This map shows the area covered by the www.outbackfamilyhistory.com.au web site:-
Western Australia Location Map
The area surrounded in yellow covers almost two thirds of the state and includes the Shires of, Wiluna, Meekatharra, Laverton, Murchison, Yalgoo, Mt Magnet, Cue, Sandstone, Leonora, Menzies and Kalgoorlie/Boulder.
The following map of the British Isles superimposed onto the map of Western Australia shows how vast this region is.
Bigger than the British Isles
I am attempting to record the names of the towns, stations and places within the boundaries shown in the first map. I would like to ask your assistance in adding to the list I have completed so far and which no doubt has many omissions. If you do see a town or place that is missed out or incorrectly spelt do let me know, so the list can be built on and improved.
Email: moyasharp@westnet.com.au Towns and Places:- http://bit.ly/1KUr1KT
Prior to 1896 all births deaths and marriages on the Goldfields had to be registered in the nearest Registry Office to the event. In the case of the Eastern Goldfields and its outlying towns this would have been Southern Cross (Yilgarn). After 1896 the following districts opened their own Registry Offices before being amalgamated into East Coolgardie between 1930 and 1956. Events in these first six areas today are registered as in East Coolgardie.
Broadarrow – Paddington, Broadarrow, Bardoc 1896-1918
Boulder – Boulder, Fimiston, Kamballi, 1903-1956
North Coolgardie – Menzies, Kookynie, Davyhurst 1896-1930
North East Coolgardie – Kanowna, Bulong, Gindalbie 1896-1917
East Coolgardie – Kalgoorlie Current
Mount Margaret- Leonora, Murrin, Malcolm 1896 –
East Murchison – Sandstone, Wiluna 1896-
Moya Sharp
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Hi Moya. I am interested in finding a business that a distant relative owned in Boulder. The name is Raymond Leane. He was originally from Adelaide but moved to WA in the early 1900 ‘ s and managed a business there with his brother. He later went to war with his 4 other brothers and a couple of nephew’s at Galipolli. On returning home he became Brigadier General Sir Raymond Leane and was SA police Commissioner. The only info I am missing is the business in Boulder. If you can help with anything at all it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Kaye. ..
Hi Kaye Yes indeed I can help. In 1910 there was a business called Pellew’s and Co who’s mananger was R Lean. I am sure I have a photograph of the shop which I will look out for you today. I also have WW1 service photographs of Benjamin and Alan Lear if they are relative and there are two burial in the Boulder Cemetery both for a Sarah Lear. I will get back to you soon.
Bye for now
Moya
HI Moya, I have forebear David Jessup who went to Kalgoorlie from Northam and died and is buried in Kal. I have discovered there is or was a Jessup’s Well in the area you are referring to and was wondering whether it was in any way connected to the family?
Regards
David Jessup
Hi David
Here is a short story on the naming of Jessops Well near Niagara/Kookynie. Do you think your relative could be related?
An old prospector named William Bright who took part in the rush to Kurnalpi and later helped to sink a well in the Kookynie district that came to be known years later as Jessops Well. William Bright was part owner of the Kookynie Pastoral Co Ltd and owner of the Two D’s mine in the same area. Mr Bright came to the Goldfields in 1893 with his mate Bob Jessop. He and Bob travelled to the goldfields near Kurnalpi where they worked for 12 months. They then went on to Kunnanalling and Menzies before returning to the Niagara district. By now their party had increased to six and included Sam and Jim Jessop, Walter Rutherford and John Muir. Sam Jessop and William Bright then sank a well at Niagara which was to be sold to the Government to use for Niagara Dam. The well was names ‘Jessops Well’ after Bill Jessop but Bill didn’t have any hand in sinking it.
Hi Moya,
Thank you for your trouble and the information.
I don’t think it is associated with our family which is Jessup not Jessop which may or may not be relevant.
Bob,Sam and Jim don’t appear in our family although a William does.
