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

Peter Dennis KAVANAGH – a ledgend in his time

07/04/2015 By Moya Sharp 1 Comment

Peter Dennis Kavanagh joined the Police Force when he was twenty-one. How he crushed the gold-stealing industry on the Golden Mile has now gone down in history. He was tutored by that wonderfully astute Excise Inspector – John Mitchell Christie. He was a born detective, keen and shrewd, with boundless energy. He was also a […]

Arthur Postle – The Crimson Flash

06/04/2015 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

ARTHUR POSTLE – WORLD CHAMPION ATHLETE “THE CRIMSON FLASH” Born in 1881 at Springside near Pittsworth in Queensland, Arthur Postle was revered around the globe in the years before World War I as the fastest man alive. He turned professional in 1902 and on 5 December 1906 in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, he set a world […]

George GAYFORD, Prospector – grave tales

05/04/2015 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

This is a photograph of George Gayford, a prospector, taken about 1935 in Wilina. He died the same year as this photo was taken. He is buried in the Wiluna Cemetery. I have always thought this image captures the hard life of the prospector in the early days. How tough must he have been to […]

Bridget Delia Oates – grave tales

03/04/2015 By Moya Sharp 7 Comments

The following photograph is of the headstone and grave of Bridget Delia Oates, who was the beloved wife of Richard Knight Oates, born in County Clare, Ireland, on 28 January 1873. She died at Kalgoorlie on the 17th September 1909, aged 37 years. This photograph was taken just after the headstone, ledger, and grave fencing […]

YUNNDAGA – ghost town

28/03/2015 By Moya Sharp 3 Comments

YUNNDAGA AKA WOOLGAR Latitude 29° 45′ S Longitude 121° 03′ E Yunndaga is an abandoned goldfields townsite located 718 km east north east of Perth and 7 km south of Menzies. Gold was discovered in the area in the mid-1890s, and in 1898, a business and residence subdivision was laid out at what was then […]