Remembrance and Commemoration through Honour Avenues and Groves in Western Australia

Abstract

Like other countries of the British Empire, war commemoration and war memorial building pervaded Australia after the Great War. Anxious to remember war dead Australian cities and towns chose to erect masonry monuments or buildings to remember those of the district who had died or served. Alternatives existed in the form a tree-lined avenue with each tree representing a soldier or sometimes a nurse. This activity was reinforced by the established tradition of ceremonial tree planting on Arbor Day. More popular in Australia than other Empire countries, honour avenues to honour and represent fallen soldiers offered a fresh direction in the formation of the Australian landscape and an alternative commemorative form. Focusing on avenues of honour and groves in Western Australia established after both World Wars this paper examines their meaning in terms of their place in the landscape and their special significance to the communities that planted them.

Key Words:

• Honour avenues
• commemorative landscape
• war memory
• Anzac

Notes

1 Six of these trees have survived and the line of trees and plaques re-dedicated in 2003.

2 The avenues or groves represented in this percentage are only those that have trees named for fallen soldiers. Utilitarian memorials and honour boards have been excluded as they are ‘generally’ not the focus of personal or public commemoration rites. The number of memorials has been extrapolated from Richards (1995a). The exact number of Honour Avenues is difficult to ascertain as some have disappeared and associated street names (such as ‘Memorial Avenue’) changed. Traces of some remain, but without concrete evidence to be sure they actually existed or were associated with war commemoration. It should be noted that some avenues were closely associated with monumental memorials and parks.

3 For example, see the booklet Where the Australians Rest, Minister of State for Defence. Canberra (1920). This was an early booklet produced to satisfy the public thirst for images of the graves of the fallen overseas. It contained line drawings of cemeteries and monuments, some that were half built at that stage. Some drawings took liberties on what had not been built.

4 In 1919 the British ‘Roads of Remembrance Association’ was formed. It advocated the planting of trees, in memory of those who gave their lives in the war by relatives and civic associations. It was also associated with movements to beautify new arterial roads in Britain (King, 1998, p. 73).

5 Kings Park (Perth Park before 1901) was established in 1896 on the instigation of the Premier Sir John Forrest. It is composed of 412 hectares of native bushland that borders the Swan River.

6 This appears to be a pencil pine and probably Cupressus sempervirens Pyramidalis/Stricta.

7 This is recounted on a plaque below the memorial. The cliff is named ‘Anzac Bluff’.

8 http://www.avenuesofhonour.org/. TreeNet is an organisation dedicated to improving the ‘urban forest’.