By Allan Ward, Hon. Curator, 2021.
Five years since the Yarloop Fire destroyed half the town, including the historic precinct, the recovery is still taking place. Many homes have been restored but the historical buildings, dating back to before 1900, were consumed forever. Amongst these was the wonderful example of early 20th Century industry, based on the power of steam, the Yarloop Workshops.
These buildings, with their amazing atmosphere, provided everything the mighty Millars’ timber empire needed to support its 24 or so timber towns. These towns and their mills were linked by a large rail network running throughout the southern part of Western Australia. As well as being a major source of revenue for the State, this industry was a giant employer of the day, employing local and eastern states timber workers, together with unsuccessful prospectors and struggling farmers.
Millars brought 130 top tradesmen from England to operate the Workshops. Moulders, boilermakers, blacksmiths, fitters and turners, carpenters, plumbers, draftsmen and many other skilled workers who could make anything from a nut and bolt to a railway engine. These highly skilled workers also trained apprentices to carry on their trades. Visitors to the Workshops could feel the presence of these workers and had an expectation that they would turn up the next day to carry on their work.
The atmospheric old timber buildings covering the large site cannot be replaced, but as a memorial for the many families who have timber workers amongst their ancestors, new buildings will rise over the ashes. Architects, landscapers, engineers, builders and a small band of local volunteers are working to restore this memorial to the hundreds of workers who made Yarloop the centre of the timber industry in the early days of this State. Like the beautiful jarrah timber with which they worked, the timber that paved the streets of Perth and London, that bedded the State’s railways as well as the London Underground, and held up the earth above the heads of miners, the memory of these workers and their families will last in the memorial that remains – the Yarloop Workshops.[1]
[1] From ‘The Phoenix Rises Very Slowly’ Part 1.