Alfred Edward Wallace (Darky)
The Murchison Times and Day Dawn Gazette. 13 October 1910.
Some very rich floaters from the Eclipse lease at Garden Gully, owned by ‘Darky’ Wallace and party were on view at the Meekatharra Miner office last week. The stone is of a very rich nature and the owners are now sinking on a reef adjacent to where the floater was unearthed.
The Meekatharra Miner. 25 February 1911.
We often hear of snake yarns, but ‘Darky’ Wallace swears by his camp and other sundries about the premises that he caught a snake five feet in length lying on his better half’s pillow. Between ‘Darky’ the dog and his alleged gun, the reptile was sent to―well where it ought to go. But snakes are numerous around Garden Gully. Only the other week, Tom Hill of Kyarra, almost put his No. 8 on a tiger species before noticing the reptile, and this was in a drive where one has to bob his head to save bumping his bald patch.
His family left the Murchison in 1916 because by that time he had become ‘dusted’ with silica dust. His lungs had become tubercular and he could no longer work. They moved to Northam and he went into Wooroloo Sanatorium where he mainly spent the last years of his life. He died there in 1924 at the age of 48.
Many miners died from silicosis, their lungs ‘dusted’ with the deadly microscopic quartz splinters from the hard Murchison rock. Darkie Wallace wrote his poems under the nom-de-plume ‘The Axeman’ from his timber working days in the state’s South West. If he had stayed among the tall timber his life might not have been cut short in its prime.
Despite the grim knowledge that he was ‘dusted’, Darkie Wallace maintained a cheerful outlook on life. Many of his poems were written in ironic or humorous vein. However horses were a serious subject. Around the remains of those old camps by the Kyarra mine there lie relics of other days, from before the arrival of the motor car and the truck. Rusting horseshoes on the ground tell the story. One of Darkie Wallace’s poems was about the horses and the teams of his era.
The Old Time Track
In my memory clear is the spinifex,
When I sometimes dream of the old-time track,
Where the big whips used to crack:
For those were the days we our castles built,
When our hopes were framed in a golden gilt
Castles and hopes that are long since shattered
Still memory drifts where the big wheels clattered
And creaked on the old time track.
Where Micky Brown’s little brumby team,
Hooked onto an eight-ton winch,
Pulled round the team, with the twelve big draughts,
That were stuck at the Devil’s pinch;
And old Ned Hughes with his eighteen donks
(And Ned was a bonzer bloke)
I was broke on tramp and he lent me a quid
When I met him at Rayside soak.
Those were the days when the dust clouds curled,
And followed the teams to the out-back world;
And the hearts were big in the men that battled
With the teams on the old-time track.|
Bill Snell went through with a record load,
Eight horses and twelve ton four,
And he nearly cried when his brown horse died
With gripes at the sand plain bore.
There was sentiment there in the early days,
And we learned to love them iron greys,
The chestnuts, blacks, and the browns and the bays,
That worked on the old-time track.
To the golden days when the soaks were few;
To the golden days when the fields were new;
To the thirsty days out back:
Where the clinking shoes with the swear words mingled,
The back chairs janked, and the trace chains jingled,
O’er the dry salt lakes where the mirage gleams,
To the grand old mates with their grand old teams,
I drink to the old-time track
By the time Darkie Wallace’s collated poems were published in Meekatharra in 1919 he had the persistent hacking coughs splitting his chest that all miners dreaded. However, it must have been a proud moment, nevertheless, when he held the first volume of ‘Cobbers of Mine’ in his hands. Though most of them have already seen print through the years, the bulk of them in the Meekatharra Miner, there is something about a complete volume that brings a sense of deep personal satisfaction. He spent 18 months in Wooroloo Sanatorium and remained cheerful and active as was possible in the circumstances, carving toys for children to pass the time. His toys were durable and strong, and like his poems went far afield.
The patients at Wooroloo followed the races and ran ‘sweeps’ among themselves. On November 15, 1924, Darkie Wallace grinned broadly and ‘reckoned it was his lucky day’. He won the sweep that day. It was also the day that he died. He is buried in the Wooroloo Cemetery.
The poems of A E Wallace were printed in serial form in the Meekatharra Miner. If you search ‘The Axeman’ in TROVE you will be able to read some of his witty verses. See ‘Stinkers Boarding House”.
Manganese Record, Peak Hill, Nullagine and Marble Bar Gazette 18 November 1938, page 2
Alfred Edward WALLACE was born on the 9th July 1876 in Serpentine Western Australia to Alexander WARREN and Laura Elizabeth ARMSTRONG. He married Mary Ann HART in the Murchison of WA in 1908. They had the following children: Alfred Davidson born 1908 – Amy Josephine Solly born 1912 – Maxwell Kenneth born 1916 – Royle Alexandra ‘Poppy’ born 1918. Researched by:- Ian Murray & Moya Sharp
Alfred and Mary Wallace and three of their children.
Recommended reading –
Cobbers of Mine and the Mining Magnate by The Axeman, Alfred E. Wallace
Alfred Wallace died of silicosis in 1924. He was an axeman in the forests and an underground miner on the Murchison. His verse was in demand for local celebrations and the regional newspapers. Few modern poets have had the acclaim of the public that the Axeman had. His collection was reprinted for many years by the Northam newspaper. Some of his satirical verses such as The Bush Geologist and The Mining Magnate were still being circulated in mining circles in the 1980s. Places he versifies, such as Barney Murphy’s Bungalow Hotel, and the mines where he worked, were part of my wanderings fifty years ago, and my grandfather was also at Wooroloo sanatorium for TB that he got in France.
Available from Hesperian Press – mention Outback Family History when you order and receive a free book.
Moya Sharp
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