Miners Archives - Outback Family History

Sinking a New Shaft- North Kalgurli – 1950

Moya Sharp — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 06:06:22 +0000

North Kalgurli (1912) Ltd Mine – Shift Crew

Sinking a new shaft 11th Dec 1950 – Completed sinking 10^th Jun 1952.

sent by Dallas Calneggia (Geoffrey Lee is her father)

Back Row: J Martin (Winderdriver), L Miller (Winderdriver), K Bishop (Carpenter), G Thompson (Shaft sinker), R Bevis (Shaft Sinker), D Erceg (Shaft Sinker),
Middle Row Standing: W Oversby (Shaft Sinker), R Jones (Braceman), L Snell (Shaft Sinker), F Davis (Underground Manager), Geoffrey Lee (Assistant Underground Manager).
Front Row Kneeling: W Astrand (Shaft Sinker), R Ovens (Shaft Sinker), G Budeselic (Shaft Foreman),
B Bracegirdle (Shaft Sinker).

Shaft Dimensions

Ripping Yarns and Tragic Tales – Miners

Moya Sharp — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 06:07:22 +0000

Over the last few years, I have checked to see which ‘Miner’ stories had been most viewed. Here is a list of the most popular stories on the Outback Family History Blog. Feel free to share the stories and remember! all stories on the OFH blog may be copied and shared (just give OFH a credit).

If you have a ‘Goldfields’ business or group, maybe it would improve your social media content to add in some of the OFH stories. There are nearly 900 stories on the blog at this moment, so there will sure to be a story that will fit your page or web site at any given time.

Employees of the Lake View and Star, Kalgoorlie Boulder – 1904

From – www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com

Burned in effigy – the McCann Hoax

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2018/10/14/burned-in-effigy-the-mccann-hoax/

Tragedy at the Bohemia

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2015/08/04/tragedy-at-the-bohemia-mine-marvel-loch/

Who was George Dainty???

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2018/06/17/who-was-george-dainty/?fbclid=IwAR1o0v70LS26MPvnfuvbX23JxlShpwtQ3POBzcVDGLagQRgZMi-j1VSSxxQ

Tragedy and Bravery on the Black Range!

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2014/12/27/tragedy-bravery-black-range/

What is a Tributer ???

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2016/10/20/what-is-a-tributer/

A Case of Mistaken Identity –

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2017/02/04/case-mistaken-identity/

Sam Pearce- an extraordinary miner

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2018/03/10/sam-pearce-an-extraordinary-miner/

The Worst Accident in the history of Australian Gold Mining and The Nicholas Family

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2017/12/15/worst-accident-history-australian-gold-mining-nicholas-family/

The Great Boulder Disaster:

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2019/05/25/the-great-boulder-disaster/

An Eerie Premonition – Michael Madden

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2017/01/10/eerie-premonition-michael-madden/

Dead Mens Gold

https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/2016/12/03/dead-mens-gold/

Telescopic drill working in roof of stope 3,300ft Ivanhoe Gold Mine, Boulder, February 1931

Men of the Lake View & Star – NEWS !!!!!!!

Moya Sharp — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 05:10:04 +0000

Men of the Lake View & Star 1903

ENTER HERE: → MEN OF THE LAKE VIEW AND STAR

It’s finally up and running. The very first stage of the records of the Lake View and Star project is finally online and able to be searched. This massive data entry project has taken some time, as you can imagine, the bulk of the records have been transcribed by Criena Fitzgerald, but we would like to thank the others who have contributed and who are still helping.

This first release is just over 12,000 records. This is from 12,000+ individual cards. As we received the cards in no particular order we enter as we go so if you don’t find your relative in this release he (or she) may be in the next issue.

These cards provide a valuable insight into not just the working history of one of the largest Gold mines in Western Australia, but also show a widely diverse social history of people from all over the world coming to the Goldfields of Western Australia for a better life. The information in these records is something that will not be found elsewhere. So far the earliest date of birth we have found is of a British man, Robert James BELL, who was born in 1848. The exact data collected on these cards varies as the years go by and new cards were used but the sort of information in general is:-

Full name, Date of Birth, Nationality,occupation, address, postal address, Mines Workers Relief cards, Lodge, Doctor, Union, Marital status, children or any other dependants such as mother or sister. Also contained among these records is what we believe to be the only complete record of ‘Tributing Parties’ from 1924 to about 1935 showing the full details of each man but also the tributing party he belonged to. Some were just teams of two and other had up to 10 members. These provided valuable information that men from all nationalities worked together in groups. As the details on these cards is slightly different they will be included on a different page.

