 7.

49 Adrian Petersen, “Perth Shortwave Radio,” 26 June 2006, https://www.radioheritage.com/story22/.

50 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 48; Bolton, Land of Vision and Mirage, 118. See also minutes of WA Advisory Committee, 16 March and 18 July 1938, SP613/1, 2/2/7, NAA.

51 ABC Seventh Annual Report, 1938–39, 10.

52 WA Advisory Committee minutes, 25 July 1939, SP613/1, 2/2/7, NAA. My thanks to Dr Jeannine Baker for alerting me to this discussion in the minutes.

53 Jeannine Baker, “Woman to Woman: Australian Feminists’ Embrace of Radio Broadcasting, 1930s–1950s,” Australian Feminist Studies 32, no. 93 (2017): 295, 298; Justine Lloyd, “‘A Girdle of Thought Thrown around the World’: International Aspirations in Women’s Programming in Australia and Canada,” Feminist Media Histories 5, no. 3 (2019): 173–75. See also ABC Ninth Annual Report, 1940–41, 4.

54 See Bridget Griffen-Foley, “Kindergarten of the Air: From Australia to the World,” Radio Journal 17, no. 2 (2019): 184; “Her Women’s Session Covers a Wide Field,” ABC Weekly, 10 January 1948, 15.

55 Kylie Andrews, Trailblazing Women of Australian Public Broadcasting, 1945–1975 (London and New York: Anthem Press, 2022), 76, 100.

56 Griffen-Foley, “Kindergarten of the Air,” 184.

57 Quoted in Julie Lewis, On Air: The Story of Catherine King and the ABC Women’s Session (Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1979), 17, 26. See also Bolton, Land of Vision and Mirage, 139.

58 Andrews, Trailblazing Women, 100.

59 Griffen-Foley, “Kindergarten of the Air,” 184–85.

60 “Kindergarten of the Air,” Broadcaster, 12 July, 3.

61 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 18, 21.

62 “ABC Appointments,” West Australian, 11 June 1942, 2; Inglis, This Is the ABC, 109, 123.

63 “Broadcasting Work: Commission’s Visit to Perth,” West Australian, 5 May 1944, 4; “A.B.C. Officers,” West Australian, 12 May 1944, 4; “A.B.C. Women’s Session,” Western Mail, 18 May 1944, 20.

64 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 123, 133–35; “New Member of A.B.C.,” Sydney Morning Herald, 19 December 1944, 7; “Mrs. Kent Re-appointed,” Daily News (Perth), 15 June 1948, 5.

65 ABC Twelfth Annual Report, 1943–44, 9.

66 Women’s session correspondence, May–August 1944, SP1558/2, 650, NAA. See also Lewis, On Air, 28–31; Inglis, This Is the ABC, 102, 169–70.

67 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 169–70.

68 Lewis, On Air, 34; Andrews, Trailblazing Women, 13–14, 48–49. Some of the workings of the session between 1944 and 1947 are documented in SP1558/2, 650, NAA.

69 Carlson, “A History of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in W.A.,” 19.

70 Andrews, Trailblazing Women, 105; “Her Women’s Session,” 15.

71 “Look to Your Figures!,” Radio Active, 12 May 1948, 12.

72 Neville Petersen, News Not Views: The ABC, the Press, and Politics (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1993), 56–62.

73 Jamieson, “The ABC’s Radio News Service,” 10; McKay, “The 6WF Story”; Pollard interview, 192.

74 Neville Petersen, News Not Views, 253–54.

75 Jamieson, “The ABC’s Radio News Service,” 11–17.

76 Jamieson, “The ABC’s Radio News Service,” 17; Pollard interview, 208–9.

77 Petersen, News Not Views, 145, 255–56.

78 Jamieson, “The ABC’s Radio News Service,” 18–21, 28, 51.

79 “Transfer of A.B.C. Manager,” West Australian, 1 April 1947, 6; “Westralians on the Air,” ABC Weekly, 11 September 1948, 19.

80 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 138; “State Manager for A.B.C.,” West Australian, 28 November 1947, 11.

81 “Ewart Chapple,” Radio Active, 1 November 1949, 2; Pollard interview, 305.

82 “National Station 6GN Opened,” Sunday Times (Perth), 4 February 1945, 5; Pollard interview, 377–79.

83 Jamieson, “The ABC’s Radio News Service,” 30–31, 75.

84 Carlson, “A History of the Australian Broadcasting Commission,” 17; Jamieson, “The ABC’s Radio News Service,” 75–76.

85 “Search for Radio Talent,” Geraldton Guardian, 25 July 1950, 5.

86 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 157–58; “Permanent Western Australian Orchestra Completes A.B.C. Long-range Plan,” ABC Weekly, 4 November 1950, 7.

87 For the WA Talks Advisory Committee, see SP613/1, 2/4/10, NAA. See also Bobbie Oliver, “Underwood, Erica Reid (1907–1992),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/underwood-erica-reid-17081/text28921, published online 2016, accessed 19 July 2022.

