Thomas Cantwell
Died of Thirst or Foul Play?
The following item appeared in the local paper in Camblin, Roscrea, Co Tipperary, Ireland on the 24th Dec 1895:
Perished between Norseman and Coolgardie Western Australia, supposed from thirst, Tom Cantwell (43 years), one of the best fellows who ever pulled off a shirt. Poor Tom was one of the finest specimens of an Irishman and an athlete that ever left the ‘ould sod’.
A noted collar-and-elbow wrestler, stone-putter, hammer thrower, runner and jumper. He was well known in Ballarat, Victoria, in the seventies and later on upon the New South Wales fields, railways and public works, and will long be remembered as one of the quietest and gentlest of men. He narrowly escaped getting his head blown off at Prospect – a gun pointed at his head –‘in fun”, as usual, exploding as he laughingly pushed it aside. But he was reserved for a harder fate. On his way with two mates from Norseman to Coolgardie to draw £5,000 for the sale of their mine, the ‘Great Norseman’ in Boulder, the water bag leaked, and the usual delirium horror followed. One of the party reached help and returned to find swags and clothes scattered about the place, but the wearers were missing.
VALE: Tom Cantwell, the western wilderness holds the bones of no better man.
The above ‘appreciation’ of Tom Cantwell was in a frame and hung near the open hearth fire in the kitchen of Tom’s old home in Camblin, Roscrea, Co Tipperary in Ireland, when the writer visited in 1977. There lived in this house Tom’s 80-year-old niece, Sue and Martin, his nephew. The lower part of the faded newspaper cutting had been eaten away by woodworm from the frame, but
Sue was able to recite it by memory.
She told how her aunt, Kate Anne MAHER, then in her nineties, but with a very clear memory, said that on coming home from school, she found her mother crying. She had just got word of her brother Tom’s death. She said they thought he had money stolen from him. Tom had another brother, Tim and two sisters who went to Australia. One of the sisters, Anne, married a LOWREY. Kate said that the two sisters were supposed to be well off. They had an awful lot of land and were supposed to have thousands of acres. They kept up an occasional correspondence with home. He was the son of James CANTWELL and Margaret DELAHUNTY. His estate amounted to £479/9s/10d.
Written by Laurence WALSH from St Joseph’s Abbey Roscrea, Ireland in Jan 2002
Died of thirst or foul play ??? – Image TROVE
The West Australian – 4th Jan 1896
The Coolgardie Pioneer gives the following particulars of the fate of the two unfortunate men, Thomas Cantwell and Jerry O’Conlan, who (as mentioned in our columns the other day) were lost some time back on their way from Dundas (Norseman) to Coolgardie. It will be remembered that they, with their two mates, having just disposed of a mine, were coming in here to draw the money when they got off the track. – In a very weak state, they managed to strike the Sunday Soak, only to be disappointed in not finding water, and the other two went off in search of help. When they returned, Cantwell and O’Conlan had disappeared and wandered off into the trackless waste.
No hope was entertained from the first that they would be discovered alive, but Constable Brown and a native tracker were sent off in search of them. The missing men were followed to a point some 50 miles west of the Sunday Soak, where their bodies were found. They had kept close together despite the delirium of thirst, and of what they must have suffered ere death came to their relief, only those who have nearly perished themselves in the wilderness can form an adequate idea.
There were signs by the way which showed that they had several times lain down and rolled on the ground in their agony. In the end, one of the poor fellows had crawled into a sandpit about 3ft deep, made a last despairing effort to reach water by scraping the sand out with his hands, and so he died. He was found still in that position, and only about four yards off lay the dead body of his mate, lying on his back, partially stripped of clothing. On their wanderings, they had passed within 150 yards of a supply of the precious fluid that might have saved their lives. The discovery took place on the day before Christmas Day, and as the bodies were then much decomposed, they were given immediate burial close to the spot where they breathed their last.
Moya Sharp
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It’s still a savage land that takes no prisoners