Interview with Dr Michelle McKeough - Freo Plague Historian

Dr Michelle McKeough is an historian working in Western Australian history, especially Fremantle history.

In 2000, Michelle wrote Rescues, Rogues and Rough Seas, 150 years of Water Police in Western Australia (Fremantle, WA Water Police, 2000).

In 2012, she was a contributing author of Voices of the West End (Fremantle, Maritime Museum of WA, 2012).

For her Ph D thesis at Murdoch University in 2016, Michelle examined three times of crisis in Fremantle during the twentieth century: The Bubonic Plague; The Great War; and the Depression Era.

Most recently Michelle has written This Fearful Plague (Hesperian Press, 2022), a history of the pandemic of Bubonic Plague experienced in Western Australia between 1900 and 1906.

It’s a book that makes real and true what is written in Deuteronomy 28:59 –

The LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses.

Michelle McKeough kindly agreed to meet with our editor, Michael Barker, to discuss her latest book, the arrival of the bubonic plague around Fremantle at the turn of the 20th century, the parallels with Covid, and more besides. You’ll find the podcast below.

WHILE YOU’RE HERE –