88 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 114, 151.

89 Griffen-Foley, “Kindergarten of the Air,” 180.

90 “ABC to Start Infant Session,” Albany Advertiser, 25 August 1953, 4; Les Johnson, “Australian Broadcasting Corporation,” in Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, 109.

91 ABC Twenty-Second Annual Report, 1953–54, 16; Kay Kinane interview, 15 November 1977, ABC; Methodist Ladies’ College, “100 Collegian Voices: Dorothy Hollingsworth OAM,” https://www.mlc.wa.edu.au/our-community/our-voices/dorothy-hollingsworth-oam (accessed 10 July 2022).

92 WA Advisory Committee correspondence, 1–11 February 1955, SP724/1, 14/3/8 Part 1; 23 February–16 June 1955, 14/3/8 Part 2, NAA.

93 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 166–67; Rob Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts (Sydney: Hodder Headline, 1997), 160–61.

94 WA Advisory Committee minutes and correspondence, 26 November–13 December 1956, SP724/1, 2/2/7 Part 6, NAA.

95 Memos from Appleton, 13 April 1966 and Watts, 21 July 1967, C2327, 2/2/7 Part 8.

96 Memo from Watts, 21 July 1967 and WA Advisory Committee minutes, 3 October 1967, C2327, 2/2/7 Part 8.

97 Inglis, This Is the ABC, 195, 242.

98 “Mr. Basil Kirke to Be A.B.C. State Manager,” West Australian, 19 February 1953, 5; Consandine, “Kirke, Basil Everald Wharton”.

99 “Basil Kirke,” ABC Weekly, 22 January 1958, 11.

100 “From Bats to Battleships,” ABC Weekly, 1 March 1941, 13; “Needle Chatter from W.A.,” Radio Active, 16 December 1957, 9; Inglis, This Is the ABC, 254.

101 Eric Fisher, “The Introduction of TV into WA,” in The Moving Image: The History of Film and Television in Western Australia 1896–1985, ed. Tom O’Regan and Brian Shoesmith (Doubleview, WA: History and Film Association of Australia, 1985), 55–57.

102 Carlson, “A History of the Australian Broadcasting Commission,” 21–22; “ABW Supplement,” West Australian, 7 May 1960, 25–42. See also Ken McKay, “Tribute to the Former ABC Radio and TV Studios in Perth,” 24 November 2010, @watvhistory, http://watvhistory.com/2010/11/tribute-to-the-former-abc-radio-and-tv-studios-in-perth-western-australia-1960-2005/,.

103 Bolton, Land of Vision and Mirage, 152.

104 “Travel Grant Awarded to Mr. Sholl,” Radio Active, June–July 1961, 1.

105 Pollard interview, 309.

106 Les Johnson, The ABC, Albany and Me (Lower Kalgan, WA: self-pub., 1992), 14, 32–37.

107 Jamieson, “The ABC’s Radio News Service,” 76.

108 Bridget Griffen-Foley, Australian Radio Listeners and Television Viewers: Historical Perspectives (London: Palgrave, 2020), 105–16. See also WA Advisory Committee minutes, 21 February 1961, SP724/1, 2/2/7 Part 7, NAA.

109 Memo from Scholl, 30 May 1962, C1574, 1/5/13, NAA.

110 WA Advisory Committee minutes, 12 March 1962, SP724/1, 2/2/7 Part 7, NAA.

111 TV Viewers’ Committee (Perth) meeting summaries, 24 June 1963–9 November 1964, C1574, 1/5/13, NAA. For Penlington, and West Coast, see Inglis, This Is the ABC, 222; Johnson, The ABC, Albany and Me, 58–59; “All That Glitters,” Radio Active, March 1963, 3; “John Penlington Opens Hong Kong office,” Radio Active, February 1972, 1; Robert Ward, “The TV Reporter Who Goes Where the Action Is,” TV Times (WA), 25 June 1969, 4–5.

112 TV Viewers’ Committee (Perth) meeting summary, 15 June 1964, 2; memos from Wood, 13 July 1964 and Sholl, 23 July 1964, C1574, 1/5/13, NAA.

113 Griffen-Foley, Australian Radio Listeners and Television Viewers, 117–21.

114 Shoesmith and Edmonds, “Making Culture out of the Air,” 236.

115 Jamieson, “The ABC’s Radio News Service,” 51.

116 “W.A. Long Service Awards,” Radio Active, October 1963, 8.

117 “Her Women’s Session,” 15; Andrews, Trailblazing Women, 105.

118 WA Advisory Committee minutes, 14 March and 20 June 1966, C2327, 2/2/7 Part 8, NAA.

119 WA Committee minutes, 19 February and 10 June 1968, and memo from Carmichael, 19 August 1968, C2327, 2/2/7 PART 8. See also Andrews, Trailblazing Women, 100–1.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Macquarie University; Australian Broadcasting Corporation.