T’othersiders
People from the eastern colonies were referred to as t’othersiders, an instance of the isolation felt by many in Australias ‘Western Third’. It was the influx of t’othersiders to the Goldfields however, which helped Western Australia to catch up in population and improve its financial status. Some of these people would remain to swell the population. Others, after making a sufficient ‘swag’ returned to the eastern colonies. It was, of course, a two way benefit. Those who had left their families behind sent much of their wages back to Victoria or New South Wales and elsewhere.
In his book on Australian mining, ‘The Rush That Never Ended’, by Geoffrey Blainey suggests that many towns in Victoria virtually lived on money from Western Australia. For example in 1898, 72,261 money orders to the value of £289,364.000 were sent to Victoria alone.
About 24,000 people from Victoria, about 16,000 from South Australia and about 8,000 from New South Wales went to the West during the 1890’s. A press survey of the 500 pupils at the Coolgardie Government School in 1897 revealed that not one had been born in Western Australia. The 1901 census showed that one in five in Western Australia had been born in Victoria.
Bayley Street, Coolgardie 1892-3
Among some well know t’othersiders was Harold Cockshott, a 30 year old barrister from Milsons Point on Sydney’s North Shore. Cockshott was a nephew of the famous Australian novelist ‘Rolf Boldrewood’ of ‘Robbery Under Arms’ fame, whose brother, Sylvester Browne, purchased the Bayley’s Reward claim
.
Another Coolgardie t’othersider was 40 year old English-born William Berry, whose family had settled in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick in the 1880’s. Arriving in Coolgardie in 1893, Will Berry may have been amused to see a t’othersider influence in the name of the Coolgardie suburb of Toorak. There was never any similarity in the Coolgardie area to the leafy and affluent Melbourne suburb by the same name. Other place names on the Goldfields such as Williamstown, Piccadilly, Mullingar, reflect a nostalgia for faraway places sometimes mixed with a sense of the absurd.
W Hall General Store and Bakery Toorak Coolgardie
Berry’s letters to his mother are graphic in their descriptions of the sea journey to the West and everyday life on the Goldfields. The Orient line ship that Berry sailed in had 150 men who had to sleep in bunks three deep. He tells of men of almost every nationality and age. Like many, Berry didn’t make an instant fortune. He worked for a mining company on the 4pm to midnight shift for £3 per week. This was indeed a great deal better than the unemployment queues in depressed Melbourne. In 1894 he was joined by his brothers. He was to then experience a modest success and set up the Berry Coolgardie Crushing and Mining Company. At the end of 1895, Will wrote to his mother to say that he and his brothers had earned enough to travel to New Zealand to place a memorial stone on their fathers grave. The brother were to share £12,000 between them, a very considerable sum on those days.
A Lost Glitter – Edited by Michael R Best
Not all t’othersiders rushed to Western Australia to dig for gold. Many saw opportunities in setting up businesses in the gold towns. An 1896 publication ‘A Lost Glitter’ gathers together the letters of the Deland brothers, Campbell and Charles of Gawler South Australia, who worked as bakers and shopkeepers on the Goldfields. They arrived in Coolgardie in 1895 when the town had not yet developed beyond the level of canvas huts and galvanised iron stores. Campbell Deland wrote on his arrival, “Coolgardie is a wonderful place – There are a number of fine hotels, some of wood and some of iron. There are a few stone building, but not many. Its seems to be that the people had not the time to stop to put up stone buildings, everything here is in a rush”.
For their part t’othersiders felt discriminated against due to the lack of adequate Parliamentary representation and the absence of key services such as fresh water. Many miners felt Perth to be remote and indifferent to their concerns. Some had never even been to Perth, having arrived in Western Australia via Albany or Esperance or having crossed the continent overland.
Many native-born and long-term residents of Western Australia were suspicious of the recent arrivals. Western Australia’s Premier, John Forrest, wanted to use the wealth generated by the gold rush for the long-term development of agricultural and pastoral industries to ensure continued prosperity. Many were skeptical about the long-term future of the goldfields and doubted that the t’othersiders would remain resident in Western Australia once the gold had run out.
The level of mistrust and suspicion felt by t’othersiders is evident in F.C.B. Vosper’s editorial in the Coolgardie Miner on 24 September 1895 in which he observed that
“We may fairly honestly claim to be a separate race from the Western Australians who for the most part are lacking in alertness, enterprise and view which characterizes the Easterners.”
Moya Sharp
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