I apologize for being MIA for much longer than I planned. Steven and I have been having too much fun here in southern France to set aside time for my last Broome post!
I last wrote about the rewarding experience we had with Robbie, an Aboriginal man who shared his experiences growing up in Broome, in far northwest Western Australia. After thanking him for his enriching stories, Steven and I walked over to the Broome Historical Museum, where we learned that the Aboriginal Yawuru people called this area Guwarri. They fished for stingrays, turtles, oysters, and crabs with spears and fish traps in the turquoise waters of Roebuck Bay.
After colonization, this area became central to Broome's economy, supporting the town and its pearling industry. The museum building, built in the late 1890s, became a general store and later the Broome Customs House, an important international hub for the colonial settlement. The Blue Funnel Line was a shipping service that made regular stops in Broome to drop off provisions and indentured laborers from around Southeast Asia, recruited to work in pearling. The men were required to report to the Customs Office, which became the Broome Historical Museum in 1981.
The scales in front of the museum were used to weigh drums of pearl shells and pearl meat.
I wonder what the reactions will be when the Time Capsule is reopened in 2033.
I've referred many times to Broome's pearling industry, but the pearling fleets weren't looking for pearls; they were harvesting shells, a very important distinction. For thousands of years, Aboriginal people along the Kimberley coastline collected and traded mother-of-pearl. Riji engraved pearl pendants carried cultural and spiritual significance and moved across vast trade networks long before European colonizers arrived.
Diving Risks: Many of the first pearling masters were the younger sons of English gentry who were given a schooner to seek their fortunes after serving in the Royal Navy. Their educated, superior demeanor helped them manage a workforce largely made up of Asians, since, after prior abuses, laws prevented Aboriginal people from being forced to dive against their will. The deep diving suit required skill, courage, and especially a fatalistic attitude. The poorly paid occupation was too dangerous for Europeans to consider, but impoverished Asians were often willing to leave their fishing villages and live aboard a pearling lugger in exchange for the wages offered by pearling masters. The divers were mostly from the Dutch East Indies, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, China, and Japan. They shared the risks of collecting pearl shells in the deadliest, most devastating weather system known to man, as Roebuck Bay sat on one of the world's most cyclone-prone coasts.
This decompression chamber was donated to the people of Broome in 1914 in response to divers dying from the bends after coming up to the surface too quickly. The British Admiralty introduced staging tables in 1905 so that divers working in deep water could surface quickly. For every 40 minutes a diver spent in deep water, they had to spend the same amount of time surfacing. However, many divers didn't want to waste time staging when they could be paid for collecting shells.
The arrival of the decompression chamber allowed divers who were suffering to be put into the chamber and the appropriate pressure applied. Between 1910 and 1914, 92 divers died from the bends. In 1915, one died.
The color-coded map, prepared for the Chief Protector of Aborigines in 1927, revealed the level of surveillance of Aboriginal and Asian people. The protected area sign on the right stipulated that, in order to prevent a rising 'half-caste' population, Whites and Asians were prohibited from being on Aboriginal reserves without permission.
The painted pearl shell depicted a lugger at Beningarra, a freshwater spring and landing place north of Broome used by the pearling fleet.
The pearl shell postcard was sent as a keepsake from James (Roger) Tilly to his future wife, Willie Knapp, in 1913. How I'd love to send shell postcards to our five grandchildren!
Beyond the pearl shells' commercial value for buttons and inlay, people also carved and polished them into decorative objects. While some pieces were made for sale as souvenirs during the height of the pearling era, others were kept as gifts, personal mementos, or later artistic works.
Broome exported whole pearl shell, which was cut overseas into blanks and manufactured into mother-of-pearl buttons and buckles. Before plastics, these gleaming fasteners secured clothing worldwide, from everyday shirts to high-end fashion. Durable and relatively affordable, they were mass-produced yet prized for their luster.
Broome and the First World War: The outbreak of World War I caused Western Australia's fourth-largest industry to essentially collapse as men flocked to enlist, and London's shell market closed as Britain's economy quickly restructured to meet the war's needs.
During the war, Broome soldiers kept track of each other and told loved ones at home which 'Broomeites' had been seen, wounded, or killed. At a reunion in December 1915 at the Metropole Hotel in Cairo, 35 Broome men were treated to a special menu reminiscent of home, such as Cauliflower à la Roebuck Bay and Fish from the Jetty. By the end of the war, over 250 men had enlisted, which was the vast majority of eligible men and a record for any Australian town. Of those, over 60 never came home.
Broome in 1942: When Australia declared war on Japan in 1941, it brought major changes to Broome and its community. Almost all pearling activity ceased immediately, and local men rushed to enlist again. Japanese residents were interned, and the Australian Royal Navy requisitioned all pearling luggers. With the increased threat of invasion or attack, almost all women and children were evacuated to Perth or Beagle Bay.
Broome looked like an army garrison during World War II, with tents from the country's Air Force Personnel Operational Base Unit lining a major street.
