The Herald Melbourne VIC  – 13 January 1934, page 24

My Life Outback as a Mule Driver’s Offsider
On The Track With One-Spur Dick
by Arthur W Upfield

To One-Spur Dick, I owe a debt never to be repaid. Here on Tearle Station, Western New South Wales, set down in the middle of the night by a mail driver and blurred into obscurity by lack of sleep. It had been One-Spur Dick’s drawling in-junction to

“Get up before the sun burns the whiskers off you,”

which woke me to this new world. Fully dressed, I arose from the soft sand beside the track where I had collapsed into unconsciousness on alighting from the buckboard, to observe four men regarding me with amused eyes, “Another parcel post bloke,” one observed, as though I were a beetle, “Yaas. English or Orstralion?” “What are you, young feller?” inquired | a one-eyed, thick-set, whiskery, sun-blackened man, dressed in blue shirt and moleskin pants, and wearing but one draggled spur. “English,” was my reply, as I gazed around me at the stone-built bungalow house and the skirting corrugated-iron buildings.

I slept part of the time while I ate breakfast and retained a dim memory of being escorted by the whiskery man to the men’s hut in which I slept the rest of that day and night. The following morning, with the others, I presented myself to the manager for orders and was told to assist the tinsmith. He was making two 4000-gallon iron water tanks, and my work was to hold a hammer head against which he riveted the curved iron sheets. It was mid-February, and the sun was trying. For two weeks I lived in close contact with Blue Evans, a 14 stone Welshman; Mick Conolly, a tall, flashily dressed stockman; Sam, a full-blood Aboriginal; Sam No. 2, a half-caste who shot galahs on the wing with a 22 bore rifle; the Wandering Burglar, and the wife of one Charlie Monger, and the mother of eight children, only two of whom were not half-castes and of course One-Spur Dick then the bullock driver.

Never before had I met such people; never have I met their like away from the Interior since. Their language was terrific, saved from crudeness by its artistry. Their leg-pulling was severe; tempers were quick, and fists were hard. Their hearts were big, their humour dry, and the standard of general knowledge surprisingly high. The tanks having been made, I was sent as offsider to One-Spur Dick to go fetch in the winter wood supply, with fourteen bullocks drawing an ordinary wagon. During the morning of the first day, when we were among dense mulga, it occurred to me — how would I get back to the homestead if my companion dropped dead? The one-eyed driver — he had lost an eye in a fight at Mount Brown— sternly repressed a leering grin and commanded me to use my brain. For half an hour, I endeavoured to do this, my cursed imagination producing vivid pictures of a lost man dying of thirst. Eventually, I admitted failure to use my brain, Dick said, with grave deliberateness, “I like a bloke who arsts questions. I got no time for a bloke, be he new chum English or new chum Australian, wot thinks he knows everything and arsts no questions to hide his ignorance.

Now you see them wheel tracks? You go and stand in one of ’em with your back towards the wagon.” When I had done as he ordered, he said: “Now shut your eyes. Got ’em shut?” Receiving my affirmative answer, he said: “Now you keep your eyes shut and walk in that track for twenty minutes, and you’ll knock out your mosquito brain against the store wall.” Here is an illustration typifying the character of this great man. When assured that in me he had a willing pupil, nothing was too much trouble to explain; and nothing was ever explained unless accompanied by a lesson which could not be forgotten!

He taught me how to bake a damper, how to kill and dress a sheep, how to make horse hobbles, how to ride in the Australian fashion and how to use my fists. He demonstrated that neither bullocks nor mules nor horses understood pure English or pure Chinese but would pull like the devil when addressed with a proper mixture of all the oaths of both nations, topped up, as it were, by the worst oaths favoured by the Afghans.

Talking To Mules

“Here, have a go at ’em,” he urged on our first 120-mile trip to Broken Hill with wool. He stopped the team. I took the eight-foot whip, he climbed up to the top of the mountain of wool and pretended to go to sleep. I called to the team of sixteen mules. The leaders looked around with bored curiosity. Twice, I almost managed to choke myself to death with the whip. When I managed to lash the shafters, they pulled the wagon forward, but the front part of the team, one and all, yawned. Three times I fell flat, tripped by the whip. I played on a simple variation of two bad words, but they were seasoned, hackneyed British oaths, and of no earthly use. The team was enjoying a quiet siesta while I became very hot and then, over them, rushing outward through the quiet bush, roared a flood of language of such artistry as to be unequalled in any other part of the world. The effect was electrical. Sixteen animals, a huge tabletop wagon, and ten tons of wool abruptly sped towards Broken Hill.

As the wagon passed, I managed to grab an eye at its rear, and despite entanglements with the whip, kept with it without using the single near-side rein — Dick scorned such aid, excepting when negotiating the steep hills of the Barrier Range — my chief pulled up the astounded mules as easily as he had started them — with his voice. Eventually, having learned the language, I got on much better. My memories of Dick are still vivid. I see him trudging beside the team, an old felt hat set back on his head, the one clanking spur, the long-handled whip over his shoulder with the thong trailing along the ground, making a snake track. The whip he rarely used, it was seldom necessary.

