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prime minister of the Cape in 1890, when he was 37. From but one of his companies he drew a
personal income in the mid 1890's of £300,000 a year.
Neither Tom, Dick nor Jack Honeycombe, who may well have worked for one of Cecil
Rhodes' gold-mining concerns in Johannesburg, earned a thousandth of that vast sum, and there
was every chance that they might be
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killed or injured in the mines. Men were expendable, white and black, and casualties were high.
If Jack came to South Africa and to Johannesburg in about 1894 (as tradition suggests), and
Dick two years later, they were part of the influx of Australian labour that flocked to the
Transvaal between 1893 and 1898. The Johannesburg newspaper, The Star, carried a headline
in February 1896: 'And stilt they come' - referring to Australian artisans or labourers in the
building and related trades. Eleven ships from Australia docked at Cape Town in 1895, some
carrying over 100 passengers and most stopping en route at Albany in Western Australia, the
main port of entry for the Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie goldfields.
Did Dick and Jack divert thither even briefly? Or did they sail doggedly on, drawn by better
money prospects in the South African mines? Dick was 38 in 1895; Jack was 34. Dick, it
seems, continued with his trade as a stonemason in Johannesburg; Jack the carpenter, it is said,
made timber supports for the mines.
Jack's grandson, Ernie Lawless, speaking nearly 75 years after the event, told me the tale of
Jack's departure from Melbourne, as he remembered it from what his mother had told him years
ago.
He said: 'There was no work in Australia at the time... But some building contractor in
Melbourne started up and Jack, who was a carpenter, said: "I'll go and get a job as a
bricklayer." His wife said: "How can you get a job as a bricklayer? You don't know anything
about it." He said: "Well, that's all they want." They didn't want any carpenters at that time. He
worked for half a day and the boss said to him: "You're not a bricklayer. You're no good to
us." And he was fired. He was out of work for quite a time. Then another firm started and
wanted bricklayers, and this time he worked for them for a day before he was fired. The third
time he got a job he lasted for two days. Then he was fired again. He couldn't get any work in
Fitzroy, and when he read in the papers about gold being found in Johannesburg, and that all
these mines wanted men who were carpenters, as well as other trades, he said to his wife: "I'm
going over to South Africa to see if I can get work, and I'll send for you and the four children as
soon as I've saved enough money." The boat he took arrived in Cape Town. It took him six
weeks to get there. He got to Johannesburg on a goods train - he couldn't afford anything else.
He got work in Johannesburg straightaway. They signed him on at one of the mines, at
Krugersdorp, which is 20 miles from Johannesburg. He lined the shafts with timber, so that
skips could go down on the rails. He was always a carpenter, and he always worked in or near
Johannesburg.'
It seems - from what Ernie's wife then related - that Jack was in or near Johannesburg in
February 1896, when a goods train carrying explosives, about 58 tons of dynamite, blew up. It
was being unloaded in the marshalling-yards at Braamfontein, some two miles west of the city
centre, when a shunting train collided with the stationery trucks. In the resulting explosion the
dynamite train
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