An Extraordinary Tale

I have often mentioned, the regular occurrence, of what you may call ‘synchronicity’ where two related things come together for no apparent reason. It seems to happen with amazing regularity and I have lost count on how many time I have received an enquiry on a particular person or place only to have another person […]

Scandal at Murtagh’s Private School

The following story is about a teacher who went from town to town setting up schools for a short time then leaving under a cloud of suspicion. First in Perth in 1892 then to Kalgoorlie and  Coolgardie then on to Perth again then Bunbury with the same results. However Mr Murtagh was in no way […]

A Case of Mistaken Identity –

While recently doing my daily post on the WAVMM ‘The Western Australian Virtual Miners Memorial’ I found that it was the anniversary of a disaster that caused the death of three men at the Englishman GM in Kookynie on the 3rd February 1900. The names of the victims were:- BOURKE John, Miner 3/02/1900 Age 35 […]

NANNINE – ghost town

The townsite of Nannine is located in the Murchison Goldfields region, 735 km north east of Perth and 30 km south south west of Meekatharra. Gold was discovered in the Nannine area in 1890, the area being rich with gold, and by 1891 was the site of feverish activity. In 1892 John Forrest, the Commissioner […]

Pannican – grave tales

Police Honour Legendary Aboriginal Tracker. On the 2nd Jul 2008 a memorial was unveiled  in Kalgoorlie for one of the state’s most renowned Aboriginal police trackers.  Johnny Grey, also known as Pannican, who was considered one of the best trackers of his time. He worked for the police in the Laverton-Leonora area from 1942 to […]