Swags unrolled on the ground, my head towards the fire, which he carefully fed to keep a good light, I read aloud for hours to him of Sexton Blake, and the work of Stanley Weyman and Charles Darwin. Unable to read, his memory was prodigious, his appetite for any quality of food contained between covers insatiable, equalled only by that for beer, when that kind of food was available.

A Lone Job

Three trips we made to Broken Hill that winter, going south with a mountain of wool, returning north with a mountain of cased rations and fencing wire. The two leaders and the two shafters were allegedly broken in. The rest of the mules we broke in on the track. Twice I saw a pair of hoofs presented one foot beyond my face, once the sleeve of my dungaree jacket was torn away. Towards the end of the trip, the team was settling down, but by the end of the third trip, a change of employment was dictated. It so happened that camping a night on the Wilcannia Common, we failed, when coming back, to find two of the mules the next morning, and were compelled to go on without them. I was sent to the Common Ranger to report the matter, and, having done this, I found the team drawn up outside the Globe Hotel, and poor Dick very drunk within.

“Best thing to do is for us to plant him on top of the load, and for you to drive out to town and camp,” said the Publican.

“You can’t pull the team out ere.” I thought that the best thing he could have done was not to permit Dick to become drunk. I was no mule driver; I was a new chum. There were four mules which, even then, required our united efforts to unharness and harness. So, they shifted the load a little and made a hole in the top of the mountain into which Dick was dumped, and picking up the whip, I whistled to the team, uttered some of the ‘Esperanto of the bush’, and away we went. Now we were bound for the Tearle out-station, to reach which it was necessary to cross the dry Parroo River, a few miles out of town. There were two ways of crossing it, over the bridge, or by taking the track twisting down one bank and up the other. Twice before we had come this way, and because Dick feared that the team would be frightened by the bridge rumble, he had chosen the twisting river-bed track.

Mug’s Luck

Discovering that I was getting along famously and knowing that this part of the common was as bare of feed as a city street, I determined to push on until Dick regained consciousness. And now there was the white painted long bridge, making me debate which crossing I would take, and before I had made any decision, the leaders reached the bridge. Now they were on it, their hoofs sounding hollowly on the loose flooring. One of the body mules snorted. Now the shafters, now the wagon itself was on the bridge. I clung to the brake handle, praying that if they bolted, they would draw the wagon over the bridge on my side. Then, when halfway across, Dick roared, and the team instantly stopped. I looked up, and I saw his face peering over the edge of the supplies mountain. His frozen eyes were gazing down, down beyond me, down to the riverbed 50 feet below the bridge.

The team was halted. Several of the mules were snorting like donkeys. The leaders looked likely enough to turn and rush back. Dick’s voice was a faint whisper. “Go on— gat ’em off the bridge,” he implored, incapable of any other thought, and mentally and physically frozen with horror— in a place where angels would fear to tread. Six feet on either side of the wagon was a 50-foot drop! We would have been across the bridge had he not come to. I was now as windy as poor Dick, who was enduring a nightmare. But with unmeasured luck, although three of the team began to plunge, the leaders pulled straight, as did the shafters. Once we were clear of the bridge, Dick stopped the team and very nearly fell off the load. In Chinese, he described my ancestors back for five hundred years, danced with rage, and rushed away to return to the hotel.

Thereabouts was no place to camp, even if I did successfully manage to unharness the team, and even if I had done this, it would have been impossible to harness them in the morning, new chum as I was. There was nothing else for it but to accept the gamble and push on to the out-station singlehanded, despite two bad creeks to cross.

Yet babies, drunken men, and new chums seldom come to harm.

Taking the team onto the out-station, I thought, was something heroic. But the fellows could not see it. All they could visualise was Dick looking over the edge of the ration mountain down to the dry bed of the river. But to One Spur Dick I owed a thorough breaking in, the acquisition of a new and up-to-date foreign language and the catching of opal gouging fever for which I gained £370 of opal, but that’s for another story!

Excerpt from MY LIFE OUTBACK – available from ETT Imprint at $24.95 – email Tom Thompson at ettimprint@hotmail.com

Four years after the establishment of the Department of Mines in 1894, it bore little resemblance to the tiny Mining Branch which had started operation within the Department of Lands and Surveys in Perth Western Australia.

Patrick PELLY

Mr. Patrick Pelly, a clerk with the Department, was remembered as a reserved, courteous and obliging old fellow; however, he was without a doubt one of the Departments most intriguing employees. Born Frank Pearson in Mexico in 1837, he arrived in Australia in the early 1860s and proceeded to commit a series of armed robberies and murders in Queensland and New South Wales, operating under the alias ‘Captain Starlight’. He was arrested and convicted and he served more than sixteen years in gaol on his release, he assumed the identity of a fellow prisoner and also took on the title of Major.

