Dictionary of Western Australians

The editorial committee included Reg Appleyard, Geoffrey Bolton, Margaret Medcalf, Tom Stannage, Pamela Statham, and Sandra Taylor.

However the presence, and comprehensive holdings of the volumes of the Western Australia Post Office Directory (which commenced in 1893) have facilitated the checking of names and locations.

With a similar number of free settler arrivals during the convict period, the state's population swelled nearly fivefold in less than 20 years.

Then the idea came that I'd appeal to the public to send in their own little notes, on practically a page length (nothing much more) giving details of parents and arrival and birth and children and what occupation and what religion and so on.In the early 1970s Erickson started working on establishing The Western Australian Biographical Index with the assistance of government funding.

Historical material such as diaries, letters, business records, minute books, maps, family trees and photographs, were also sought for copying.

Additional data was collected through passenger lists, church registers, almanacs and directories, the index to the WA Government Gazettes, and old newspapers.

Originally, it was planned that the Western Australian Biographical Index would be copied and made available in a limited number of locations including the J S Battye Library and some major country towns.