I have just run across a gently amusing newspaper cutting from 19331 that I want to share with you…
Coley Crane, a well-known Perth citizen, is interested in a very promising mining venture at Field’s Find. Recently he was showing a visitor round the ine and drew attention to the ore dump beneath the whim legs. “It is nice ore,” said Coley. “Ah well,” condoned the newcomer, “it all takes time, and while the improvised plant might be improved upon that will come in time; it will all come in time.”
“I don’t think,” said Coley, “you quite understood what I said – I remarked that this was a nice ore.” The visitor agreed, but continued: “But I wouldn’t worry about that. You’ll have everything spick and span later on.”
Coley was still puzzled. “I was referring,” he persisted, “to the quartz in the lump here.”
“Oh,” exclaimed the man from Perth, elucidation dawning upon him, “I thought you were referring to the superstructure and that you were saying it was an eye-sore!”
On 23 October 2024, our team will start Phase 2 of the project. Following the completion of the Pilot Phase (Phase 1) on 30 September, the findings of the pilot were assessed and a report was submitted to the FamilyHistoryWA Management Committee recommending that the project proceed. This new phase of the project will add 15 new communities to the existing list of 4 communities that are being researched. Full details of the 15 new communities can be found here.
If you are interested in joining the project team, or if you have information about any of the communities on our list, please email ghostswa@fhwa.org.au.
In 1872, the government offered a reward of £5,000 for the discovery of the first payable goldfield in the colony of Western Australia1.
In 1879, Alexander Forrest explored the Fitzroy and Ord River areas, and reported excellent grazing land and that gold might be found in the East Kimberleys. John Adams and Phil Saunders managed for find a little gold, but insufficient to be payable. In 1883, a second Forrest expedition included a geologist, Edward Hardman, who showed likely gold deposits on his map of the area.2
On 14 July 1885, Charles Hall and Jack Slattery, following the leads provided by Hardman, found payable gold at Halls Creek in the Kimberley region. After working for a few weeks, Hall returned to Derby to report his find, and took 200 ounces of gold with him as evidence. The ensuing “Kimberley Rush” encouraged as many as 10,000 men to head to Halls Creek. The field was officially declared on 19 May 18863.
Thousands of men made their way to the Kimberley from other parts of WA, the eastern colonies, and New Zealand. Most arrived by ship in Derby or Wyndham, and then walked to Halls Creek. Others came overland from the Northern Territory. Most had no previous experience in gold prospecting or of life in the bush. Illness and disease were rife, and when the first warden, C. D. Price, arrived on 3 September 1886, he found that “great numbers were stricken down, in a dying condition, helpless, destitute of money, food, or covering, and without mates or friends simply lying down to die”. A few were lucky enough to locate rich alluvial or reef gold, but most had little or no success.
In the early days of the gold rush no records or statistics were recorded for either the arrivals or deaths. Also, no one knows how many died trying to get to Halls Creek across the waterless desert, or how many simply turned back. When men actually arrived at Halls Creek, dysentery, scurvy, sunstroke and thirst continued to take its toll. The Government applied a gold tax of two shillings and sixpence an ounce. It was a very unpopular levy as gold proved so hard to get. The diggers avoided registering and the Government had a great deal of trouble collecting the tax or statistics of any kind. Halls Creek was a shanty town of wood, stone, canvas, tin, bark and spinifex. But it boasted two hotels, a post office and a gold warden.
When Price arrived in September 1886, he reported that about 2,000 remained at the diggings. By the end of 1886, the rush had ceased. When in May 1888 the government considered claims for the reward for discovery of the first payable goldfield, it was decided that the Kimberley goldfield, which had proven disappointing, was insufficient to meet the stipulated conditions of a yield of at least 10,000 ounces (280 kg) of gold in a 2-year period passing through Customs or shipped to England, so no reward was paid out5. A gift of £500 was given to Charles Hall and his party, along with a bequest of the same amount to Hardman’s widow.
The rush lasted only a few years as it was not financially viable to transport the machinery to this remote region. With the discovery of gold in Coolgardie, most prospectors moved on. In 1955, the town site of Halls Creek was relocated 15Kms west.
SOURCES & NOTES
Playford, Phillip & Ruddock, Ian (1985). Discovery of the Kimberley Goldfield.↩︎
A lot of gold went out of the Kimberley via the Northern territory and it was rumoured that a gold buyer was to have taken 3,000 ounces of gold at a time out of Halls Creek. It is estimated that as much as 23,000 ounces (nearly 650 kg) of gold was taken from the fields around Halls Creek, some unofficial estimates were as 100,000 ounces. ↩︎
One of the most frequent questions that is asked is how do we decide what communities are included on our list of Ghost Towns. Other frequently asked questions are – how do you choose what towns to work on? and when will my favourite town be included? So I thought I might run through the process from start to finish to help everyone to understand what is going on in the background.