By the time he joined the Western Australia Public Service in 1896, he had been immortalised in Rolf Boldrewood’s novel ‘Robbery Under Arms (1888) and he wore a leather band around his right wrist to disguise one of his many bullet wounds. His true identity was only revealed after his death, from accidental poisoning in Dec 1899.

Evening Journal Adelaide 26 December 1899, page 3

Mount Barker Courier and Onkaparinga and Gumeracha Advertiser SA23 November 1900, page 2

The Bushranger – Image SLWA

Kalgoorlie Miner, Tuesday 24 December 1901, page 6

The growth of the business of Armstrong’s Cycle Agency ever since its inception has been astonishing,  and it would probably be a very difficult matter to find a parallel case. The firm, which is the oldest in this line of business on the goldfields, commenced operations in a very small way, and its rapid expansion necessitated the firm securing those’ commodious premises now occupied by them. Right from the start, the firm has handled the best makes of cycles and, realising that the best is the cheapest, it still continues to deal in them.

As large and good assortments are always kept in stock, intending purchasers can rely upon receiving a good article at a reasonable price. One of the main features of the firm is that it is always at the forefront in stocking the latest novelties and improvements. The Raleigh cross-frame bicycle, which has caught on in England, is likely to catch on in Kalgoorlie and the surrounding districts, as the firm is doing good business in this make of cycle. For repairs and enamelling, the firm’s work is unequalled, having the best-equipped plant and best mechanics and enamellers in the State. A large assortment of the latest novelties in accessories is always kept in stock. The management of the firm’s business is excellent, and clients can always rely upon receiving the best attention and civility.

Armstrong Cycle Agency Machinery Room 1899 – Image TROVE

Daily News, Wednesday 20 August 1902, page 2

---

ARMSTRONG’S CYCLE AGENCY.
AN UP-TO-DATE FIRM.

One of the most imposing structures in the business heart of Perth is that occupied by Mr P. W. Armstrong, which commands the attention of all passers-by on the north side of Hay Street, nearly opposite the Theatre Royal. Armstrong’s Cycle Agency is the name by which the business is more familiarly known, and it may be at once stated that the general suggestion of up-to-dateness with which the outside of the new premises is identified is fully borne out by the completely stocked interior, both as regards the show-rooms and the various branches of cycle manufacture hidden from the general view.

Armstrongs Cycle Agency, Hay Street, Perth – The Western Mail Christmas Number 1899 – Image TROVE

Group Containing Mr Armstrong and Perth Staff – The Western Mail Christmas Number 1899 – Image TROVE

Established by Mr P. W. Armstrong (now on a business cum-pleasure tour of the old world) in 1894, the Agency has, during its nine years existence, made remarkable strides in importance as one of the industrial factories of the State.

Percival William Armstrong – The Western Mail Christmas Number 1899 – Image TROVE

From the original small depot, the present agency grew, and can now boast of six large branches, Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Kanowna, Menzies, Boulder City, and Fremantle being the centres at which they are located. At the same time, Mr Armstrong has agencies in over one hundred towns in the State. He has devoted years of business energy and enterprise towards the improvement of his business in every direction, and the practice of his excellent theories has brought with it its own reward, that of the attainment of a status of the greatest importance in its own particular line.

Armstrong Cycles Bay at The Coolgardie Exhibition – 1899 – Image TROVE

D Short (left), Manager of the Kalgoorlie Branch and E Jones, Manager Menzies Branch. – Image TROVE

Mr C. L. Mason (left), Manager, Perth branch and J. W. Beck, Kanowna Branch Manager – Image TROVE

In 1903, the business was to branch out into importing motor cars, later to be known as the Armstrong Cycle and Motor Agency

5 Horsepower Prescott Steam car. Western Mail Saturday 9 May 1903, page 24 – Image TROVE

8 Horse Power, De Dion Tonneau Light Car Western Mail Saturday 9 May 1903, page 24 Image TROVE

The Original Armstrong’s Cycle Building in Hannan Street, Kalgoorlie – 2019 – Image M Sharp

Death from Typhoid Fever was common around the turn of the 19th century. Many of the victims were fit young men who could succumb to the disease and perish very quickly, as this story of a young Police Constable, who had been on the Goldfields less than 6 months, will tell. The following is an extract from the Admission Register of the Kalgoorlie Hospital:

Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital Register – Image M Sharp

From the Kalgoorlie Miner, 24th March 1900-   The death took place yesterday, 23rd March 1900, at the Government Hospital of a member of the Kalgoorlie Police Force, Const Edward Tindall. Typhoid was the cause of death after a brief but severe illness, which Mr Tindall’s fine physique could not successfully resist. The deceased, who was highly regarded by his officers and comrades, was unmarried, about 24 years of age, and a native of New Zealand, in which colony his father is a minister of the Church of England. The funeral is to take place at 3. o’clock this afternoon.