Broome's One Day War: On March 3, 1942, the city experienced four Japanese air raids in what was its first and most devastating attack. Twenty-two aircraft, including 15 airboats there to refuel, were targeted and destroyed. The Japanese faced minimal opposition, as no Allied fighter planes were based in Broome. Not a single operational aircraft remained when the Japanese left 70 minutes after their attack began. Broome was attacked a further three times in the next six months, but fortunately only one man lost his life.
The museum had an extensive display on the region's dinosaur footprints, but since I had received my own private tour two days earlier with a local steeped in paleontology, I glossed over it.
Maggie, as you and others know, I love looking at shells. But I was no competition for the Shell Lady of Broom's mammoth collection! Phyllis McDaniel, known locally as Mrs. Mac, earned a reputation as a master conchologist beginning in the 1950s. The internationally renowned display was famously viewed by Queen Elizabeth II during a royal visit in 1963.
The museum also continued outside, but I had spent long enough there, and Steven, as you'll soon see, was also done with it!
One of the runway marker cones on display had evidence of bullet damage, presumably from one of the Japanese attacks during the war.
Indigenous dugout canoes were first used in the 17th century in coastal communities in northern Australia.
Who is this guy?!!
We walked past the mangroves, which seemed to go on forever, toward Town Beach, where we'd seen the Stairway to the Moon on our first night in Broome.
The beach looked fabulous, but surprisingly it was deserted.
I walked to the end of the jetty while Steven rested nearby. Think how kids would love to play hopscotch on the polka-dotted jetty!
For a moment, I thought I'd been transported to the turquoise waters of the Caribbean.
In response to my question, the fisherman joked, "You never know what you're going to catch from the jetty!"
Just beyond the jetty was a memorial to those who perished during the first Japanese attack in 1942. Nine Zeroes, Nine Stories "stood as a silent legacy to those who lost their lives and the impact on this remote Australian community."
Each figure carried a moving story about how the attack affected them. I recommend clicking on the images to enlarge them so you can read two of the stories.
Nearby was Broome's Pioneer Cemetery, with graves from its earliest inhabitants.
The Community Tile Project, with 450 unique handmade ceramic tiles, represented people born here, those who moved here, and those just passing through.
I think Steven was ready to relax on the small cruise boat we were taking the following day through the Kimberley region!
On our first night, we'd seen the Woman Diver statue representing Aboriginal women forced to work in the early days of Broome's pearling industry, but this image was better.
The boab tree is often called the upside-down tree because its branches look like roots when it loses its leaves.
Unfortunately, the Anglican Church was closed, but we could peer through its windows.
After Robbie, our Aboriginal guide, had told us about his mother's government-approved kidnapping as a child and forced relocation to the Sisters of St. John of God, we were curious to explore it further. Although it was also closed, we could wander around the exterior of the current Heritage Centre. Nine Sisters arrived in June 1907 at the Beagle Bay Mission at the Bishop of Perth's request. Their duties included teaching, nursing, washing, cooking, and sewing for everyone at the mission. They also cared for the Aboriginal girls in the dormitories.
The verandah was where Robbie's mother, at 13, reconnected with her mother for the first time since her abduction.
This bell hung on the convent's verandah beginning in 1925 to mark the day's rhythms for the nuns and the surrounding community.
The stained-glass window from the Sisters' Chapel at the Balgo Mission was transported over 3,000 km from Perth over rough, unsealed roads to help sustain the sisters' devotional life in the isolated, deserted community. It was then transported a further 946km to Broome in 1965. I appreciated the philosophy that "The damage to the window (from its many journeys) is a reminder of life's journeys and struggles."
The Bird Bath Memorial, located in the former convent's Garden of Healing, was dedicated to the hundreds of lay missionaries and lay volunteers who spent many of their young years helping spread the Gospel in the Kimberley area. I read that many of the region's Aboriginal families also played an important role in sharing Christianity among their people.
When the first two Sisters of St. John of God arrived by lugger in 1908, supporters gave them a 10-foot-by-6-foot tin hut with a stove, as they had no money or supplies. Asian merchants generously donated stretchers, and pots and pans for them to cook and eat in the hut. They slept in the church sacristy. Robbie told us earlier that the nuns were paid (well, in his estimation) to look after the children, and with that money purchased the land, erected another building, and gradually expanded by buying small parcels of adjoining land. This was a replica of the Foundation Hut.
Almost a week earlier, we'd walked past the Roebuck Bay Lookout, but didn't have time to stop. On our last night in town, we were glad to see the artwork on the shade structure, created by an Aboriginal Yawuru artist with assistance from some students at Broome Senior High School.
We grabbed dinner in the heart of the pearling district at the Roebuck Bay Hotel, established around 1890.
On the way back to our room, we saw more references to the town's extensive pearling history. Though Broome wasn't a town that we were wild about, it worked as a great base to learn more about the northwest section of Western Australia.
Next post: Normally, I'd continue by writing about the beginning of our cruise through the Kimberley region. But I'm jumping ahead many months and continents to our current trip, which began three weeks ago in Spain's Pays Basque area. I'll return to the rest of our 2026 spring trip sometime!
Posted on October 8th, 2026, from Avignon in the Provence region of southeast France. You're likely familiar with the city because of the famous French nursery rhyme "Sur le Pont d'Avignon," whose roots date to the 15th century. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones.
