Frank Le Souef
LE SOUEF, Francis Albert Winthrop (Frank), BE AMIEAust (1911-1999)
Frank was born in Perth, on November 12, 1911, the son of Perth Zoological Gardens Director Ernest Albert Le Souef and his wife Ellen Grace Le Souef nee Hagenauer. He grew up living in the zoo grounds, in a house fronting Suburban Road (now Mill Point Road), in South Perth.
His primary education was at the Forrest Street State School in South Perth. From 1925 his secondary education was at Hale. He sat his Junior in 1926 and his Leaving in 1930 at Hale School. He did further study and matriculated in 1931.
Frank was a good athlete being 188 cm tall and weighing 83 kg. He rowed for Hale in the Head of the River in 1930. In 1932 he was part of the first winning University of Western Australia crew in the Interstate University eight oared race for the Oxford Cambridge Cup in Tasmania. In the 1930’s he was a State representative in the Kings Cup multiple times. He was also in the Australian eight that was narrowly beaten by England in the 1938 Empire Games in New South Wales.
Frank resisted the family pressure to study nature and was follow his true interests, which were in electronics and things mechanical. At an early age, he designed sophisticated weapons for firing corks using a petrol charge and a Model T Ford ignition coil. He also built radios to receive the first radio transmissions in Perth.
In 1932 he enrolled in Engineering at the University of Western Australia. During vacations he worked at the East Perth Power Station. During his studies he spent several years as a resident of St George’s College. He graduated in March 1937 with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Between 1937 and 1938, Frank worked at Australian Paper Mills in Victoria before travelling on the merchant vessel “SS Ormiston” from Geelong to England to work with BTH Company at Rugby. His other employment in England had been with the Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Company in Manchester and Wilsons Switchgear Works in London.
In August 1939, he was travelling by car through France and Germany including to visit Thelse Gloe who was studying in Berlin. He had to quickly leave Germany to return to London due to the imminent outbreak of hostilities. He returned to Australia leaving Southampton on the “Ormonde” on March 2, 1940.
On his return to Australia he worked for British General Electric (Australia) in the eastern states.
Frank married Thelse Gloe on April 18, 1942, at John Knox Church, Elsternwick, Melbourne. They had children Kim Leslie (1944), Karen (1946) and Peter (1948).
In 1945, he worked as the engineer at a tin mine in Roseberry, Tasmania.
He returned to work at the State Energy Commission (SECWA) in 1949 as Frequency Engineer. His major project was to convert the Perth power supply frequency from 40 cycles per second to 50 cycles per second.
The project was necessary as the new South Fremantle Power Station was going to be commissioned at 50 cycles per second. Frank assembled a team of around twelve experienced electricians who could quickly troubleshoot problems and undertake pulley and motor modifications. They were equipped with motorcycles and sidecars. The project involved a 25 megawatt frequency converter, installed at the East Perth Power Station so that dual frequency power could be generated during the progressive conversion of the network. The project started in South Perth and the work went more smoothly and at less cost than estimated due to good planning and adaption.
Frank also managed the frequency change in Kalgoorlie. He then became responsible for managing the metropolitan system and developing the South West Grid. He retired from SECWA in 1974.
Travel was an important part of Frank’s life. Beginning to travel again in 1965, he and Thelse visited every continent and most countries in the decades that followed. They bussed across Asia, trained across Russia, drove around Europe and toured around South America. Frank bought a 1974 VW Kombi in 1976 and it sat in the backyard for ten years. When he was 75 years old, Frank announced that he was driving around Australia with Thelse. Despite the family fears, he not only returned safely from that trip, but over the next few years drove around Australia a total of five times, and over east two more times. His most extraordinary feat was in 1997, aged 85, when he drove with Thelse in his Kombi to Canberra to see her brother, stayed three hours and drove home.
Frank joined the Institution of Engineers Australia as an Associate Member in 1948. He was WA Division President 1964. Frank died on May 4, 1999, aged 87. He was survived by his wife, Thelse.
References:
Power for the People, A history of gas and electricity in Western Australia, SECWA, 1994.
Interview with Frank Le Souef, Call Number OH3083/13, WA State Library, 1988.
Leigh Edmonds, Cathedrals of Power, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 2000.
Daily News, 7.5.1938, p. 16.
Daily News, 1.9.1939, p. 8.
West Australian, 16.4.1942, p. 3.
Le Souef Family Papers
