The following excerpt is from the book by Mrs Arthur H Garnsey called ‘Scarlet Pillows: An Australian Nurse’s Tales of Long Ago’ and is about her memories of being a nurse in Coolgardie in the early days.
The tale of the house that Jack built has his counterpart in Coolgardie in the tale of all that happened after Bailey struck gold and called his lease Bailey’s reward. The rhyme goes something like this:
Bailey’s the man who started the mine,
which started the rush with shovels and pans,
which started the town, first called by his name,
filled with men of all nations, sturdy and game.
Then came the typhoid, then came the hospitals
then came the the batteries making deafening noise.
Then came fortunes then came misfortunes.
And all because Bailey started that mine.
Coolgardie town was well laid out. Most of the houses or shacks were canvas over wooden framework and made so that they could be moved quickly at anytime. Also they were built upon piles so that cooling air could blow under them. It was not an uncommon thing to see houses travelling across the country fixed on rollers and drawn by camel teams. The most original structures were those made entirely of beaten out kerosene tins nailed to a wooden framework. There were a number of these, some quite large ‘restaurants’ where coffee and hot dogs were to be had all hours of the day and night. They boasted the grand name of the ‘London and Paris Cafe’ and another was the ‘Hotel Cecil’. Others of these patent tin erections were blacksmith shops and Japanese laundries where clothes were thoroughly ruined by the method of steam cleaning with condensed water and chemicals, after which they were hung out to dry in dust storms ‘red dust storms’, so that any garment that had been once white soon became a pinky red. However, this was the only way that washing could be done practically without water.
Bayley Street, Coolgardie 1895 – Photo SLWA
Coolgardie was a place of seething life and very great contrasts, a city in a sandy desert. They were often groups of natives squatting under the electric light poles playing euchre while their women begged for ‘Bacca’ from the passersby,
natives and electric light poles seemed to be quite incongruous.
The Afghan settlement camp was on the outskirts of town and here sometimes 100 camels would be loaded up with all sorts of tined foods to be taken inland beyond the railway. The long camel train was a familiar sight, the nose of one camel tied to the tail of the other, and an Afghan walking along the side about every 30th animal. Overall reigned supreme the great ‘King Dust’, a mixture of the desert sand and the mining dumps, stirred up and whisked together by those boisterous ‘Willy Willy’s’ and penetrating everywhere.
Nurses Quarters Coolgardie Hospital – Photo SLWA
The busiest place of all, sadly, was the hospital. The first hospital block was built of stone and there were three other small stone buildings near it, the dispensary, the theatre and the morgue. Then there were long corrugated iron wards built upon piles and also a number of canvas wards. A few of these were under the care of special male orderlies and nurses were not allowed to enter them. As there were few women in the town, only one ward was set apart for them. The nurses quarters were two rows of camps. Hessian stretched over wooden frames and lined with cretonne. These roads were familiarly known as ‘Rotten Row’ and ‘Piccadilly’. The loosely woven hessian gave very little protection from the dust storms, and the heat inside those camps was at times so suffocating that it was no unusual thing to throw a mattress outside and lie on the bare wires of the spring bed with an umbrella open over head as slight protection against the dust and sand and a bottle of water and a sponge beside to mop hot dusty faces.
Coolgardie Hospital Buildings 1894 – Photo SLWA
Often if water dried up, the sponge had to be dampened in lemonade or soda water just to have a clean face for going on duty. Difficulties of hospital work were almost insurmountable for lack of water. Ice was brought up from Perth by rail, but the only water available was the strong saltwater pumped up by the mines and put through the condensers. In despair, when the water supply run out, nurses often tried to cool burning bodies by dampening a sponge in whiskey or Brandy, two liquids of which Coolgardie never ran short.
There were no private wards, English aristocrats, Afghans, Italians, Australia’s rough and tough miners and Chinese, all lay side by side in their beds and all did their best to be cheerful and helpful. The supply of surgical instruments were short and carpenters tools, sterilised in a sort of way, sometimes saved the situation. An ordinary brace and bit was in great demand for boring holes in bones which had to be wired together. But sad to say,
in spite of all efforts and care, the death rate was very high.
It hurts to say that an entirely true picture of this wonderful mining centre must include a reference to the one street on the outskirts of town through which I happened to walk one day. No description of this street is necessary. It was the street of ‘Maison Tolerees’. The keeping of certain amount of these ‘houses’ was allowed by law. The medical examinations did not keep a check on the awful disease which demands such a heavy toll. These women were frequently in hospital, brought in by their ‘bosses’. A few of these unfortunates were Australians, but most were French and Japanese. The latter were such gentle little things with charming ways. However, it was not the woman only who suffered, but also their ‘visitors’. The special ward at the hospital for this kind of disease was always full. The special orderlies in attendance. There were several cases of suicide, however, for the cures now used successfully were unknown then.
The kindly reason given at the inquest and on the death certificate was always ‘Insomnia’.
Recommended Reading available from Hesperian Press:
Scarlet Pillows – an Australian nurse’s tale of long ago by Mrs Arthur H. Garnsey
Cobbers of Mine and the Mining Magnate by The Axeman, Alfred E. Wallace
Moya Sharp
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I always enjoy reading these tales of days gone by. Thanks so much Moya for helping us peek into the past for a glimpse of how things were on the goldfields.