The Cole Boys – a family story

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 father and mother are both living. Mrs Margaret Cole (nee Grady)  is a resident of Newcastle Street, her husband being one of the best-known pioneers of the far outback country, he having overlanded to Wiluna, via Eucla, from New South Wales with his wife and their family, during the early eighteen-nineties.

Three of the Cole boys enlisted for the war, and a fourth tried several times to do so, but, much to his, chagrin, was turned down. Of the three Cole heroes, one made the supreme sacrifice, another was seriously wounded and gassed, while George, the lucky prospector of the Wiluna find, got through the terrible ordeal without a scratch.

Henry Thomas Cole, the head of this virile clan of nine stalwart sons and six bonnie girls is in his 69th year. He stands 6ft. 2in in his socks, and is as erect as a sentinel. His steel grey eyes flash with tile resplendence of Brazilian diamonds when he, with Kitchener-like equipoise, relates to his auditors that his mother is still an active resident of the back blocks of New South Wales and is going strong. In her 97th year!  Moreover, his wife had two sets of twins in 11 months, and one of his daughters commenced her matrimonial enterprise by presenting her lord and master with a pigeon pair.

The fortunate discoverer of the recent field is the juvenile of Mr and Mrs Henry Cole’s nine sons. The writer of this tale first met him at Leonora, last December, when the young hero, of about 20 summers, started out with a comrade-in-arms named James Ridley, who was the owner of the best-equipped tandem team that ever left the town. Later in the month, I met Cole and Ridley at Lawlers, 80 miles further north, where they were given a hearty send off. their equipment from the Repatriation Department, together with the appointment of their expedition in general, and their self-reliance withal, being the admired of the admiring.

A bush camp in the back blocks – Photo SLWA

At Mt. Sir Samuel, 36 miles N.E. from Lawlers, George Cole met his father, whom he had not seen since his two brothers and he had enlisted to fight the Hun, an interval of upwards of four years. After spending a couple of days in the old mining town, which, like Lake Way (Wiluna), immortalises the name of a recent Chief Justice of South Australia, Ridley and Cole drove their tandem, in shifts, for another 50 miles, as far as Mt Keith, where they agreed to differ as to their expedition’s future destinations and operations, Cole decided to prospect Mt. Lawrence, on the slopes of which his valuable find is located, while Ridley decided to remain at Mt. Keith to help an old friend named Ryan to develop a claim he had been working in that vicinity. So, like Abraham and Lot of old, the two heroes separated – Cole going to the right hand and Ridley going to the left hand.

Mrs Margaret Cole (nee Grady) mother to the ‘clan’ – Photo Ancestry.com

The tandem team, belonging to the Repatriation Department, Cole left with Ridley, together with the whole of their other equipment, and single-handedly, he started for Mt Lawrence, 35 miles away. En route, he came across the camp of George McHugh, the under-ground manager of the Violet mine, which Mr. de Bernales is about placing upon the London market. McHugh and Cole are old friends. Consequently, the former’s sulky and horse were immediately placed at the disposal of the young soldier, who made straight for his objective, Mt. Lawrence, on the southern side of which he came across the auriferous belt that is now a hive of industry and is known throughout the Commonwealth as Cole’s Find. George McHugh was the first to be informed of the new discovery, and after confirming his anticipations, by the activities of the dolly and the dish, McHugh resigned his position on the Violet and joined Cole, as partner-halves in his bonanza.

Four claims, comprising of 7 acres were pegged out before the townspeople of Wiluna were aware of the sensational find that had been made within pistol shot, as it were, of their lawns and flower gardens. But, just as Cole and McHugh were driving their last peg, about 3.30 a.m., a rush had set in, with the result that upwards of 20 claims were applied for before sundown.

Daily Telegraph and North Murchison and Pilbarra Gazette 2 November 1927

Leonora Holding Yards with 200 head of cattle from Mr J Willis’s property, Wongawol Station – Photo SLWA

FOOTNOTE:- Their father, Harry Ernest Cole, a fine bushman, was accidentally killed by a tram in Hay St, Perth in 1923.

Stockmen – Photo Roger Garwood

Coles Find:  La 26° 44′ 45″ S & Lo 120° 12′ 29″ E, is 11 miles south of Wiluna.

William ‘George’ Cole is buried in the Kalgoorlie Cemetery, where his brothers James Cole, Herbert Hughie Cole and his sister Rosetta Mary Bawden (nee Cole) are also interred.

Plaque on the grave of George Cole, Kalgoorlie Cemetery – Photo Find a Grave.