Regimental Number 478 (courtesy of  WA Police Historical Soc)
Born:   March 10 1874, Place:  New Zealand – Height:   6ft  – Eyes:   Grey  –  Hair:  Brown  –  Complexion: Fair – Appearance:   Ordinary  –   Status:  Single   –  Religion:  C/E  – Calling: Labourer

Edward Tindall Obituary

In 2010, the headstone of Edward Tindall, which was in a poor state, was restored by family members. The headstone had been broken and repaired, but further restoration was required to bring it back to its original condition. The following photograph shows the headstone in 1900, surrounded by Edwards fellow officers.

Grave of Constable Edward Tindall in the Kalgoorlie Cemetery, 1900 – Image TROVE

The Headstone before and after restoration:

Family members pose with the restored headstone in 2010

The Truth Perth – 14 April 1906, page 4

As I entered the precincts of the camp at Kurnalpi the dishes were rattling with a venomous din that would have caused a new chum to look around with a view to keeping clear of where the bees were swarming. The rattling, however, was a sign for a roll up, which was to assemble the diggers to deal with any matter in a public manner. A mandate, which though not issued by legal responsible tribunal, no digger ever disobeyed. Joining the stream of men hurrying to a central point, I found a large concourse of more than a hundred assembled outside Lindsey’s store.

The roll up had been called for the purpose of dealing with a dishonest digger named Winterbottom, who received a fair trial such as would have been given in a court of law. He stood in an empty wagon with the members of the tribunal standing around with the accuser in their midst. The president, Billy Minter, an erstwhile professional Pugalist and then a lucky digger and discoverer of the gully named after him, addressed the crowd. He set forth the accusation against the prisoner.

It appeared that Winterbottom and his mate had been working with a rocker in one of the gullies, but with apparent poor results. So poor indeed that the mate, who was young and somewhat green, had been unable to pay his store account, it had been running for some three months. The storekeeper had demanded settlement from the man, who replied that he could not pay as he did not have the wherewithal. The storekeeper commented on this as very strange, as he and his mate seemed as good as gold, and the latter, the accused, having not only paid his account in gold but had sent through him, the storekeeper, a quantity of the precious metal to be placed to his credit in a Victorian bank. The young man assured the storekeeper that he had nothing; the storekeeper’s books were referred to, and it was made evident that Winterbottom had been keeping back the gold mostly in slugs and sending it away for his sole benefit.

The quantity accounted for was about 100 ounces

There were no police stationed at Kurnalpi at the time in 1896, and in this matter, it would not have been of concern if there had been. A complaint was lodged with the ‘Diggers Committee’ and the man Winterbottom summerly arrested. It transpired that he had always worked on the face in the mine, and the mate worked the rocking machine. Winterbottom’s eyes were keen as was his method of secretion. He was able to secure all the gold before the wash went through the machine. Kurnalpi prospectors will remember it was a sluggy field on which the bulk of the alluvial gold was won by specking.
The prisoner had no defence, he was an oldish man, a pitiable object as he stood bareheaded with sloping shoulders, bent head and shrinking body, he was the embodiment of dejected guilt before the manly and determined fellows surrounding him. The case against him was clear, and the court retired to confer. Then arose a demonstration against the prisoner which, if his hair were not already grey, would have turned so. One man advanced to the wagon, brandishing a rifle and yelling at the top of his voice

‘shoot the cow’, shoot the ‘crimson cur’,

The cry being taken up by many others, another digger climbed up onto the store building to a beam used for hoisting from wagons and ran a rope through the block and put a noose in the dangling end. “That’s it, hang him, hang the blanky waster” was the general cry. In the midst of the uproar, the president mounted the cart and called for order. Instantly, there was a dead silence, a solemn hush. The court ordered that the thief should make restitution to his mate by signing all papers necessary to obtain the value of the stolen gold from the bank in Victoria and to pay all costs. He was to be deprived of his share in the claim and forfeit it to his mate. He was also to make a ‘voluntary’ hospital contribution of 10% on all the claims output.

After signing the papers, the accused would be retained in custody until the morning and then banished from the diggings. Waving an arm to the crowd, the president said, “I’ve noticed one or two men working themselves into a passion; these had better be kept cool, there is going to be no violence, the man is old and the father of family, the penalty is just and is the decision of the committee which speaks with the authority of the diggers. I warn you to abide by it. If the prisoner refuses to obey your ruling, we will give him 24 hours to clear out. After that, you can do what you like with him!”

This was a death sentence, and the crowd dispersed. The accused was led away by two miners, the papers were signed, and the next day, he was escorted to Coolgardie with the instructions

to keep on going west, fast!

