Gudarra is a an abandoned Eastern Goldfields townsite located approximately 30kms north north west of Kalgoorlie.
Children’s March at the Paddington State School
Gold was first discovered here in 1892, the place firstly being known as the ‘Sore Foot Rush’, a reference to the tired limping diggers who first arrived when the rush began. This was soon changed to Paddington, the reason for the choice of this name being unknown. It was gazetted as the townsite of Paddington in 1897. In 1911 Commonwealth authorities attempted to eliminate all duplicated town names in Australia and Paddington was one of those suggested for renaming. The secretary for mines suggested renaming it to Goodarra and then this was amended to Gudarra by the Surveyor General. Gazettal of the new name occurred in 1912. Although the townsite was renamed the area is still known as Paddington as is the mine in the area.
The following publication, The Saga of Paddington Gold, by Austin Sprake is the only book on the town and was never available for public sale. It doesn’t have an ISBN number. If you would like to read it you can purchase a copy through used.addall.com used and rare books or through your local library loan.
The Saga of Paddington Gold by Austin Sprake
Moya Sharp
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The attire of the diggers on the cover of the book is interesting and seems to be different from the clothing of diggers in other goldfields images. There’s probably a story that will never be told about the Paddington attire
Hi Barrie Yes I agree that the drawing is not a very good representation of the normal attire of miners. I would say it has been used by the printer as a ‘representation of a gold miner’ but this looks more american perhaps! Like you say we will never know. Not many of these books around.