The following excerpt is from the book by Mrs Arthur H Garnsey called ‘Scarlet Pillows: An Australian Nurse’s Tales of Long Ago’ and is about her memories of being a nurse in Coolgardie in the early days.

The tale of the house that Jack built has his counterpart in Coolgardie in the tale of all that happened after Bailey struck gold and called his lease Bailey’s reward. The rhyme goes something like this:

Bailey’s the man who started the mine,
which started the rush with shovels and pans,
which started the town, first called by his name,
filled with men of all nations, sturdy and game.

Then came the typhoid, then came the hospitals
then came the the batteries making deafening noise.
Then came fortunes then came misfortunes.
And all because Bailey started that mine.

Coolgardie town was well laid out. Most of the houses or shacks were canvas over wooden framework and made so that they could be moved quickly at any time. Also, they were built upon piles so that cooling air could blow under them. It was not an uncommon thing to see houses travelling across the country fixed on rollers and drawn by camel teams. The most original structures were those made entirely of beaten-out kerosene tins nailed to a wooden framework. There were a number of these, some quite large ‘restaurants’ where coffee and hot dogs were to be had at all hours of the day and night. They boasted the grand name of the ‘London and Paris Cafe’, and another was the ‘Hotel Cecil’. Other of these patent tin erections were blacksmith shops and Japanese laundries where clothes were thoroughly ruined by the method of steam cleaning with condensed water and chemicals, after which they were hung out to dry in dust storms, red dust storms, so that any garment that had been once white soon became a pinky red. However, this was the only way that washing could be done practically without water.

Bayley Street, Coolgardie 1895 – Photo SLWA

Coolgardie was a place of seething life and very great contrasts, a city in a sandy desert. They were often groups of natives squatting under the electric light poles, playing euchre while their women begged for ‘Bacca’ from the passersby,

natives and electric light poles seemed to be quite incongruous.

The Afghan settlement camp was on the outskirts of town, and here, sometimes 100 camels would be loaded up with all sorts of tinned foods to be taken inland beyond the railway. The long camel train was a familiar sight, the nose of one camel tied to the tail of the other, and an Afghan walking along the side about every 30th animal. Overall, reigned supreme the great ‘King Dust’, a mixture of the desert sand and the mining dumps, stirred up and whisked together by those boisterous ‘Willy Willy’s’ and penetrating everywhere.

Nurses Quarters Coolgardie Hospital – Photo SLWA

The busiest place of all was the hospital. The first hospital block was built of stone, and there were three other small stone buildings near it, the dispensary, the theatre and the morgue. Then there were long corrugated iron wards built upon piles, and also several canvas wards. A few of these were under the care of special male orderlies, and nurses were not allowed to enter them. As there were few women in the town, only one ward was set apart for them. The nurses’ quarters were two rows of camps. Hessian stretched over wooden frames and lined with cretonne. These roads were familiarly known as ‘Rotten Row’ and ‘Piccadilly’. The loosely woven hessian gave very little protection from the dust storms, and the heat inside those camps was at times so suffocating that it was no unusual thing to throw a mattress outside and lie on the bare wires of the spring bed with an umbrella open over head as slight protection against the dust and sand and a bottle of water and a sponge beside to mop hot dusty faces.

Coolgardie Hospital Buildings 1894 – Photo SLWA

Often, if water dried up, the sponge had to be dampened in lemonade or soda water just to have a clean face for going on duty. Difficulties of hospital work were almost insurmountable due to a lack of water. Ice was brought up from Perth by rail, but the only water available was the strong saltwater pumped up by the mines and put through the condensers. In despair, when the water supply ran out, nurses often tried to cool burning bodies by dampening a sponge in whiskey or Brandy, two liquids of which Coolgardie never ran short.

There were no private wards, English aristocrats, Afghans, Italians, Australia’s rough and tough miners and Chinese; all lay side by side in their beds and all did their best to be cheerful and helpful. The supply of surgical instruments was short, and carpenters’ tools, sterilised in a sort of way, sometimes saved the situation. An ordinary brace and bit were in great demand for boring holes in bones, which had to be wired together. But sad to say,

in spite of all efforts and care, the death rate was very high.