He was the brother of my great grandfather Benjamin both of whom were convicted of breaking and entering in Epping/Essex in 1857 and transported to Australia and finished up in Northam.
I didn’t know until recently David ( one of seven boys and 4 girls) ,a son of Benjamin, at some point went to Kalgoorlie, married a Menzies girl had five children and died and is buried in Kalgoorlie.
Thank you for the good work you do.
David Jessup
Hi Moya,
Thank you for the your information on the WA goldfields, I’ve been finding it both informative and interesting.
Unfortunately the person I’m most interested in mined outside the area shown on your map.
His name was John Doddridge and he was involved in several different mines at Wodgina in the West Pilbarra until his death there in 1926.
I have some information from Trove newspapers and from Ancestry and am wondering if you have any information to help in my search.
I live in South Australia and I believe he was an ancestor of mine.
Thank you,
Allan.
Hi Allan I will see what I can find for you. Bye for now
Moya
Hi Allan
Sorry but I have not been ablwe to find anything on your man. As you say he is outside of my area. I did look at Trove and see there are a number of articles mentioning him. Do you knoqw how he died. If it was due to a mining accident we are able to add him to the Miners Virtual Memorial.
Kind regards Moya
Hi Moya,
Thanks for trying for me. Unfortunately I don’t know any details, just the record that he died in the Port Hedland area in 1926.
Thanks, Allan
Hi Moya. Re David Jessup, we had a loco driver by that name here on the WAGR during the ’30s and ’40s. He had retired some time prior to when I commenced here with the WAGR in 1960 but the older men still spoke of him. There is a good photo of him in an old Railway Institute magazine still in my possession. It seems highly likely to me he could be the same David Jessup referred to in the earlier post.
Bernie Morris.
Hi Bernie There is a David Jessup in the Kalgoorlie Cemetery who died on 4th July 1935 almost 80yrs ago to the day! Do you think this may be him?
Hi Moya and Bernie,
My relative David Jessup was a Loco Driver in Kalgoorlie so the person referred to above would be him.
Bernie I would love to have a copy of the photo you have and any information about him.
Would it be possible to scan it and email it to me? My email address is jessup.fam@bigpond.com
Regards
David Jessup
My grandfather Gustave Kulenkamp Schmidt farmed a property called. St. Albans a few miles N E of Menzies in the early 1900’s with some considerable success I don’t know all the details but I believe he sold the property and returned to Victoria when great grand dad was struck down with a terminal illness. He later returned to the eastern goldfields for a while living at a place called Woolgar ( a suburb of Menzies I believe. My mother once told me that they used to run a train once a week through the suburbs of Menzies so the people could come into Menzies to do their shopping.my mother was the second daughter of Tom Ellis and Jacobine (aka Bini)Ellis .Tom was Manager of the mine at Yundagga. I believe there is a photo which includes him still hanging in the shire hall at Menzies today but I have never visited there.
Seems difficult to think of Menzies as having ‘suburbs’. When I went there in 2012, all there was of the town was the hotel, which was also post-office and shop, and the owner was also the taxi-man, who ran a reclamation yard alongside his hotel. Apart from that, the Town Hall still stood there, and the main street was really the only one, though two cross streets existed, but with few houses on them.The town must have originally extended quite a way out, as the graveyard was extensive, and quite some way out of town
Alwyn (from Wales) is of course correct when he says it’s unlikely Menzies had “suburbs.” It didn’t, but Woolgar/Yunndaga* was looked upon as a suburb, even though it was 4 miles south and also on the railway from Kalgoorlie.
On Saturdays the railway department would run a passenger train from Menzies out to Yunndaga about 6.00pm to bring people into town for the evening’s entertainment. It would return to Yunndaga at 10.15pm.
As the population declined the train was extended beyond Yunndaga to Comet Vale in the hope that extra residents from there, as well as the intermediate siding named Doneys, would help to make it worthwhile running.
* Menzies people also referred to Yunndaga as the Four-Mile and, facetiously, as South Menzies.
Bernie Morris.