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Thirst or Treachery? The Tragic Fate of Tom Cantwell

13/09/2025 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

Thomas Cantwell Died of Thirst or Foul Play? The following item appeared in the local paper in Camblin, Roscrea, Co Tipperary, Ireland on the 24th Dec 1895: Perished between Norseman and Coolgardie Western Australia, supposed from thirst, Tom Cantwell (43 years), one of the best fellows who ever pulled off a shirt. Poor Tom was […]

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Filed Under: Grave Tales, People, Places, Ripping Yarns & Tragic Tales Tagged With: Australian History, Coolgardie, Goldfields History, Sunday Soak, Western Australia

Paddy Higgins and the Lost Christmas Nugget –

30/08/2025 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

Sunday Times – 25 December 1927, page 40 Paddy Higgins Christmas The Story of a Lost Nugget. By John Meiklejohn. The day after CoIreavy’s and Murphy’s teams from Southern Cross had dumped the first load of gold-hunters’ swags on Fly Spot Flat, Coolgardie, September 1882. Paddy Higgins and Frank Summer, sworn mates and two of […]

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Filed Under: People, Places, Ripping Yarns & Tragic Tales Tagged With: Australian History, Coolgardie, Goldfields History, Grealdton, Western Australia

Digging for Gold – Dying of Fever: A Social History of Typhoid in Western Australia

16/08/2025 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

‘Typhoid Fever’ Many lives on the waterless goldfields of Western Australia were lost, not only from thirst but also from Typhoid Fever. In the 1890s, Typhoid was endemic throughout Australia. It struck at Perth, Western Australia’s capital itself, then in established outlying centres such as Northam and at temporary townships on the road to the […]

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Filed Under: People, Places Tagged With: Australian History, Coolgardie, Goldfields History, Typhoid, Western Australia

A High Time in the Old Town –

09/08/2025 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

Coolgardie was booming, diggers who had struck it rich were as common as sand flies; money was easy to come by and even easier to lose. If you wanted to part with what you had in a hurry, ‘Hughie the Baker’ or ‘Handsome Jack Wilson’, the town’s leading professional gamblers would assist you in your […]

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Filed Under: People, Places Tagged With: Australian History, Coolgardie, Goldfields History, sport, Western Australia

Frederick Vosper – firebrand and agitator

09/08/2025 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

The son of a civil engineer,  Charles Watson Vosper, Frederick Charles Burleigh Vosper was born in St Dominick, Cornwall in England and educated at Truro. He immigrated to Bolivia at the age of 15. Few other details of his early life are known, but in 1885, he was at Devonport serving with the Royal Navy on […]

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Filed Under: People, Places Tagged With: Coolgardie, Goldfields History, Western Australia

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