Migrant Workers Housing

Statement of Significance

Rare example of a wall from a migrant workers’ housing constructed in the latter nineteenth century.

Physical Description

One rubble limestone wall of the original migrant barracks remains. Traces of painted plaster can be seen on the north, former inner wall. Brick reinforcement around the four small windows can be seen.

History

The remaining wall of the Barracks that we see today was built in 1880 or shortly after when the Tuckey brother’s Peel Inlet Preserving Works was set up as the second, and largest, canning works in Mandurah. The impetus behind this impressive two story limestone factory lay, like Broadhurst’s Smart Street factory, in the contact that the Tuckey brothers had with the north west pearling industry. James Tuckey, with his wife and five children, had sailed to the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s and came back to Mandurah in 1862 with enough money to acquire land and purchase a small coastal vessel for trading. James’ sons John Junior and Charles Tuckey became involved in the Northwest Pearling industry in the 1870s, a profitable venture in which they became successful. Charles and John invested some of the money from pearling into a new venture, C. Tuckey and Co.’s Peel Inlet Preserving Works. Charles lived in Mandurah and managed the business, whereas John left Mandurah and went into a seafaring partnership with a Fremantle merchant. He purchased a large boat and captained the ship which travelled the trading run between Singapore and Japan. The brother’s contacts amongst the Japanese community allowed them to bring Japanese fishermen to Mandurah to supply the cannery with fish. The migrant workers were housed in a barracks at the back of the cannery lot, near the post office in Sholl Street. The barracks were a long, low rectangular building with a shingle roof divided into six separate rooms. At its peak, the Peel Inlet Preserving Works was producing five thousand cans of fish a day, mainly for supply to the Kalgoorlie goldfields and for export to India. They won a number of medals for their preserved fruit and fish at the Perth International Exhibition (1881), the Indian and Colonial (1886), the Melbourne Centennial (1888) and the Franco-British (1908). Overfishing and disease soon lead to the collapse of fish stocks. This saw the Tuckey brothers dismiss their contract labour and move their operations to the shores of the southern estuary, at Carabungup in, 1905. This site closed in 1914 and marked the end of the Tuckey family’s involvement in fish canning. The Japanese fishermen who lived for so many years in the barracks formed the first multicultural community in Mandurah, and the remains of the building is one of only two elements of the factory and the only remaining evidence of the once sizeable Japanese community in Mandurah. Only one family, the Okamotos, escaped deportation to Japan after internment during World War Two. The Okamotos are still members of the Mandurah community. The major portions of the barracks were demolished in 1931 and the current wall was combined into the hardware store known as Digney’s in its various forms until its demolition in 2006.

Integrity/Authenticity

Authenticity : Low (One Wall Remains)

Condition

Ruins

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

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