It hurts to say that an entirely true picture of this wonderful mining centre must include a reference to the one street on the outskirts of town through which I happened to walk one day. No description of this street is necessary. It was the street of ‘Maison Tolerees’. The keeping of a certain number of these ‘houses’ was allowed by law. The medical examinations did not keep a check on the awful disease, which demands such a heavy toll. These women were frequently in the hospital, brought in by their ‘bosses’. A few of these unfortunates were Australians, but most were French and Japanese. The latter were such gentle little things with charming ways. However, it was not only the woman who suffered, but also their ‘visitors’. The special ward at the hospital for this kind of disease was always full. The special orderlies in attendance. There were several cases of suicide; however, the cures now used successfully were unknown then.

The kindly reason given at the inquest and on the death certificate was always ‘Insomnia’.

Recommended Reading available from Hesperian Press:
Scarlet Pillows – an Australian nurse’s tale of long ago by Mrs Arthur H. Garnsey
Cobbers of Mine and the Mining Magnate by The Axeman, Alfred E. Wallace

The following excerpt is from the book by Mrs Arthur H Garnsey called ‘Scarlet Pillows: An Australian Nurse’s Tales of Long Ago’ and is about her memories of being a nurse in Coolgardie in the early days.

The tale of the house that Jack built has his counterpart in Coolgardie in the tale of all that happened after Bailey struck gold and called his lease Bailey’s reward. The rhyme goes something like this:

Bailey’s the man who started the mine,
which started the rush with shovels and pans,
which started the town, first called by his name,
filled with men of all nations, sturdy and game.

Then came the typhoid, then came the hospitals
then came the the batteries making deafening noise.
Then came fortunes then came misfortunes.
And all because Bailey started that mine.

Coolgardie town was well laid out. Most of the houses or shacks were canvas over wooden framework and made so that they could be moved quickly at anytime. Also they were built upon piles so that cooling air could blow under them. It was not an uncommon thing to see houses travelling across the country fixed on rollers and drawn by camel teams. The most original structures were those made entirely of beaten out kerosene tins nailed to a wooden framework. There were a number of these, some quite large ‘restaurants’ where coffee and hot dogs were to be had all hours of the day and night. They boasted the grand name of the ‘London and Paris Cafe’ and another was the ‘Hotel Cecil’. Others of these patent tin erections were blacksmith shops and Japanese laundries where clothes were thoroughly ruined by the method of steam cleaning with condensed water and chemicals, after which they were hung out to dry in dust storms ‘red dust storms’, so that any garment that had been once white soon became a pinky red. However, this was the only way that washing could be done practically without water.

Bayley Street, Coolgardie 1895 – Photo SLWA

Coolgardie was a place of seething life and very great contrasts, a city in a sandy desert. They were often groups of natives squatting under the electric light poles playing euchre while their women begged for ‘Bacca’ from the passersby,

natives and electric light poles seemed to be quite incongruous.

The Afghan settlement camp was on the outskirts of town and here sometimes 100 camels would be loaded up with all sorts of tined foods to be taken inland beyond the railway. The long camel train was a familiar sight, the nose of one camel tied to the tail of the other, and an Afghan walking along the side about every 30th animal. Overall reigned supreme the great ‘King Dust’, a mixture of the desert sand and the mining dumps, stirred up and whisked together by those boisterous ‘Willy Willy’s’ and penetrating everywhere.

Nurses Quarters Coolgardie Hospital – Photo SLWA

The busiest place of all, sadly, was the hospital. The first hospital block was built of stone and there were three other small stone buildings near it, the dispensary, the theatre and the morgue. Then there were long corrugated iron wards built upon piles and also a number of canvas wards. A few of these were under the care of special male orderlies and nurses were not allowed to enter them. As there were few women in the town, only one ward was set apart for them. The nurses quarters were two rows of camps. Hessian stretched over wooden frames and lined with cretonne. These roads were familiarly known as ‘Rotten Row’ and ‘Piccadilly’. The loosely woven hessian gave very little protection from the dust storms, and the heat inside those camps was at times so suffocating that it was no unusual thing to throw a mattress outside and lie on the bare wires of the spring bed with an umbrella open over head as slight protection against the dust and sand and a bottle of water and a sponge beside to mop hot dusty faces.

Coolgardie Hospital Buildings 1894 – Photo SLWA

Often if water dried up, the sponge had to be dampened in lemonade or soda water just to have a clean face for going on duty. Difficulties of hospital work were almost insurmountable for lack of water. Ice was brought up from Perth by rail, but the only water available was the strong saltwater pumped up by the mines and put through the condensers. In despair, when the water supply run out, nurses often tried to cool burning bodies by dampening a sponge in whiskey or Brandy, two liquids of which Coolgardie never ran short.

