Such was life: William Wilton
The archives of the Irwin Districts Museum in Dongara includes remarkable images of life in the town from the 1880s through to WW2. Graham Grundy from the museum introduces the local photographers through whose eyes we are invited to a garden party in 1890, meet the impressively large Town Band and join a meeting of the Irwin Road Board. But perhaps the most exciting images are the glass negatives shot by railway ganger William Wilton in the 1910s-20s. Di Knapp, Wilton’s granddaughter, tells of the surprise of finding under a bed a suitcase filled with the negatives. Instead of the posed images of local notables and community gatherings the museum’s Trish Parker explains how Wilton photographed working men and women beside farm machinery, standing in the fields and lounging outside their makeshift tents. This ordinary railway worker devoted what time and money he had to capture these unique images that have been compiled into an evocative and beautiful montage by editor Jodee Bibaeff and accompanied by lyrical music by WA composer Tim Count.
