City of Perth Town Clerk George Oswald (Ossie) Edwards on the Perth Concert Hall.

 

Well the Capitol Theatre, it was at 10 William Street. Tom Wardle bought it and demolished it and built an office block there. It meant that there was no place, other than the university, the rooms at the university, for functions to be held. That had a seating capacity of about eleven hundred, but the acoustics were appalling. The Capitol Theatre was demolished by Tom Wardle and an office block was established there.

 

The Perth Concert Hall. Well, Sir David Brand was the Premier and Tom Wardle was the Lord Mayor. Between them they agreed that a committee of six would be formed, comprising three from the Council and three from the Public Service. The committee would operate under the chairmanship of the Town Clerk. I was assisted by Jack Edwards, the City Engineer and Leif Nilsson, who was the City Planner. The government had the Principal Architect and their State Town Planner, but they didn't appoint a third person. Our job was to find a site and build a concert hall, with the government putting in one million dollars and the Council putting one million dollars. They wanted it to accommodate about 1750 people. 

 

Well we looked around until we came and we settled on what was the old Chevron Hilton Hotel site. The Chevron Hilton Hotel was to have been built for the Commonwealth Games, but somehow or other it fell over, it didn't get off the ground. Howlett and Bailey were the architects for Council House and the town hall which was planned to go behind Council House, so they automatically qualified as the architects for the Concert Hall. They came up with a plan and it was a bit too tight for the site so we had negotiate to get about six metres of the eastern end of the Government House Gardens. Well that was okay, that was achieved. It didn't make the Governor particularly happy because it interfered with his garden, but we achieved that and the Concert Hall built. 

 

It was an extremely loose arrangement for such an important thing. I suppose really when you're building a concert hall, or something that serves the community other than just the residents of a particular local authority, it ought to be more a government function than a city function. However the Perth City Council went along with it and the fact that I was Chairman meant that the Council had to administer the contact. I used to have fairly regular meetings with Tom Wardle because he wanted to be kept informed. That was no trouble. We got through pretty well. Howlett and Bailey were first class architects. 

 

The main problem was that when I was measuring up the work that had to be done and the money that had been sent, the work that had to be done, the lack of finance. I remember preparing a statement and going over to see Ken Townsing the Under Treasurer. We discussed it and he looked at the figures and I asked for a quarter of a million dollars. He said, "Ossie," he said, "you don't need quarter of a million, you need half a million." Well you know he was right, I did need half a million. But it was just an indication of the goodwill that operated between the government and the Council and the senior offices in the Public Service and the senior officers in the Council. It wasn't a matter of creating a scene that we'd run out of money, or making a fuss and bother. Quietly you go about finding solutions and that's precisely what happened. 

 

We amended the plan on one or two occasions, we amended it to put a fairly substantial car park under the platforms at the southern end of the Concert Hall. So not only did it provide parking for people attending the Concert Hall, but it also provided short-term parking for people that wanted to do shopping in the City. It worked out very well. We also provided an underpass, under St George's Terrace, so that when the people were leaving the Concert Hall and had to go back to the north side of St George's Terrace, it wasn't a traffic hazard, they'd go through this underpass. Things of that nature. It worked out quite well and was well-served. Probably the cheapest Concert Hall ever built and probably the least amount of political or administrative interference. It was a very loose arrangement and it worked well.

 

Well I think Tom Wardle was a superb bloke and a very good Lord Mayor. He came into the Council; he'd never chaired a public meeting. I know for the first week or two the calls to my office were a bit on the terse side. It was understandable because he got in on the belief that the Council was unreasonable and it was due to the Ritter wrangle that it had brought him in. But he was no slow learner. I'd say that in a couple of weeks he had worked things out as to where the trouble was. I had a wonderful working relationship with him. I made sure that he never put a foot wrong. The notice paper for every full Council meeting, I went over it, I marked each one of the items that could be a little bit [contentious], expect some discussion on and others that would go through. He appreciated this because he was a very busy man. He had a big business of his own and to come into a Council that was well and truly divided.

 

As a matter of fact his secretary told me one day that he was surprised that the Council could employ competent officers on such salaries as compared with the salary he paid in his own business. That was a compliment. I think when he retired; I thought there should have been some recognition of his service. I became aware of a room that was known as the Wardle Room at the University. By then I had retired and I suggested through the administration and the elected people that it would be appropriate if one of the foyers at the Concert Hall should be named The Tom Wardle Foyer in memory, because of his contribution. It took me about three years of nagging, both the administration and the elected before they took any action. There is a room at the south-west corner known as the Wardle Room. It's quite a useable room, a decent room and quite a good compliment to Tom Wardle for his contribution to the city.

 

George Oswald Edwards interviewed by John Bannister, 2008

OH200804 | City of Perth Cultural Collections