The people of the Goldfields

The Goldfields of Western Australia was and still is made up of many people, from poets to politicians, from saints and sinners and everything in between. I hope to tell you the stories of some of these people either famous or infamous or just the ordinary folks. Sometime the most ordinary people do the most extraordinry things

Emma Emilie Urquhart – grave tales

Emma Emilie BELICKE ,Born 15 Aug 1884 in Prahan, Victoria. Died 28 Mar 1919 Kalgoorlie. Daughter of Carl Wilhelm BELICKE and Emma Amelia RAU. She came to Western Australia in 1897 with her parents aged 12yrs. On the 1st Feb 1905 Emma married Ernest URQUHART in Perth WA. Ernest was a year older than her […]

Davyhurst Cemetery

Davyhurst Cemetery – Western Australia    –       GPS Latitude and longitude 30° 03’.82s 120° 38’.70e The Davyhurst Cemetery has 45 people buried there. Davyhurst is a Goldfields town that is situated southwest of Menzies, Western Australia, and is approximately 120 kilometers northwest of Kalgoorlie. The proposed townsite was initially declared “Davyston” in 1900. […]

Peter Dennis KAVANAGH – Police Officer

Peter Dennis Kavanagh joined the Police Force when he was twenty-one. How he crushed the gold stealing industry on the Golden Mile has now gone down in history. He was tutored by that wonderfully astute Excise Inspector – John Mitchell Christie. He was a born detective, keen and shrewd, with boundless energy. He was also […]

The Waters Family in the West-

From the family records of Grant Waters, with thanks: In the 1890s (possibly 1894), my Great Great Grandfather, Arundel William Waters, and two of his brothers, Thomas Waters and William Henry Waters shipped their horse teams to Western Australia to chase work (carting) on the expanding goldfields. They were the sons of William Henry and […]

A Lost and Desolate Wanderer

Evening Journal, Adelaide, 30 January 1894 A Terrible Experience at Coolgardie. A well known and respected resident of Kent Town has received a letter from his son, who recently went to Coolgardie from Adelaide, from which the following is extracted: On December 24th and 25th (Merry Christmas Day), I was dying, a lost and desolate […]