Wrought-iron craftsman and engineer Wilfred Priestner was born in Cheshire, England, son of Phillip Priestner and Sarah Okel n_e Barne. His father, a former mariner, owned hardware and drapery businesses in Helsby. According to architect Rodney Alsop he was “A member of Caslake ironworking family who trained in his grandfather’s workshop, the same that trained Starkie-Gardner who wrote the handbook on ironwork published by the Victoria and Albert Museum.”
Priestner was musical and served in the choir of Chester Cathedral and in Australia as organist for a number of churches. In 1900 he married a teacher, Edith Tatterstall, and in 1901 a son, Sidney, was born. Priestner worked in South Africa in 1903 installing piping. When he returned to his family he sought other opportunities overseas and the family arrived at Albany, WA in 1908. He purchased land near Denmark but was not successful as a vegetable grower. Edith supported their endeavours by teaching at the nearby Young’s Siding.
In 1919 they moved to Perth and bought a cottage in Nedlands where he established a workshop. Here Priestner employed a blacksmith, Jack Thomas and an apprentice, Albert Rogers. They made hand wrought ironwork for churches, particularly for Father Hawes who was noted for his church buildings and sent detailed sketches and notes of his requirements. Objects made in the workshop included screens, altar rails, tabernacle doors, grilles, finial crosses, standard and wall lamps, bell towers and bell pulls, umbrella stands, fire dogs, firegrates, weather vanes, security doors, gates, fencing panels, footscrapers, candelabras, balustrades, balconies and railings to surround graves. In 1932 his premises were at 58 Stirling Highway, Nedlands.
During the 1930s he worked with the architectural firms Eales and Cohen, Bennett and Associates and others on city buildings and private houses, primarily in South Perth, Claremont, Dalkeith and Mt Lawley. The projects included the railings of the State War Memorial, Kings Park in the 1930s and entrance lamps for St George’s College, Crawley in 1932. Other projects were the electric light fittings for the foyer and ornamental ironwork on the stairway leading to Winthrop Hall as well as other door fittings at University of Western Australia in 1931-2, Chancel Screen (1929) and Baptismal Screen (1947) for St John’s Church Fremantle and pieces for the Karrakatta Club, which were moved to Sherwood Court when the club changed premises.
Caslake, the firm he may have worked for in England, won the contract at the University of Western Australia for the wrought iron screens at the entrance to Winthrop Hall. Priestner was employed to fit them. During World War II ornamental work was restricted and he worked on framed metal windows for military buildings.
Priestner’s wife died in 1950. He died in 1961. The family gave his old workshop as a museum to the City of Nedlands. Nedlands City Council catalogued the collection in 1984 and tried to decide where to place it. A precinct was proposed near Gallop House on the Nedlands foreshore but never eventuated. Meanwhile the Royal Agricultural Society expressed a desire to set up the workshop as a working display at the Claremont Showgrounds with the Blacksmiths Association members working along side. It has been set up with the tools and photographs of examples of his work up to 1959 on display.
