The following letter is by far the longest written by David to Annie. I think it sounds like he is missing her and the children a great deal.  I think that maybe Annie is getting a little tired of having the plans for her to join him taking rather too long. In this letter he makes reference to him drinking to excess while in Charters Towers which may have contributed to his hasty departure.

Kalgoorlie 13 December 1896.

 My Dear Wifie

Your long letter dated 21 Nov is duly to hand and dear Annie I must thank you for it I had almost thought that something had happened.  Dearest Annie you must not feel miserable but look cheerfully ahead to our next meeting which with any sort of luck wont be long and my dear what ever you do take care of yourself and wean that little Jack.  He must be as strong as a lion and you must eat plenty of nourishing food. Brandy is only a stimulant and it will make you worse in the end.

A Letter from home.

I am supposed to have a sixth in the Black Jack auriferous and claims.  In fact I started the whole thing and did all the work in connection with it but I suppose they wont bother now that I am away and they are registered.  However, when I heard from Smith, I expect they will tell me all about what they propose doing with it.  However don’t bother just now and when I get full particulars I will write you full instructions and you can be guided by circumstances and sell or hold or keep a paid up interest in it or a contributing one as it is most satisfactory perhaps if you were to take a 1/10^th fully paid up share it would be a fair thing provided they put up a plant on the ground and treated the stuff out there but if they treat the stuff tin the plant at the Enterprise I’m entitled to 1/6^th of the profits obtained there from: however that can be arranged afterwards.

Bayley’s Reward Underlay Shaft

I only sent back the rifle and little portmanteau by J Gates nothing in the portmanteau so you need not trouble much about them.  The rifle though you might, should opportunities offer, sell as it is not likely to be of any use to me.  It is worth at least £3.0.0 the cost price of one in London steel lined being £6.0.0.

Willy Smith need not have worried himself about folks seeing me away as I’m sure that I did not want them to do so, you, little little sweetheart were there and was that not sufficient?  I note all you write re the garden and am glad you can manage nicely.  I wish I could start one here but the only attempt that I have seen in Coolgardie consists of one solitary pumpkin very expensive, tended with water at 4d per gallon but I’m afraid that it will be a failure.  It cost a shilling a vine fancy what a garden would cost.  I’m also glad you can manage with the fowls it will be nice for you to have your own poultry and will give you something to look at and think over after the babies.  That man if he is any good ought to make his wages not of surplus eggs and vegetables.  I would like to hear the cock crowing in the morning again, there are none here in fact we have neither fowls, ducks, goats or dogs about this place.  The country is very poor & waterless, fowls are 17/- goats 3/10/- no cattle or sheep bread 9/- beef  & mutton 10d lb. potatoes 4d lb tomatoes two shillings to onions 5d, lemons 14/6 per, apricots 3/- and a very small cabbage 8d per lb.  I’m batching myself as the hotels all charge £4.4.0 per week.  I’m camped about as far away as you are from the town with a general store not far away, my days supplies are 1/- worth beef or mutton, 8d worth bread 2 tab spuds and rice an onion and  tea boiled or coffee although I don’t bother much with the latter.  I have to boil all the water or notwithstanding the condensing its bad.  I have had to buy a tent & fly blankets billies, frying pan, plates etc for camp, but its better than pubs.  Water or rather the lack of it is our curse 4d per gallon means 5/- per week whether you wash or not, one gets very economical about water and its never finally thrown away.  The dust is simply something to be remembered.  I’ve seen all sorts of dusty places but this beats creation you simply swim in it going to the town and near the Railway Station the air is as thick as pea soup. Every one is dirty red and it does not matter whether you wash or not, by the way  they only charge 4/6 to wash a suit of white or Khaki.  I’m doing my own, not very well you know, but near enough.

Coolgardie Prospectors Camp

Dearest you were very kind in posting your pictures in my bag.  I appreciate it very much sweetheart but it is fading all the time with the sun I think I must get it out and look at you now sweetheart mine not that I’m likely to forget you but it seems that you are nearer.  This climate is first rate cold if anything in fact I have to put on all the clothes I’ve got to keep warm and have two pairs of blankets, folks here are on at least some of them say it is hot and get the thermometer to register 100 degrees or so in the shade but I  have felt nothing warm yet.  I’m quite shocked with Madge cutting her hair I suppose you had to trim up the rest of it.  I am glad they are keeping well and dearest I hope that you will do likewise.  I know just how miserable and lonely you must be but little sweetheart you must brighten up and you have the babies you know and if you could dodge around and take a lot of interest in the garden and things and look at the bright side of everything I’m sure dear that you will feel better soon.  I don’t know yet my sweetheart when you can come, its such an awful place here for dust and filth and the winter they tell me is frightfully cold but during the next month I will most likely be able to settle the question.  The mines here and Coolgardie I have hung up until the 16^th January next as we have no machinery, so I will have a month to look around and see a lot of government work is coming out at Menzies which is about 100 miles from here and I’m going to have a shot for it if I get it I will have to shift camp there and make other arrangements here.  The job is a big one, a reservoir and worth about £27000.  I’m leaving a big margin for profit so if it comes off there will be something in it, failing that I am just busy fixing up a timber syndicate here for the mine timber supply.  This article is very costly and I’m sure I can land it here for 20% less than now and make a big profit.  I start at the last first thing tomorrow.

