Vehicle Registration Plates

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.

Bicycle Number Plates
Bicycle number plates go back to the early 1900's, when the "Uniform Bicycle Tax" was introduced into the WA Traffic Act in 1913, to replace regional schemes such as those which Cue and Coolgardie already had. Due to an oversight the legislation was not in place until 1917. The amount of tax due was two shillings and six pence (25c). This was considered too high and several protest meeetings were held across the metropolitan area.
The plates issued were different colours each year and the following is a partial list:
White or Silver on red - 1939
Black on yellow - 1940, 1949, 1954, 1960
Black on white - 1941, 1945, 1952, 1958
White on green - 1942
White on black - 1917, 1944, 1950
Silver on red - 1948, 1953, 1959
White on blue - 1951, 1957, 1963
Silver on green - 1955, 1961
Black on silver - 1956, 1962
Silver on black - unknown
Blue on white - unknown
Early Motor Bike number plates seem to have been very small but these were made larger after registering bicycles became more prevalent.
WA Historical Cycle Club
Merv Thompson - colour listings