A Coolgardie Delirium

Fabulous Gold Find
Tossing for £100 a Time!

Who found Coolgardie? Every schoolboy knows that Bayley and Ford found Coolgardie. That is history, but a historical fact is as often as not, based on inaccuracy. Strictly speaking, Bayley and Ford did not find Coolgardie for the men who located what was afterwards ‘Bayley’s Reward’ really found Coolgardie. Bayley and Ford jumped ‘Bayley’s Reward’ and reported the find which was to make Coolgardie famous, and to drive away the spectre of bankruptcy that was hovering over the Eastern States of Australia.

For a prospector to strike gold, and give a nation in the doldrums a real spanking gale of prosperity is not vouchsafed to more than half a dozen men every century or so. A man named Glass was digging a post hole at a station between Northam and Southern Cross when he discovered gold. It was not payable, but the Government sent out a prospecting expedition under the leadership of Bernard Norbert Colreavy. The party searched for eight months in vain. Mr. Colreavy then went out on his own account and discovered two reefs at Golden Valley. Some months later Fraser, Twomey. Risely. and Anstey located big low grade reefs at Southern Cross, but in 1892, the owners ‘cut’ the miners wages. They went on strike. Many miners returned ‘East.’ Only 200 men remained on the field.

Ford was born in the Ararat district of Victoria and had prospected for tin from Herberton, in Queensland, to Greenbushes, in Western Australia. In 1884, he was at Mt Burnett, on the Roper River. He had tried his luck at Croydon in the Gulf Country and at Broken Hill. He met Bayley at the ‘Upper Camp’ on the Ashburton in WA. They found gold at the ‘Soldiers Secret,’ and at the ‘Dead Finish.’ They worked down the Murchison to Perth, and then went East, bound for Southern Cross.

‘Give it a go! –  With George Withers, Jacoletti, and Campbell, they struck gold at ‘The Blackfellow’s Grave’ between Southern Cross and Parker’s Range. This show they sold to Salter for £300. It worked for a couple of years. Withers went further East prospecting with a native boy. He got as far as Coolgardie and specked seven pennyweights of gold on what was afterwards the famous Fly Flat. This induced Bayley and Ford to go along and see what the chances were. ‘Withers has missed it,’ Bayley said. ‘Let us give it a go!’ Ford suggested. They followed Hunt’s tracks to the Gnarlbine Rocks, and keeping on they reached Coolgardie at about 5 o’clock on the afternoon of July 7, 1892. They had a gruelling journey, and both men agreed that they were nearly done in. Ford picked up a half ounce nugget, and within three hours, the next morning, they ‘specked’ 100 ounces. One of the biggest nuggets had been trodden into the ground by Charley Hayden, a surveyor, who had been over the ground for the Hampton Plains Company.

The story of the Hampton Plains Company is one of the world’s greatest hard-luck stories. This company selected 216,000 acres in 1889, in blocks varying in size from 1000 to 50,000 acres. Block 59 just missed Coolgardie by half a mile and missed the Boulder, Burbanks and Londonderry groups of mines by only a few miles, while Block 48 Just missed the phenomenally rich Red Hill on the shores of Lake Lefroy. As the areas were freehold with the right to all water, timber and minerals thereon, the company missed millions by what may be said to be inches. Such is the luck that wisdom cannot control, nor foresight nor energy alter. Jack Ready, afterwards the discoverer of Kurnalpi, and ‘German Charley’ had ridden over the ‘specking’ ground of Fly Flat and returned to report ‘no gold East of Southern Cross. ‘ It was the seven pennyweight slug of Withers that sent Ford and Bayley out, and when they arrived they found a notice of application for a gold mining lease on a datum peg, bearing the date of the year 1888. On the creek they found the remains of a camel camp — but that was all. Of the intrepid prospector — or prospectors — there was no sign. Doubtless he — or they— had died of thirst.

Ford and Bayley began work on a leader from which they took a good deal of gold, and when they had almost 400 ounces they returned to Southern Cross for provisions, taking the gold with them in their pack saddles. They replenished their tucker bags and stayed in the ‘Cross’ over the night. They broke camp at dawn, but on their heels travelled three youths — unknown to them. That party, Tommy Talbot and two other young fellows, reached Coolgardie a day after Bayley and Ford, and. saying ‘hullo’ moved on and camped on the rise from Fly Flat, where years afterwards, old Hunter was to raise prize vegetables. They commenced their search for gold immediately. They found it. They picked up rich specimens on the surface, and knapped more from the great outcrop of what was, afterwards, ‘Bayleys Reward.’  They filled their billycans and made bags of their coat and shirt sleeves.

