Historically, economic and social historians writing on the Depression Era in Western Australia have been inclined toward the view, that both State and Commonwealth Governments followed a ‘philosophy of non-intervention’ in their responsibility to the unemployed. Although providing a body of unsurpassed academic merit, historians have tended to overlook the question: ‘If the government were not looking after the welfare of the unemployed, who was?

During the Depression, ‘hardship came first to, and continued to be experience most sharply by, those who had no “fat” upon which to live while times were hard’.  Thus, the rapid upward trajectory of unemployment in Western Australia, caused almost immediate crisis in the community.  In response, from 1929 until 1931 in both city and country, ordinary citizens; religious representatives; social affiliations including the returned soldiers’ associations and the trades halls, and  local governments and businesses, worked together to house, feed and clothe thousands of unemployed men and women and their families. This paper will examine this ‘community in crisis’ and the civil movement that resulted. It will discuss how, during the first two years of Depression era conditions, the absence of State or Commonwealth funding was the imperative that forged a robust civil movement.