The Founding of the Coolgardie Miner –

The Founding of “The Coolgardie Miner”
The Golden West Magazine

Avon Argus and Cunderdin-Meckering-Tammin Mail 13 April 1935

W. E. CLARE tells the story of Coolgardies first Newspaper, its Vicissitude and Fortunes, those of the “Old Camp,” and the men of the” Roaring Nineties·. “It is indeed a far cast of my memory. Hardly a name I have mentioned but revives a memory or stimulates a theme.”

William Edward Clare – Founder of the Coolgardie Miner.

Coolgardie was then, in 1893, a place of intermittent famine, either of water or food. Hannan’s rush had depleted the camp of flour and meal, and we were all subject to rationing. I formed one of the queues that filed through Paisley’s store and had received in return for the payment of 7s 6d my allowance of 5 lb. flour and a 2 lb. tin of meat. I felt that it was up to me to make at least an attempt or a pretence to fulfil a boast, so with a swag perilously light in respect of food, 7 lbs. of sustenance in all­, set out on my journey afoot from York. The vicissitudes of this trek are better left for another time.

I have often been urged to relate the story of the founding of the Coolgardie Miner newspaper and its weekly compendium, The Pioneer. I yield at last to the insistence of the editor of this excellent and purposeful annual, but with a diffidence which, at the outset, I must confess, is fully warranted by the consciousness of my inability to perform such a task with that chronological, biographical and historical accuracy due to the fulfilment of such an undertaking, and which may justly be expected of me by my contem­poraries of the period referred to as the ”Roaring Nineties”.

Banner – First Issue of the Coolgardie Miner 14th April 1894.

It is indeed ‘A Far Cast of Memory’ for I possess no data of any kind on which to refresh it, not even an old newspaper file. But incidents out of the ordinary may, perhaps, link it up in a readable sequence, notwithstanding the lapse of 29 years since the com­mencement of the events here recorded. The truly won­derful success which attended this, my first venture in newspaper ownership, both in its commercial and literary aspects, places me in a somewhat artificial light. Little or nothing of its unique success was due to myself per­sonally.

I had merely pegged a claim which panned out rich.

The great rush which followed the commencement of the undertaking brought in its tide men of literary mark and wide newspaper experience, as well as commercial men, printers and mechanics of the highest grade, of whose services I freely availed myself, and to these adventurous spirits was due the eminence attained by “The Coolgardie Miner” and “The Coolgardie Pioneer” in the boom years of ’94 to ’97 inclusive.

Prospectors Equipping at Coolgardie for the new “Rush” to the 45-Mile-1894 – Photo SLWA

I was one of the excited crowd of diggers that fol­lowed on Paddy Hannan’s track on Sunday morning, the 12th of June 1893. Like the majority of those follow­ing the rush, I was afoot, carrying a load of from 80 to 100 lbs. in weight. I pegged what afterwards proved to be a very good claim indeed, but I was not destined to work it. I fell grievously sick, and within a week of the discovery was removed to Coolgardie, where I had the chance for better attention.  Through the accident of that sickness, I owe the good fortune which followed, for no dozen alluvial claims on Hannan’s combined re­turned to their holders the wealth the first newspaper venture on the goldfields netted to its lucky ”prospec­tor.”

A fortnight after Hannan’s discovery I was working on Bayley’s Reward under Captain Beaglehole. At that time no shafts had been started on the claim, attention being devoted to taking out the gold from the enor­mously rich chute running along to the blow which was then a landmark of the country immediately surround­ing. Some £60,000 worth of gold was obtained therefrom before mining proper was entered upon on the ‘Reward’. I may mention in passing that the wages we received were £3 10s. a week and two gallons of water per day, and living costs!

Pat Hannan, prospector of Kalgoorlie Goldfield, June 1893. Tall Man – Dick Greaves, a Pioneer Prospector of Yilgarn (Southern Cross) Goldfield, 1888. Hannan is living in retirement, but his old friend, Greaves, crossed over to the “Undiscovered Country” some time back.

