Ommaney Road Workshops 1930s

This site has long been a place of making and mending — from the clang of the blacksmith’s forge to the hum of machinery and the smell of timber and oil.

The first to set up here was Victor Thurstun. Victor worked as Brunswick’s blacksmith from 1936 to 1954, shoeing horses, re-tipping ploughshares and repairing farm tools for local “cow cockies and spud-growers.” His forge was a hub for the farming community, where neighbours swapped stories while their horses were shod or tools repaired.

Victor’s daughter, Norma Thurstun, also worked on the site, running a small dressmaking room beside the workshop in the Builders Hardware store during the 1950s.

“After many years in the same spot, where he had ministered to the wants of cow cockies and spud-growers alike, Victor Thurstun has now retired, and the once familiar clang and whirr of the forge has been replaced by the sound of a modern workshop.”
Harvey Murray Times, 2 July 1954, Page 8

After Victor retired and the blacksmith shop closed, his son-in-law, Jim (James Edward) Crotty, purchased the property and further developed it. He built three neighbouring buildings – a Builders Hardware store, J.E. Crotty Builder and Joiner, and J.B. Coleman Engineering – later joining them into one set of workshops, the workshops you see today.

Between his hardware and joinery buildings, Jim installed an AMPOL fuel bowser, selling petrol in 44-gallon drums or straight from the pump.

When Jack (J.B) Coleman took over the old blacksmith building, he turned it into an engineering workshop, living behind it in a caravan with a neat garden. He built cattle trucks for local farmers and, after church on Sundays, would get the men to help lift the livestock crates onto the trucks as there were no cranes to assist with loading.

Meet Norma Thurstun

Norma Joy Thurstun, Western Australia Police Regimental Number 3095, was one of the state’s first female sergeants, a position she held from 1958.

Upon acceptance to the Police Academy, Norma celebrated this by acting as the Pied Piper with a number of children marching behind her around the streets of Brunswick, banging away on empty kerosene tins and cardboard boxes with sticks.

She was appointed Constable on 27 October 1958 and retired as First Class Sergeant on 10 April 1984.