Coolgardie Pioneer Cemetery

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.

Coolgardie Cemetery, 1903, erecting the memorial

Memorial to the Pioneers ‘The Men Who Blazed the Track” Coolgardie

Grave of Agnes Holland (Error on Headstone, should be HOLLAND) died 7th May 1894.

A map showing the approximate location of burials in the Coolgardie Pioneer Cemetery.

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

 

 

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My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

Comments

  1. Avril Daley y says

    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.

  2. Nicholas Steel says

    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!

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