Struck It Rich – They had struck it rich. They buried a couple of hundred pounds worth to be collected later. The evening of the day on which Tommy and his mates had located a bonanza, Bayley said to Ford ‘We’ll go over and see what those young chaps have been knapping at all day’ They went. Tommy Talbot wasn’t half as lucky as they were. The youths had found one of the world’s great mines, but they had not ‘pegged’ it out. Bayley and Ford had it ‘pegged’ when the boys returned in the morning. They had the technique which the boys lacked. However, they advised the boys to peg to the South, and Talbot and party pegged what was afterwards known and floated as ‘Bayley’s South.’ They took in an experienced partner by the name of Gorry, who advised them to sell for £200 per man.

That added to the £200 worth of gold they knapped from the most famous, but not the richest, of Western Australian mines. All they got was £800, divided between three of them.

Ford remained in the camp and Bayley rode into Southern Cross. He was taking no risks. He went to secure the lease, and Ford remained to watch the golden hole. When Bayley reached the ‘Cross’ he was as rough and rugged as the granite country through which he had ridden. He went at once to the Warden s office and applied for a ‘Reward Claim’ at a place 112 miles East of Southern Cross. He backed up his statement of gold discovery with 540 ounces of gold valued at £2000, then he got drunk and talked. Southern Cross went on a jamboree and the town was ‘painted red.’ Next day the whole of the population of Southern Cross set out for Coolgardie, leaving only a few publicans and officials in the town.

Horses £40 each – Horses that on Saturday morning could not be sold for a fiver, now found ready buyers at from £40 to £50 The prices of provisions went up in an hour 50 per cent. Men paid one shilling per pound to have their swag carried on teams, while they walked a process known as ‘swamping’. Most of the men however, walked carrying tent, rugs, tucker, pick and shovel on their backs, and their water was carried in canvas bags in their hands. Weaklings don’t go to rushes in the van of the pioneers. Fortunately, it was a good season. There was grass for the horses, and the gnamma holes were full of water. Meanwhile, things were happening, Southern Cross became a great centre and was one of the busiest in the colony. From there started horses donkey and camel teams for Coolgardie and beyond.

Saints and sinners ‘humped their blueys’ along this stretch. The main street of Coolgardie saw two-up played with men staking £100 on a toss of the coins. It was not uncommon to see £1000 on the ground. Picks and shovels brought 30/- each at public auction. Condensed water in Coolgardie brought 1/- per gallon. At Hannans — a year after the discovers of Coolgardie— it sold as high as 5/- per gallon, and Jerry McAuliffe paid £15/11/- to water eight horses at Tom Elliott’s condenser at Kurnalpi a bit later on.

Water was dearer than beer in prohibition America. Much later luxury baths were opened. In a small hessian shed, a man stripped off and stood under a sprinkler A man outside mounted a ladder and filling the sprinkler with a kerosene tin full of water, fanned the bather as the water sprinkled over him. this cost 2/-. Occasionally, when a well-known man entered for a bath of this kind his clothes would be temporarily taken possession of, and he would be kept a prisoner until he could borrow something to wrap around him. It has been known where men have had to hop home holding a newspaper around them.

First Offer £2000 – The first offer made to Bayley and Ford for their property was from a Perth syndicate which offered £2000. Then, along came Sylvester Brown, son of ‘Rolf Boldrewood,’ and he was given a two months option over the mine. Bayley and Ford divided £80,000 in cash, and shares as purchase money. The first battery erected was a one stamp affair, and from a few feet of quartz broken on the surface a return of £29,000 was secured.

Bayley was to die at the young age of 31. Though a strong athletic man he fell into ill health, possibly on account of privations he had suffered while a prospector, and died at Avenel of congestion of the lungs on 29 October 1896. He left a widow but no children. ‘Wikipedia’.

Coolgardie was the Jumping-off ground of the great mining industry of Western Australia. A few years later, the ‘Lake View’ alone turned out a ton of gold in a month. The creation of that new — though distant— market was to break the back of the 1893 depression, and with a golden gale, blow Australia out of the doldrums. Perhaps no other town in the world was ever like Coolgardie.

Through all the world the fame of Coolgardie spread. One claim was owned by an Icelander, a Brazilian, a Yankee, and a New Zealander. In London a play was staged with this new Eldorada as its theme, ‘The Duchess of Coolgardie,’ but everywhere the one thing sought before all else was water. Gold could wait, but water was a necessity. Martin Walsh made a fortune out of a salt well which supplied condensers. This famous Irishman was to die seeking oil in Africa.

Recommended reading:

Before Coolgardie II
The Prospectors of the Yilgarn – by Peter J Bridge

The definitive history of the rushes to Golden Valley and Southern Cross up to the discovery of Coolgardie. Biographies and photos of the main prospectors involved. This book gives far more detail than any other on the subject, and uncovers much previously unknown material.  Available from HesperianPress  –