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Honeycombe, PO Kal. I have not heard from Jenny for a long time but I suppose no news is
good news.'
Jenny was John's eldest daughter (Jane Winifred), who had married a teamster, George
Butcher, the year before in Cairns.
John had not seen any of his children for as much as 12 years. Although he was now 67, he was
evidently still fit enough to work, and as there was no, as
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yet, old-age pension in Western Australia (although it had just been introduced in Britain and
already existed in NSW and Victoria), he needed to work to keep himself in whatever style of
living he now accepted as his lot.
What was the 'good mine near Menzies'? This town, southwest of Kookynie and 130km north
of Kalgoorlie, had reached its peak in 1900, when it had a population of 5,000 with as many
working in the area. It had 13 hotels, 3 banks and two breweries. After 1905 the gold ran out
and by 1910 the population numbered less than 1,000. The biggest mines were the First Hit and
the Lady Shenton; there were others, like the Young Dago. Perhaps John's friend was able to
give him some temporary work at one or other of these mines. It wouldn't have been for long.
Two years later, in July 1911, John writes: 'I have had very poor luck for the last 3 years.' He
also says then that he's had influenza 'the last three winters'. So he may well have been
recovering from a bout of influenza in July 1909 when he wrote to Willie.
Nothing of extraordinary note happened in Kalgoorlie in 1909. In Britain, Asquith was Prime
Minister and the Liberals were in power; Peary reached the North Pole; Bleriot made the first
cross-Channel flight in his monoplane; the Union of South Africa was formed; and Henry Ford
began mass-producing his Model T motor-car.
An unusual event in Kalgoorlie in 1910 was a successful balloon ascent, witnessed by a large
crowd. When the balloon, filled with hot air from a kerosene-induced fire, reached a certain
height, the intrepid balloonist jumped out. Wearing a parachute, he landed safely back on the
ground as the crowd cheered.
In April or May, 1910, John must have heard of the death of his sister, Jane Mountjoy, in
Geelong. In May, the world learned of the death of King Edward VII.
By 1910, all the alluvial gold had run out in and around Kalgoorlie and the mines had gone
deeper. There were now ten major mines on the Golden Mile, deep and expensively developed.
But as production costs rose, profits declined; for the price of gold remained fixed. John was
too old and too untutored to be involved with the new machines and equipment. He had to find
work elsewhere.
At some point in 1910 he struck lucky and obtained a job in the Yilgairn District of Southern
Cross.
The Yilgairn gold-f eld had been discovered in 1887 by two main groups of prospectors. But
by 1910 the area had declined and Southern Cross was an exhausted, decaying township. Its
fortunes revived however, for a few years when gold was found in 1910 some 23 miles to the
north-west of the town, at a place called Bullfinch. The discovery at Bullfinch caused the last
great gold-rush. Many claims were pegged, and the many necessary announcements made
about them in the weekly newspaper produced an unusual one on the front page. A small
central paragraph read; 'Owing to shortage of space the news is held over till next week.'
Did John go to Bullfinch? It seems likely. The gold boom launched a plethora of jobs in the
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