Southern Cross Times 3 October 1903, page 2
THE OLD COOLGARDIE CEMETERY.—There are 33 graves in the old cemetery where the ceremony of unveiling a tablet took place (says the “Coolgardie Miner”). Of these the names of only six of those whose bodies were interred there are known. Most of the burials in fact nearly 30,took place in 1894. The new cemetery was first used in December 1894. The first burial in the old cemetery was in 1893, (William Farley) when the body of a miner, William Farley, who was killed by a fall of earth in Pig Gully, near Lindsay’s, was interred. The fifth was in March, 1894, when a young man named Thomas Kemp was buried.
In those days the cemetery was in the bush and took a good deal of finding. Among those buried among the pioneers was a young man named W. Reginald C. Crossman, over the grave of whom is now a handsome black marble slab. Crossman rode a camel to Southern Cross in order to send the news of a rich strike in Bayley’s No. 2 South, and received £200 for his work. Mr. C. Lowry, the secretary of the Australian Natives Association, wrote down to Southern Cross some time ago asking the registrar thereto look up the early records and see whether the names of the others buried in the old cemetery could be found, but so far no names have been furnished. Among those present at the unveiling ceremony we noticed Messrs. Fahan, Cawthray, Tierney, Tindal, Doe, Holtfreter, Hitchman, Bowen, and West, who were among the very earliest on the fields.
The known burial in the Coolgardie Pioneer Cemetery.
SURNAME | First Name | Age | Cause | Date | Comments |
ANDREWS | Jene | 35 | Natural Causes | 14/7/1894 | |
BEGELHOLE | Ellen | 9dys | Pneumonia | 23/8/1894 | Father William Taylor |
BLOXAM | Henry Tucker | 25 | Heart | 9/4/1894 | |
BRODERICK | Muttagh (Bertie) | Mine accident | 23/6/1894 | WAVMM.com.au | |
BROWN | John Thomas | 38 | Pneumonia | 9/9/1894 | |
CLARK | James | 53 | Bronchitis | 22/9/1894 | |
CROSSMAN | W Reginald C | 27 | Inflamation of lungs | 25/5/1894 | |
FARLEY | William N | 60 | 23/07/1893 | Pigs Gully, near Lindsays, Fall of Earth, 1st Burial | |
HICKS | James | 57 | Typhoid | 23/02/1894 | |
HICKS | Edward | Paralysis | 22/9/1894 | ||
HILL | Thomas | 50 | Suicide, shooting | 12/5/1894 | Tom came initially from Portsea, England as a teenager with his family to Canada, and then to Australia in the mid 1850s |
HOLLAND | Agnes | 25 | Typhoid | 12/05/1894 | |
JOHNSTON | John | 32 | Intestinal | 28/4/1894 | AKA Thomas KEMP |
KEANE | William | 22 | Typhoid | 28/4/1894 | |
KEMP | Thomas | 47 | 8/03/1894 | 5th burial | |
LESLIE | Joseph F | Typhoid | 14/7/1894 | ||
MAY | Edward | 50 | Suicide | 1/3/1894 | |
MCALISTER | Archibald | 32 | Typhoid | 28/4/1894 | |
MCCLUSKER | Daniel | 63 | Pneumonia | 12/5/1894 | |
MCGUIRE | George | 50 | 4/8/1894 | ||
MILL | Isaac | 55 | Stroke | 24/9/1894 | |
MOORHEAD | William Wallace | Intestinal | 3/4/1894 | ||
NAIRN | Leonard | 3 | Meningitis | 12/5/1894 | |
NEWMAN | John | Typhoid | 14/7/1894 | Unconfirmed | |
OGORMAN | Thomas | 30 | Mine accident | 4/11/1893 | |
ONEILL | Daniel | 6wks | Pneumonia | 0/5/1894 | Father John |
RAESIDE | John A | Accidentally shot | 5/3/1894 | ||
RYDER | Edward | 30 | Suicide | 20/09/1893 | |
SANDFORD | William John | 52 | Peritonitis | 15/8/1894 | |
STRETTON | John | 52 | Pneumonia | 26/8/1894 | |
TWITCHING | Frederick | 36 | Appendix | 4/8/1894 | |
Unkown | Male | Starvation | 26/09/1893 | ||
Unkown | Male | Starvation | 26/09/1893 | ||
Unkown | Typhoid | 8/3/1894 | |||
Unkown | Typhoid | 8/3/1894 | |||
WALTON | Joseph | 45 | Typhoid | 21/11/1893 | |
WHITTON | Henry (Harry) | 38 | Infection | 0/5/1894 | |
WILLIAMS | Coolgardie | 1day | Convulsions | 28/04/1894 | Father Llewellyn |
Moya Sharp
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My grandfather Samuel McConnell Brown started a bakery in Coolgardie _ Brown and Burns and when the gold collapsed he went to Subiaco and continued the business. I have been looking for his father George Brown McConnell or just plain George Brown. He is my brick wall! He had to have died before 1906. I have wondered whether he followed his son Samuel to Coolgardie. In Samuel’s Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia state that he was the son of George McConnell, railway pensioner and Margaret Matheson. Margaret died at the Aararat Lunatic Asylum in 1905, and so he died before that date as his son George Alexander Brown signed Margaret’s Death Certified age.
In the picture above “Erecting the memorial at Coolgardie Cemetery”, can anyone identify the formidable man second from the left back row? An amazing specimen for the time!
Unfortunately there are no names with this picture but you are right he is a very big fellow.