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 there’s a Gold Rush ‘Sell Beer’

Coolgardie Pioneer  24 December 1898, page 38 THE MAYOR AND HIS ESTABLISHMENT “I don’t want no pioneering life, take me back to Collingwood.” This was the strain sung by an Eastern states poet who visited and was disgusted with these fields in the early days. Fortunately for the country, the majority of the old-timers, although […]

Walter Lindrum – the greatest cueman of all time

I was recently sent the following story by Andrew Ricketts about one of our more well-known members of the Goldfields Sporting Hall of Fame, Walter Lindrum, he was in fact one of the original inductees in 2005. About the author:– Andrew Ricketts, the author of the Walter Lindrum Billiards Phenomenon, the only biography on Walter […]

The Swearful Dryblower – a verse

I am a digger at Mulgabbie and I’d like to rise and say Dryblowing is a swearful game to most diggers anyway. You work for days without a color, then have a lengthy swear that takes two solid windy days to cleanse the atmosphere. If an angel down from heaven had to dryblow for a […]

The Norris Family on the Goldfields

The Norris Family on the Goldfields by Chris Clark The journey from the east coast of Australia to the booming goldfields of Western Australia was a path taken by many from the 1890s. For most hopefuls the trip was one-way, signifying a migration that was irreversible, but for others, it was only a matter of […]

The Gaston Family – from Marjorie Burton nee York.

I was recently sent some interesting information and photographs on the Gaston family from Marjorie Burton nee York. Her Gt Grandfather was George Gaston. The Gastons originally came from South Australia and before that from Sussex, England. They were Charles Gaston and his wife Rebecca nee Burfield. Their son George Gaston and his wife Ann […]