Main Club, 2 May 2025
Tonight’s talk was by Dr Sue Graham-Taylor AM, a professional historian and researcher, and previously Curator of History and Sustainability at the WA Museum. She has curated exhibitions such as the Changes gallery at the WA Museum (Boola Bardip), that examines environmental changes in WA. Sue is also involved with the Conservation Council and volunteers with the Swan Estuary Reserve Action Group.
Sue has been working on the history of the WA Naturalists’ Club now for over 12 months. Her research includes examining the Club’s archival records, and material at the Battye Library, the WA Museum and the State Records Office. She is gleaning oral history from current members, guided by Jolanda Keeble and a Nats’ Club steering committee.
We think of our Club as starting in 1924 with the Serventy family, and being one of the oldest Natural History groups in Australia. But Sue says this is misleading because there were similar groups in other states and there were precedents in WA that led to the formation of the Club in 1924. Such a club was actually long in coming to WA, she says.
An early naturalist, Archibald Campbell, visited WA from Victoria in the 1890s and recommended the establishment of a Field Naturalists Society in WA. He took photos, and hundreds of specimens of birds, skins, eggs, plants, reptiles, minerals and Aboriginal weapons, and expressed the need for a taxidermist at the WA museum.
Sue listed several predecessors of the WA Naturalists’ Club. One was the WA Natural History Society (1890 to 1894), chaired by John Forrest.
Another was the Mueller Botanic Society (1897 to 1903). It had a library and a herbarium, and membership reached 200. The prominent botanist Ferdinand Von Mueller insisted that reserves should be created in WA, and said that his eponymous Society was holding the flame for science in WA. The Society later broadened its scope calling itself the Natural History Society of WA, and subsequently the Natural History and Science Society of Western Australia (NHSSWA).
By the 1890s, the environmental impact of European settlement was becoming apparent, with the impact of “cats and mice and hunting”, and the Society lobbied for the conservation of Barrow Island, for example, and pushed for a better museum for displaying and studying our wildlife.
With the establishment of the University of WA in 1911 and its scientific staff, the state was seen as being ready for the formation of a Royal Society of WA. This was established in 1914, as a successor to the NHSSWA, with royal assent.
In 1924, the Conservator of forests, Charles Lane-Poole, suggested the establishment of a Field Naturalists organization. But Dom Serventy, along with Lucy, Vincent and five other siblings, had already begun that process. Dom had already, in 1917, established a Nature League of Children, with a hand-written newsletter illustrated by Dom’s drawings.
Sue left the story there, with the foundation of the WA Naturalists’ Club in 1924 by the Serventy family. It was interesting to see how the Club evolved from its antecedent natural history organizations in WA.
Mike Gregson.