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 Blood Red Days of the Golden West –

The Truth – Qld -10 January 1926, page 12 LIKE every other gold-rush in history, the outbreak of yellow-gold fever in Western Australia attracted many of the best, and a number of the worst, humans from far and wide. BUT it was not until the terrible hardships of the pioneers were known to have been […]

The Corrick Family Entertainers

BOULDER- TOWN HALL. ‘THE CORRICK FAMILY” Saturday 14th August 1909. The Corrick Family  continued their Boulder season last night. There was a large attendance in the popular portion of the house. The items of the program consisted of orchestral selections and choruses by the full strength of the company and a fine hand bell performance, […]

A Case of Mistaken Identity –

While recently doing my daily post on the WAVMM ‘The Western Australian Virtual Miners Memorial’ I found that it was the anniversary of a disaster which caused the death of three men at the Englishman GM in Kookynie. These are the names of the men:- BOURKE John, Miner 3/02/1900 Age 35  Englishman  GM Kookynie MCKELVIC […]

Benjamin Strange – Pioneer Profile

Benjamin Edward (Ben) Strange (1868-1930), cartoonist, was born on 10 May 1868 at the cavalry barracks, Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, son of Benjamin Strange, private in the 10th Hussars, and his French wife Augustine, née Menefoz. After serving in India, his father retired and Ben attended a London board school. He learned drawing and painting […]

The Lake Eva Oil Hoax

In the early days of the WA Goldfields there were, as there are now, conmen who want to make a dollar without working. This is one such story. In May of 1923, Robert Rothkehl and Ernest Thompson claimed that they had struck oil at Mt Eva near Southern Cross in Prospecting area 1135. A Company […]