Tell little Davie that I’m glad to hear that he is a good little boy and that he is helping you and looking after everything and then when I see him again we will have a great time, and dear little Madge must not cut hair any more or she will have to be sent to the barbers for good.  And Silla and Jack, oh dear I would like them with me now but you know not without you.  There are a great many folks scattered about here who were on the Towers at different times among them I saw Billingham surveyor once of Townsville now of Coolgardie his wife and her sister you remember although I did not until she told me – a girl called Lena Bristowe who lived with us on the hill a long time ago.  Billingham seems to have done fairly well here and Lena Bristowe or Miss Bristowe asked me to kindly remember her to the kindest mistress she ever had.  Claude Newcombe is running a camp some 20 or 30 miles from here.  I also saw young Maitland yesterday here he is inspecting water site for the Government and looks fair.

Looking back dearest Annie from the calm uneventful camp life I am sadly afraid that I drank too much and caused you a lot of worry but I have scarcely touched anything since I left and I hope that I will not do so again, it cost me too much on the Towers.

I don’t exactly mean money sweetheart: but some how I never seemed to be out of trouble there and knowing so many people did not mend matters.I must conclude now my dear or I wont catch the first mail train which is just about leaving and we must catch everyone that leaves or we never know what steamers are going.  So with best love and kisses for yourself dear little sweetheart and Davie & Madge and Silla & Jack, believe ever your loving husband. D Missingham.

PS:  Should any one want to know what sort of a place this is for wages with a view to coming here I would not advise them to come if they are in work up especially married folks but young single energetic fellows would improve with the roughing or die.

PPS:  Again sweetheart goodbye for a wee and I’ll write again as soon as possible.  Don’t forget me darling because I want you again and I want you to be happier in the future that is when we meet again when we wont part any more until the grand finale.  DM

Post Card From Coolgardie

The following letter is the last sent before David Missingham reached the Goldfields of Western Australia.  You will see he often refers to money matter and it seems that he had left some debts behind him in Charters Towers Qld. As with all letters I would love to be able to read the replies but as is often the case only one side of the correspondence has survived.  I wonder what Annie wrote in reply, you will note a slightly condescending tone to Davids letters on occasion, I wonder what Annie was like.

17 November 1896, Port Adelaide, South Australia     Tuesday 7 a.m.

My Dearest wife

We have just arrived here per Gabo and leave again this afternoon at 4 p.m. so we have little time for this part the city of Adelaide or of churches as it is often called by irreverent persons.  It is situated 7 miles from here and to get there one has to take a train which runs up in half an hour.  I am going up as soon as possible after breakfast to do business I expect to see F E Beafort here and his wife but I may not.  When just leaving Melbourne I met Tom Smith formerly of Charters Towers and a friend of Louis Miller and others about the “2 fevers” (Gold and Typhoid) We have a great number of passengers on board, about 300 and the bulk of them have had an awful time with sickness.  I picked one married woman up yesterday out of the lee scuppers where she had fainted through continuous illness and she kept up a succession of fainting fits all day.  Of course yours truly has not as yet lost a meal and on my word I am getting hungrier every time.

The weather has been as is now positively cold it rained in Rockhampton, Brisbane, Sydney and again in Melbourne and now again here. I was foolish enough to get a real good Turkish bath in Melbourne and got cold after it and ache all over head and chest & back.  The cough tears me into little bits.  I am going to see a doctor today but little wife, its nothing for you to make any fuss about you know.  I expected my sweetheart that I would get a wire from you here but I expect no news is good news at any rate and I will accept it as such.  We are in doubt as to whether this steamer will stop at Albany where I am booked and which will take one week sail from here or, whether they will land me at Fremantle which takes ten days from here.  I must send you a map my dear and then you can follow out my movements.  I am likely to have some trouble with my big box containing the theodolite etc  as it is coming after me to Albany and although now in Melbourne only three days behind me will not leave there before the 30^th instant.  I expect that I will have to borrow or hire or steal an instrument to make observations for any report etc.