It was on an afternoon of the fortnightly pay that Captain Beaglehole called me to him with a confidential air for which at the moment I was at a loss to account.” Tell me,” he opened ”are you a newspaper man?” I admitted a previous association with news­papers both in the printing and reporting branches, and forthwith confessed, with no little trepidation, that I had written descriptions of the Reward claim and the surrounding fields which had been published.

” I thought so,” he replied, apparently by no means displeased. ”Do you know,” he continued, ”there is a good chance for a newspaper on this field.”· I agreed there was, at the same time voicing my regret at the in­surmountable obstacles which precluded me personally from participating in so promising a venture. It was then and there that I had my first lesson in com­pany promotion. ”Go down to the town” said Beaglehole, ”and arrange for a meeting to discuss the scheme.”

I lost no time in so doing, nor did I  spare any energy in the prosecution of my mission. The meeting was ar­ranged for the following night. Everybody who was anybody in the camp foregathered at the place appointed, Evan Wisdom’s Exchange Hotel. In propounding the object of the meeting I was naturally at a disadvantage, having no idea of the financial requirement of the scheme, and little, if any, knowledge of the cost of the necessary plant while the matter of transport of the same from such far-off railway terminal as Northam or York, nearly 300 miles of bushland and sand plain, varied from day to day almost.

It was generally conceded, how­ever, that a newspaper on the field would fill a want that was never so keenly felt, and a vacuum never so greatly abhorred. It was decided to appoint a commit­tee to discuss with myself ways and means and to report to a further meeting. Young Evan Wisdom, even in those days esteemed for his shrewdness and being one of the three licensed liquor purveyors in the camp to boot, was appointed chairman.

The business of the night having thus been completed, I claimed the privilege of the first ”shout” which ab­sorbed just about half of my fortnight’s pay. Others followed, and the coming newspaper and the ever-present liquid stimulants were discussed to the evident enjoyment of the lot of us.

Fly  Flat, Coolgardie’s Wonderful Early-day Alluvial Area c 1894 – Photo SLWA

The committee met on the following Sunday morning, and ways, mean and divisional interests were discussed, the latter by no means to my satisfaction, so little indeed that I withdrew from further discussion of the project with the avowal that I would make the venture “on my own,” although I had not, at the moment the remotest idea how that was to be accomplished.

I must now hurry over the interval of the months which elapsed before I acquired the crude plant which the combing of the Government Printing Office and Tom Bryan’s printery, enabled me to get together. This consisted of an ancient Eagle press and an assortment of type known to the trade as ”pye”.  With the assistance of some compositor friends this I ”set up,” graded and packed away in boxes. Meanwhile, I engaged what the man with whom I negotiated termed a ”team” to meet me and my entourage and plant at the head of the railway line, then under construction for Yil­garn (Southern Cross), which was already formed to about 20 miles beyond Northam. Big-hearted Joe McDowell was the contractor for this railway, and he insisted upon franking my outfit over the distance, which was most opportune. My associates on this journey were Fred Wells, a surveyor, whose acquaintance I had made since my return to Perth, and Dick Stone, a red-headed, violent and a rare character.

At the head of the line, some trouble commenced. The ”team” consisted of a tip dray and three horses. The dray was already filled with horse fodder, sufficient for a fortnight. However, I had made the deal and I had neither the means nor the opportunity of getting out of it. We managed to add the old press and most of our personal effects to the load, leaving the balance of the plant on the fast-growing dump of goods at the railway camp.