Lake View Miners

Things you need to know:-

First Upload – 1st Dec 2017 = 12,150 cards

1.One person may have several cards and records. This is because he may have left and returned to the mine on several occasions which was very common. His particulars could have changed such as address or occupation.

2. The spelling of names on each card may vary especially do to language problems and by the names people were known by so Giuseppe one card could be Joe on another.

3. It is common for fathers and sons to work on the same mine so care needs to be taken for those with the same surname.

4. Where there is no Date of Birth there is usually an age to that the date of birth can be calculated from the starting date.

5. We will be adding new records and the project proceeds, we will keep you up to date on new uploads through the WAVMM blog.

5. Unfortunately we are not able to give the cards to any family members as they remain the property of Barrack Gold.

As with all the records on this site we aim to be as accurate as possible but with hand written records this is not always possible.

As always everything on this site is free for you to copy for your own records.

Water Rations for Gold Miners

Moya Sharp — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:33:51 +0000

Water Rations

This is typical of the scenes at many mines in WA’s eastern goldfields. At the time this photograph was taken – water rations were connected with employment conditions at many mines. Workers on some goldfields were entitled to condensed water as part of their wages, receiving 2 or 4 gallons (9 or 18 L) per day or at least ‘a water bag full’, while others received extra money as a ‘water allowance’. Mines often had their own condensers to convert saline groundwater into fresh water, groundwater, which seeped in when shafts were sunk, could hinder mining operations, and the shortage of fresh water hindered processing, so condensing gave a double benefit.

This photo shows miners queuing to collect their ration of condensed water – the condenser process involved the boiling of saline groundwater until it changed from a liquid to a gas. The steam rose through the pipe at the top of the boiler and, as it travelled through the pipe, further from the fire, it cooled and changed back into a liquid; the result was water pure enough to drink

Men had to queue for whatever quantity of scarce (and expensive) fresh water was available – water was such an issue that it became the focus of industrial action; at one mine men went on strike when management gave them a gallon a day (4.5 L) instead of an allowance to buy water themselves (when water was cheap they profited from the allowance), and at another, miners demanded an increase to 2 gallons a day free until a pipeline bringing supplies from a dam in the hills outside Perth was opened in January 1903 the cost and shortage of water continued to be a problem.

The tins some men carrying in this photo are steel (‘tin’) drums that could hold up to 4 gallons (18 L) of water – the tins were originally used to carry kerosene, a fuel used in lamps to provide light; for carrying water, the top of a tin was cut off and a wire handle fastened to it so it could be easily carried in one hand; the taste of kerosene was said to persist for a long time.

It is evidence of the value of water in WA’s Eastern goldfields – without money or the regular supply of fresh water, people could die of thirst; in a letter dated 23 October 1893, J E Burbanks wrote about the situation after four months of no rain, ‘God help the poor unfortunates who are without the means of purchasing the precious element [water]. Two men who were camped near me died of thirst, and two others went mad; one shot himself’.

It is part of the historical record of the gold fields collected by George Spencer Compton who may have taken this photograph – he wrote the information about where the photograph was taken and details about the practice of paying miners with water in lieu of wages on the back of the photograph; Spencer Compton is sometimes described as the pioneer gold fields historian and writer.

This article is courtesy of:- National Trust of Australia (Western Australia), Learning Federation

Government Condenser Selling water at 8 pence a gallon

Violence, Murder, and Dispossession – The Human Cost of the Australian Gold Rush

Moya Sharp — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 14:17:41 +0000

Contributor of the week –

Violence, Murder, and Dispossession – The Human Cost of the Australian Gold Rush – By Outback Family History reader Jenni Hodge

