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 Shamrock Hotel – Coolgardie hotels

03/10/2019 By Moya Sharp 1 Comment

Next in our series of Coolgardie Hotels is Colreavy’s Shamrock Hotel: When the Shamrock Hotel, on the corner of Sylvester and Jobson Streets, Coolgardie was opened in September 1895, the licensee, Mrs Cath Colreavy, announced her best efforts would be used to ‘promote the comfort and convenience of patrons and visitors’. Despite having twenty bedrooms […]

The Boyland Brothers:

01/10/2019 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

Young men “turned to stone”. George Boyland George Boyland was born in Garden Gully, Bendigo, Victoria, on the 8th March 1872. The son of a miner, he and his brother and sister moved with their parents from Victoria to Queensland, and then around 1894 to Western Australia. He seems to have travelled back and forth […]

The Graves of Horseman’s Gully – grave tales

27/09/2019 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

WARNING:- Graphic content of grave remains that may upset some people. In 1995 Forsyth-Plutonic Gold Mining held the mining lease of an area that included burials at Horseman’s Gully near Darlot in the Murchison. Under mining law, it is prohibited to mine within 100 yards of a know burial site. This posed a problem for […]

Davyhurst -ghost towns

21/09/2019 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

The following information was supplied by Julia Flavel: My Gt, Gt Uncle Walter (Wattie) Davys found gold in Davyton now Davyhurst. It is our understanding it was named after him. The Davy came from his name and the Hurst from Hurstone farm which was the name of the farm they left behind in England before […]

In Search of Mordaunt Reid:

21/09/2019 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

More than one third of the 62,000 Anzacs who died in WW1 are still listed as missing with no known graves. This is the story of one woman who never stopped looking for her soldier. Lieutenant Mordaunt Reid was paid the ultimate accolade by war historian and correspondent, Charles Bean, on the morning of the […]