The Sun Kalgoorlie, WA 30 July 1916, page 4

MT REMARKABLE:  The inability of a party of Perth politicians and pressmen who were motoring in the locality to see any eminence. Mr. Marshall recalled a story told by Charlie Webb, late of the Granites, Yundamindera, via Pindinnie. Out near the Granites was an auriferous patch named ‘Mt Remarkable’, where a small rush occurred in about 1902. Out to it drove a party of Kalgoorlie prospectors, businessmen, and the usual coterie of mining sharks. When they arrived at the scene of the find, Paddy Whelan, one of the businessmen who had gone out to secure a few options for a local syndicate, asked where the mountain was situated. “There ain’t one” answered Charlie. “But it’s marked Mt. Remarkable on the map,” said Paddy Whelan. “Quite so,” agreed Charlie, “and that’s why we gave it that name.” “But why Mount Remarkable?” protested Paddy. “Because,” said Charlie,

“it is so remarkable that there isn’t any mountain here at all”

Sunday Times 8 January 1922, page 14
In Perth, on one of his happy, Bohemian holidays. Charlie Webb, prospector, publican, and all-around good fellow. Charlie is one who has never refused a fifty of flour and a case of tinned meat to a deserving battler and is known as “his-word’s-his-bond” Webb wherever men have carried a swag, swamped it, twisted the dishes, or belted quartz, and he was an attractive raconteur (vocal or on copy paper), the equal of anyone in the Commonwealth.

Sketch of Henry Lawson and Charlie Webb (on right) from “When I was King” 1905 – Photo Project Gutenberg

Yilgarn Merredin Times 16 December 1922, page 2

The Bulletin Hotel 
by Henry Lawson

The Bulletin Hotel, Yundamindera – Photo SLWA

I was drifting in the drizzle past the Cecil in the Strand
Which, I’m told, is very tony – and its front looks very grand
And somehow fell a-thinking of a pub I know so well
Of a place in West Australia called The Bulletin Hotel

Just a little six-room shanty built of corrugated tin
And all around the blazing desert – land of camels, thirst, and sin
And the landlord is “the spider” – Western diggers know him well
Charlie Webb – Ah, there you have it! – of the Bulletin Hotel

‘Tis a big soft-hearted spider in a land where life is grim
And a web of great good nature that brings worn-out flies to him
‘Tis the club of many lost souls in the wide Westralian hell
And the stage of many Mitchells is The Bulletin Hotel

But the swagman, on his uppers, pulls an undertaker’s mug
And he leans across the counter, and he breathes in Charlie’s lug
Tale of thirst and of misfortune. Charlie knows it, and – ah, well!
But it’s very bad for business at The Bulletin Hotel

“What’s a drink or two?” says Charlie, “and you can’t refuse a feed”
But there are many a drink unpaid for, many sticks of borrowed weed
And the poor old spineless bummer and the broken-hearted swell
knows that they are sure of tucker at The Bulletin Hotel

There’s the liquor and the licence and the “carriage” and the rent
And the sea or grave ‘twixt Charlie and the fivers he had lent
And I’m forced to think in sorrow, for I know the country well
That the end will be the bailiff in The Bulletin Hotel

But he’ll pack up in a hurry, and he’ll seek a cooler clime
If I make a rise in England and I get out there in time
For a mate o’ mine is Charlie, and I stayed there for a spell
And I own more than a jingle to The Bulletin Hotel

But there’s lots of graft between us, there are many miles of sea
So, if you should drop by Charlie, just shake hands with him for me
Say, I think the bush is less lonely than the great town where I dwell
And – grander than the Cecil is The Bulletin Hotel

The original manuscript of ‘The Bulletin Hotel’ was found in July 2003 in Perth, in a house previously the home of the past Premier, Phil Collier, who was a great admirer of Lawson. The poem features Lawson’s friend, Charlie Webb. Webb did not open his “Bulletin Hotel” until 1900, but he ran a few Goldfields pubs and Bertha Lawson (Lawson’s wife) herself would return to the Bulletin Hotel in 1905 after her separation from Lawson to work for Charlie Webb.

Lawson wrote the poem in London in 1901 when he was feeling homesick. Charlie would have no doubt written to Lawson telling him of the opening of his latest pub. The Bulletin Hotel at Yudamindra in the WA Goldfields. Lawson would have reflected on Charlie’s good nature and was sure to have him in mind when he wrote “A Bush Publicans Lament” and “The Lost Soul’s Hotel”

Ref: the book ‘Into the West” When Australia’s bush poet Henry Lawson came to Western Australia’ Featuring stories by Henry Lawson and other writers in Western Australia 1890-1930 Edited by Chris Holyday (available from Hesperian Press)

The only marker on the grave of Charlie Webb – Anglican Section, Kalgoorlie Cemetery – Photo Danelle Warnock

Life in the Australian Backblocks by Edward S Sorenson

THE STOCKMAN

“‘Twas merry ‘mid the blackwoods when we spied the station roofs,
To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard,
With a running fire of stockwhips, and a fiery run of hoofs—
Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard.”
by Adam Lindsay Gordon.