There were no private wards, English aristocrats, Afghans, Italians, Australia’s rough and tough miners and Chinese, all lay side by side in their beds and all did their best to be cheerful and helpful. The supply of surgical instruments were short and carpenters tools, sterilised in a sort of way, sometimes saved the situation. An ordinary brace and bit was in great demand for boring holes in bones which had to be wired together. But sad to say,

in spite of all efforts and care, the death rate was very high.

It hurts to say that an entirely true picture of this wonderful mining centre must include a reference to the one street on the outskirts of town through which I happened to walk one day. No description of this street is necessary. It was the street of ‘Maison Tolerees’. The keeping of certain amount of these ‘houses’ was allowed by law. The medical examinations did not keep a check on the awful disease which demands such a heavy toll. These women were frequently in hospital, brought in by their ‘bosses’. A few of these unfortunates were Australians, but most were French and Japanese. The latter were such gentle little things with charming ways. However, it was not the woman only who suffered, but also their ‘visitors’. The special ward at the hospital for this kind of disease was always full. The special orderlies in attendance. There were several cases of suicide, however, for the cures now used successfully were unknown then.

The kindly reason given at the inquest and on the death certificate was always ‘Insomnia’.

Recommended Reading available from Hesperian Press:
Scarlet Pillows – an Australian nurse’s tale of long ago by Mrs Arthur H. Garnsey
Cobbers of Mine and the Mining Magnate by The Axeman, Alfred E. Wallace

The next files are now released:   “3600 individual new entries”

File 37 and 38 –  from 30th January 1916 to 27 August 1919 

The Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital, told us some 17 years ago, that all of the original patient admission registers from the very first days of the Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital were still stored in their records storage area above the laundry We asked the hospital if we could view the records and when permission was granted, we realised what an invaluable source of family and local history they were. The amount of detail in the earlier records was just amazing.

As sickness and accidents show no favourites, the records, we knew, were a unique cross-section of the population of the town at any given time. As the years progressed, you could see the effects of the advent of the water pipeline in 1903 and the difference it made to the admissions for conditions such as Dysentery and Typhoid.

The next thing to be done was to make an application to the Dept of Health for permission to access these records and make them available to family and local historians. We emphasised the importance of these records to Goldfield’s history and requested permission to photocopy them and in time index them so they were available to all.

After some months the Department granted us permission to photocopy the records in full but only up to 1945 (due to privacy laws). The only downside was, that it had to be done on-site, and no ledgers (each folded out to a double A3) were allowed to leave the building. So a huge photocopier was lugged up three flights of stairs along with a large supply of A3 paper, and we set to work with the first book. Each single record spanned over 2 x A3 paper. It took 6 years to complete the project and this is the result (see image above), 32 x A3 Lever arch files. This was only the copying and it took several years more to transcribe the first books into an index. (Sadly one file is missing, No 40)

Over the years I have been most fortunate in the assistance of various volunteers who have helped transcribe these records so they could be digitised into a searchable index and make them available to all.  I would like to thank each and everyone who has helped, in particular Michelle.

Each time a new set of files is released we get a huge number of enquiries, which is wonderful, but if you do lodge a request, patience may be required for a reply, but each and every one will be answered I promise. There is no fee or charge for this service.

The following sample entries from File 37 will give you some idea of the type of information included:

GRAY Violet – address: 14 North Tce, Boulder, Contact: can leave a message to Boulder Phone Exchange for parents – Age: 2yrs 3mths – Cause: Gonorrhoea – Admitted: 24 Oct 1917 at 12:30pm – Discharged: 21 Nov 1917 at 2pm – Condition: Relived – 28 days – unable to pay.

ROBINSON Ray – address: Military Barracks Fremantle – Contact: Mother-in-law Mrs T McCarty, 60 Lewis St, Kalgoorlie – 30yrs – Married – Occ: Military – Cause: Cut head and other wounds – Admitted 30 Oct 1917 at 11:15pm – Discharged: 4 Nov 1917 at 12pm – Condition: relived.

SHARMAN Sylvia/Sybil – address: Laughton Lodge, Porter St, Kalgoorlie – Contact: No friends or relatives in WA – 42yrs – Single – Occ: Invalid Pensioner – Cause: Insanity – Admitted: 3 Nov 1917 at 12pm – Discharged: 12 Nov 1917 at 4:30pm – Condition: unrelieved – transferred to ‘Home for the Insane’ Claremont.

TRUSCOTT Edward – address: Union Club Hotel, Boulder – Contact: Friend Joseph Allen at the same address – 58yrs – Married – Occ: Engine Driver – Cause: Delirium Tremis – Admitted 12 Dec 1917 at 12:30am – Died: 14 Dec 1917 11:55am.

