The wide sweep of the auriferous land had been stripped of its golden treasures – it covered an approximate two miles wide to 600 miles in length. Beyond that the country showed scant hope of rich returns as had occurred in the days of Bayley and Ford, and Harold the arrival of Paddy Hannah and his Golden Mile. My grandparents had followed where they led, too late to be in the Vanguard of discovery, then the tens of thousands who peppered the country with potholes in their search for its rich metal. Others there were who by their good fortune or luck found wealth by of the sum of their hard-earned work. Some there were who had stayed too long, ever waiting for the next turn of spade, ever hoping, spending years in the vain hopelessness. But where else could they go now?
Father had returned after the war but had come back to the same offices where there were waning hopes of a modicum of work, even casual work in a Kalgoorlie which had once gleamed so brightly, but now had little more to offer. After his return the gold field towns were more shabby than when he had left, after years of neglect and decline. Our home which in his hey- day had kept a garden with fig, mulberry, oranges and almonds that had born fruit in their season, and was still struggling with limited help from mother. But I had been busy with school. And busy at home with music under Miss Monthhouse, and with mother’s encouragement, doing our music practice.
Youth is idealistic, sitting up for self for unreachable standards. I had expected too much of father, making little allowance for a human approach to life’s current problems, self-inflected for otherwise. He appeared to lose interest in simple things which in other times had receive his attention – the home, the garden, matters which I confirmed from photos of well-trimmed garden plots, fruit trees, and shrubs he had planted when he had set up house in the 68 Campbell Street after his marriage to mother in 1902. Once he made the suggestion to mother that we sell the house and move elsewhere – say, the wheat belt, where the family could begin life anew. The idea was preposterous, and I believe he knew it. Many things, particular the war, had left a baneful influence on him, as it had on countless others, which even time had failed to change.
There were nights when father “went to Lodge”. The small front apron with kilted border indicated some strange insignia of a Freemason, a name deserving of an explanation from the pages of reliable encyclopedia. Even then you’ll be puzzled. It’s safer to accept that the modern Masonic lodges attempt to live up to their avowed principles of charity, brotherly love and of mutual assistance. That’s comforting.
We were members of a lodge called “THE INDEPENDENT ORDER OF ODD FELLOWS,” which provided health information and medicine to our family. Its registered name was surely devised by a group of odd fellows themselves.
Besides such places of visitation, there was well-equipped Kalgoorlie Public Library, surprisingly housed in a large building known as the Mechanics Institute.
The Kalgoorlie Club, of which father was a member, was a place where men congregated to engage in such social activities as billiards, snooker, card playing, discussing matters serious and otherwise, or snacking and drinking until money became shorter than the supply of convivial fair.
Much more important are the memories of those first months when father endeavored to pick up the fridge of his work again. I doubt I was much help to him, but he opened a window on the world of his day which otherwise would not have been revealed to me. I felt as one who walked elaborate of the past, with secret exits and unexpected entrances to balk my way and hinder my steps.
There was a revealing peep into the affairs of a long defunct mining endeavor. Vividly remembered is the time he took from the shelf a leather bound volume in which was entered in his neat, free flowing handwriting, all the relevant matters concerning the “Sons of Gwalia South gold Mining Company, No Liability”. It was the many leases pegged and later formed into mining companies on land as close as possible to a remarkable gold strike made in 1806 by a group of “grub staked” Welsh minors in a place called Leonora, some 200 miles north of the Golden Mile.
The Sons of Gwalia South Gold Mining Company had apparently failed at depth, and had gone into liquidation. Father worked with the company’s promoter, Sidney Yeo, and had been involved in preparing the preliminary papers leading to liquidation. Then came the sudden declaration of war in Europe, and, as many of the shareholders were from England and Europe, the matter was held in abeyance.
Five years later, with the cessation of hostilities, father now concentrated in reviving those uncompleted matters, sending out notices of impending liquidation to shareholders far and near. Here I was able to help by addressing and mailing the necessary papers to all concerned people. The responses were surprisingly few. The limited bank balance was withdrawn, and placed in the hands of the adjoining firm of solicitors; existing debt satisfied; father’s fee collected, and the matter finalized. It was a routine procedure, and now drawn from my unreliable memory.
Many years later I knew the story of the complaints of the complex of mines known as the “Sons of Gwalia” (Sons of Wales). It was discovered by a party of Welsh miners down on their luck, and “grub state” with provisions, equipment etc. in exchange for a share in the profits. It was extremely large, rich area of gold in a place called Leonora, some 200 miles north of Kalgoorlie. The year was 1896. The main lease was purchased by Herbert Hoover, on behalf of his principals, Berwick Moering, of London, paying 6000 pounds sterling for the main lease, baring a fabulously reach and deep load. To penniless miners 6000 pounds was a fortune. (Father’s interest had concerned one of the many other leases south of the rich load, which proved worthless.)
Hoover introduced many ideas in his rich Sons of Gwalia mine, including a new type of headframe, constructed of timber imported from the [United States of] America, a structure which is still standing after 62 years of productive operations.
More than eighty tons of gold, the equipment of over $4,500,000.00 in dividends was paid into the pockets of the lucky shareholders, figures provided by author L. Bennett, in his book, “The Glittering Years”, published in 1981.
Gold is, however, forever and whenever you find it.
In the critical year of 1920 gold was found in an area some 50 miles south of Kalgoorlie. It is written by a contemporary of the mine, Gavin Casey:
“Hampton Areas, born in 1920, a child of the old Hampton Land and Railways Syndicate, which had obtained free hold land grants about 1890 under an old charter which included mineral rights, came alive!”
