21/04/2026
Annie Collins Memorial Gates
If you went to the Kalamunda Show last weekend you may have walked through these very gates!
Annie Susan Collins was born in 1863 in Victoria as a Second Generation Australian. At 20, she married Samuel Collins, and together the pair moved to Western Australia determined to become orchidists. When they arrived they quickly found work in the Walliston hills with a man named Mr Schunke where Samuel found experience in the orchard and Annie, now a mother of two, work as a housekeeper. With money earned through their working, the pair soon bought land in the Kalamunda hills, but with not enough to build a house, Samuel joined the Southern Cross Gold Rush where he found new work condensing the salty brackish water from the lakes nearby, for domestic use.
Annie and her two small daughters soon followed Samuel East, living out of a tent and later a small bush humpy built by Samuel. The family had three children while at Southern Cross, two sons and a daughter, who passed away during infancy.
In 1890 the Collins returned to Kalamunda where Samuel again found work, this time as a donkeyman at Guppy’s Mill. With what time he had in between, Samuel built their first home of slit logs, a bark roof and a dirt floor. These first few years were hard, Annie shared the tasks of clearing the land and planting the trees with her husband. Provisions came via horse and cart, there were often shortages. Fresh meat could only come from their own crop of pigs, fowls, turkeys and hunted kangaroos. Meats were often smoked and left to hang in the coolest parts of the kitchen, while kangaroo skins were dried and used as rugs or stretched for bedding. Any fruit and vegetables grown were also preserved or made into jams. Later Annie had a summer kitchen of latticed slats for coolness, and her Coolgardie safe was kept in the shade-house among the ferns to better help preserve harvested goods.
Despite her full and busy life in the house, Annie Collins still found time for generous service to her local community. She had had some nursing experience before her marriage so she was always called for in an emergency, as there was no doctor in the area during this time. Annie acted as midwife for many a birth. During these years she also laid out the dead. She even helped to found the Kalamunda Agricultural Society. In 1896, the Agricultural Hall (now known as the Lesser Hall) was built for community gatherings and church services and it was Annie’s efforts that saw a piano installed for singsongs, weddings and other festive occasions. Annie also worked hard for her church, and her ambition was recognised when the Methodist Church was built in 1918, she had the honour of laying the first stone.
As a woman of courage and resource, imbued with a true pioneering spirit Annie Susan Collins is remembered by those who loved her for having a genius for seeing what needed doing and getting it done. In her honour, the Annie Collins Memorial Gates were built out the front of the Kalamunda Agricultural Hall in recognition of her contribution to the community was dedicated on the 11th April, 1932.
These cast iron entrance gates may be familiar to those who enjoyed the Kalamunda Show last weekend as they were one of two entrance points into the show grounds. As the Kalamunda Show experienced its biggest show yet with record numbers visiting the rides, market stalls, competitions and foods, Annie Collin’s legacy lived on as she saw thousands through her memorial gates.
