Wrestling was a National sport in India, and many Indians maintained their interest in the sport when they came to Australia, competing at all levels of the sport that were staged in a wide range of venues, for example; Massa Singh fought Australian Harry Pearce for a purse of £100 in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, at […]
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
The Skeleton with the Initials C.D.H.: The Mystery of Christian Heitmann
In 1988, I was contacted by a lady called Elsie Heitmann. She was trying to find out what happened to one of her relatives who went missing in Western Australia from South Australia. All she had to go on was the following photo, which was supposedly taken in Coolgardie by photographer Roy Millar. The man […]
The Last Survivor of the “Ragged Thirteen” — Camel Billy Recalls the Wild Goldfields Days
Sunday Times 19 February 1939, page 6 Three Pioneers of the Goldfields Arrived in Perth Yesterday Ages Total 237 Years One is a survivor of ‘The Ragged Thirteen’ Three goldfields pioneers, whose combined ages total 237 years, arrived in Perth together yesterday morning by the Westland express for treatment at the Perth Hospital. They are: […]
Barmaids, Dust Storms, and the Wild Men of Yalgoo
Murchison Times and Day Dawn Gazette – 25 September 1897, page 4 The Murchison (From the London Financial Times) Author unknown The Murchison was the earliest explored field in Western Australia, not the first goldfield—that was the Yilgarn, discovered by my friend Anstey—but the first upon which development work was undertaken. It went with a […]
The Man Who Found Goldfields Fortunes — Death of Alf McDonnell
I was in correspondence with a lady way back in 1996 (yes, I do keep my research letters that far back😊). This was in the pre-Internet days when all research had to be done by letter (possibly strapped to the leg of a dinosaur). The lady’s name was Susan Salvair, and at the time she […]