Some of those stories may never be told.
History’s Mysteries is back for 2025!
Bringing history to the forefront, the History's Mysteries Young Writers Competition challenges students to imagine the history behind a selection of significant museum artefacts and tell it in a short story.
Bunbury Museum and Heritage Centre will be touring a small collection of museum objects and ephemera to local schools. The objects will be shown in the Museum during the April and July school holidays and displayed at schools during Term 2.
This year’s objects relate to Bunbury’s history as a seaport holiday destination from the nineteenth century through to the 1960s.
For many years, Bunbury was the destination of choice for holidaymakers in Western Australia who flocked here for the fresh sea air, fishing, walks and beautiful beaches. Many hotels and boarding houses sprung up around the townsite of Bunbury to accommodate visitors from all walks of life and social standing.
With this year’s competition, we explore one of these places – Koombana House. Built originally in the 1830s by the district’s earliest settlers - the Scott family – Scott’s Boarding House was demolished in 1903 to make way for the more modern Koombana House.
Standing in Victoria Street as Bunbury changed around it, the boarding house saw guests arrive by horse and carriage, then bicycles, then cars. Through two World Wars and rapid changes in technology, Koombana House offered visitors comfortable accommodation, decent meals and a respite from their daily lives for over 150 years.
Imagine the stories it could tell…...
We would like to call on Bunbury’s young authors to imagine some of these stories lost to time by writing a short story featuring a chosen museum artefact.
Complete the form below to express your school's interest in hosting the touring display for one week during Term 2, 2025.
History's Mysteries School Registration
School registration to host tour artefacts closes: 17 March 2025
Competition opens: 7 April 2025
Exhibition touring schools: 28 April – 4 July 2025
Competition closes: 27 July 2025
Awards Night: 5 September 2025
There are three divisions, Years 5-6, 7-8 and 9-12 with prizes for first, second and third place in each division.
- Entries must be in short story form and be a maximum of 1000 words long. They may be written in any genre.
- Entrants must be aged 9 – 18 years in November 2025 and must live or go to school in the Greater Bunbury area.
- Stories may be written independently or at school.
- The story must mention one or more of the objects in the touring collection. These objects will be displayed at the Bunbury Museum and Heritage Centre during the April and July school holidays, and they will be touring local participating schools during Term 2.
- All entries must be original work written by the named author for the competition.
- Entries should be submitted using the form on our website on or before 27 July, 2025. If this is not possible, they may be submitted in person at the Bunbury Museum and Heritage Centre, where you can fill out a paper entry form.
- Submissions must be in PDF or Word Document format and may be a maximum of 10MB in size.
- Winners will be announced at an Awards Night on Thursday, 5 September 2025. Prizes will be presented at the event held at the Bunbury Museum and Heritage Centre, and the winning entries will be read aloud. Authors may choose whether they would like to read their work, or have it read by another person.
- The winning stories will be displayed in the Museum along with the objects.
- While the Bunbury Museum and Heritage Centre will retain the right to display the stories, publicise them online, and add them to the Museum’s collections, copyright for the work will remain with the author.