Previous Find of the Month - 1/2023


January 2023

Westlake Settlement

Yarralumla's hidden ghost town

Front cover of surveyor’s field book F40421

Canberra city and its early urban development has a somewhat unique history. Much of the early planning was carried out by public servants based in Melbourne, although surveyors were in the field plotting the boundaries of the future Federal Capital Territory as early as 1910. Once the territory boundaries had been mapped and a city design agreed upon, workers were recruited to construct the Provisional Parliament House, administrative buildings as well as housing required for the inevitable growth in population. The construction workers also required accommodation, so workers camps sprang up in various locations. Our January Find of the Month delves into some of the information available in ACT government archives relating to one of these camps, the Westlake Settlement.

The first Westlake camp would have resembled a camping ground. The workers’ ‘accommodation’ in the early 1920s consisted of rows of tents. At the time the location was referred to as the ‘Gap’ due to its position on a natural saddle in the area’s landscape.i This was a temporary arrangement and plans were soon implemented to build a series of cottages for the workers to occupy on a rental agreement. In October 1923 Harry Mouat was issued field book number F4042 to survey a subdivision ‘for Workmen’s Cottages near Gap Trig’. This survey made allowance for 20 cottage blocks and this was followed up with a second survey by Freddie Johnston the following year. Another 35 blocks were surveyed which allowed for the construction of 55 cottagesii, however the total number of cottages was to peak at 62, the majority of which were erected in 1924.iii


Surveyors field book F4027 – additional allotments2

A file raised in 1932 relating to the Westlake Settlement reveals that when the cottages ‘were erected during the peak of construction work at Canberra, it was the intention to demolish the settlement immediately construction work was finished’.iv The Great Depression had intervened however and many of the tenants occupying the cottages were by now unemployed relief workers who were only able to secure intermittent employment, and no alternative accommodation was available to them. The authorities seemed to accept that many rental payments would fall behind due to a lack of employment opportunities, but the situation meant that careful consideration was given to any funding required for improvements or maintenance of the cottages.

As requested in a petition signed by the residents and forwarded by Mrs Brill, the postmistress at Westlake Post Office, Assistant Secretary of the Property & Survey Branch of the Commonwealth Department of the Interior, Arthur Percival, recommended that the exterior of all the cottages should be painted. The second part of the petition requested that fireplaces be installed, but this was not approved. Percival’s memorandum to the department’s Secretary provides a telling account of the conditions Westlake families were living under.

In regard to the provision of fireplaces, the houses are equipped with a kitchen stove, the living room being heated by a small fuel stove. Six tenants have erected fireplaces with material supplied by the Commonwealth, leaving a balance of 55 without them. The estimated cost of providing fireplaces is £26 each house, or a total of £1430. About one half of the residents are in regular employment, the others being on relief work and in arrears with the rental. It is safe to assume that a return on the expenditure for the fireplaces would not be obtained, and it appears inadvisable at the present time to expend such a large sum on structures of a temporary nature, with the practical certainty it will be an unprofitable investment.v

First page of petition signed by residents3

Nonetheless, further representations were made to the ACT Advisory Council which passed a motion that the Minister for the Interior should regard the question of providing fireplaces at Westlake as an urgent one. As a result, a less expensive option to install ‘fireplaces with brick hearth and front, and having heavy sheet iron back and chimney’ was recommended by Percival and the funding required then approved by the Minister.vi As the winter months of 1933 loomed, the Westlake residents had fireplaces erected in their cottages.

The settlement provided housing for workers and families during Canberra’s peak construction phase and through the depression years. Some additions and renovations were made as the families increased in numbers and children grew older. By 1941 the majority of the cottages had their rear verandahs enclosed and some had been upgraded to include extra sleepouts, fences and sheds or garages. These improvements were normally carried out by the tenants.vii

Type B Cottage floor plan4

The Department of the Interior’s tenancy records provide a valuable social history of the Westlake Settlement. Another chapter in the history of the settlement occurs in the late 1940s when migrants start to use the cottages after leaving the temporary accommodation provided by the migrant hostels that were established after World War II. One of these migrants was Wasyl Jesaulenko, a Ukrainian who arrived in Australia with his wife and two children from Austria in 1949. He and his family were first sent to the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre in north-east Victoria, but they were separated when Wasyl was sent to Canberra to take up work with the A V Jennings building company in September 1949. His wife Wira and two children, Alexander and Viktor, were then transferred to the Department of Immigration’s Holding Centre in Cowra, New South Wales.viii Wasyl took up residence in Cottage No 6 at Westlake on 8 August 1953. It is unclear whether the rest of his family came to live with Wasyl at Westlake, but they did reunite and started a new life in Canberra. The eldest son Alexander, or Alex as he is better known, was to become one of the best Australian Rules Football players to come out of the junior ranks of Canberra. When he was young he played junior football with Yarralumla before joining the Eastlake Football Club at the senior level. He later had a successful football career playing and coaching for the Carlton and St Kilda football clubs in the Victorian Football League.ix

Department of the Interior’s Property and Tenancy register – Cottage No. 65

The tenancy registers show that the demolition of the Westlake cottages began in 1955, the last being demolished in 1962 to make way for Lake Burley Griffin. The different tenants of each cottage, the maintenance work carried out and rents paid are recorded in the Department of the Interior’s Property and Tenancy registers that can be viewed on the ArchivesACT website. The correspondence file can now also be viewed by visiting our online database ACT Memory. Just follow this link.

Images

1 - ACTmapi Survey Infrastructure – Environment, Planning & Sustainable Development Directorate, ACT Government. Field book F4042.
2 - ACTmapi Survey Infrastructure – Environment, Planning & Sustainable Development Directorate, ACT Government. Field book F4027 .
3 – ArchivesACT, TL1595 – Westlake Settlement.
4 – ibid.
5 – ArchivesACT, A7752/66 – Tenancy & Property Register – 1925 to 1968 - Yarralumla

References

i Canberra’s Vanished Suburb – David R. Reid, 2010 - http://www.davesact.com/2010/05/canberras-vanished-suburb.html .

ii ACTmapi Survey Infrastructure – Environment, Planning & Sustainable Development Directorate, ACT Government. Field books F4042 and F4027 .

iii ArchivesACT, website - Government Tenancy Registers – Westlake Settlement.

iv ArchivesACT, TL1595 – Westlake Settlement.

v ibid

vi ibid

vii ibid

viii National Archives of Australia. A11959, 1294-1297. JESAULENKO Wasyl born 25 August 1915; Wira born 15 May 1924; Alexander born 2 August 1945; Viktor born 23 August 1948. A2571, JESAULENKO WASYL, A2571, JESAULENKO, Wira : Year of Birth - 1924 : Nationality - UKRAINIAN : Travelled per - SKAUGUM : Number - 113287

ix  Marshall, Barbara - The National Game in the National Capital – 60 Years of Achievement. Australian Capital Territory Football League. 1983. p iii.

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