The Murchison – on dust storms and barmaids

Murchison Times and Day Dawn Gazette – 25 September 1897, page 4 The Murchison Author unknown (From the London Financial Times) The Murchison was the earliest explored field in West Australia, not the first goldfield—that was Yilgarn, discovered by my friend Anstey—but the first upon which development work was undertaken. It went with a boom […]

The McGinniss family of Kunanulling

Outback Family History reader Meryl Watson has kindly shared these wonderful photographs and stories from her family history. My great-grandmother Edith Rose May nee HOWELL, married John Louis McGinniss aged 22yrs from Huon Tasmania on the 15th February 1890 in Franklin, Huon, Tasmania. John Louis was a widower with one daughter when they married. Edith […]

Harold A S Cocking – pioneer profile

Southern Cross Times – Christmas Eve – 24 December 1904, page 25 Harold Cocking A Plucky Pioneer Mr. Harold Arundle Sidney Cocking was born at Latchley near Plymouth, Devon, England, and is a typical son of an English yeoman. It is slightly over 13 years since he landed in the West, and was extremely surprised to find that […]

Thieves’ Gold – by N.E. Gledhill

Another ‘Ripping Yarn’ from the pen of N E Gledhill, kindly shared by his Great Nephew Allen Gledhill with thanks: The transcontinental roared west­ward through the shimmering film of heat that hung like a diaphanous cur­tain over the Nullarbor Plains  Nothing but sand stretched away for miles until it was ringed in with a ragged belt […]

James Fyfe – grave tales

While looking for something else entirely I came across this lovely verse in the Kalgoorlie Miner on the first aniversary of the death of James Fyfe. It is not one I have seen before so I wanted to know more about James and his family. This is what I found and the photograph is by […]