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

Reedy – ghost town of the Murchison

REEDY (Murchison Goldfields) Population in 1937 = 1300 of which 350 were Miners. Latitude 27° 08′ S Longitude 118° 17′ E The abandoned goldfields townsite of Reedy (AKA Reedy’s) is located in the Murchison Goldfields, 721 km northeast of Perth and 70 km northeast of Cue. Gold was discovered in the area by H. Reed […]

Merv Stubbs – Strongman of the Goldfields

Kalgoorlie Miner 25 Sep 1995 Merv Stubbs – Strong Ties with the Goldfields – by Alan Francis Merv Stubbs, aged 70, is sitting back in his weatherboard and tin ‘castle’ and has just poured himself another midi of ‘gold’ and is all set to enjoy ‘Days of our Lives’. This is one of about a […]

Henry Reison – a prospectors terrible fate

Golden Age 24 March 1897, page 2 PERISHED FROM THIRST A PROSPECTOR’S TERRIBLE FATE Away in the remote interior of WA, Inspector McKenna received a wire from the police at Niagara, stating that the skeleton of a man had been discovered 200 miles northeast of Niagara. The remains are supposed to be those of Henry […]

The Waters Family in the West –

From the family records of Grant Waters, with thanks: In the 1890s (possibly 1894), my Great-Great-Grandfather, Arundel William Waters, and two of his brothers, Thomas Waters and William Henry Waters shipped their horse teams to Western Australia to chase work (carting) on the expanding goldfields. They were the sons of William Henry and Elizabeth Waters. […]

Tommy Talbot – a story by Harry Ware

Albert Jesse ‘Tommy’ Talbot was born on a farm in Holcombe-Rogus, Hawkworthy in Devonshire in England on March the 9th, 1869. His eldest son and eldest daughter were also born on March the 9th, an unusual coincidence. Talbot came to WA in 1887. In 1891 he was working for a farmer at Northam and from […]