This excerpt of my book is provided to Outback Family History. The excerpt focuses on Alf’s football experience on the WA Goldfields in 1904 and in the Perth competition in 1904-1905. To provide veracity and evidence to underpin the book’s commentary, I have spent the past six years collating results of every game of football played […]
A Lost and Desolate Wanderer –
17/08/2019 By 1 Comment
Evening Journal, Adelaide, 30 January 1894 A Terrible Experience at Coolgardie. A well-known and respected resident of Kent Town has received a letter from his son, who recently went to Coolgardie from Adelaide, from which the following is extracted :— “On December 24 and 25 (Merry Christmas Day) I was dying, […]
A Lost Glitter – book review
17/08/2019 By Leave a Comment
A Lost glitter : letters between South Australia and the Western Australian goldfields, 1895-1897 – edited by Michael R. Best. A Lost Glitter is the most richly detailed first-hand account of goldfields’ life we have: The letters of the Deland family between the Western Australian goldfields and Gawler contrast the rumbustious, economically chancy, life of […]
The Great Goldfields Flood of 1948 – a verse
17/08/2019 By 3 Comments
The heaviest rainfall in Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s history occurred 70 years ago—during the weekend of Saturday-Sunday the 21st and 22nd of February 1948. Nearly 300 millimetres of rain fell in less than 36 hours, causing widespread flooding and severe property damage. A massive clean-up operation followed. It was nature’s kind of anger, a weekend of solid rain […]
Typhoid : digging for gold often ended in digging a grave
10/08/2019 By 2 Comments
Typhoid Lives on the waterless goldfields were lost not only from thirst alone but also from typhoid. In the 1890s, typhoid was endemic throughout Australia. It struck at Perth, Western Australia’s capital itself, in established outlying centres such as Northam and at temporary townships on the road to the goldfields such as Woolgangie. But the lack […]
