Robert Pickering True – a landmark in the wilderness

Goldfields Memories    –   By “Di O Rite.”

Nearly two hundred miles north-east of Laverton ls a lonely grave.  Twenty-five years ago it was marked by a rugged pile of granite boulders, with a flat headstone on which was cut with a hammer and the simple inscription: “Sacred to the memory of Bob True, who died on July 29, 1906. R.I.P.” Twelve months later a more pretentious tombstone, with marble slab and Iron railings complete, was brought up from Perth and erected on the site by his friends. (see above)

Note from ‘More Lonely Graves’ by Yvonne and Kevin Coate:-
The original burial party made a mound of stones and chipped the inscription for ‘Bob True’ on a flat piece of local granite. A collection was taken up amongst his mates and a conventional tombstone was ordered from Perth (the handwriting was misread and the headstone arrived inscribed  as ‘Bob Irve’) It travelled to Laverton and then on to Duketon where it lay for 6 months. Two of the dead mans mates then had a go and got it to the end of the spinifex where they had to leave it due to lack of water. Six months later other friends made a spacial trip and crossed the 50 miles of spinifex desert to erect it.  It stands there today, 2kms east of Lake Wells homestead, a landmark in the wilderness! 70 miles from the nearest inland settlement of Erliston.

The following story about Robert has been sent to me by Robert Pickering True’s Great Niece, Marcia McIntyre, who wrote and researched this story and is published with her consent.

Robert Pickering True

Born Gundagai 1 October, 1863.  Never married.  Robert rates a mention in the Gundagai newspaper of 1887 after enthusiastically celebrating New Years’ Eve in that year!

Robert True, charged with riotous conduct, pleaded not guilty.  Constable Hely deposed that defendant was one of a crowd who were about the street seeing the Old Year out and the New Year in.  He told the men that they could play and sing as much as they liked, but yelling and throwing stones would not be permitted.  The crowd afterwards behaved in a very bad manner.  Cautioned defendant and heard Senior Constable McElligott do the same.  Constable Simpson corroborated the evidence given above.  The bench fined defendant 40 shillings in default one month.  In future the Bench said they would imprison, without the option of a fine.[1]

 Robert died 30 July, 1906, aged 43 years, at Gregory Hills (Mueller Range), Lake Wells Station, Western Australia, of a heart attack.  Robert was always believed to have had a weak heart, after suffering from rheumatic fever when young.  Robert went to Western Australia with his brother, my grandfather, Edward, during the Western Australian goldrush of the 1890s.  I originally believed that Robert probably died in the early 1890s, certainly before 1900, but I then found an entry on a website listing lonely graves in Western Australia. freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~westaust/Miscellany/

Robert’s death was very briefly recorded in the Sydney Morning Herald: GUNDAGAI. Thursday – Mr.Robert True, a miner from this district, has died in Western Australia.^[2]

Laverton, August 17 – News just reached here that a well-known prospector, Bob True, dropped dead at Gregory Hills on Sunday fortnight.  He was buried in the vicinity.  Death was due to heart disease.^[3]

Above:  Photo of the headstone over the grave of Robert Pickering True (wrongly inscribed “Robert Irve”).  The grave is on remote Lake Wells Station in the Ulrich Range, (formerly Gregory Hills or the Mueller Range) in Western Australia.  Photo courtesy of Peter Bridge of Hesparion Press, Perth, W.A.  The photographer was Timothy Carter of the mining company, Gold Partners NL.

The details about Robert’s death on this website are:  TRUE Robert Pickering – died 30 July, 1906, buried  Whitfords Reward Lease at Gregory Hills: died of a heart complaint.  North Coolgardie Herald 22 August 1906.  Grave marked as Robert IRVE.^[4]

Then in early 2006, I found more details in a book I located in the genealogy section at Wagga Wagga Library.  The excerpt below is from this book –  More Lonely Graves of Western Australia by Yvonne and Kevin Coate (published Perth in 2000 by Hesperian Books):

TRUE, Robert Pickering (Bob) died suddenly on 29.7.1906 aged 43 years at Gregory Hills in the Erlistoun district – buried at Gregory Hills (on map Mueller Range) on LAKE WELLS STATION, 110 miles north east of Laverton.

A well-known prospector on the northern fields, who died of heart failure.  The deceased, who had been in the employ of TF Whitford for some time, had been suffering from heart disease, and for some days prior to his death had been unable to work in the mine.  True’s death was reported to the police at Laverton and the acting coroner, HM McKenzie, considering an inquest unnecessary, gave a certificate for burial.  His remains were interred on Whitford’s Reward leases on the following day.