So we started at least eight months ago now, with a preliminary list of Ghost Towns that numbered about 250. It was only ever a starting point, but it was a great way to kick everything off. We created a master list that included, not only the name of the town, but any/all alternative names. Some of the towns only ever had one name (as far as we know) but others have, over time, been known by two, three, four or even five different names. The main name for a community is known as Primary, while all the rest are known as Secondary.
A couple of great examples of this are included in our Pilot. Cossack was originally known as Tien Tsin, and by the traditional name of Bajinhurrba. In some records it is recorded as Tien Tsin Harbour or Butcher’s Inlet. And other records talk about the Lazarette (the Cossack Leprosarium). Goongarrie was originally called 90 Mile or Ninety Mile, as well as Roaring Gimlet and sometimes called Canegrass or Canegrass Swamp. When we are researching Cossack and Goongarrie, we have to also research all of the alternative names to make certain we don’t miss anyone. So the original list of 250 grew very quickly to 500 or more. Once we launched the Facebook group and started to get media coverage we received lots more leads, so that, by the time the Pilot started to actually collect data the list was nearing 700.
We chose the first four communities that are part of the Pilot early on. They were chosen because they represent a cross section of the types of community that will be found in the full list. But the question now arose – How do we decide the order in which we will proceed through the list? We needed to come up with a process that spread the workload evenly and was not influenced by any indivduals personal preference for any of the towns.
Step 1 – estimating how much work might be involved in processing any particular town on the list.
For this we turned to the State Records Office of Western Australia. SRO’s archives contain records of much of the life and history of our State, including our Ghost Towns. So we did a search on their site to determine how many records would be involved in researching each of the communities on our Master List. Of course, this won’t be the only place where we will be researching, but it gave us an idea of how big or small the task might be.
The tasks were ranked as High – more than 200 records, Medium – between 76 and 199 records, Low – between 26 and 75 records, and Small – less than 25 records. To spread the workload, we made the decision that each phase of the project would include:
High – 1 communities
Medium – 2 communities
Low – 4 to 6 communities
Small – 6 or more communities
Step 2 – Determining the order in which the communities will be processed
And now the fun starts. How do you choose the communities for each phase without fear or favour. We considered pulling names out of a hat, but then we came up with a fun game that made a very long, potentially tedious, task become fun – Scrabble tiles (just 26 tiles, no duplicates).
Starting with the list of High Primaries, we drew the first tile. G. And just like that we had the first town for Phase 2 – Gwalia. Putting the G back into the bag, we filtered the list so that we had Medium Primaries. Then we drew two tiles – B and E. And so it went all the way through the list until every community was prioritised. It took several days, but by the end we had a prioritised list.
New communities being added to the list
Since that was done nearly 100 more communities have been suggested to be added to the project. These will be considered by the Project Board and, if suitable, will be added to the prioritised list. Of course, the pressure is off as they will, of course, be added to the latest phases of the project.
Right now, we are working on the Pilot and it is going very well.
And, let me be the first to thank our wonderful Volunteers. You guys rock!
I just came across this article in the Sunday Chronicle of 12 Dec 18971. It struck my funny bone and so I wanted to share it with you!! Perhaps, given the sombre nature of the background to the article, that says something rather dark about my sense of humour?
Steps are being taken (says the Morning Herald’s Menzies correspondent) to organise another search party to look for the man M’Innes, who was lost 12 months ago while journeying from Menzies to Donkey Rocks. He is supposed to have perished between Menzies and Goongarrie Lake.
This reads very curiously to us. There were search parties organised about the time that the man was lost and they were unsuccessful. Have the Menzies people become so thoroughly embued with the West Australian spirit that after 12 months they must institute another search? What use would it be, anyhow? If M’Innes perished, which we sincerely hpe he did not, the part could only find his bleaching bones – what earthly use would that do them? Now if they put a record in the archives of Menzies that in the year 3000 a.d., the mayor and councillors of the town are requested to institute a search for a certain man named M’Innes, who was believed to have been lost in the year 1896, they would possibly be doing future generations a certain amount of good, for the suppositionary bleaching bones by that time might have become interesting fossils, that is unless Menzies has fallen neck and crop into the background of oblivion, which does not seem at all unlikely as the world wags.
At the time of the disappearance, The North Coolgardie Herald and Menzies Times reported that Constable Sampson of Bardoc and a black tracker were searching unsuccessfully for the publican John M’Innes2. Mr M’Innes had made the trek through trackless and waterless country successfully on a number of previous occasions, but no trace was found of him after he left for Donkey Rocks in late December.
