“Quarantine Arrangements”, the newspaper stated: “The R.M.S. Victoria arrived yesterday in quarantine, having touched at an infected port; but there is no sign of disease on board. The Australian colonies consider it necessary to adopt the utmost precautions, and there is no doubt that in their circumstances these are amply justified.”

 

Although no illness had yet manifested, the vessel was considered a potential carrier of smallpox. As a precautionary measure, all passengers were placed into quarantine at Quaranup, where the quarantine station’s original buildings were already established.

Among the quarantined passengers was a young mining engineer listed simply as “Herbert Hoover.” After spending a quiet week in isolation, Hoover was released and allowed to continue his journey inland. At the time, few in Albany realised the significance of this unassuming passenger. Had the Albanians known who he would later become, it was said they would have made much of him.

 

Following his release from quarantine, Hoover travelled to the goldfields, where he quickly developed a reputation as one of the colony’s most capable and controversial mining engineers. Working for Bewick, Moreing & Co, he played a pivotal role in advising the firm to purchase the Sons of Gwalia mine near Leonora. The mine would go on to become one of the most profitable and long-lived gold operations in Western Australia, only closing in 1963.

 

Herbert Hoover was appointed the first official manager of the Sons of Gwalia mine on 1 May 1898, at just 23 years of age. His management style was uncompromising. He introduced sweeping cost-cutting reforms, lengthened working hours, eliminated bonuses, altered shift-change procedures and clashed openly with the Miners’ Union. He also employed migrant contract labour, particularly Italian workers, whom he regarded as allies against union power. These policies sparked significant conflict at the time but had long-lasting consequences. The strong migrant workforce Hoover helped establish gave Gwalia its distinctive cultural character well into the twentieth century.

 

During his short tenure from May to November 1898, Hoover also designed the mine manager’s house and oversaw plans for staff and office buildings overlooking the mine and township, leaving a physical as well as an economic legacy.

 

A vivid contemporary portrait of Hoover’s Western Australian years was later recorded by Sir John Kirwan, former President of the Western Australian Legislative Council, writing in late 1928 when Hoover had just been elected President of the United States. Kirwan had known Hoover during his time on the goldfields and recalled him as:

“An extremely youthful looking man, very slight in figure, handsome in face, but indifferently dressed, who rarely spoke and in company was singularly reticent… He was always serious and was a teetotaller, which was unusual among goldfielders.”

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Kirwan remembered Hoover as a good listener, possessed of quiet determination rather than flamboyance. He noted the young engineer’s habit of sketching squares and figures with a pencil while listening intently — a trait Hoover reportedly retained throughout his later life. Though only in his early twenties, Hoover was thought by many to appear older than his years, perhaps assisted by a carefully grown moustache intended to offset what Kirwan described as an “appearance of excess youth.”

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Kirwan’s account confirms the scale of Hoover’s activity across the goldfields. During his early years with Bewick, Moreing & Co., Hoover travelled extensively, covering vast distances from Southern Cross in the west to the edge of the interior in the east, and from Norseman in the south to Lake Way in the north. Much of this travel was undertaken by horse, buggy or camel under extreme conditions of heat, dust, bitter winter nights and scarce water. Yet Hoover was described as tireless, energetic and ambitious.

 

One reconnaissance report prepared after eighteen days of continuous travel covered eighteen separate mines and was described as “a truly wonderful document.” Kirwan credited Hoover with playing a decisive role in the successful development of the Sons of Gwalia mine, along with significant involvement in other major operations including Hannans Brown Hill, East Murchison United and the Great Fingall.

 

Kirwan also observed that Hoover was an active and influential member of the Coolgardie Chamber of Mines. He suggested that this engagement marked Hoover’s first real introduction to public affairs — an early indication of the administrative and leadership abilities that would later define his international career.

 

Hoover’s connection with Albany did not end with his arrival in 1897. He returned to the town several times during his Western Australian years, most notably prior to his departure overseas. A report in the Menzies Miner dated 3 December 1898 records that Mr H. C. Hoover left Menzies by train for Kalgoorlie, then Perth, before departing Albany on 10 January 1899 for Europe and subsequently China. He had been appointed attorney for Bewick, Moreing & Co in China, where he would supervise the firm’s extensive mining interests.

 

During one of these later visits, most likely in late 1898 or early 1899, Hoover stayed at the Albany Hotel on York Street. By the late 1890s, the Albany Hotel was one of the town’s most prominent accommodation houses, ideally situated near the harbour and railway terminal. It regularly hosted mining engineers, government officials, shipping agents and businessmen travelling en route to and from the goldfields.

 

Physical evidence of Hoover’s stay survives in the Albany Hotel guest book, which contains his signature. Alongside his name, Hoover added a brief but memorable remark: “Not dead, but sleeping.” This entry places him firmly within the social fabric of Albany at the turn of the twentieth century and confirms that he was more than a transient arrival in quarantine — he was a returning visitor who engaged with the town in a conventional and recognisable way.

 

After leaving Western Australia, Hoover went on to China as chief engineer for the Chinese Bureau of Mines and general manager of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Corporation. In 1901 he became a partner in Bewick, Moreing & Co, overseeing major mining investments, including those in Australia. His later career would see him become an international humanitarian during and after the First World War, United States Secretary of Commerce, and ultimately President of the United States from 1929 to 1933.

 

President Herbert Hoover died on 20 October 1964 at the age of 90. Yet in Albany, his legacy endures in the quarantine station across the harbour, in the guest book of the Albany Hotel on York Street, and in the quiet knowledge that a future world leader once waited out the threat of smallpox on the shores of King George Sound before heading inland to make his mark on Western Australia.