It was written “Bob True was my mate.  He was one of the early prospectors of the Erlistoun, that 100 miles long belt of auriferous country which stretches and is marked by scores of abandoned mines, from Laverton to Mulga Queen.  A sturdy battler and an expert gold-seeker, he toiled for years with indifferent success, paying his way, but always missing the “pile”which is the prospector’s objective.  Towards the end of 1905 Bob and I were at Duketon, 80 miles north of Laverton, and decided to search an area of greenstone country away beyond the spinifex to the north-east.  We set out with two mares(with foals at foot, borrowed from Donald Mundy’s station), a spring cart, tools and provisions. About mid-day on the fourth day we crossed one of the arms of Lake Wells and entered upon a rugged patch of auriferous country.  We called in Gregory Hills.  On the map it is marked as Mueller Range.  It was hot weather and we had merely a drop of water, which did not worry us because we had been reliably informed of the whereabouts of a “permanent” soak in the locality. We unloaded and made camp.  I rigged the shaker in the gully and commenced to “chase the weight.”  I got colours in my first run and a dwt piece in the second, and when we napped gold in a big quartz blow on the hillside we began to get excited.  Then Bob took the turnout and the empty tank and proceeded to the soak, a few miles away.  He returned before sundown with the startling information that the alleged permanent waterhole was bone-dry.

We knew of no other nearer than Duketon, so there was nothing for it but to clear out.  All that night we travelled.  We kept going through the blazing heat of the next day, until, just before nightfall, we reached a dry watercourse on which depended our only hope of saving the mares – perhaps ourselves.  We halted and searched for a couple of miles up and down stream and decided to dig for the life-giving fluid in a sandy basin.  At six feet we struck a trickle and another two feet brought us sufficient for our needs, which were acute, as the mares had not had a mouthful for thirty-six hours. We reached Duketon without further incident and settled down to knock a crushing form an abandoned lease.  Rain fell soon afterwards and a man named Whitford went out to Gregory Hills and pegged the reef in which we had found gold.  He returned to Kalgoorlie and sold it for a decent sum (3000 we heard), floating it into a company which was called “the Whitford Reward”. Eventually he landed again in Duketon seeking wages men to go out and open it up.  Bob and I had put through our crushing and joined his party.  It was composed of Mr Whitlford, Bob True, Bert Longmore, Mick Cunningham (brother of J. Cunningham MLA, and killed in France in 1918), Albert Cunningham, another brother (who died on the Erlistoun a few years later), Charlie Cox, Arthur Lever (one-time proprietor of the Exchange Hotel, Coolgardie), myself and a new-chum Englishman whose name I forgot.

On arrival we sank a shallow shaft for a start and erected a condenser, as the water was salt. Then we sank two shafts on the reef.  For the first twenty feet it looked like going down and we could see course gold in almost every stone we broke.  I was only a youngster and it worried me not at all that I had been one of the finders of this apparently rich mine.  But Bob took it badly and was bitterly disappointed to think that he had missed, through lack of water, making that coveted “pile”.  I believe it broke his heart.  Strangely enough, every foot we sank on the reef after that tended to “bust” the Whitford’s Reward.  At thirty-five feet the reef in both ends of each shaft looked like a lizard’s tail – tapering almost to a point.  Operations ceased.  We treckked back to Duketon and dispersed – and left Bob True in permanent possession of all the gold at the foot of the rainbow on Gregory Hills. 

On Sunday, July 29, 1906 (a holiday, of course), he and I had arranged a knapping expedition for the afternoon.  But Bob was absent from lunch. At dusk there was still no sign of him.  We fired rifles and erected a hurricane lamp on a pole tied to the top of a tree, without result.  Later armed with a rifle, I went over to a black’s camp about a mile from ours and when I arrived was surprised to see them all, except a wrinkled old gin, bolt from their fires into the darkness of the bush. To my query “Which way Bob sit down?” the gin said nothing, but held out to my astonished gaze his pipe, pocket knife and tin match-box.  I immediately ordered her to “walk alonga camp.” On the way a buck joined us.  At the camp they informed us that they had seen Bob in the bush that morning, walking rapidly, holding his hand to his side, and gasping for breath.  It was then they had picked up his smoking materials.  Lamps and torches were procured and the natives took us to cut his tracks. Then for a mile and a half, over stony ground, by the dim light of a hurricane lamp, they tracked the white man’s uncertain footsteps.  Near the top of a gravely ridge the gin stopped and pointed fearfully “Charlie! Charlie! Quick feller! Bob tumbledown.  Poor old —–!”  I ran forward and found my mate lying under a mulga bush with all his worries over.

It was a sad little procession which carried him back to camp. The next morning a committee was appointed.  We examined the body and decided that death was due to heart failure, then sewed him up in his blankets.  We dug a grave on the ridge near where he died.  A man named Duprez ( a prospector who had just found a show in the locality called the “Green and Gold”) conducted the service.  It was a Freemason’s service, although Bob was not a Freemason.  Duprez was, and it was the only one he knew.  We had no bible or prayer book, but even so, the proceedings did not lack solemnity, nor, indeed, did they lack dignity – out there with God’s golden eye blazing down on us out of the blue heavens.  We sang a hymn, filled in the grave and covered it with granite boulders.  Then, at the camp, we drew up a report of the whole proceedings for submission, later, to the police at Laverton.

