Coles’s Find – a fair prospect

Sunday Times 6 June 1920, page 1 Cole’s Find Near Wiluna How a Returned Soldier Discovered a Goldfield by Horace Stirling George Cole, the discoverer of Cole’s Find, 11 miles south of Wiluna, is a scion of a family of 15, four of whom first saw the light within an interval of eleven months. His […]

The Woes of Jimmy Wongawol –

Daily News 1 October 1955, page 8   – by Bob Chambers Jimmy WONGAWOL, anywhere within 100 miles north, east or south of Wiluna, is a man with a problem. He has too many lives — those of his 2 wives, 11 children and 7 dogs He loves them all in his own way, and in […]

A Tonsorial Dynasty –

The Mickle family have established a dynasty of Hairdressers (Tonsorial Artists) and tobacconists in Western Australia. Starting in the Murchison and Northern Goldfields the four brothers and a nephew had premises in Menzies, Mt Magnet, Kookynie, Laverton and Wiluna and Meekatharra. They would also open a business in Narrogin in later years. The four sons, […]

Farther Afield – the Gaffney family

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 […]

A Field of Paper Daisies:

I recently received this wonderful photo from a fellow historian who lives in Wales, Alwyn Evans. He tells me: In 1900 Wiluna was hit by massive floods after 28 inches of rain, and all work ceased for some time on the Gwalia Consols mine which George Hall and the Westralian Mines and Finance Agency were […]