WA jarrah axemen led back-breaking life as native forest logging peaked

Australia Broadcast Center

21-05-2025

The grim, back-breaking work of Western Australia's pioneering logging families should not be forgotten, according to historians, who say their contribution to the construction, railway and shipbuilding industries was vital.
Under often treacherous conditions, loggers climbed and then felled giant jarrah trees, which were prized for their hardy timber.
The trees, which can grow to 40 meters high and live for 1,000 years, became known as "Swan River mahogany" to European colonisers in the 1800s, however the species is known as djarraly in the Noongar language.
It is almost 18 months since native timber logging was banned in the state, bringing an end to 200 years of forest harvesting.
But historian Don Briggs said the stories of the early workers and their families should not be forgotten just because logging in native forests has been banned.
During its peak, logging in the only area of Australia where jarrah grows naturally — the south west of WA — saw axemen working under terrible conditions.
The pay, particularly for southern European migrants, was so low there were reports of some severing their own fingers for workers' compensation and income.
This grizzly chapter of WA's history has been archived with interviews and records.
But not all woodsmen were treated harshly.
One such logger, Norman Smith, travelled west from Victoria at the turn of the 20th century to earn his way in WA's burgeoning native timber industry.
In an archival interview recorded in 1971 and provided to the ABC, Mr Smith, who is now deceased, recalled his life as an axeman when the pay was clearly more agreeable.
He said he was paid in gold pieces, known as sovereigns.
"We considered we weren't doing much good unless we made 50 pounds a month," Mr Smith said.
Fifty pounds from the early 1900s equates to about $10,000 today.
Historian Mr Briggs has spent years researching and writing the history of the South West's native timber industry.
"It goes right back to the 1830s, when the first ships arrived. One of the ships was Captain James Stirling's boat, the HMS Success," he said.
The HMS Success crashed into Carnac Island, but the crew managed to throw enough weight overboard to float the ship to Garden Island, where it was repaired.
"The timber used was called Swan River mahogany, which later became known as jarrah," Mr Briggs said.
When the HMS Success returned to England with no sign of marine borer damage in the jarrah repairs, WA's timber export industry boomed as demand for jarrah wood soared.
Jarrah wasn't just prized by shipbuilders — it was also used in the construction of railway networks throughout Western Australia, thanks to its natural resistance to termites.
Initially, railway sleepers, especially in the Great Southern region, were made from timber harvested in the karri forests near Torbay, about 20 kilometres west of Albany.
Mr Briggs said once the construction workers realised that the karri wood was often riddled with white ants, they set their sights on harvesting the jarrah forests.
In the early 1900s, thousands of men made their way to jarrah country to work on the railways.
While men, including Mr Smith, toiled on the forest floor, where they cut railway sleepers by hand, others risked life and limb climbing the giant trees to make fire-lookout towers, such as the iconic Gloucester Tree at Pemberton, 320km south of Perth.
Mr Smith said the men would ascend the trees on precarious spikes driven into the wood.
"They drove one in, say up three feet, and then the other one would be up a couple of feet … and they kept driving these spikes in and they climbed up them," he said.
But it was risky work, and not everyone was keen to climb 40 metres up a tree trunk.
Waves of European migrants eventually flocked to WA's southern forests for work from the 1920s to the 1970s.
Christina Gillgren has detailed migrants' stories in the book Growing Roots — the Italians and Croatians in the Development of the Western Australian Timber Industry.
"These early settlers came and did a lot of the clearing of the land, especially on private property," Dr Gillgren said.
Dr Gillgren, who has a doctorate in philosophy from Murdoch University, said casual migrant workers in the native timber industry went to great lengths to maintain their income.
"Especially when they didn't get paid, they would resort to very extreme acts to get some income. Sometimes they would cut off fingers and toes," she said.
Dr Gillgren said a severed finger or toe would be enough for a workers' compensation claim from the timber mills.
"It was very grim," she said.
Life for the workers' spouses and children was also unforgiving, according to Dr Gillgren.
One example was the life of an Australian woman called Elsie, who married a Croatian hewer.
"She ended up having 13 children.
"Her husband would come home and tell her they had to shift camp.
"She'd have to pack everything up — she'd probably only just finished washing the nappies."