The following story was written by Fr Ted Doncaster and is an extract from the publication “The Cross in the Field, a history of the Anglican Church in the Eastern and Murchison Goldfields of Western Australia”. It is produced with his permission and I would like to thank him for his assistance and his continued […]
The Desert Echo – Trans Australian Newspaper
07/12/2019 By Leave a Comment
The “Desert Echo’ was a handwritten newspaper published by the workers employed on the Trans Australia Rail Line. It wasnt possible for them to receive updates on contemporary news so they made their own. This small document is an amazing snapshot of the every day lives of the men who worked on this lonely and isolated […]
They drank Champagne out of pint pots!
30/11/2019 By Leave a Comment
GLIMPSES of life in Coolgardie in those glamorous days when the “old camp” was a magnet to adventurous folk from far and wide, can be interestingly recalled by 89year old Mrs. Julie Kennedy, who resides in Stirling-street, Perth. Picture scions of wealthy English families rubbing shoulders with miners from the Bendigo diggings, thousands of gold […]
The Man who Invented “The Old Pioneers” – a verse
30/11/2019 By Leave a Comment
They had to be born, for in early Coolgardie We had to appear to our folks in the East As patient explorers, courageous and hardy, Facing fortune and famine, wild blizzard and beast; We had to account in the pannikin papers, For whiskers that covered us well to the waist, And our penchant persistent for […]
Farther Afield – the Gaffney family
30/11/2019 By Leave a Comment
The following plaque was photographed in a cemetery in Clunes Victoria by Wendy Broomfield. What a wealth of information on one plaque for the Gaffney family, it even gives the mothers maiden name, MARK, which is rare. Elizabeth GAFFNEY When Elizabeth MARK was born in 1845 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, her father, Edward, was […]