Rushing for gold makes a few individual fortunes, and breaks the hearts and lives of many more. While it is undoubtedly true that, on a larger level, the Australian gold rush greatly aided the Australian economy and helped Australia grow from a backwater convict-dump to a player of some note on the world stage, on a personal level it was devastating to many of the families who were involved. At the first whiff of gold, the adult male population of Australia deserted homes, families, businesses, and all other responsibilities in order to flock, en mass to the goldfields. As the Migration Heritage Centre Point out, “Ship crews deserted, leaving vessels stranded in port, shepherds left their flocks, government officials, clerks, teachers and policemen left their jobs in the excitement. Soon they were joined by thousands of immigrants from Europe, America, China and New Zealand keen to try their luck.” This caused heartache and devastation among the people they left behind – and it was often not much better for the prospectors themselves. Many laboured for weeks, months, years in appalling conditions yet had to return home with empty hands and broken spirits – if they made it back at all. Perhaps worst of all was the situation met with by the Aboriginal peoples of the goldfields, who were evicted unceremoniously and often violently from their ancestral lands. While the gold rush undoubtedly had positive economic and even (in the long term) societal effects, its human cost should not be forgotten. Many of our ancestors suffered great hardships in the pursuit of this shiny rock, and the emotional scars the experiences left behind would reverberate throughout their families for generations.

Awful Conditions

Conditions on the goldfields during the height of the gold rush were appalling. Impoverished and desperate prospectors lived in cramped, squalid camps. Every day, their hopes would be dashed and their frustrations rise – with devastating results. While many have extolled the virtuous nature of life on the Australian goldfields in comparison to that of the Californian goldfields, evidence is beginning to emerge that the life of the Australian gold prospector was not as clean, calm, and sober as contemporary commentators were keen to portray it. Violence against the Aboriginal people in particular was extreme and often sadistic, revealing a cesspool of frustration and resentment bubbling beneath the surface of unsuccessful prospectors, and breaking out into ostensibly racially motivated violence. Immigrant gold miners, too, suffered greatly in this manner – yet such acts of xenophobic violence tended to go unreported.

Emotional Numbing

Indeed, it seems that much of the illusion of peaceful prospecting camps has come about simply because prospectors had become so used to violence, brutality, and the breakdown of law and order that they ceased to notice it. As Fred Cahill says in his book ‘Black Gold’, “Testimony of how ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ life at the goldfields could be is underscored by how inured miners and other commentators became to what would now be termed horrific murders and, equally, to industrial accidents.” These young men had uprooted themselves from the familiar structures of law, order, and society which they had been trained from birth to adhere to, and taken themselves to a highly competitive, squalid environment in which nobody was a friend, and death and mutilation were the norm. For this, they would suffer the psychological consequences. Initially, they were often shocked and even traumatised by what they witnessed in the camps – but they swiftly became ‘numbed’ to the violence. They drank, they cursed, they gambled and fought. Violence broke out swiftly and easily – many lived with their nerves on a knife edge and fists would fly at the slightest provocation. Doubtless, had the gold rush come today, many returning prospectors would be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as defined by psychguides.com, given their tendency to sudden, inexplicable violence, their propensity to turn to substances, and their emotional numbness. Many of these young men were irrevocably damaged by their experiences in the goldfields, and the families to whom they returned would suffer the consequences. Domestic violence rose sharply in the gold rush years, and many Australian children would grow up in abject fear of their fathers.

Aboriginal Dispossession

It was by the Aboriginal peoples, however, that the worst effects of the gold rush were felt. Quite apart from the horrific violence, racial abuse, and sexual abuse that they suffered, they lost the lands which had nurtured their families for centuries. Many were driven off by the fists and guns of prospectors. Others were forced to leave because mining had rendered the environment unable to sustain their traditional way of life. Yet more became embroiled in the lives of the camps and as such became introduced to European vices which would wreak havoc upon their societies. As modern historians have pointed out, Indigenous Australians were not mere helpless victims of the gold rush, but actively participated in it and thus, like the white prospectors, were in some degree engineers of their own fate. “Many worked on the sheep stations, provided their expertise of the land to gold hungry diggers, engaged in trade with the miners or were members of the Native Police Corps”. Such close contact with Europeans and white Australians would have devastating consequences for Aboriginal societal structure. Proximity to white miners also meant proximity to white diseases like smallpox, to which the Aboriginal population had little to no resistance. With more long lasting effects, however, was their lack of resistance to alcohol. Alcohol traded with white Australians was already beginning its damaging sweep through the Aboriginal tribes by the start of the gold rush, and the sudden proximity of booze-swilling miners made it all the more easily available.

The Human Cost of Gold

The positive effects of the Australian gold rush should never be denied. In many ways, the discovery of the goldfields made Australia the nation it is today. However, this came at great personal cost for many. Plenty of our ancestors sacrificed their families, their sanity, their societal structures, and even their lives for the gold-formed nation we live in today. Such sacrifices should not be forgotten.