I just added 47 new ghost communities to the alphabetical listing on the website. Places like Burbidge, Hayes’ New Find and Lake Biddy! When time (and Xmas preparations permit) I will add them to the LGA and Regional lists as well.
Today, 19 Dec 2023, our Facebook Group has been changed from a public group to a private group. This has been done to protect your privacy. It will also provide controls that will make management of the group easier for our volunteer administrators.
When we started this project we had a list of about 250 Ghost Towns. It didn’t take very long before the list began to grow. As at today’s update, we have 628 (with a couple that we are holding in reserve pending confirmation of their ghostly status).
All three lists have been updated (alphabetical listing, by Region, by LGA) and the changes have been marked in the Alpha and LGA lists. There have been lots added with this update, so check it out! If you want to see what is new in your area, I suggest checking the LGA list out first, as this will tell you how many communities have been identified around you, and particularly will highlight where new entries have been added. Just remember when looking at the number of communities this includes a line entry for any known alternative names of a particular community, so that could mean that the same community is listed twice, three times or even more depending upon how many times it has changed its name over time.
A lot of new towns came to light following the broadcasts on ABC Radio and we are really grateful to everyone for their interest, enthusiasm and participation. But every day we are getting new leads, so keep checking back to see the updates and subscribe to this blog to be notified when there’s a new post.
If you want to add a ghost town or abandoned community to the list, please contact us.
As I have been researching ghost towns, I have often come across the phrase “state battery”. Without actually taking the time out to discover what this was, ideas that flittered through my mind included some sort of power generation facility or a method of providing fresh eggs and chickens in the outback.
Today is the day. I have found out what a state battery is, and I’m going to share it here because there could be others like me who have no clue!! And please, if I have made any incorrect assumptions or conclusions, tell me!!
Photo is from the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society’s digitized collection of 60,000 negatives1.
In Western Australia a state battery was a government owned and operated crushing facility that crushed the ore found by prospectors and dug from small mines in the area. The Western Australian Department of Mines were the government agency responsible for their operation. Some of the batteries were only operating for one or two years, while others were in place for 5o or more years. Western Australia was the only state in Australia to provide this type of facility.
A battery (aka stamp battery, stamp mill or stamping mill) crushes ore by pounding rather than grinding. Each stamp head consists of a set of heavy steel stamps in a vertical frame. The stamp slides up and down crushing the rock. Batteries were gauged by the number of heads, hence a 10-head battery has 10 stamp heads crushing ore.
The first public battery (as they were originally known) was opened at Norsemam in 18982. Prior to this privately owned and operated batteries were the norm. In considering the legislation to establish public batteries, some last minute adjustments to the wording gave the administrators discretion to “assist” private batteries in certain cases3.
I haven’t been able to find out how many state batteries were established, but by the 1930s the total number of batteies (public and private) was close to 100, dropping to less than 50 by 1958. By 1982 a government review of state battery operations resulted in closure of all by 19874. In 1996 the battery at Ora Banda was rebuilt and reopened. Unfortunately, it never crushed any ore and in 2000 it was badly damaged by bombing and has not been rebuilt5.
As at April 2012, Wikipedia published a list of known state batteries in Western Australia (see below) but this list is believed to be incomplete. Do you know of any more? If you do please let us know at ghostswa@fhwa.org.au. While our focus, as always, is on the ghost towns, for completeness this list includes those state batteries that were located at all known sites, ghostly or otherwise!
List of State Batteries known to have existed in Western Australia
Bamboo
Laverton
Nannine
South Greenbushes
Black Range
Leonora
Niagara
Southern Cross
Bulong
Linden
Norseman
Tuckabianna
Carlaminda
Marble Bar
Ora Banda
Tuckanurra
Coolgardie
Marvel Loch
Paddington
Warriedar
Cue
Meekatharra
Paynes Find
Widgiemooltha
Darlot
Messengers Patch
Paynesville
Wiluna
Desdemona
Menzies
Pig well
Yalgoo
Devon
Mt Egerton
Pinjin
Yarri
Donnybrook
Mt Ida
Quinns
Yerilla
Duketon
Mt Keith
Randalls
Youanmi
Dumpling Gully
Mt Sir Samuel
Ravelstone – Peak Hill
Yundamindera
Kalgoorlie
Mulline
Ravensthorpe
* Mt Jackson
Kalpini
Mulwarrie
Sandstone
* Siberia
From Wikipedia article – State Batteries in Western Australia, 2012 * Updated 26 Nov 2023 with additional locations from Gone West by Geoffrey Higham.
The Western Australian Goldfields Courier, Coolgardie, WA : 1894-1898. Norseman Public Battery. 10 Sep 1898, p.23. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article251211132 on 26 Nov 2023 ↩︎
People of Western Australia's Ghost Towns 