The Painting in the Pub –

A Curtain Raiser for the Golden Nineties by Freda Vines

“Bayley’s Luck,” as painted by Gerald Walsh in 1899.

One of our truly indigenous works of art, “Bayley’s Luck” painted by Gerald Walsh in 1899, hangs in the carefree atmosphere of a goldfields pub. The hotel is the Fimiston, one of the only two remaining hotels of old Boulder Block, or, as it was affectionately called, “the Dirty Acre.” Once the site of six hotels, a brewery and a butcher’s shop, “The Block” saw stirring events in the days when “cabbies,” plying between Kalgoorlie railway station and the Great Boulder Mine, greeted new arrivals with the cry: “Right away for the Boulder”; and later, at the height of the boom when no less than 61 trains a day travelled the loop taking in Boulder and Kalgoorlie.

The hotels in the Boulder Block shared a common back yard, which was a profitable source of confusion to festive spirits who wandered into this no man’s land. Because the rear entrances of the hotels all looked alike, a man often gave up the task of deciding from which hostelry he had come and was lost to his mates for the remainder of the night, it mattered little. One hotel was as good as another in those days of easy money and mighty thirsts. They had the excuse, too, that the water supply, condensed from salt water in Hannan’s Lake and a municipal well in Boulder, was not inviting. In fact, it was the custom to add a horseshoe or nails to the supply of water in order to give it “body”.

Little-Known Artist – Amid convivial scenes “Bayley’s Luck” has hung through the years. Little seems to be known about the artist, save that he painted the picture while on the goldfields seven years after Bayley and Ford made their find. Neither does anyone seem to know how the picture came to be in the hotel at all. In this large canvas, approximately seven feet by five feet, the artist approached with caution the serious business of painting an epoch making event. Bayley is certainly not exhibiting the enthusiasm to be expected of his exuberant nature.

“Well, what do you know” one imagines him saying, holding out the nugget with a fine display of indifference.

Struck it Rich! It is the reserved older man, Ford, holster on hip and wearing bowyangs who displays excitement. “Gold!” he cries, dropping his shovel. “We’ve struck it rich!” The picture is touched with the warm, golden sunlight of a goldfields winter day. In the background the prospectors horses stamp away annoying flies under spreading trees which soon would go to feed the hungry furnaces of the condensers. Underneath the picture is the following narration: Bayley and Ford arrived in Coolgardie July, 1892. Picked up a half ounce nugget and in three weeks got 200 ounces of alluvial gold and named the place Fly Flat. Found the reef on a Sunday and in four weeks dollied 500 ounces. Bayley made application for a reward claim in September, 1892. Bayley’s Reward,  floated in Melbourne, 1893, for £24,000, and in 1894, with additional 30 acres, the capital was increased to £48,000.

On a Sunday morning my husband and I visited the hotel with the intention of photographing “Bayley’s Luck.” It was not a pronounced success. What little light there was created reflections in the varnish with which the picture had been coated.

An Old-Timer’s Comment. While my husband was building up chairs and tables on which to stand the camera for a time exposure,  a little old man somewhat bowed down by the weight of the pot of beer in his hand stood beside me. He was understood to say: “They were the real pioneers.” He looked old enough to have been among those who gathered the glittering treasure of Fly Flat. He was still gazing at the picture when we went out to inspect the shaft sunk right against the wall of the hotel. Things had looked promising at 200 feet, but the crash of glasses as the hotel rocked under the firing of charges shook the occupants more than a mines pay night and the shaft was abandoned. We walked away, past the mines and past the grassy playground where the children laughed and played, leaving Bayley and Ford lost forever in contemplation of their find in the picture that has looked down on so many of the pioneer prospectors that followed in their wake. It would be a pity if this link with the past should be lost to the people of Western Australia.