Built as “Wanda

Surveyor and talented bushman Alfred Werner Canning was born in Victoria in 1861. He married Edith Maude Butcher in NSW in 1884 and their only child, Robert, was born the next year. In 1893 the Cannings came to Western Australia, where Alfred joined the Department of Lands and Surveys.

This plain, single-storey, Federation Queen Anne-style brick, iron and timber bungalow was built for the Cannings in 1900. They named it Wanda, but though they owned it for decades, neither lived there often nor for very long. In 1901, with Edith living in West Perth, Alfred began a three-year survey for the path of No: 1 Rabbit Proof Fence which, when completed in 1907, was the longest continuous fence in the world.

Canning soon undertook another three-year survey, this one involving the plotting of waterholes and the sinking of wells to map a cattle track between the Kimberleys and the Goldfields. Named the Canning Stock Route, he was hailed a hero on his return, but the survey quickly became the subject of a Royal Commission when allegations surfaced of the mistreatment of the Aboriginal members of the team. Canning and his entire team were eventually exonerated.

Wanda, which had been serially tenanted for much of Canning’s ownership and the name lost over time, was sold in 1921 to then tenant James Cronshaw, a buyer for Foy & Gibson, who sent his daughter Ida to PLC in 1923. The Cronshaws sold in 1936 to Elsie and Perseus Holland, whose daughter Joy also came to PLC. Elsie’s father William Montgomery owned No: 15, then next door, and when he died in 1941, the Hollands sold to Elsie and James Edwards, already in residence.

Newly married Graham Cameron, merchant and former prisoner of war in Burma, and his wife Hannah nee Pears bought the home in 1954. Graham absolutely loved this house, and it was their only home for the entirety of their marriage.

Painting of the front garden in the 1970s, courtesy Graham Cameron.

During their time here, their son and both daughters came to PLC. Fashion also changed and, when stained glass went out of style, Graham carefully boarded a window up and painted over it so it was invisible from the inside. From the outside, however, Graham’s son remembers watering the garden as a young man while his parents were away and the glint of stained glass caught his eye. Not knowing there was any in the house, he carefully pulled away the panel which revealed the colourful beauty hidden for so long.

Graham died in 1996 and Hannah stayed in the home for a few years more, eventually living nearly half a century there. In December 2002 Eileen Bond bought it at auction. Hannah and Graham’s son listened and accepted the winning bid over the phone from New Orleans, where he was at the time.

The front garden in the 1970s, courtesy Graham Cameron.

Eileen, who has had one daughter and two granddaughters at PLC (and two grandsons through Kindy), has since painstakingly renovated and extended this home in the same style as the original. The garden, contained by the original fence, was retained as it was and is now very old and well established. This comfortable old home remains loved and cared for, and is in very good hands for the future.

By Shannon Lovelady, PLC Archivist, Writer and Historian