Author’s Note:  The original burial party made a mound of stones and chipped the inscription for “Bob True” on a flat piece of local granite.  A collection was taken up amongst his mates and a conventional tombstone was ordered from Perth. (the handwriting was misread and the headstone arrived inscribed as “Bob Irve” instead of “Bob True”).  It went up to Laverton and eventually was carted to Duketon.  There were no prospecting parties at Gregory Hills then and so consequently it lay at Duketon for six months.  Then two of the dead man’s mates had a go.  They got the tombstone to the edge of the Spinifex and there had to leave it on account of a water shortage.  Six months later the others made a special trip and crossed fifty miles of Spinifex desert to erect it. It stands there today, 2 kms east of Lake Wells homestead, a landmark in the wilderness – 70 or 80 miles from the furthest inland settlement of that time on the Erlistoun goldfields.^[5]

Western Argus 21 Aug 1906

Western Main 13 Dec 1934

Western Mail (Perth) dated Thursday, 5 August, 1937.

 It seems that I had been entirely wrong in my estimation of when Robert died.  I thought Robert died in the 1890s and that Edward returned to Gundagai sometime in the 1890s.  I was given the impression by my mother that Edward was with Robert when he died.  My grandfather Edward was married at Gundagai in December, 1905, after he returned from Western Australia, so he could not have been in Western Australia in July, 1906 when Robert died. My mother always said that Robert was aged 33 years when he died, but he was really aged 43 years.

Intestate Estates. — Intestate estates placed under the management of the curator (Mr. Gervase Clif ton) during May last were -as follows: –  Robert Pickering True, Gregory Hills, £17 10/.^[6]

The Coolgardie area was first explored by H.M. Lefroy in 1863 and then by C.C. Hunt in 1864. As a result of Hunt’s efforts, the area became accessible to Europeans. But Coolgardie owes its existence to the discovery of gold at nearby Fly Flat, 120 miles to the east of Southern Cross, back in 1892.According to all accounts, gold was discovered in the area by Arthur Bayley and William Ford on the 17 September 1892. Bayley hastily reported the discovery of 554 ounces of gold to J.M. Finnerty, then the resident mining warden at Southern Cross. At the time 554 ounces of gold was worth 2200 pounds ($4,400) and in accordance with Western Australian mining regulations, Bailey was offered a reward claim covering 20 acres of land at Fly Flat. Bayley’s reward claim proved to be very profitable, and during the 70 years of existence, this mining claim recovered over 500,000 ounces of gold. From an historical perspective, the Coolgardie gold find proved to be one of immense national significance.

During the 1890’s, Eastern Australia experienced a severe depression and people flocked to the areas around Coolgardie in the hope of a better life. However, while some found gold, many only found hardship, sickness and death caused by inadequate housing, lack of fresh water and food, insufficient medical attention and supplies. Despite early hardships, within the short space of ten years, Coolgardie’s population had grown to a staggering 16,000.By 1896, the railway had arrived and by 1898, Coolgardie was the third largest town in Western Australia (after Perth and Fremantle). Two stock exchanges, three breweries, six newspapers, 60 Stores, 26 hotels and many churches were evident during this time. The town was named in 1893 and became a municipality the following year. The Post Office opened in 1895 and the following year electricity and a swimming pool enhanced the hard life of the miners. By 1897, the level of enthusiasm about the potential of the region was such that over 700 mining companies had been floated in London. The water pipeline arrived in 1903 and a year earlier the town had seen the construction of the State Battery.  As the surface gold ran out, many prospectors left the fields disillusioned and penniless. Others headed to Kalgoorlie (East Coolgardie as it was known then) and later worked for mining companies for as little as $6.00 per week.

1901 Electoral Roll – District:  Coolgardie, Sub-District:  Erliston

True, Robert, Baneggo Well, Miner.

 1906 Electoral Roll – District:  Coolgardie,  Sub-District: Duketon.

True, Robert, Baneggo Well, Miner

[1] Gundagai Times, Tuesday, 11 January, 1887.

[2] Sydney Morning Herald 31 August, 1906

[3] Kalgoorlie Western Argus, Tuesday 21 August, 1906

[4] freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~westaust/Miscellany.  A website containing details of lonely graves in Western Australia.

[5] Morgans Courier, 22 August, 1906, Western Mail, 15 October, 1931, 20 December, 1934, 5 August, 1937 and 2 September, 1939.

[6] List of Intestate Estates, Kalgoorlie Western Argus, Tuesday, 11 June, 1907.

Peter Bridge wrote a small book about R.P. “Bob” True – “For Those Who Remembered Bob True, A History of Whitfords Reward, Gregory Hills” by Peter J. Bridge and Ian Murray, published by Hesperian Press in 2007 (ISBN 0 85905413 6).