When Mr Bernard Patrick Leslie, a former mayor of Kalgoorlie, died in 1933 at the age of 692, it came as a shock to the inhabitants of the goldfields. Reading his obituary, this tall, imposing man seemed indestructible.
One of his many adventures in the outback was recounted. In the late 1800s, after walking from Northam to Hannans Find (later Kalgoorlie), he proceeded to White Feather (Kanowna) and then headed to Broad Arrow seeking gold. On this trip, he and a mate ran out of water and were found, days later, nude and delirious and ‘very near dead’. Apparently, his jet black hair had turned white, and his body was severely burned by the sun. However, Mr Leslie recovered, and invested in mining in the Bardoc area, and on further to Mertondale, where he did not do so well, then Mount Higgins (Mulwarrie) where he was the founder, and first president of the Pioneer Progress Committee.
Mr Leslie married twice and had two sons. He is memorialised with his first wife, Jean, in Kalgoorlie Cemetery.
Sources
- City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder History and Heritage, 15 Nov 2017. Facebook post retrieved 20 Aug 2024 from https://www.facebook.com/CKBHistoryandHeritage/posts/a-story-from-the-mayors-parlourbernard-patrick-lesliemayor-of-kalgoorlie-1917-19/1942082316052998/ ↩︎
- DEATH OF MR. B. LESLIE (1933, February 11). Kalgoorlie Miner (WA : 1895 – 1954), p. 5. Retrieved August 21, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article95021902 ↩︎
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