Obituaries Australia

Joseph Wilbur, 1906

Western Mail (Perth), 17 March 1906, p 29

The death of Mr. Joseph Henry Wilbur, which took place at the Old Men's Home, Claremont, about noon to-day, removes one who at one time occupied a not unimportant place in the public service of the State. Mr. Wilbur came to Australia some years ago from the United States, of which he was a native, and in which he had followed mining, agricultural and engineering pursuits. The earlier years of his residence in the Commonwealth were spent as an agricultural expert at Mildura, Victoria, and coming to this State soon afterwards he obtained employment in 1895 as an inspector under the Insect Pests Act. This position he held for three years and in 1898 was transferred to the Statistical Department as Assistant Compiler. It was whilst so engaged that he lost his sight as the result of a nervous affliction. Later he was engaged as lecturer for the Department of Lands, in which capacity he carried through a successful tour in the other States of the Commonwealth. His employment, however, was not of long duration, and finally the deceased gentleman, finding it difficult to make a livelihood out of literary work in which he had engaged on severing his connection with the Government, became an inmate of the Blind Institute until about two years ago a stroke of paralysis brought him to the Perth Public Hospital, whence he was removed to the Home at Claremont. Mr. Wilbur was a gifted writer and lecturer, and was widely informed on many subjects, especially on matters of agriculture and mining, and in social questions in respect of which he was a progressive thinker.

The funeral of the deceased gentleman, who was 64 years of age, will take place to-morrow afternoon, leaving Mr. D. J. Chipper's private mortuary for the Karrakatta Cemetery.