Alive as it was, for on that old land grant Hampton Plains rose to mock the vagaries of Fortune, which lifts high or casts low the hopes of mere man. The gold rush which followed the discovery of gold bearing awe became the hottest news in the next two years and longer. Forgotten names long de-listed on the Stock Exchanges world once again haunted the share market. Miners were out in force picking leases, promoters seeking options on leases. The many empty offices in the Exchange Building filled again, and those whom father had once known were back in business. The activity was the fillip to his forlorn hopes of a revival of the good old days. Father’s well-remembered company promoter, Sidney Yao, returned to Kalgoorlie, seeking father’s assistance in the production of a gold mining company to be known as “Celebration Gold mining Company, No Liability ”.
Throughout the Goldfields there was an air of euphoric expectancy, with legal firms in demand, adding their seal of authority to host of new mining ventures.
Of course in the excitement of the day, our adjoining firm of solicitors was deluged with clients old and new. Tasman Williams, the law clerk, came seeking my services as a junior typist in charge of petty cash and lick-stamp-and-post duties, at the going rate of two pounds per week. It was too good to be true! I had a paying job at last, and I was on my way! Soon I was installed in the legal firm of Cowel and Company, beside a desk and a Yost typewriter all of my own.
Meantime another group of die-hards and a new generation of hopefuls were racing pell-mell across Hampton Plains in the eternal quest,
“Bell, Book and Candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on.”
And come on they did, as thousands had done in earlier times, in the boisterous show of confidence in a year unjustified golden future for the new strike.
It was inevitable that sooner or later father would be swept up in the vortex of the Share Market. Sidney Yeo became financially involved in the Celebration Gold Mining Company, and, supported by his confidence, father purchased shares in that concern, though to what degree I do not know. It is impossible for me to forget or to resist the excitement of the Celebration shares as they zoomed upwards on the share market.
Wary, mother urged father to sell profitably while he could, for well she remembered he had had his fingers burnt in the risky gold market. Responding to her plea, one evening I heard him say, “When Celebration reaches five pounds a share I’ll get out!” Celebration shares at no time reached five pounds a share, but came dizzyingly close.
Just short of that figure they fluctuated uneasily then took a nosedive that could not be stopped. The doomed Celebration mine continued to file with doubtful assays then ceased mining operations altogether. The Hampton Plains boom of the 1920’s added its name to many that had preceded it.
Writing in 1965, the author Gavin Casey said,
“The derelict gold mines of the UNHAPPY Hampton Plains boom of 1920 and onwards, the Celebration, the White Hope, the Golden Hope, the Mount Martin, the Red Hill mines were a monument to false hopes….”
An unhappy gold boom at the mines of the Hampton Plains proved to be to thousands of investors, and particularly to our family. As far as father was concerned, he had lost his all, not only his money but his confidence in the future of the Goldfields, and he seemed to have little interest in making another effort. He tried to revive an agency of the Victoria Fire Insurance Company which he had once held, and which had withdrawn its Goldfields connection. Before World War father regularly helped in the offices of the Racing Club, when he was active in the Totalizator offices, receiving bets and paying out winnings. He was not a regular racing man, nor did mother avail herself often of the complementary entry tickets to which she was entitled. Only once did she take me to see the Kalgoorlie Cup run. It was the most important social event of the year, when the latest styles in lady’s dresses and hats were on parade, and visitors flocked to Kalgoorlie from far and near. I was quite young yet still remember mother made me a new white hail-spot muslin dress with a blue satin sash, and drawstring purse to match! Through long after years I could not rise above the probable legend that I had shed tears of sympathy for the last lonely horse struggled across the finish line.
Now, after the war, father found casual work at the Kalgoorlie Racing Club, where in prosperous times he had worked in the Totalizator offices during the annual carnival. When a vacancy now occurred in that club, he applied for it, but was rejected as its new secretary, the position offered to a much younger man, who had been my business teacher in the Central High School, Mr. Bone.
That seemed to bring to the fore the fact that he had been bypassed in the race; age and the effects of the war visibly showing.
Even the arrival of another baby daughter in our home failed to lift his spirits completely. She was a curly-haired Mona, so called by father himself, I’m convinced. Each of his daughters had been given names of national flavor. The Isle of Man, where his mother and sisters were living was of Celtic origin, and once known as the Isle of Mona, or Mona’s Isle. Such details I have recently obtained for facts published in the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the “Isle of Man Steam and Packet Company”, where my grandfather Eastwood worked for many years.
The news of Hampton Plains gold rush had been noised abroad, and father’s nephew, Eric Broadbent, only son of father’s sister Fannie, decided to migrate to the West Australian gold fields, there to seek his fortune. He arrived after the collapse of the boom time, when there was no chance of fulfillment of his hopes.
In an effort to occupy his time, father set him to lopping the branches of our front pepper trees, but with the first exposure to the searing winds and the heat of a Kalgoorlie summer he was severely sunburnt. Then recovered, he made another attempt at acclimation, but wilted again.
Father sought help of the government officer recommended the youth be sent to the wheat belt near Bruce Rock, where the government was involved in a major effort of preparing virgin land for wheat farming. It was one of several schemes initiated to provide jobs for the out-of-work return solders or the continuing flow of migrants to Australia. It included such diverse undertakings as preparing the land for viticulture culture, and the needy dried fruits industry near Mid Junction and Herne Hill, plus a projected dairying industry in the timber belt south of Perth.
