Vehicle Registration Plate SU 19

From 1910 onwards all Australian plates started at number 1 and were manufactured in enamel; since 1936 the plates were to be uniform in size and use embossing with State dies – number plates are now standardised in dimensions of 372mm (14.6in) x 134mm (5.3in).

However in the early days each State had different ways of registering Country vehicles – even today some States have one system over the whole state, Western Australia is one which has rural plates with the initial letters being Shire abbreviations followed by digits in the WA colour scheme.

The Sussex Road Board was formed 24/01/1871, and one month later the Municipality of Busselton was formed, 20/2/1871; The Road Board covered all country areas down to and including Augusta and the Municipality covered the Town of Busselton.

Vehicles registered by the Sussex Road Board had number plates commencing with the letters SU and those registered by the Municipality of Busselton had number plates commencing with BN – later to become BSN when the two entities amalgamated in 1951; Busselton BN number plates had no dot between letters and numbers and Balingup which also had BN, had a dot between the BN and the numbers.

The Busselton Museum considers itself lucky to have so many old numberplates as there were few vehicles registered in the district in the early days.