Northam

Distinguished and Famous people from Northam

🎖️ Hugo Throssell

Hugo Throssell was born at Northam in 1884, a son of storekeeper and later premier George Throssell. Farming and station work preceded service with the 10th Light Horse in the First World War. He survived the charge at the Nek and received the Victoria Cross for fighting at Hill 60 on Gallipoli in August 1915. The award belongs within a life also marked by the losses and lasting consequences of war. His Northam beginnings connect a local family history with an experience remembered nationally through military records, portraits and commemoration.

🏉 Leon Davis

Leon Davis grew up at Northam on Ballardong Country and played football with Railways before progressing through Perth to Collingwood. His AFL career brought 225 games and a reputation for evasive skill, but family and cultural connections remained central. After retiring in 2011, he returned to Northam. Later work with Collingwood involved cultural development and helping bring change to the club. In reflecting on his childhood, Davis has emphasised the influence of his father and the importance of home. The spectacular football is one chapter of a story that repeatedly returns to community.

🎙️ Tony Turner

Tony Turner became education officer of the 109th Convalescent Depot at Northam in December 1943, during his wartime army service. The depot later moved to Fremantle. Already an accomplished playwright, Turner experimented with verse drama during these years. Australian Stages, written in 1944, followed a soldier travelling from Geraldton to Perth, with the verse suggesting the rhythm of the train. After the war he became an ABC drama producer in Perth. His Northam appointment brings a working writer into the history of wartime convalescence and education, before the long broadcasting career that made imaginative use of voices, music and sound.