The people of the Goldfields

The Goldfields of Western Australia was and still is made up of many people, from poets to politicians, from saints and sinners and everything in between. I hope to tell you the stories of some of these people either famous or infamous or just the ordinary folks. Sometime the most ordinary people do the most extraordinry things

A Gallant Young Hero

11/03/2023 By Moya Sharp 4 Comments

Sunday Times – Perth – 5 April 1914, page 7 The Knickerbocker Hero The Little Lennonville Hero were some of the words used to describe Vincent Atkinson, a young boy of just ten years of age, who was to inspire West Australians with his presence of mind and his ‘heart of a lion’ after he […]

The Union Brewery Man – the Kaye family

11/03/2023 By Moya Sharp 3 Comments

In 1996, (yes, I really do keep my mail from that long ago ♥), I was in correspondence (by mail of course), with a lady called Helen Saunders from Figtree in NSW. She was asking if I could look into her Grandparent’s time in Kalgoorlie to see what I could find about them. She very […]

Crimes of Passion in Kanowna

04/03/2023 By Moya Sharp 3 Comments

Crimes of passion are not something new, and they happened in the early Goldfields days just as they do today, but the town of Kanowna seems to have had more than its fair share in its short history. The following three stories. Sadly there are no photographs of any of the people in these dramas. […]

The Mysterious Mr Bradley – a family story

04/03/2023 By Moya Sharp 1 Comment

The comment ‘not another Lionel’ is a long-standing joke between a good friend of mine and fellow historian, Graeme Sisson, who was the Archivist of the Police Historical Society of WA at the time. It came to refer to any research inquiry that we were working on that was ‘more’ than a little complicated and […]

Ante and Petrica – a love story

25/02/2023 By Moya Sharp 2 Comments

The following story is an extract with kind permission from – ‘For a Better Life, Yugoslavs on the Goldfields of Western Australia 1890-1970 by Dr Criena Fitzgerald. One of the most tragic love stories was that of Ante Mateljan and Petrica Mikovic (Micovich). Luka Markovich, a friend of Ante Mateljan, brought Petrica’s photograph back to […]