Image – Fossil Downs Station by Roger Garwood and Trish Ainslie

The stockman holds the same place in Australia as the cowboy in the western plains of America, and in Old World eyes, no picture of Australia is complete without him. He is every whit as wild and reckless, as daring among wild horses and cattle, as his cousin of the ranch, and has proved himself a more skilled artist in buckjump riding. He has never adopted the lasso, the Bowie-knife, or the six-shooter (except when scrub-running and buffalo-hunting), though in the early days, when the native’s spear and boomerang waited for him on his bush rides, he was seldom without the necessary equipment for a battle royal; but with the stockwhip and tomahawk, he is a master.

One of his pastimes when waiting on a cattle camp is ‘tomahawk-throwing’ at a small mark on a tree. The mark is about three inches in diameter, and the object is to bury the blade in it from a distance of twenty to forty feet while galloping. Another and more dangerous feat is for two to stand a few yards apart and engage in a tomahawk duel, each catching the weapon by the handle as it revolves rapidly towards him. A slight slip would mean a nasty cut, and a miss would probably result in his head being split open. One of his favourite feats with the stockwhip is the whipping of a sixpence into the air and catching it while riding along. At times, stockmen have been known to stand in front of a tree and cut out their names or the station brand on the smooth bark with their whip thongs. I have heard of the man, too, who could

cut the eye out of a flying mosquito without touching his eyelash!

but I never met him. Like the drover, the stockman is a prominent feature in country life, and the most important in the personnel of the cattle station. He is a happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care individual. His god is his horse; without that noble animal, he is like the domestic duck that has no waterhole. He may be unemployed and penniless, but as long as he has a horse and saddle—and he’ll have them somehow—he won’t lose any sleep through worry. Having grown up and lived most of his waking life on the pigskin, he considers himself disgraced if compelled to travel on foot; if he has to go to a place half a mile away, he will walk a mile to catch a horse to ride there. More than that, if the horse is a hard one to catch, he is likely to spend half a day chasing him round the paddock, and with running and walking and dodging cover, a good twenty miles in the time. I remember asking a stockman, who was idling at a wayside hotel, if he was going to the sports—a grass-fed meeting that was being held in the locality. “I wanted to go badly,” he said, “but blessed if I can rake up a horse anywhere. I humped my bridle and saddle over to Murphy’s this morning, thinking to get one of his young uns, but they were all turned out. So I’m stuck.” Murphy’s was two miles away, and the racecourse was one mile. But it wasn’t etiquette for a well-known stockman like him to go to the meeting on foot!

The finest riders and the wildest spirits are found in the backblocks. Their most favoured rig-out consists of snow-white, tight-fitting mole-skins, a coloured shirt, a black coat, light cossacks, and a gaudily-coloured silk neckerchief. Leggings, once universally worn, have pretty well gone out of fashion, but the long-necked spurs are inseparable from the stockman’s heels. They jingle him to dinner, and they keep time to his pirouetting in the dance-room. When he removes his boots at night, the spurs are still strapped on them; if he is camping out, he very often sleeps in them. The thinking end of him is decked with an expansive cabbage-tree or a broad-leafed felt hat, something like the sombrero of the cowboy. He is a picturesque fellow, and not a bad sort, with all his whims and fancies. He is good-hearted and hospitable, and, though he has a mild contempt for a man who cannot ride a bucking horse down a precipice, he is at all times generous enough to give assistance and advice to a novice, especially to lads who are beginning a station career.

On many of the big cattle stations, more than half the stockmen are Aborigines. They make excellent horsemen, are marvellously quick in a yard, keen-sighted, and are at home in any part of the bush. These supple-jointed, nimble-fingered gentry can pick up the smallest objects from the ground while riding at full speed. They fraternise like brothers with the others, though sometimes they have separate quarters by choice.

The first thing one hears at daylight in the morning on any big cattle station is the thundering clatter of hoofs as the horse-boy comes racing in with the big mob of horses. Immediately after breakfast, the boss and the head stockman appear, and the men follow to the yard, each with a bridle on his arm. Every man has six or eight horses, which are practically his own property for the time being. No man may put a bridle on another man’s horse without permission, and this applies to all, from the overseer down to the horse-boy. They swap among themselves, often giving something to boot, which may take the form of money, a pair of spurs, tobacco, or other commodities. Some peculiarity in the action of a horse may be distasteful to one rider, while being appreciated by another, and so the exchange is agreeable to both. In the case of a slow, rough-paced, or a nasty-tempered horse, the temporary owner has considerable difficulty in trading it for a more satisfactory animal. He may, however, possess a good stockwhip, fancy pipe, pocket-knife, patent spurs, or even a nice-shaped cabbage-tree hat, which has taken the other’s fancy, and by throwing in one or more of these items, the deal is brought about. The inclusion of bridles or saddles in the deal also, at times, bridges the gulf between the values of two horses. I have known new chums, learning to ride, pay away a good portion of their wages to get rid of bucking horses, or in tobacco, as fees to good riders to take the rough edge off their mounts in the mornings by giving them a rooting round the yard.

