1 Ednie Street

The house at 1 Ednie Street is a single storey rendered masonry and iron house constructed in the Federation Bungalow style of Architecture around 1900. It is part of a rare intact historical streetscape along with nine other homes in the street. The street numbers changed temporarily in 1931, and the house became number 2 (reference).

The following information gives an insight into the lives of the residents of 1 Ednie Street, Bunbury.

Frederick Seldon/Selden

Number 1 Ednie Street was listed for sale by Hale and Teede in 1920 (reference). At this time, Mr Frederick (Fred) Seldon owned the house (reference). Mr Oswald (Ossie) Seldon, stationmaster at Bunbury from 1913 until 1919, was Fred's father (reference;reference). Fred was 15 years old when he arrived in Bunbury with his parents and siblings Daisy, Hubert, Hazel and Richard. Fred became an accountant (reference). Hubert enlisted for service in 1914 and returned in 1920 after his parents left Bunbury (reference). Hazel also enrolled as a nurse (reference). Fred also tried to enlist for service in the First World War but was deemed unfit for service (reference). Fred became engaged to Miss Sylvia North, also from Bunbury, in November 1919 (reference). They were married on 17 March 1920, after which they "took up residence at Ednie Street" (reference;reference). By the time their son, John, was born in 1921, they had moved to Wellington Street, Perth (reference).

Mr H.A. Christian

Number 1 Ednie Street was sold to Z. Christian in 1921 and occupied by Mr. H. A. Christian, who was a railway employee (reference). He resold the house in 1922 to Laura Heeps (reference).

Laura Heeps and Family

Mrs Laura Heeps, a widow (reference; reference) moved from "The Bungalow", Clifton Street, to Ednie Street in 1922 (reference). Laura, accompanied by her younger children Margaret, Thomasina and William, came to Bunbury from Musselburgh, Scotland, between 1915 and 1919. Her daughters, Ethel, Marion and Laura, were already living in Bunbury. Marion, the second eldest, married Percy Blythe on 24 December 1915 (reference) while Laura was still in Scotland. Percy, a soldier in the First World War, left with the 8th reinforcements of the 28th battalion on 7 January 1916 - just three weeks after the wedding (reference). He was wounded twice and awarded the Military Medal for gallant conduct before being killed in France in 1918 (reference). By the time her third daughter Lorna had become engaged to Ebenezer Thomas in 1919, Laura was in Bunbury (reference). In that same year, she ran a boarding house in Clifton Street (reference). Laura soon moved her business to "The Bungalow", a "large premises immediately behind the Gordon's Hotel, and situated on the river banks almost at the mouth of the Estuary" (reference). She also advertised accommodation when she moved into Ednie Street (reference). In 1930, she opened the Piccadilly Cafe in Victoria Street. She also ran a catering service (reference) and expanded again into accommodation in Inveresk House in 1936 (reference).

Lorna married later in 1919 (reference), and Ethel, the eldest, married Edmund Kelly from Guildford in 1921 (reference). Then, in 1922, another daughter, Bessie, arrived from England (reference). Bessie married Alfred Pike in 1933 (reference), Thomasina became engaged to George Keoh of Cottesloe in 1926 (reference) but eventually married Gerald Moore in 1931 (reference), and Margaret married Clarence Gibbs in 1930 (reference). In 1926, William married Veronica Dickinson from Albany. They and their children lived in Ednie Street until at least 1936 when their 3-year-old son, William, died of pneumonia (reference). In 1937 Laura's business went bankrupt (reference) and her assets, including the house, had to be sold.

Axel Nilsson

Number 1 Ednie Street was then bought by Axel Nilsson (reference). Axel, a carpenter, immigrated from Varmland, Sweden, to Melbourne in 1891. Axel was a dedicated church member and, alongside his carpentry work, was heavily involved in the parish work. The Melbourne congregation invited him to be their pastor, but he declined and came to Bunbury instead. (reference).

Axel went into partnership with his neighbour (reference), Thomas Joseph Banting as builders. They built houses (reference) and were contractors for many of the public buildings of the time. These included the Bunbury Pump House, 1907 (reference), St Patrick's Anglican Church, 1908 (reference) Thomson Brook Church, 1909 (reference), and the Bunbury Yacht Club, 1919 (reference). Tom and Axel dissolved the partnership in 1923 (reference), and Axel continued on the business alone. His passion for his trade is expressed in an interview he did after completing a new store for Boulters Menswear in 1937 (reference). Axel also made smaller items like the Bunbury High School Honour Board (reference) and church furniture (reference).

Axel married Bessie Metcalf in 1903, and they went to Sweden for their honeymoon (reference). They had one son, Fritjof (Fritz), who was born in 1904 (reference). Bessie died in 1907 from tuberculosis after a long illness (reference), and Axel never remarried. His son, Fritz went to Melbourne to study and became a dentist (reference).

Axel lived in Moore Street until his death in January 1941 (reference; reference), never moving into 1 Ednie Street.

Sydney Stafford

Axel rented the house out to Sydney Stafford with his wife Lilian, who arrived in Bunbury from Katanning in 1939 when Sydney was appointed service manager of Rural Motors (reference). The house was sold in 1941 after Axel died, so the Staffords had to vacate the property for the new owners (reference).

Kenneth Gardner

Mr Kenneth Gardner bought the house in 1941 (reference). Kenneth and his wife, Violet (nee Lailey), lived there for many years. The couple married in 1935 (reference; reference). They had two daughters, Jennifer, born in 1936 and Dawn, born in 1940 (reference;reference; reference). Kenneth was a printer by trade and worked for the South-West Printing and Publishing Company. He was the son of Frederick Gardner, a printer, who had worked on various newspapers including The Adelaide Register, The Daily News, The Morning Herald and founded the Geraldton Guardian before retiring to Harvey (reference). Kenneth initially worked with his father on Geraldton Guardian and then worked in Sale, Victoria, in 1923 (reference). He returned to Western Australia and worked in Kalgoorlie (reference).