People Australia

Bill Wauhop, 1927

State Library of Western Australia, 47866384

William (Bill) Wauhop (1887-1971) blacksmith, trade union official, licensing court chairman and mayor 

Birth: 24 April 1887 at Sandhurst (Bendigo), Victoria, eldest child of native-born parents Isiah Wauhop (1861-1955), school teacher, and Grace, née Dennis (1863-1934). Marriage: 25 October 1911 in the Congregational Church at Carnarvon, Western Australia, to Edith Williambury Wheelock (1891-1974), who was in charge of the Carnarvon post office and telephone exchange. They had four daughters and two sons. Death: 17 September 1971 in Fremantle Hospital; usual residence Duke Street, East Fremantle, WA. Religion: cremated with Methodist forms. 

• Educated at St George’s College, Eaglehawk, Victoria. Moved to Western Australia, aged 14, in 1901.
• Served his apprenticeship as an engineering blacksmith at the Fremantle Foundry. Joined the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE). Moved to Carnarvon in 1907. Self employed, he suffered a boycott for attempts to organise a union (with Mick Sawtell). Was forced to leave Carnarvon and return to Fremantle in 1914.
• Foundation member of the Fremantle Road Board branch of the Australian Labor Party. Secretary of East Fremantle ALP from 1915 to 1922.
• President Fremantle branch, ASE in 1916, trustee of branch 1917-1919, but no sign of membership of this branch after 1920.
• Member of Federated Clerks Union from about 1935. [Membership of ASE, Fremantle shows, W. G. Wauhop as retired member in 1963 – this was probably his son, William Gerald Wauhop (1914-1976), also a blacksmith at one time.]
• Wauhop was deputy chair of the WA Licensing Court in 1949-1950. He was chairman of the State Licensing Court from 1949 to [1957 at least].
• In 1942 he was Labor candidate to replace the late Senator E. B. Johnston in the Australian Senate in an election at a joint sittings of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly, but was defeated by (Sir) Charles George Latham.
• He was a councillor on East Fremantle City Council in 1942-1944, and long-time mayor of East Fremantle: from 1944 to 1964.
• Member Fremantle Hospital board in 1931-1970 and chairman of the hospital board in 1945-1970. (A sports ground and a wing of the hospital were named after him.) He and his wife were both granted the title Freeman of East Fremantle, 1968.
• Member of the Ugly Men's Voluntary Worker's Association of Western Australia Inc.
• Road named after him. Commissioned justice of the peace. Appointed MBE 1965.
• His wife was an active lady mayoress and member of the ALP.
• Cause of death: congestive cardiac failure, ischaemic heart disease, hypertension (contributory cause) hemiplegia from hypertension, carcinoma of larynx.
• Two brothers John Wauhop (1888-1966), a tip tray driver, and Isaiah Wauhop junior (1889-1959), a farrier, served in the Australian Imperial Force in World War I. His son William Gerald, a projectionist when he enlisted, served in the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II.

Sources
Death Certificate, Fremantle, 567/1971; Marriage Certificate, Gascoyne 7/1911; cuttings file from Fremantle City Library Local History section, Westralian Worker, 8 August 1941. Union membership: Australasian Society of Engineers: 1101/233/1917; ASE, Fremantle branch, 1101/233/11917. Federated Clerks Union 1101/286/1918; Battye Library Biographical Index; Leading Personalities of Western Australia, 1950.