It was here I met Charlie Moran, a Perth acquaintance, who was ‘swagging it’ to Coolgardie and on an electioneer­ing campaign to capture the new Parliamentary division of Yilgarn. We liked his company but ridiculed his ambition. We were poor judges as events proved. The first meeting he addressed was at the Thirteen Mile Rocks, later known as Parker’s Road. The assemblage was comprised of teamsters and swampers, with probably not an elector among them.  I took the chair – the stump of a felled tree. I am afraid I did not unduly flatter the candidate, but it soon became evident that he could afford to dispense with flatterers anyhow. I cannot hope to recall even the outline of his subject, but I can never forget the uninterrupted flow of his utterance and his dramatic style of declamation. He was acclaimed. He, later on, won the seat, as history tells.

Offices of the Coolgardie Miner, Bayley Street, Coolgsrdie – Photo SLWA

After a weary drag occupying over five weeks, our dilapidated outfit pulled into the main camp of the new Eldorado. During the few months of my absence, the once pic­turesque camp of Coolgarclie, in point of natural beauty by far and away the best of any gold mining camp in the West – had been scarred and battered out of recognition almost. True, the kingly salmon gums, the finest of their species, still waved their vivid foliage to the breeze, but the smaller scrub and the undergrowth had been cleared away, and township lots, section after section, carried instead mean shanties of iron, wood hessian, bagging, fragments of tin calico and rags, while the banging of hammers and the shrieking of saws pro­claimed man’s hurried occupancy of the wild­erness to be still proceeding in feverish haste.

Anxious weeks of waiting followed. No tidings could be gleamed of the whereabouts of the balance of the plant, and the rush of loading at the time rendered the problem one for dire and dismal speculation. It should have been loaded on a team shortly following my own had arrangements have been adhered to. At last Harry Gregory, then in business with his brother Claude, making water tanks and otherwise working in iron, suggested, with that impulsiveness of good nature which often characterised his actions in the successful days following to him, generously offered to I proceed to the head of the line and root out the missing essentials.

In the meanwhile, I had been compelled to dispose of what had been intended as the future ”office” of the Miner in order to keep the pot boiling. Meanwhile, we found refuge in a rude shelter of gimlet wood and bags, half-roofed only with the same flimsy material. When, finally, the missing parts arrived it was there we set up the plant. Mr Bond Taylor also arrived on the scene about this time and assumed charge of the commercial side of the venture, and proved an invaluable aide. It occurs to me, even late in the day, that the subsequent success of the venture was in a great measure due to the skill and ability of my first accountant.

No time was to be lost in producing the first issue. Already I had selected my staff from the volunteers offering. To John Drake, who came from the Thames River Field, N.Z., I offered the editorship, which he held for fully a fortnight with credit to himself and satisfaction and profit to me. But the back of beyond was calling, and he was off, though he remained through­out my proprietary a valued contributor to the Miner and the Pioneer. But I am a few days ahead of my story.

Among those on the camp who evinced the keenest interest in the birth of the first goldfields pres was young Edwin Greenslade Murphy, who was camped just outside the townsite with his cousin, Henry Tucker and the Mc Cormack Brothers. The first-named had been mentioned to me as a possible acceptable contributor to the columns of the new paper. I was told also that I would mostly find him over at Bill Faahan’s Club Hotel. The direction was accurate, and
be­fore long I was deciphering a creed full of merit – a length of topical verse, which he had entitled ”The Fossikers Yarn.” He had sent this off to the Bulletin, but it also figured in the initial number of The Miner. From then on he became a regular contributor to the paper, and ”Jingle” by ”Dryblower,” contained the lightest and brightest two-column feature of many future numbers.

The missing plant arrived on a Tuesday, and it was decided that an effort should be made to produce the first issue on the following Saturday.  Those familiar with the nature of the work required will appreciate the im­possibility of this being accomplished by two compositors who had, first of all, to distribute the type into cases ere they could commence the work of setting up the con­tents.  It was small type, too, and although the issue was only one of four pages of 24 1-inch columns in all, it was plainly beyond the capacity of two compositors though they might work every hour of the interval.