Post Office Adelaide

My dearest love I am never going to consent under any circumstances to a separation again, I am getting too old and we have been too long together and life is too short for it. I sorely miss you Anne, and the babies. Give me plenty of news when you write to me but above all things my sweetheart keep cheerful and everything will be alright and inside of that terrible six months we will be together again for the better.

My dearest love D Missingham

17 November 1896,  Port Adelaide   Tuesday 7 a.m.

My Dearest Wifie

We have just arrived here per Gabo and leave again this afternoon at 4 p.m. so we have been little time for this part the city of Adelaide or churches as it is often called by irreverent persons. It is situated 7 miles from here and to get there one has to take a train which runs up in half an hour.  I am going up as soon as possible after breakfast to do business. I expect to see F E Beafort here and his wife but I may not.  When just leaving Melbourne I met Tom Smith, formerly of Charters Towers, and a friend of Louis Miller and others about the “Two fevers” We have a great number of passengers on board, about 300,, and the bulk of them have had an awful time with sickness.  I picked one married woman up yesterday out of the lee scuppers where she had fainted through continuous illness and she kept up a succession of fainting fits all day.  Of course yours truly has not as yet lost a meal and on my word I am getting hungrier every time.

Adelaide 1909

The weather has been as it is now, positively cold, it rained in Rockhampton, Brisbane, Sydney and again in Melbourne and now again here. I was foolish enough to get a real good Turkish bath in Melbourne and got cold after it and ache all over head and chest & back.  The cough tears me into little bits.  I am going to see a doctor today but little wife, its nothing for you to make any fuss about you know.  I expected my sweetheart that I would get a wire from you here but I expect no news is good news at any rate and will accept it as such. We are in doubt as to whether this steamer will stop at Albany where I am booked, and which will take one week sailing from here, or whether they will land me at Fremantle which takes ten days from here.  I must send you a map my dear and then you can follow out my movements.  I am likely to have some trouble with my big box containing the theodolite etc as it is coming after me to Albany. Although now in Melbourne, its only three days behind me will not leave there before the 30^th instant.  I expect that I will have to borrow or hire or steal an instrument to make observations for any reports etc.

The ship ‘Gabo’

My dearest love I am never going to consent under any circumstances to a separation again. I am getting too old and we have been too long together and life is to short for it.  I sorely miss you Anne and the babies. Give me plenty of news when you write to me but above all things my sweetheart keep cheerful and everything will be alright. Inside of that terrible six months we will be together again for the better.  Another thing my dearest you will very probably hear many stories about me from my particular friends.

Your loving husband D Missingham

Friday 13 November 1896

My Dearest wife

Since my last letter on Sunday, I ran down to Kiama (NSW) by the 8.30 train and arrived at Albion Park at 12 noon, saw Jamie & his wife and youngsters, the mater (Mother) was in Sydney in the suburbs, but I could not find her. I took a run round and saw D L Dymock & his boys and a few people that I remember.  I am finding it quite old now, scarcely anyone knows me, and the boys did not know me; I had a generally miserable time.

I stayed one night in Albion Park and came back to Sydney on Tuesday morning, and caught the first boat, the ‘Barabool’ and left the wharf at 5 pm, arriving here this “Friday” morning after a long, slow trip.  The weather is very sharp and cold, and eating has been my chief occupation. I am most ashamed of my appetite, and if it keeps increasing as I go south, the company will be charging me extra fares.  I have not met a soul that I know since leaving Brisbane and am continuously wishing you were with me, dear mine.  Kiama & District looks to me better than ever; it is undoubtedly the prettiest place.

The Barabool – Image SLWA

This is the morning of landing, and I hope my dearest, you are getting along all serene and that you will let me know how everything is as soon as you can possibly. I am anxious that you were talking to me about Paddy, the garden and the children, but after sitting up and bumping my head against the ceiling of the bunk ( a top one), I realised that it was not so.  I am having very bad luck with the steamers, the one we leave in tomorrow being the “Gabo” and full from stem to stern with passengers and cargo all bound west. A great number are young men, and I can see that some of them will not pull through the hard living in the West.

However, they all seem full of hope, and I hope they stand the climate experience.  I sent you a few little books for the children and Musketts’ latest book on cooking from Sydney, and trust you get them alright.  The first thing we heard this morning was the position of Queensland. Bank, and I hope that you have cashed the cheques that I left, as I cannot send any more money until I reach Albany, where my credit letters will be cashable.  Now, my little sweetheart, with my very best love to yourself and also to the babies, Davie & Madge and Zilla & little Jack, believe me ever yours always.

D Missingham.

PS:-    I haven’t seen Melbourne yet, or am I likely to see much of it as it is raining hard. DM

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