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a wash (2/6) and a shower (7/6).
In March, Bayley and Ford sold the lease on Bayley's Reward for £6,000 and a one-sixth
interest. By this time they had acquired over 2,000 ounces of gold from their claim, worth now
about $1 million. Arthur Bayley never lived long enough to enjoy his fortune: he died four years
later, when he was 31. Ford lived on for another 40 years.
Meanwhile, gold-fever at Coolgardie was unabating, and any rumour of other finds inflamed the
afflicted with new excitement and sent ever-optimistic diggers into the wilds again.
There was the Billy-Can rush. Some searchers, looking for a missing man, had paused for a rest
at mid-day. One put his billy-can down by a log. In picking it up he caught a flash of gold, and
filled his billy with 167 ounces of gold gathered in that area. He was lucky: there was little left
afterwards for anyone else. Then, in April 1893, there was the rush to Roaring Gimlet, renamed
Goongarrie, a hundred miles north of Coolgardie, where several prospectors struck lucky.
Another exodus was initiated in June by a reportedly rich find (bogus as it turned out) at Mount
Youle, 50 miles to the north-east.
About 90 men set off on the trail of this supposed bonanza. Two of the veterans, Paddy Hannan
and Tom Flanagan, delayed to equip themselves properly, and purchased some horses: Hannan
had bad feet. The horses proved to be similarly afflicted, and one threw a shoe halfway along
the track to Mount Youle. Flanagan set about reshoeing the beast, and Hannan idly scouted
around for any colour.
Hannan was 50. Born in County Clare (like Mary Honeycombe), at the start of the potato
famine, he had come to Australia when he was 20 and worked as a
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gold-miner in Bendigo and Ballarat and in New Zealand before becoming a full-time prospector
in New South Wales, in Queensland, and in South Australia. He came to Western Australia in
1889, and was one of the hundreds of men who prospected around Southern Cross before
moving on to Coolgardie, ever seeking, seldom finding, never having the greatest luck - until
now.
He was probably 'specking' - walking into the sun and looking for the glitter of gold (best done
after heavy rain) - when he found a small nugget. An Irish mate of his, Dan Shea, chanced to
pass by on his way to Mount Youle, and joined Flanagan and Hannan in a general search of the
slopes and gullies of several low hills in the area. Shea and Flanagan later told different versions
of the day's events. But they found more nuggets, decided to peg out a claim, and Paddy
Hannan returned to Coolgardie on Saturday, 17 June, to report the find and lodge a reward
claim with the solid proof of 100 ounces of gold.
At 9.00pm his claim application was posted on a board outside the registrar's tent, and another
rush began. Within three days, some 700 men were beavering away on the new find - which
would turn out to be the most golden of them all.
At first known as Hannan's Find, or Hannan's, the site was eventually transformed into a
township named after an edible silky pear the natives called Kulgooluh, which became Colgoola
and then Kalgurli. Before the end of June several leases had been registered and the red dust
enveloping the area by day could be seen from miles away; at night hundreds of camp-fires
twinkled on and around the low hills that now had names, Mt Charlotte, Maritana, Hannan's Hill
and Cassidy's.
In July, two prospectors, Sam Pearce and Bill Brookman, acting for an Adelaide syndicate,
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