WARRACKNABEAL LADIES REST ROOMS

The Warracknabeal Ladies Rest Rooms, a single storey brick building constructed in 1928 by Andrew Taylor and Sons and the following objects integral:

The Warracknabeal Ladies Rest Rooms is of historicalsignificance to the State of Victoria. It satisfies the following criterion for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register: 

Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history.

Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria’s cultural history.

 

The Warracknabeal Ladies Rest Rooms are historically significant for their capacity to demonstrate the Women’s Rest Rooms movement of the early twentieth century. From the early 1920s, organisations such as the Country Women’s Association (CWA) and Victorian Farmer’s Union (VFU) established ‘Rest Rooms’ in rural towns across Victoria. Initially developed in response to a lack of women’s public toilets, baby change areas and suitable indoor places to wait for male family members conducting business, these facilities became community hubs for women and part of the social fabric of regional Victoria. The Women’s Rest Rooms movement was an important phase in Victoria’s history which has all but disappeared. The Warracknabeal Ladies Rest Rooms was first proposed by the Country Progressive Party Women’s Section in 1926 and opened in 1928. The building survives to this day (2023) and is still serving its original intended function. It is a much loved place for generations of women in the Wimmera, and one of the few remaining Women’s Rest Rooms still in use in Victoria and Australia.

 

The Warracknabeal Ladies Rest Rooms are historically significant for their rarity as possibly the last remaining operating Women’s Rest Rooms in Victoria. From the 1920s over an estimated 200 were established in rural towns, but the popularity of the facilities declined from the 1970s. Warracknabeal Rooms are unusually intact and have been preserved largely ‘as they were’ by generations of dedicated local women of the committee since 1928. An integral part of the place, its collection is rare and includes objects include an early ‘Boys Admitted up to the Age of Six Years’ sign, records of pram and pushcart rentals, and a collection of visitors books from the 1920s onwards documenting women’s experiences of the place over generations. The place and its collection are unparalleled in Victoria.