When a draft of lately broken colts is brought in from the spelling paddock, they are distributed among the men and are schooled in slack times and ridden on “short days.” The catching and mounting in the mornings is, at all times, attractive to the stranger. The horse-yards are generally two large squares, connected by a little catching-yard, which has a gate at each end. The horses run through it from one square to the other, while the stockmen stand by with their bridles. Each one calls out “Block” as the particular horse he wants is run in, and both gates are closed. Even the little native boy, whose head shows just above the bottom rail, has the privilege of choosing for himself, so far as his own batch of horses is concerned. As the horses are ridden in turn and spelled in batches for three or four months every year, they are always fresh. Consequently, a morning seldom passes without two or three brisk sets-to at the stables. Some of them are vicious brutes, and can be depended on to buck into the days of their old age, having a fly every time a saddle is put on them. Quiet old stagers are rare. Every year, a fresh batch of young ones is broken in, and the old, slow, and defective animals are fattened and sold off; so the station always has a supply of rough mounts on hand that require skilled riders to deal with.

Between the general musterings, the work at the head station is not hard. Though the stockmen start out early in the mornings, they are often back early in the afternoon, and can then amuse themselves as they please till the next day. It is common to see the whole troop marching down to the river with towels for a swim after their day’s ride. The home run is subdivided into many paddocks—as the house-paddock, horse-paddock, bull-paddock, and stud-paddock; and there are separate paddocks for heifers, weaners, bullocks, fats, and pig-meaters or culls. There is always something to do among these different herds, and in summertime, the creeks, lagoons, and waterholes have to be watched, and bogged cattle pulled out.

With the fences, or any job not connected with stock, they have nothing to do; there are men kept specially for that purpose. The personnel of the average station comprises, apart from stockmen, a gardener, cook, bullock-driver, carpenter, blacksmith, ploughman, groom, and a couple of fencers. But the stockmen have to join forces when bushfires break out, which occur pretty frequently in summer. For days and nights, for a week at a stretch, these fires are sometimes fought, every available hand doing battle against the annual foe of the pastures. You will see fifty men retreating before a long line of flame, belting at it with bags and bushes whenever a chance offers in short grass; boys follow with the horses, or ride to and fro with buckets and bags of water for the men, whilst others follow the fences, chopping burning portions off posts and rails and removing lighted timber.

“We are going out to Horans to see the pigs get drunk. Today is the day they get the loads of hop grains from the brewery”.

The grains were tipped out on the ground, and about 300 pigs of assorted sizes gorged on the potent mass with the greatest of enthusiasm, after which they gave a striking imitation of their human brothers who consume too much of the brewery’s products. It was quite unbelievable! Pigs got too drunk to stand up. Sociable pigs leaned against each other, grunted, then fell over and snored together. Nasty pigs fought each other, and the bouts were all similar. One pig would fall over or get knocked over and could not get up, and other blurry-eyed pigs would fall over him.

They lay singly and in heaps, mostly on their backs with their legs sticking up in the air, all snoring, 300 snoring at once! A few of the valiant leaned against the fence and slept, but all gradually toppled and joined the snorers. The only thing I can compare it with was the one staged by humans during the beer strike in Kalgoorlie in 1897. At this time, the Palace Hotel was being built. The Exchange Hotel across the road was an iron building with a line of two horse cabs in front of it, with the drivers shouting, “Right away to the Boulder, two bob to the Block”. They were shovelling two feet of red dust off Hannan Street and replacing it with stone from the old shafts on Mt Charlotte. I believe there were 30,000 men in Kalgoorlie and Boulder at the time. No picture shows, motor cars, trams or lipstick and the parade of youth and beauty along the two chain-wide street I never saw equalled anywhere. It was a joy to behold and a sight to see.

Then came the beer strike for a sixpenny pot. The brewery-owned pubs and the company-owned pubs held out for ninepence. I think it was ‘The Black Swan Hotel’ that sold pots for fourpence whilst the fun lasted. Several of the hotels gave in and sold beer for sixpence. One publican got married and gave it away for nothing. Other pubs had free beer intervals. They brought beer up from Perth, Bunbury and every brewery in WA. All the Dryblowers, soaks, and prospectors came in from all directions, and they celebrated. Beer in Kalgoorlie for sixpence, fourpence and nothing a pot!

They drank manfully and lay where they fell just like the pigs. Believe me or not, when a horse team or vehicle went along Hannan Street, the driver had to stop and drag the drunks out of the way to get a passage for his team. The sulkies nimbly dodged the sleepers. Alongside the footpaths lay rows of drunks, dumped there by cursing vehicle drivers.

I never saw anything to equal these two beastly mass inebriations, the humans of Kalgoorlie forty-three years ago and the pigs of Mt Malcolm two years ago.

By Sixteenth of Pemberton

At the age of 36 years in 1901, James decided to head to Australia to seek his fortune/adventure like so many before him. He arrived first in Western Australia and set up in partnership with Charles Bullivant in Boulder, WA. He later spent some years travelling around Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania.

