Lasseter Looks for a “Missing Friend”

Pearl Bell  by Chris Clark

In Chris Clark’s research into Lewis Hubert Lasseter, his research also threw up Kalgoorlie connexion regarding the Sharkey family.

On two successive days in July 1920, the columns of Western Australia’s ‘Kalgoorlie Miner’ newspaper – the “Voice of the Goldfields”—carried a ‘Missing Friends’ notice that read:

Pearl BELL, last heard of at Tower Hotel, Kalgoorlie, June 1917, or anyone knowing her address, please communicate with Lewis H. Lasseter, Fuller’s Hotel, Bourke St, Melbourne.¹

A decade after this notice appeared, Lewis Hubert Lasseter would become nationally famous (or notorious) as Lewis Harold Bell (“Harry”) Lasseter (1880-1931) who went in search of a rich reef of gold in Central Australia which he had purportedly found and ‘lost’ in his youth.² Historians, journalists, and other writers researching the life and career of one of Australia’s most dubious folk heroes have often pondered the meaning of his seemingly innocent inquiry after an old friend. Who was Pearl Bell, and how and when had she become associated with the quixotic Mr. Lasseter?

The old Tower Hotel (above) on the corner of Maritana and Bourke Streets in Kalgoorlie from 1899 until it was demolished to make way for a new hotel of the same name, opened in 1976. This drawing, published in Australian Pubs by John Larkins & Bruce Howard (Adelaide: Rigby, 1973), was made by former Polish soldier Michael Szymatowicz (1915-1986) sometime after he arrived in Australia in 1948.

Importantly, there was a Pearl Bell living in the twin cities of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in 1917, but by then she had been known as a married woman for more than a year. In January 1916 she had become engaged to a local businessman named Myles Stephen Sharkey,³ who was the proprietor of the Cash Furniture Stores in Hamilton Street, Boulder, established by his late father Lawrence (1844-1912).⁴ Three months later, on 27 April, the couple married in the Roman Catholic Church at Kellerberrin, a town in the Wheatbelt region 390 kilometers west of Kalgoorlie.⁵

On 25 March 1917, Mrs Pearl Sharkey gave birth at her home at 7 Richardson Street, Boulder, presenting her husband with a first son they named Lawrence Bell Sharkey.⁶ Two months later, local newspapers at Kalgoorlie announced that Pearl had taken the infant on a three months visit to her sister, Mrs A. J. Langdon, who lived at Erikin, located about 40 kilometers south of Kellerberrin, and midway between Bruce Rock and Quairading.⁷

In this sequence of closely-spaced domestic events, there is little to indicate how an opportunity might have arisen for Lewis Lasseter and Pearl Bell to become acquainted—particularly under her maiden name—about the time indicated by the “missing friends” notice. However, further research helps disclose links that provide not only a possible explanation for what occurred, but also the most likely answer to the mystery.

Press accounts of the Sharkey-Bell nuptials in April 1916 state that Pearl Bell was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. Bell, of Tuttet Street, Creswick, Victoria, and sister of Mrs. Langdon, Kellerberrin, lately of Boulder. Until 1890 Creswick was a gold-mining town 18 kilometers north of Ballarat, itself a major centre during the Victorian gold rushes. Public records show that William John Bell and his wife Catherine née Walsh had nine children between 1870 and 1889, only seven of whom survived past infancy.⁸ Agnes Ellen, born in 1877,⁹ was the elder of two daughters, while Pearl May was the last-born in the family.¹⁰

The historic Queen Victoria Bandstand, dating from 1897, stands on the
main intersection in the centre of Creswick, with the b1862
Post Office building to the left. (Author, 2021)

It was apparently Agnes who began the migration of a part of the Bell clan from Eastern to Western Australia, more than a decade before Pearl, because on 14 December 1904 Agnes married Alfred John Langdon of Boulder City at St. Mary’s Church in West Perth.¹¹ An account of the wedding that appeared in a Ballarat newspaper reported the intriguing news that not just the bride had connections to Creswick, Victoria, but that the groom was the son of ‘the late Mr Joseph Langdon’, formerly of that town.¹²

This information can be confirmed. In 1862 Joseph Langton married Francis (or Fanny as she was also known) née Burridge,¹³ apparently at Ballarat where Joseph was a mining manager for two gold mining companies.¹⁴ After losing their first child in 1863,¹⁵ the couple had another three sons and two daughters by 1875—the last being a son born at Creswick who they registered as ‘Albert John’ but seems to have gone by the first name of Alfred.¹⁶

Surprisingly, the Langdon-Bell marriage contained links to yet another family from the Ballarat district in Victoria. In the press account of the 1904 wedding, it was mentioned that the bride was ‘given away by Mr Wm. Baird (brother-in-law of the bridegroom’. After the ceremony, ‘the reception was held at the residence of Mrs Wm. Baird (sister of the bridegroom), there being some very old friends of the bride present’.¹⁷

Research reveals that Alfred Langton’s sister, Elizabeth Jane,¹⁸ was indeed the wife of William Hutchison Baird (1869-1956), the son of William Baird and Janet Paton of Ballarat.¹⁹ A booklet of family history states that the two had known each other even before arriving in Western Australia—indeed, one of the couple’s sons believed they wed before leaving Ballarat,²⁰ but records show that they actually married at Perth only a matter of months or weeks before Alfred Langton married Agnes Bell.²¹

By that stage William Baird had been resident in WA for nearly a decade, having arrived on the Eastern goldfields in 1895, where he opened hardware stores at Coolgardie in 1895, Kalgoorlie 1897, and Boulder 1898. Joined by three brothers and three sisters, it was only in 1903 that he made the move to Perth to open another store and turn it into a family company, which ultimately became the landmark business popularly known simply as Bairds that operated into the 1960s.

