William Thompson Dewsnap was born on the 23 Dec 1865 in Ancrum, Roxburghshire, Scotland, the son of John Dewsnap and Isabella Murray. He arrived in Bundaberg, Queensland aboard the Nairnshire on the 9 Jul 1884 aged 18 yrs with his brother. Two years later he was to marry Annie Cecelia Matthews, a recently widowed lady […]
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
When the Law Came to Niagara –
20/04/2024 By 1 Comment
Smith’s Weekly 26 November 1927 – by John Drayton How “Justice” was served out on the Goldfields. Niagara was one of the little towns worth a column in the WA Post Office Directory of 1899 following Bob Menzies strike in September 1894. The town’s life was short, but while it was alive, it ‘LIVED’. Menzies […]
Human Gold by N E Gledhill
13/04/2024 By Leave a Comment
This sad and poignant story from the pen of N E Gledhill is kindly shared by his Great Nephew Allen Gledhill with thanks. STEVE HARDING lived with his wife in a tumble-down shanty on the outskirts of the Golden Mile. They were a queer couple. She, a diminutive, white-haired old woman, with deep-set eyes and […]
The Death of Father Long –
13/04/2024 By Leave a Comment
Kalgoorlie Western Argus 25 May 1899, page 25 THE LATE REV FATHER LONG A telegraphic message was published the Kalgoorlie Miner of May 18th to the effect that the Rev Father Long had succumbed to an attack of typhoid fever in Perth on the previous day. The death of the rev gentleman forms the […]
Murder or Suicide – that is the question
13/04/2024 By 1 Comment
Albert Lockner, a prospector who supposedly died of thirst within 2 miles of the later famed ‘chain of water holes’, making the tragedy particularly distressing. Norman K Sligo who had joined in the search for the missing man met the police at the Donkey Rocks, about 120 miles from Coolgardie. Sligo said that in his […]
