Renowned author May Gibbs’ display from former Harvey Visitors Centre finds new home at Harvey Station Museum

An exhibition recognising a famous author and her connection to Harvey is back on display for the first time in nearly two years.

When the former Harvey Visitors Centre closed in November 2021, its May Gibbs exhibition was taken down and placed in storage.

Now parts of the collection have been dusted off and have made their way into a new home at the Harvey Railway Station Museum.

Richard Knight is a living relative of the late Ms Gibbs and said the collection at the museum was the result of hard work by staff at the former visitors centre.

“They had a really great display up there and I was very disappointed when it was pulled down,” he said.

“But, we have salvaged it and we’re got some of it here now.”

Mr Knight and other museum volunteers worked countless hours on the exhibition room to make it fit for purpose, which included exposing the room’s original timber floors.

Between 1885 and 1887, a young Ms Gibbs lived in a homestead on the banks of Harvey River, east of the Harvey townsite.

Although her immediate family relocated to Perth, she continued spending time in the area with her uncle in the years that followed.

Later in life, she earned acclaim as an accomplished author and illustrator, drawing on some of the flora and fauna in the Harvey region for inspiration in her works.

Her most famous work is The Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, which was first published in 1918.

Fellow museum volunteer Marion Lofthouse said it was right to honour one of the town’s best-known residents.

“We felt it was time to bring it out again because she would be our most famous author,” she said.

A number of different artefacts are displayed, including two hexagonal blocks which made up part of the floor in Ms Gibbs’ Harvey home.

The museum is open on the first and third Sunday of each month from 11am to 3pm.