Outside the Baird Store at either Kalgoorlie or Boulder. (State Library WA)

With so many members of the Baird, Langton and Bell families relocating from Victoria to WA, it can be imagined that there would have been steady traffic of visits between the eastern and western seaboards of the Australian continent in the first decades of the 20th century. One of those travellers would likely have been Pearl Bell, even before 1916. While Pearl may not have attended her sister’s wedding in 1904 (when she was aged just 15), she must have visited Agnes in her new life as mistress of “Creswick Farm” at Erikin in the years following. When Kalgoorlie couple Adele Westcott and Peter Tippett married in May 1910, newspaper reports of the occasion noted that Pearl Bell was among the long list of non-attendees who sent a gift²²  – a sure sign that she had established friendships on previous visits to the goldfields district.

A second occasion that might have warranted a visit by Pearl could have been the wedding at Boulder in February 1915 of James Stokes, farmer of Cunderdin some 50 kilometers west of Kellerberrin, to Myles Sharkey’s sister Kate. With his father deceased, Myles led his sister to the altar and gave her away, while brother Bernard Sharkey was the groomsman.²³ Attending an event such as this may have paved the way for a romance between Myles Stephen Sharkey and Pearl which culminated in their engagement early the next year.

On the basis of the available evidence, it now seems most likely that the only opportunity for Pearl Bell to have crossed paths with Lewis Lasseter in June 1917 would have been the three-month trip that she began in May to show off her newborn son to family and friends, beginning at her sister’s home at Erikin.²⁴ After that, it is probable that she headed east to present the child to her parents, who were still living at Creswick. Whichever mode of transport she chose to travel—ship or rail—would have seen her pass through Adelaide, where Lasseter was then working.

Miss Pearl BELL – Ancestry.com

The precise circumstances of any meeting are difficult to visualise: an encounter in a café, perhaps, or on a train, a polite conversation to while away waiting moments, leading to the discovery of shared Victorian origins (Lasseter was born near Meredith, a small town 40 kilometers south of Ballarat). While Pearl may have mentioned her parent’s name was Bell, at 28 she was probably canny enough to not tell a stranger her married name and to deflect a request for her address by referring to somewhere neutral like the Tower Hotel.

By the time Mrs Pearl Sharkey returned to her home in Boulder, she probably did not give a moment’s thought about any brief encounter on her travels and got on with her life as a reputable wife and mother. In 1918 she gave birth to a daughter,²⁵ followed by another son in August 1920.²⁶ In 1924 Pearl delivered another boy named Patrick Myles, but sadly four months later, on 30 September, the child died.²⁷ It was possibly due to that occurrence that Pearl herself died in St. John of God Hospital at Kalgoorlie on 11 August 1925, aged just 36.²⁸ Her husband would outlive her by nearly five decades, dying in 1973.

All of the foregoing begs the question of why Lewis Lasseter was seeking to re-establish contact with Pearl Bell/Sharkey three years after he can have made a fleeting acquaintance with her. It must be noted that in mid-1920 his normal place of residence was Foster in South Gippsland, some 170 kilometers southeast of Melbourne, where he lived in some hardship with his wife and two daughters in a self-built shack on a hill overlooking the town. He had been in South Gippsland since early 1918, lobbying state and federal government authorities to adopt several schemes he was promoting which entailed frequent trips to Melbourne.²⁹ It was probably these visits that account for his use of a transitory address, such as a city hotel, when he decided to contact a woman who was not his wife.

In fact, Lasseter’s marriage was clearly under severe strain in this period, and shortly after the family moved back to Melbourne the following year the relationship collapsed entirely—according to the youngest daughter, by no later than November 1921.³⁰ By January 1924 Lasseter had entered into a bigamous marriage with a 29-year-old nurse whom he had met on a suburban train. She was supposedly the only woman in the train compartment, and Lasseter struck up a conversation with her before lending her the novel he was reading.³¹

Myles Stephen SHARKEY and Pearl May nee BELL – Photo Ancestry.com

All of which was consistent with a pattern of behavior which Lasseter’s family later maintained had begun to manifest itself during the First World War. His eldest daughter claims that from the time Lasseter enlisted for war service in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), in 1916, ‘his whole personality changed—my mother was continually hearing of his numerous infidelities, which he took little trouble to hide’.³² Lasseter’s first period of enlistment came to an abrupt end in October 1916, after two outbursts of misbehavior. The first time he went AWOL (absent without leave) resulted in him spending three months in an army venereal hospital before resuming training; a second AWOL episode led to him being discharged.³³

