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State Governor.
Next to gold, water was the commodity prized above all others in the gold-fields of Western
Australia. Boreholes provided some brackish water from salt-lakes that had to be distilled to
make it drinkable; this was done by the government. The distillation plant at Coolgardie
(population, 15,000 in 1900, with 23 hotels and 3 breweries) produced 100,000 gallons a day
and consumed 100 tons of firewood. The water was sold at anything from 6d to 2/6 a gallon,
depending on the weather. Trains also brought water from Northam. But this was not enough.
Men and beasts were incapacitated and production halted when water supplies ran low. They
died when it became contaminated. Any civic development also depended on a reliable flow. A
permanent solution had to be found, and the Chief Engineer of the then colony, Charles
O'Connor, who was responsible for the construction of Fremantle harbour, devised a scheme in
1896: a pipeline from Perth to Kalgoorlie. It would traverse a distance of 350 miles, uphill.
The cost was colossal, £214 million, and incapable of being supported by the state's 110,000
people. The money was raised by an overseas loan authorised by the Australian government.
Work on the pipeline began in 1898. A storage reservoir at Mundaring was built with a 100
foot wall; there were 8 pumping stations and miles of 30-inch steel pipes were laid across the
scrub. 'For four years', wrote John K Ewers, 'the pipeline moved slowly eastwards like a great
black snake, gangs of hard-working men toiled through the scorching sun of summer, or the
cold days of winter, digging trenches and pits, unloading and handling pipes and caulking joints.'
They worked at night under huge arc lamps.
The whole scheme was strongly opposed: the cost was enormous; this and the effort would be
wasted as the gold-fields were bound to decline; the pipes would leak or burst. O'Connor was
so disturbed by the sustained attacks on him and his scheme, that in March 1902 he rode out on
his horse and shot himself on a beach south of Fremantle; he was 59. He wrote in a last letter: 'I
feel that my brain is suffering... I have lost control of my thoughts. The scheme is alright, and I
could finish it if I got the chance and protection from misrepresentation. But there is no hope for
that now.'
The pipeline, then the longest in the world, reached Southern Crass, Coolgardie and then
Kalgoorlie, where the reservoir was officially opened by the State Governor, Sir John Forrest,
on 24 January 1903.
A large crowd gathered, and the ceremony was attended in a temperature of 106 degrees by
many dignitaries. Everything but water was drunk.
Years later, WD Toy told Norma King: 'We went up to the reservoir in all that heat to hear Sir
John Forrest declare the scheme open. It was terribly hot that week, every day well over 100
degrees. But what a day that was! Celebrations everywhere... A murder was done on that day.
A fellow called Ginger Sly was shot dead in the back bar of the Australia Hotel. The man who
shot him, a bloke named Kennedy... walked into the bar of the Australia and ordered a drink.
Ginger Sly was up at the other end of the bar, but as soon as
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he saw Kennedy he walked over and gave him a shove and taunted him about stealing his girl-
friend from him. Kennedy pulled out a revolver and shot him dead.' Kennedy was jailed, but
released before iong and became a barman in Adelaide.
Perhaps John Honeycombe was in Kalgoorlie that day, one of the most significant in its history.
Perhaps he was even at the celebration banquet held in the tram-car depot that night attended
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