Almost Killed with Kindness –

I was recently a guest speaker on the wonderful Sunday evening radio program ‘Remember When’ with Harvey Deegan. It was great to chat with Harvey and to talk about the three websites that I have on the history of the people and places of the WA Goldfields. When we were talking about the blog, I […]

Charles Robert Ogilvie ‘Jack’ Cumbrae-Stewart – grave tales

Charles Robert Ogilvie Cumbrae-Stewart was born on 17 February 1867 in Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand. He was the son of Francis Edward STEWART and Agnes Catherine PARK. His father Francis Edward Stewart came to New Zealand as a child with his parents in the 1830’s from Bristol, England. There he met and married on the […]

Gus Thorn – pioneer profile

AUGUSTUS LOFTUS ‘GUS’ THORN by Lyn Beard The death of Augustus Loftus ‘Gus’ THORN does not appear to have been registered and the burial did not show up on any of the usual resources for graves. The only record of his death in 1932 seems to be this small article in The Goldfields Observer of […]

The Mining Expert –

In the first days of the Coolgardie field, any man game enough to sign himself M.E. (Mining Expert) could put his story over.  So-called ‘Mining Experts’ were characteristic of the Coolgardie field especially from 1893 to 1896. Most were self-styled ‘Captains of Industry’ and had most of the letters of the alphabet after their names. […]

What happened to Dan Heitmann?

Way back in 1988 I was contacted by a lady called Elsie Heitmann (yes I still have my correspondence from then). She was trying to find out what happened to one of her relatives who went missing in Western Australia from South Australia. All she had to go on was the following photo which was […]