I have just completed the following project on the early deaths in the Mount Margaret Registry District. These deaths are not the very first recorded for the cemeteries in this area but are the first from when the registry district opened an office in Leonora and started registering deaths in 1897. Prior to this deaths […]
A payable claim by ‘Dryblower’ Murphy
Although the Sydney Bulletin claimed businessmen at Coolgardie were on more payable claims than the diggers, they were not the only ones, according to E.G. ‘Dryblower’ Murphy, who wrote: A few of the lucky have dropped in on a patch And gone on a rollicking spree, Where a woman is waiting the digger to catch […]
Elizabeth P Halford – pioneer profile
In 1903, Elizabeth Halford and her husband and family decided to make a fresh start in Western Australia after some disastrous farming seasons in South Australia. Mrs Halford was born Elizabeth Patience SHEPPEARD, the daughter of a Royal Navy paymaster and his wife and married William Henry HALFORD in 1881. They had three sons and […]
A Life in Pictures – Hemus and Hall
The first professional photographers were well ahead of their time even using the clumsy and painfully slow wet-plate method, they set about creating a marvelous gallery of portraits and scenes. They caught the picturesque, raffish, ponderous and pioneering spirit of the period in a remarkable fashion just as the character and enthusiasm of the golden […]
The Hill End Tragedy and the aftermath:
Kalgoorlie Western Argus, Tuesday 26 January 1904, page 13 Hill End Fire Tragedy. Inquest on the Victims Mr. A. J. Evans, acting coroner, and a jury consisting of Messrs F. Mitchell (chairman), J. Matthews and W. V. Lee, inquest held into the cause of the death of the three little boys Lee, who were burnt […]