Death by Despair – Leonora Snapshots

In the last edition of the ‘Leonora Cemetery Snapshots’ we looked at ‘all the little children’. This edition looks at suicide which was a sad but common cause of death in the early days of the Goldfields. Sometimes it was a release from certain and horrific death by thirst or heat. Other times it was […]

Crime Passionnel – tragedy at Kanowna

Kalgoorlie Western Argus  4 October 1900, page 10 Tragedy at Kanowna. ATTEMPTED MURDER AND SUICIDE. A shocking tragedy, the motive of which is not yet ascertainable, owing to the meager particulars at hand, was enacted at Kanowna on Tuesday afternoon. A Frenchman named Henri Lance, who was connected with the recent prostitute cases in Kalgoorlie, […]

My Own Dear Boy:-

Murchison Times and Day Dawn Gazette 29 July 1897 SUICIDE AT SMITHFIELD Last Saturday week a miner, Thomas McKileen, living by himself in a tent at Smithfield, committed suicide by blowing his brains out. At an inquest held on Monday afternoon before the acting-Coroner, Mr. E. O. Butler, J,P. it was elicited that on Friday […]

To be or not to be – Lawlers Suicides

In this last edition of the Lawlers Cemetery Snapshots we look at suicides. Suicide was a sad but common cause of death in the early days of the Goldfields. Sometimes it was a release from a certain and horrific death by thirst or heat. Other times it was due to hopelessness and despair. In most […]

Leonora Snapshot – death from despair

This is the second snapshot of biographies from the Leonora Cemetery. As in the previous post it covers from 1902 to early 1911. In this time there were 12 suicides:- Suicide was quite a common thing in the early days on the goldfields. Men, and a few women, who find themselves in a state of […]