Northern Suburbs Branch 19 July 2023

Wilsmore’s False Triumphant Pill Woodlouse was named Cubaris wilsmorei when first described in 1926 and published in 1927 in a paper by University of Western Australia researchers G.E. Nicholls and Helena M. Barnes*.

image by Em Lamond – iNaturalist Australia ala.org.au

This minute creature with the rockstar name, cloaked in a pointy-allover cream ‘shell’ almost invisible to the naked eye, was found on the underside of a damp piece of bark as we walked a karri and tingle forest track near Walpole. Though fascinating the find was, it was one of the 1926 researchers that triggered my curiosity to investigate further.

Who was Helena M. Barnes, and how did she come to co-author a scientific paper with a professor from the University?

Born in 1902 in Cue, Western Australia, Helena Mary Barnes was the second of six daughters – no sons – born to James and Agnes Barnes. Before marriage, James and his business partner had moved in the mid-1890s from Wyndham down to Cue, then a prosperous mining town. They opened a store supplying everything from groceries to potions to insurance policies and expanded their business to other mining settlements. Agnes’ father and family arrived from South Australia in 1897 when the Mullewa-Cue railway was completed. He ran a drapery store in Cue. James married Agnes, ran his store for 11 years, and then moved the family to Doodlakine to open a new store. The six girls went to the local primary school, then to secondary school at Methodist Ladies’ College, Claremont, with several becoming prefects from 1915-1925.

Completing her leaving in 1920, Helena, known as Ena, enrolled at the University of Western Australia to do a Bachelor of Science. Teaching had begun just seven years prior at the University, a cluster of wooden buildings in Irwin Street, Perth. In 1921, her first year, Dr George Edward Nicholls, an academic of international standing and research experience, was appointed to the Chair of Biology. He’d observed in England and America the popularity of university biology courses for women but commented that he’d maintain the UWA courses that included women students as they were. Ena studied all levels of the subjects required: maths, physics, biology, chemistry, zoology and botany. Three months before her final exams, the laying of the foundation stone for the first permanent building constructed on the new Crawley campus – the Natural History building on Park Avenue – took place, and students crammed onto the tram from Weld Ave via Mounts Bay Road to Matilda Bay to witness the occasion.

Her graduation in May 1924 was a full day of celebration; a theatrical procession through Perth; official presentations at Government House, and then the evening Graduation Ball at Piccadilly Ballroom. A brief stint as a teacher in the country followed, and then in 1926, Ena published two papers with Professor Nicholls. In 1927, Ena was officially employed at UWA as a laboratory assistant. She would have worked in the new building, likely researching crustacea, specialising in terrestrial forms.

Ena attended meetings and conferences from 1928-1935 as a member of ANZAAS, the West Australian Association of University Women, and the Royal Society of Western Australia. Resigning from UWA in 1930, Ena moved to Canberra to work with museum staff in the entomological branch of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. (Professor Nicholls was president of the W.A. branch of that institution). In 1933 she presented her own research, which was subsequently published in the Society journal.

Beyond 1935 I’ve not sought more information about Helena or her career, but further digging would reveal more. Helena died in Perth in 1988, aged 85.

Heather Galluccio

*Nicholls, G.E., Barnes, Helena M. A description of two new terrestrial isopods from Western Australia.
J. of the Royal Soc. Of Western Australia, vol 12, 1927, pp 149-159.