The Great Unwashed Preserver of the Peace

Sunday Times Perth – 7 November 1909, page 1 Jolly’s Bath – by Spinifex It was hot, something like 100 deg in the Victoria Hotel passage, and about 120 in the police tents. The ‘cosmopolites’ of the old camp were as cool as they could get in common khaki, pants and soft shirts, the latter […]

Tom Riseley – a man who blazed the track

Sunday Times – 16 January 1910, page 3 THE DEATH OF TOM RISELEY A MAN WHO BLAZED THE TRACK Tom Riseley (Thomas Randle Riseley) one of the men who helped materially to make Westralia what she is today, went on the last “long journey” from the Perth Government Hospital on Thursday night. Twenty-one years before, […]

Dryblower Jack – pioneer profile

John Carins know as Dryblower Jack John was born in Newcastle on Tyne, in Northumberland, England in 1890 and was educated at Rutherford College in that town. He was said to have come to Australia in 1913, he had a discharge certificate from the British services. As a young man, he worked in various trades […]

Billy Frost – the seeker of shadows

Western Mail Perth – 16 September 1926, page 19 THE SEEKER – THE LATE BILLY FROST Prospector and Explorer By John Meiklejohn. Round the campfires of the various diggings during the 1890s, no name was more prominent than that of the late Billy Frost. He never had the fortune to make any sensational gold discovery, […]

The Man Who Cheated The Hangman

Leonard Charles Jackson was to be the first man executed in the Fremantle Gaol for murder in 15 years since the execution of the infamous Snowy Rowles in 1932. I was recently contacted by Kevin Matthees who is Leonard’s Great Grandson. He has kindly given me permission to share the story as Leonard was from […]