“Does anybody know anybody who can set type” was the query passed round the camp. As in the matter of literary help, I was here again most fortunate. The required help was forthcoming. Among the number were two tradesmen, who were in other and more con­ genial walks than type setting at the time. These were the first Salvation Army officers who came to the field one Captain Bennett, and the other a bright young chap named Walsh, who was dispenser for the medico of the camp, Dr Davies. They both helped a few hours each day.

Others not so expert, but who did their best with hearty goodwill, were Trooper Jarlath Duffy, now and for many years past a partner in the leading land sales­ men and auctioneering firm of Learmonth, Duffy and Co, and Jack Bowen, manager of Faiz and Tagh Mahomet’s camel transport. The result was that by noon on the day determined upon, the 14th April, 1894, the first copy of the Miner was off the press. Myself at the lever, ” Dryblower” applying the ink roller and Tucker ‘flying’ the sheets. We were at it until nightfall, resuming printing soon after daylight on the following Sunday morning. Re­gard for our limited supply of paper caused us to stay printing when 1,200 copies had been struck off. The price was 6d. per copy. As an example of letterpress, No. 1 issue was well below the mark. The bag shanty had no flooring and but little overhead covering, while oc­casional dust storms would have rendered decent print­ing impossible even with the best working materials.

Man operating old printing press – Photo SLWA

A noteworthy coincidence was the birth of the first white child in Coolgardie on this identical date. It was so asserted at the time and without contradiction. John Drake supplied the bulk of the ”copy” for the first issue and for  No 2 after which he disappeared for a time following some elusive rush. A dreamy youth – a pretty little fellow was intro­duced to me as a budding literary genius. Pursuing a policy that I adopted freely in the following years, I engaged him on the spot for a trial run. He did not stay long, but this must not be taken as a reflection on his gifts in the direction implied.

I had much better luck with the next comer, a well-set-up, dashing, picturesque-looking chap. I forget whether I engaged him or whether he assumed the po­sition as a matter of course, and a matter of right. ‘My name is Hales, A. G. Hales, otherwise ‘Smiler,'” he announced. ” You’ll have heard of me ” I certainly had, for many on the field had mentioned him in connection with journalistic exploits and coups in Broken Hill, Adelaide, Sydney and elsewhere.

He lost no time in getting to work. He was dynamic. He knew half the diggers, prospectors and business people 0f the camp. His ready pen and readier imagination suited the goldfields, reader of the day, to a degree that probably no other newspaperman in Australia could have attained. He was frequently on a­ horse or camel following reported new finds, and by means of returning prospectors kept us well supplied with ”copy.” His account of the first wedding cere­mony which took place on Coolgardie stands as one of his best contributions to The Miner, his description of the costumes of the bride and bridesmaids being a string of geological similes most tellingly employed.

Leaving ”Smiler’ in charge, I hurried down to the coast to take delivery of a cylinder printing machine, while a more habitable office was being rushed up for us with an entrance on Bayley Street. It was whilst in Perth on this piece of business that l made the acquaintance of F. C. B. Vosper, who was at the time conducting a small weekly folio paper called the Miner’s Right. He agreed to come on The Miner, and that was the commencement of an association that continued, with periods of recess, during the whole of my ownership of the paper, and longer.

He was a demo­crat of the democrats in those days,

and although neither his writings nor his frequent platform utterances, on subjects political, industrial and racial, were met with general approval, they certainly commanded wide respect. The space devoted to these reminiscences would not suffice in which to recount even a chapter which I might contribute to the autobiography of that forceful, interesting, and, withal, lovable character, who, perhaps more than any other writer associated with it, was responsible for the unique success of the early goldfields press.

A G Hales ‘Smiler’ Vanity Fair – Photo SLWA

How I Met My “Reptile Contemporary.”