James Errington ROBSON (front) and Charlie Bullivant in Boulder, WA, c1901 – Photo Alison Dixon -Photo taken by Roy Millar

Charlie Bullivant and John Robson were both ‘racing men’, and this may have initially drawn them together. The two men, along with four others whose names are not known, made up the party.

James Errington ROBSON (front of camel) and Charlie Bullivant and the other members of the prospecting party in Boulder, WA, c1901 – Photo Alison Dixon – Photo taken by Roy Millar

James returned to England from his travels on the Orient Line ‘The Orsova’ on 1 Nov 1911. He returned to his hometown, and in 1917, he married Elizabeth Jane SUTHERLAND, who was 22 years his junior. They had one son, another James Errington Robson, born on 3 May 1928, who is one of my correspondents. He took up the occupation of hotelier, and at the time of his death in 1932, he was running Loves Hotel, Crook, Co Durham and had just left the Prince of Wales Hotel, in Willington, Co Durham, England. In his obituary in his local paper, it states:

An Adventurous Career
Funeral at Willington of James Robson

Taken at Chatswood, NSW, in 1909 – John E Robson, back row, far left. – Image John Robson.

The remains of James Robson were interred at the Willington Cemetery yesterday afternoon. He leaves a widow and a young son to mourn his loss, and the sympathy of all is extended. As a young man, Mr Robson emigrated from Willington to Australia and spent many years in various Goldfields. In Western Australia, he was acquainted with several gold discoveries, including Messrs Bailey and Ford, who obtained over 500ozs of gold in one afternoon with the aid only of a pick.

From a desert where water is cost by the bucketful, and cabbages are 2/6d each, Mr Robson saw the city of Coolgardie rise, followed by the building of Kalgoorlie, the town of ‘The Golden Mile’ fame. He also travelled extensively in South Africa with Johannesburg as his headquarters. Mr Robson was proud of the fact that he knew Mr T. G. (Smiler) Hales, the noted mining assayer, author, and war correspondent, who was introduced to him in Sydney. Mr Robson’s interest in sport was towards the turf, and he saw both the Melbourne and Sydney cups on several occasions.

It’s not known if the Robson Bullivant Prospecting Team was successful or not. Robson and Bullivant may not even have gone on the expedition themselves but only funded (grubstaked) the miners as far as equipment, etc and then took a portion of their profits, if any. I have not been able to find out anything about this, but hopefully, he made enough to have his ‘adventure’.

S S Orsova – Photo Wikipedia

Norseman Times 29 May 1908, page 2
A telegraph was received at Cue from Burnakurra, stating that a trucker who was employed at the Wha GM at Errolls was killed. It also stated that the body was buried at Errolls and that no inquest was opened. The newspaper three days later reported – “In the circumstances, it will be necessary, so that the jury may view the body, to exhume the remains. The actions of those responsible for the premature burial are wholly inexplicable, in view of the fact that a police officer is stationed at Barrambie, a few miles distant”.

Norseman Times 29 May 1908, page 2

It appeared the fatality was preceded by a very peculiar combination of circumstances. Smith had a contract for hauling dirt from an open cut, which was completed on the day previous to his death. He, however, at the request of the management, agreed to work another shift, and should, in the ordinary course, have gone to work at two o’clock, the usual hour, and ceased at 10 p.m. For some reason, however, he was unable to commence until two hours later, when his attention was drawn to the fretting of the ground by some Italians. Smith continued working, and at 11 p.m., about two hundred tons of earth fell away. Smith was killed, also his horse pulling the trucks, and his dog. Had Smith been able to commence work at the usual time, he would have knocked off at 10 p.m., an hour before the accident. It is thought the fall was due to the recent heavy rains percolating the ground.

Errolls near Sandstone-Frederick SMITH Photo by Tricia and Ian James 2006 (Flowers by Nature)

Frederick William Smith died 21 May 1908, aged 33yrs at the Wha Gold Mine at Errolls in the Sandstone district. – buried at Errolls by John Pooley. Witnesses present at the burial were Charles H Driver and John Looney. Death certified by Howard Bryden Smith (brother of the deceased) at Barrambie. Smith was a miner who was accidentally killed by a fall of earth at the Wha Goldmine. Born at Fords, South Australia, son of Isabella (nee Graham) and James Neilson Smith (Farmer).  At the inquest, a verdict of accidental death was returned with no blame attached to any person.

Note:- Steve Rogers (Author of ‘No Sign of the Time) said that many years later, in the mine in which Smith was killed, Bluey Woinar (who is my husband’s Great Uncle) from Menzies, had found a revolver under a mass of quartz with one shot fired and five bullets still in the gun. So doubts arise as to whether Smith was killed by a bullet or the quartz fall. It is thought that he may have been buried alive and had taken his own life rather than slowly perish. In recent years, Steve Rogers cleared up the gravesite and repaired the headstone.

NOTE: Errolls is sometimes referred to as Errols. It is along the Meekatharra Sandstone road.