TUPPER Ada – address: 11 North Tce, Boulder  – Contact: Phone Boulder 166 for message – 12yrs – Cause: Scarlett Fever – Admitted: 22 Dec 1917 at 4:40pm – Discharged: 31 Jan 1918 at 2pm, Condition relived – 40 days.

WINZER Alfred Keith – address: White St, South Kalgoorlie – Phone: Davidson’s Pickle Factory for a message – Cause: Multiple Sclerosis – Admitted 28 Dec 1917 at 2:30pm – Discharged 29 Jan 1918 at 2pm – Condition relived – 132 days.

BURMAN Roland – Address: C/- Boulder Water Supply – Contact: wife at 68 Rose St, Sydney, NSW – 59yrs – Married – Occ: Stockman – Cause: operation for carcinoma of the stomach – Admitted 1 Mar 1918 at 11:20am – Died 2 Mar 1918 – Immediate cause of death: Shock.

At the end of each entry is a ‘Remarks’ column. This is where details of ‘Next of Kin’ or even a friend’s address are. This is so that payment for the stay in the hospital could be recovered. It also shows that many of the married men had left their wives back in the Eastern States or in Perth. The full record may have the following information. Some are very detailed and others very brief. I think it depends on who was keeping the records at the time.

Surname – First name – Marital Status – Age-  Religion – Disease/Cause – Date of Admission – Date of Discharge – Date of death – number of days in the hospital – Occupation – State when discharged –  Next of kin –  and remarks – ability to pay.

A transcript for the full entry for any person on the list can be requested by email: research@outbackfamilyhistory.com.au

This next file may be viewed at – File 37-38 Jan 1916 to Aug 1919

If you cannot find your relative, they could have been in the St John of God Hospital or one of the many private hospitals or even died at home. The previous Kalgoorlie Hospital records from 1894 can be viewed at  – Kalgoorlie Hospital Records

Kalgoorlie Hospital Ward 1910 – Photo SLWA

The Tremendous Years of the KRH 1894-1986
by Elva Breeze –  published by Anne Petz –

For those of you who may be interested, there is an excellent book on the history of the hospital and staff up to 1986. It is available from your local library and from The EG Historical Soc.

The Tremendous Years of KRH 1894-1986 by Elva Breeze

I was fortunate that a friend came across, and copied, the following admission register for the Kalgoorlie Hospital at State Records in Perth. It dates from Dec 1894 to May 1896. These would be the very first people treated on the same site as the Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital in Piccadilly Street, Kalgoorlie today.

Kalgoorlie Hospital admissions 1894-1896

It is comprised of 36 handwritten pages. They include the following information, however the records change from page to page. The earlier pages having much less detail.

Full name
Age
Religion
Martial Status (on some)
Occupation
Next of kin and their address
Place of birth
Complaint
Remarks
Date of Discharge or Death

The following are an example of a few of the entries:-

8 Jan 1896 – Kate DEATHE – Age 30 – Presbyterian – Enteric Fever – Born Ireland – Housemaid – NOK = Sister, Annie DEATHE, Ennis County, Wexford Ireland, Discharged 4 Apr 1896 (I believe this is the first female to be recorded, however a few entries only have the initial so cant be sure)

3 Feb 1896 – Henry NIBLETT – Age 48 – Baptist – Wound to forehead – Born England – Occ Mason – Address Brown Hill – Subscriber – Wife Sarah NIBLETT, Balmain Sydney. – Discharged 13 Feb 1896

1 May 1896 – John RUTTER  –  Age 18 – Single – Church of England – North Boulder –  Born Walhalla North Gippsland, – NOK Brother George.

10 May 1896 – William CAREY – Age 53 – Roman Catholic – Cirrhosis of the liver – Born Ireland – Blacksmith at Hampton Plains – Wife Mary in Mansfield VIC – discharged 30 Mar 1896

13 Jan 1896 – Priscilla PEARCE – Age 33 – Baptist – Abortion – Born England – Husband James, Clerk at Randalls – discharged 26 Jan 1896.

8 May 1896 – Peter CHANDLER – Age 22 – Roman Catholic – Single – Born Stratford, Gippsland, VIC – Mother Mary CHANDLER in Stratford, Gippsland, VIC – Died 31 May 1896

So as you see these entries will be a valuable addition to the information on the very early Goldfields people.

The records have now been painstakenly transcribed by one of our dedicated volunteers, Michelle. The following is a transcript of this whole register:-