It was on my way down to the coast in connection with the transport of the new printing machine that I met my “reptile contemporary” to be.  It was on the second day out on the coastward coach journey. We had left Boorabbin early in the morning and were labouring over the big sand plain when signs of a considerable confla­gration visible on the horizon attracted our attention. It was plain the outbreak was in the vicinity of Quadranoolagin, where Cobb and Co’s change post and a wayside house were situated. It was the latter that was aflame, and by the time we reached the scene, the shanty had been completely obliterated from the landscape. I lost all interest in the disaster, however, for just pulling out after its overnight camp on the edge of the plant was a fine team, with a waggon loaded to the height of a haystack with what was plainly an exceptionally modern printing plant. Accompanying the team was the manager of the rival newspaper to be, Mr James MacCallum Smith, and a staff of three printers, or so I imagined them to be. The result of that competition as it affects The Miner is embraced in the axiom that competition is the soul of trade.

The great gold boom was reaching full tide within a year of the founding of the field’s first newspapers. The Miner was being published every morning, and contained eight pages of broadsheet, and occasionally, later, ten pages, while the weekly Pioneer was flourishing apace. This was the first journal in the State to make a regular feature­ of illustrated supplement, and the work of making the­ process blocks was performed by Mr Thos. Mills, now of Perth, who brought a plant with him from the Eastern States for the purpose. And surely never did an engraver work and persevere under such shockingly disadvantage­ous conditions as did this heroic artist.

The Christmas number of The Pioneer of ’96 was in itself a most noteworthy achievement, and one probably without parallel. It consisted of 100 pages of demy-folio, with an illus­tration on almost every page, all the work of Mr Mills. Mr Ben Strange was later unearthed literally, for he­ was working in a mine at the time. His weekly cartoons brought an admired new feature to the Goldfields press. We printed a series of them in three colours, and the innovation continued for some time after my retirement from the conduct of the papers.

Ben Strange – Photo SLWA

I think I am right in stating that J. Dawson, who, for many years past, has been responsible for the letterpressing of the illustrated section of the “Western Mail,” had charge of the machining of these early efforts. The railway line was approaching Coolgardie, and the tide was flowing Kalgoorliewards. As Hannan’s progressed, Coolgardie dwindled, and this trend became so pronounced that I opened an office at the new centre, and furnished it with plant sufficient to bring out some sort of a newspaper,  but it was never so employed, for I retired from the business shortly afterwards and my successors did not prosecute the project.

Colour cartoon by Ben Strange – Photo SLWA

However, I placed a Mr Oakley Browne in charge of the Hannan’s office, with a youth named Harry Davis as an assistant (the latter now commercial editor of “The West Australian”) and printing an evening edition of “The Miner,” and heading it the “Hannan’s Herald,” sent it over the track by cyclists. The first man to undertake this truly awful transport contract was Percy Armstrong—and who does not know Armstrong’s Cycle Agency today? (My greatest pleasure in the retrospect of those stirring days is the truly remarkable galaxy of literary talent that was attracted to the goldfields, and which for the greater part contributed to the columns of “The Miner.”)

Many travellers of note contributed articles in passing. The most noteworthy in this regard was Edmund Mitchell, an eminent novelist, who had some vogue in the eighties, and who furnished me with what seemed at the time an extravagant suggestion for the pumping of water to the goldfields.  The spirit of emulation must have been strong indeed or the force of environment very greatly impressed on the stage of the old “Miner.” For example, quite a number of the compositors later made good on the literary and business sides of newspapers in various parts of Australia and elsewhere.  There were many others whose names elude my memory for the moment. They all, together with the smartest tradesmen in their line ever gathered together under one roof in all of Australia, were responsible for the wonderful success, transient though it was, of my goldfields newspaper venture. George Kingswell, who succeeded me, had with him Mr John Drayton, afterwards, editor of the Perth “Morning Herald,” and they kept the “Miner” well up to traditional grade, till the waning fortunes of the Old Camp left no commensurate reward for the exercise of. their exceptional talents. – William Edward Clare

South Western Times Bunbury 10 April 1940, page 3

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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