Hamel School Site

The town of Hamel only came into existence after land was opened up for settlement in 1899, as a result of the government subdividing the estate that once belonged to Lancel de Hamel. Located about 110 kilometres south of Perth, it wasn’t too remote but far enough that early families needed everything local, especially a school.

Lancel Victor de Hamel

In 1849, Lancel de Hamel was born in London into a legal family and trained as a solicitor, spending years working on shipping and wreck cases in England. He was also heavily involved in the Conservative Party, a founder of the Newcastle Conservative Club and even had a stint in the military, with the 3rd Volunteer Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers. In the early 1880s, he even initiated an unsuccessful expedition to try and find buried treasure on a Pacific island.

Lancel emigrated to Albany in 1886, mainly for health reasons but didn’t exactly slow down. Not long after arriving, he got caught up in a pretty heated campaign against the WA Land Company over the Great Southern Railway, arguing it was cutting Albany off from its own foreshore. Unable to garner any support from Albany’s existing conservative newspaper, The Albany Mail and to push his fight, he co-established a newspaper called the Australian Advertiser (which later became the Albany Advertiser) in May 1888. Largely due to how popular the Australian Advertiser was, the Albany Mail was forced to shut down in August 1889. Another paper, the Albany Observer, tried to get going in May 1890 but didn’t last long, folding in March 1891, likely because they couldn’t compete either.

Using the Australian Advertiser to help build a public profile, it helped Lancel jump into politics by becoming the Mayor of Albany in 1888. It wasn’t long before he moved into state politics. First in the Legislative Council and then the Legislative Assembly, when Western Australia formed its first parliament in 1890, under the Constitution Act 1889.

Lancel built a reputation as a bit of a stirrer, especially going up against John Forrest and the Perth-focused government. He leaned into local frustration in Albany and used it to his advantage and while a lot of people in power didn’t like him, he was effective. By 1893, he’d basically become the leader of the opposition, even though it was a pretty loose mix of people and pushed for things like broader voting rights,.

Things started going downhill from there. After losing his wife and one of their children in Albany, he drifted away from local issues and had a crack at the goldfields political scene instead, trying to run for Yilgarn in 1894 but lost. Already run down from everything going on, he caught typhoid and died in Coolgardie later that year, aged 45.

After his death, land from his estate was bought by the government and subdivided, which led to the town of Hamel being established a few years later.

The town of Hamel

In September 1897, Lancel’s 920 acre estate was sold to George Thomas Simpson M.L.A., from whom the Government purchased it from for £650. It was described as rich potato land and with considerable improvement, it appeared to be an ideal location for a new State Nursery, despite one already being located in Guildford.

The land was subdivided by the Department of Lands and Survey into small lots, to provide homes for the local settlers, who would be in close walking distance to the State Nursery where they could obtain employment.

The town was gazetted in 1899, in which the State Nursery, officially called the Government Experimental Farm and Arboretum had since been established. The first lots were offered for sale, with many taken up by Irish and Italian migrants, who mainly grew potatoes as the main crop. With the railway established in 1893, it not only serviced passengers and delivered goods for the passengers but also took their produce like potatoes and dairy produce to sell at the city’s Metropolitan markets. Hamel Railway Station was removed in 1977.

In 1902, a prison working camp constructed the Hamel Hall, which would serve as a prison for convicts until 1907. It was to be the first out-station under Fremantle Prison for short term and prisoners close to being released. Upon closing, the hall was moved to its current location.

The Hamel School

On 10 November 1905, Hamel School opened as a basic one-room timber building with a tin roof on Fawcett Road. About 40 local kids were enrolled, with some kids coming from neighbouring Waroona, some 4km away.

Like most bush schools at the time, the class would’ve been a mix of all ages with the one teacher. One of the teachers was John Tonkin, who later became Premier of Western Australia.

During World War II, a bomb shelter was even built in Hamel, which shows how far the fear of attack reached.

The school shutdown in 1944, with the remaining students taken to Waroona to continue their schooling via a stock truck for transport.