The Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia

Did you know that Western Australia’s first case of Spanish influenza was recorded in Gwalia in May 1919?  Or that more than six thousand men, women and children assembled on the Perth Esplanade on Perth’s Esplanade to celebrate the proclamation of the Constitution Act on 21 October 1890?  This is an astonishing figure as the population of Perth was only eight and a half thousand in 1890. These ‘facts’ and thousands more are to be found amongst more than nine hundred entries in the Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia.

More than six hundred historians — academic, public and community — were involved in the writing of the Encyclopedia either as writers or expert readers. It is always invidious to mention names, especially when the names of so many wonderfully generous and knowledgeable writers will be left out, so I won’t.  But a flip through the Encyclopedia will reveal esteemed academics, up and coming young academics, well known public historians, Aboriginal writers, representatives

of government organisations, community historians, retired politicians, eminent experts from other fields. Many writers are members of the History Council of WA.  Indeed ten Councillors of the History Council wrote entries! 

So how was the Encyclopedia organised? Here’s a brief chronology. The idea emerged in 1994. By 2002, funds had been secured, and an Editorial Advisory Board established. The editorial staff was appointed in mid 2002 and then planning began.  Jan Gothard and I were struck by both the immensity of the task and our deep responsibility to both the past and the future. How would we undertake such a huge project?  We gathered advice during a trip to Adelaide and Melbourne in which we learnt from fellow encyclopedists who were engaged in similar projects. 

Then we began to develop the underlying themes – from Aboriginal history to the history of Work — that provide an invisible skeleton for the entire Encyclopedia. We gained further advice during a day-long symposium attended by ninety historians in January 2003 when we all dreamt up topics for entries within the prescribed themes.  With those in place, the work began of selecting and commissioning writers — our guiding principle was to select those with the most expertise in a particular area.

When the entries began to roll in, they were read carefully and were usually sent back to the writer with queries.  On return, they received a light edit before being sent to an expert reader for assessment.  Then they were returned to the writer, with the reader’s report, for amendment as and if required.  When they came back to the editorial team, they had a further edit and were transferred to a folder named FINAL on one of the well-protected UWA computer servers.  And Jan and I cheered! 

The whole process was electronic, although each entry was printed out at

various stages of the process. In the meantime work had begun on the selection of images. Virginia Rowland and I spent time at West Australian Newspapers poring over the digitised photographic library.  Then Jan and I spent hours doing the ‘see alsos’ and, with the help of various research assistants, selecting the ‘further readings’.  And throughout Jean Chetkovich was assisting the management of the project and watching the budget. The completed manuscript went to the publisher in January 2008 for further editing, design, typesetting and printing.  It emerged as a book in May 2009 and was officially launched by the Premier on 23 June 2009.

Early in the process we had developed a web site – http://www.hewa.uwa.edu.au