Heres’ to you Mrs Robinson – A pioneering woman

This photograph was taken at Lake View Consoles GM in Kalgoorlie in 1896. It shows a group of gold prospectors and miners, including adventurous natural-geologist and pioneering prospector Robert (‘Bobby’) Robinson and his wife, Annie, standing at the right of the group. Not many women are depicted in these early photographs, many choosing to stay behind due to the harsh conditions. It was said that a woman had a one in ten chance of dying in childbirth pre-1900 on the Goldfields.

This is an early posed photograph of prospectors on the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia – the prospectors and their tools are arranged in front of their living quarters, the background shows that the area has not yet been completely cleared. All bush in this region would be eventually used for building shelters to live in, and as props for mining or fuel for burning for the process of distilling water and for domestic purposes.

It shows Bobby Robinson, a pioneering prospector – Robinson was the son of a Yorkshire coal dealer in England; he spent his early life working on family coal barges before he went to Queensland’s Paradise Valley in 1889, where he followed a succession of Australian gold strikes.  In 1892 he was in Geraldton, Western Australia en route to the Murchison and walked to Cue, a distance of over 225 km, nearly dying along the track from a swollen stomach as a result of living off only dried apples and water.

‘Bobby’ was the underground manager at the Lake View Consolidated GM, Kalgoorlie and later was probably the first to find and identify diamonds in the Kimberley region. When he was killed in a sulky accident near Leonora in 1919 he was buried in Leonora Cemetery but his wife, Annie, who moved to West Perth, was worried that

Bobby would be lonely up there’

and had his body re-interred at the Karrakatta Cemetery, Perth in 1928, some nine years later.

From the West Australian –  ROBINSON – On February 2, 1919, accidentally killed at Leonora Robert Robinson, beloved husband of Annie Robinson, and father of Gladys, Eva, Roy, and Mavis, of 993 Wellington-street, West Perth. Kalgoorlie papers please copy.

West Australian 1st Feb 1928

Annie Eliza Robinson, nee McKenzie, who was one of the first women to travel to the eastern goldfields – a farmer’s daughter of Irish parents, born in South East Queensland. She raised four children in various goldfields centres after she married Robert ‘Bobby’ Robinson in Perth WA in 1896. Gladys Irene was born Kalgoorlie in 1897, Evelyn Lenore was born Kalgoorlie in 1899, Cecil Roy was born in 1901 Leonora, and Mavis Alice in Perth in 1908. Mrs. Robinson also cared for dozens of ailing indigenous and miners children in Kalgoorlie’s first air-conditioned house. Bobby Robinson designed the air-conditioning system to work like a giant Coolgardie safe, using water dribbling from the roof over coir matting blinds.

Annie shows the clothing worn by women of the goldfields – women living in the remote areas were aware of the fashions of the time and wore these fashionable clothes even though summer temperatures might exceed 40 degrees Celsius; Annie would visit the Lake View Consolidated Mine in fashionable late Victorian dress (heavy skirts, long sleeves and a hat), more suitable for England than for Australia.

Shown are a selection of the implements needed for mining (a pick, an axe, panning dishes and a sieve) used in the search for alluvial gold – this equipment may have been pushed overland to the gold fields in a wheelbarrow like that shown, because the cost of transportation by camel or horse was exorbitantly high in Kalgoorlie; quartz, knocked off a reef with an axe or pick, was dollied (crushed) in a dolly-pot and sieved; in the absence of water, dry-blowing was common, ‘pay-dirt’ being poured from one panning dish held at shoulder height to another at the prospector’s feet; dry panning and sieving used the wind to separate the heavier gold from the lighter earth.

The men are dressed in typical prospector’s regular attire of long-sleeved shirts, moleskin trousers, and hats – men’s occupations on the fields were often evident from their clothing; Mr. Robinson, on the right, is wearing a boater, a hat befitting his status as underground manager on a leading mine, the man directly to the right of Mrs. Robinson, with a watch on a fob chain tucked into his waistcoat pocket, is also probably a mine manager. The others, in slouch hats, are probably employed as labourers in the mine, some are also wearing the (almost obligatory) waistcoats common at the end of the Victorian era.

Robert ‘Bobby’ Robinson was born on the 4th Feb 1869 in South Shields, Northumberland, England. The son of Robert M Robinson and Anna Maria nee Rawlings.

Robert ‘Bobby’ Robinson – photo Ancestry.com

Portrayed are the uncomfortable living conditions in the earliest days on the goldfields – these fields were particularly dusty, waterless, and hot. Humpies made from the bush provided shade but little shelter from cold and rain, dust storms increased in intensity as more and more of the surrounding bush was cleared for camps and fuel. A water bag hanging off the roof stayed relatively cool, since canvas allows for evaporation, but precious water was lost in the process. The man in the centre of the image is holding a candle, probably imported by camel from Southern Cross, which provided light but melted in the heat, lack of sanitary arrangements encouraged the spread of diseases.

Annie died in Perth WA in 1957 aged 88yrs and is buried with Bobbie at the Karrakatta Cemetery.

Ref: The National Trust – Robinson Family