By June 1917 Lasseter was in South Australia (living apart from his family) while in the employ of W. R. Cave & Co., Grain and General Merchants at Port Adelaide.³⁴ In August he re-enlisted in the AIF, only to be discharged again less than three months later following a street fight in Adelaide with other AIF men. An army medical board, convened to consider his fitness for further military service, found that Lasseter was in a ‘neurotic condition’—’mentally deficient’ even—and recommended him for immediate discharge in November.³⁵

On the basis of the evidence, it might be concluded that whatever interaction took place between Lasseter and Pearl was more likely to have made a greater impression on him than it did her. There is no reason to think, if she ever saw the advertisement in the Miner or had it drawn to her attention, that she either welcomed the attempted contact or responded to it. And it is absolutely certain that there is nothing to show that Lasseter had ever been to Kalgoorlie (or anywhere else on the Eastern Goldfields of WA) in his life.

With thanks to Chris Clark for this very interesting and detailed story.

References

1. Kalgoorlie Miner, 5 and 6 Jul 1920, p. 2.
2. G. P. Walsh, “Lasseter, Lewis Hubert (1880-1931)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 9, Melbourne University Press, 1983.

3. Kalgoorlie Miner, 21 Jan 1916, p. 2; Kalgoorlie Western Argus, 25 Jan 1916, p. 9; Sunday Times (Perth), 30 Jan 1916, p. 9.

4. Daily News (Perth), 1 Sep 1934, p. 21.
5. Kalgoorlie Western Argus, 9 May 1916, p. 9.
6. Western Argus (Kalgoorlie), 24 Apr 1917, p. 15; National Archives of Australia (NAA): A6770 Sharkey L B.

7. Kalgoorlie Miner, 25 May 1917, p. 3; Western Argus (Kalgoorlie), 29 May 1917, p. 1
8. Victoria Births Deaths & Marriages (BDM), marriage reg. no. 3857/1869; birth reg. no. 8122/ 1870, death reg. no. 3977/1870; birth reg. no. 1876/1872; death reg. no. 879/1873.9. Victoria BDM birth reg. no. 8166/1877.

9. Victoria BDM birth reg. no. 2603/1889.
10. Western Australia BDM marriage reg. no. 1744/1904.
11. Ballarat Star, 4 Feb 1905, p. 2.
12. Victoria BDM marriage reg. no. 32/1862.
13. Star (Ballarat), 13 Jul 1864, p. 1; Ballarat Star, 17 Feb 1868, p. 1.
14. Victoria BDM birth reg. no. 18713/1863, death reg. no. 7792/1863.
15. Victoria BDM birth reg. no. 22144/1875.
16. Ballarat Star, 4 Feb 1905, p. 2.
17. Victoria BDM birth reg. no. 534/1867.
18. Victoria BDM birth reg. no. 13209/1869.
19. Rosanne Baird, Try Bairds, privately published booklet, no date but circa 1987 (see http://purl.slwa.wa.gov.au/slwa_b3291089_1), p. 7.

21. WA BDM marriage reg. no. 1721/1904.
22. Kalgoorlie Miner, 27 May 1910, p. 2.
23. Kalgoorlie Miner, 12 Feb 1915, p. 2.
24. Purely coincidentally, Pearl and Agnes’ brother Archibald—single at 31, and shown as a farmer  at ‘Creswick Road, Erikin’—volunteered for the AIF in July 1917 but was rejected as medically unfit for military service (NAA: MT1486/1, Bell/Archibald).

25. Enid Mary (1918-2012), married 1941, Harold Edward Egan Jones; WA BDM birth reg. no. 357/1918; West Australian (Perth), 7 Aug 1941, p. 9; West Australian, 12 Mar 2012.

26. Kevin Joseph (1920-2011), married 1951, Shirley Ann Davis; NAA: A6770, Sharkey K J; West Australian, 17 Jan 1951, p. 11.

27. Kalgoorlie Miner, 1 Oct 1924, p. 4; Boulder cemetery records.
28. Western Argus (Kalgoorlie), 25 Aug 1925, p. 15; Boulder cemetery records.
29. Chris Clark, The truth about Lasseter: why his elusive gold reef never existed, West Geelong: Echo Books, 2019, pp. 88-103.

30. Murray Hubbard, The Search for Harold Lasseter, Pymble, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1993, pp.106-8.

33. Victoria BDM marriage reg. no. 2327/1924; Hubbard, The Search for Harold Lasseter, p. 35.
34. ‘Story of Lewis Hubert Lasseter by his Eldest legitimate daughter Lillian Agnes Hodgetts (1960)  (see https://members.tripod.com/franklee_1/id22.htm).
35. NAA: B2455, Lasseter Lewis Hubert.
36. Hubbard, The Search for Harold Lasseter, p. 83.
37. NAA: B2455, Lasseter Lewis Hubert.

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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