By: james pilditch

james pilditch — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 13:58:26 +0000

Further to the story of the East families exploits in Lennonville, Amon East continued to mine in various centres such as Leonora, Burbridge, Lennonville, Lawlers and others. He competed in “wheel” [bicycle] races as a distraction. All seemed to be going well until the winding up of the Queen G.M. at Lawlers in 1924, when he was blamed for its demise. As Mine Manager he had preemptively lodged “a petition with the court for the compulsory winding up of the company” that, although withdrawn, “effectively devalued its prospects’. The company had been operating for four years with Amon managing its operations from April 1922 to November 1923, when he was probably sacked. The heady days of Lennonville were far behind him now and, ignominiously, he was robbed in his home after moving to Perth the year after he lost his job. Five years later, in 1929, found Amon an engineer with the Bunbury City Council until he was “accidently killed”, run over by a train on the tracks between Bunbury bridge and the Jewell Street crossing. There was no blood found on the tracks which implies he was dead before being run over, “terribly mutilated” and “found cut to pieces”. What was Amon’s state of mind at that time. A fortune had seemingly evaporated and his judgement as a miner was now in question, though it was five years after that unfortunate decision, and why was he on a railway line at eleven o’clock at night. We will never know as Amon took the answer to his grave.

Comments on: The East Brother and the Wheel of Fortune –

By: james pilditch