Inside the history of Perth’s festival for ugly men

Have been absolutely loving Sally’s deep dives into our weird and wacky history of late, and after conquering the Cockburn faces last week, today you get to learn all about Uglieland! Yes, an actual festival organised by Perth’s ugly men or more accurately, the Ugly Men’s Voluntary Worker’s Association of Western Australia.

^{Troy Mutton, Editor, Perth is OK!}

How does the saying go? “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member”?

What about a carnival named Uglieland, run by a club called the Ugly Men?

For a few short years, Perth and Fremantle lit up with a carnival of goat races, freak shows, rollercoasters and more – all for a good cause.

The carnival was founded by the Ugly Men’s Voluntary Worker’s Association of Western Australia – a fundraising organisation established in 1917 to address the hardships being felt by the community during World War One.

A few years prior, fundraising efforts by Kalgoorlie woman Alicia Pell included beautiful baby competitions – but when she held an “Ugliest Man” competition, it proved popular enough for the East Perth Football Club to hold their own Ugly Man competition, fundraising for the children’s hospital and War Patriotic Fund.

Eventually, the fundraising efforts would grow to become a huge grassroots movement – at its peak in the ’20s, the Ugly Men would boast over 2,000 members at its 21 suburban branches across Western Australia, annually raising £12,000 to be distributed to more than 7,000 war widows, veterans and struggling families.

In fact, support from the Ugly Men would range from the every day – chopping wood or providing a wireless radio – to the substantial, such as building weatherboard homes for families or widows, or even providing a new out-patients’ department to the children’s hospital…

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