JOHN ASPINALL -

This isn't one of our usual 'Tall Tales' but it is dedicated to the memory of young John Aspinall who lost his life on the goldfields.

As we travelled east towards the goldfields we found sign boards along the way that gave excerpts from John Aspinall's diary as he travelled the same ground back in the 1890s.

John came from New Zealand to the W.A. goldfields with the hope of striking it rich. He made his way out through the wheatbelt staying at places like Boondi Rock where he wrote : 'Monday 25th March 1895 - We had a wash for the first time in 3 days and it was indeed a pleasure. It is a common saying that anyone who comes here should bring a waterbag, a can opener and a piece of hoop iron to scrape the dirt off with.'

'Wednesday 27th March 1895 - Early this morning we got to the Government bore in the middle of the sandplain. The water was brackish (i.e. salty to taste) and only fit for stock and they don't appear to care much for it.'

Further east he wrote: 'Bullabulling has a very good dam but lately a man was found drowned in it, so no one drinks the water - not that people in this country are very particular, but the man was suffering from fever.'

In 2014 we drove out to a remote mine site called Hawks Nest and found a lonely grave. Reading the inscription we were sad to find that this was young John's final resting place.

Although we had done the trip in considerably more comfort than John could have ever imagined, we had trodden the same ground and some how we felt we shared a connection with this young man who had travelled so far and was to remain forever in this lonely place.

John was killed by a lightning strike and his grave may have been lost forever if it was not for Alf Thompson, a prospector who had stumbled across it and found the fading inscription -

Sacred to the memory of JOHN ASPINALL late of ... ...Point Otago NZ Killed by ....ning March 18th 1896 Aged 23 years Gone but not forgotten

Alf tidied up the forgotten grave and began a personal quest to find out more about the young man whose grave he had located. Eventually he made contact with John's relatives in New Zealand and found John had left a diary. Alf wrote a book including entries from the diary and the mystery of this particular goldfields tragedy was solved.

And Some Found Graves: The Goldfields Diary of John Aspinall (Hesperian Press, 1993).

John's Diary

We recently bought a copy of 'And some found Graves' which is a compiled copy of John's diary (by Alf Thompson). There are a number of entries that are worth putting up here to give some insight into the gold-rush era in the late 1890s and the views of a 'tothersider' about Western Australia at the time.

"The first impression I got of Perth was the foreign aspect of the place and the people generally. In other capitals, I seem to feel among my own tribe as it were but here things are different.

Perth has a character of its own - it is neither colonial nor English, but simply foreign, everything and everybody having a strange uncivilised look...

...House rent is exceedingly high and the necessities of life, except clothing rather, dear. The city itself is rather pretty, especially when viewed from a neighbouring hill...

...You meet every few minutes all over the town, Afghans, Chinamen, Hindoos, Blacks etc., their styles of dress adding to the foreign element of the character of the place...

...The hotel where we are stopping is very comfortable and a good table is kept. Our chambermaid is a Singapore "boy" and the washerwoman a Hindu "boy". (N.B. everyone with a black skin is a boy no matter of what age.)...

...Finally, Perth is not such a bad little place for WA although certainly a little dull and backward."

..."Another feature of the country is the presence of flies. They are exactly the same as the common housefly of NZ in appearance but as regards obnoxiousness and a general cause for worry they are equal to a hundred NZ ones rolled into one. They fly into your mouth, promenade all over your face, buzz into your ears, and keep rushing into your eyes until you nearly go mad. Nothing will keep them off and some will even stop in the corner of your eye until death ensues... ...Usually, when you reach after a fly with the rapidity of lightning, the blow descends without hurting anything but your own feelings and the fly simply flies away about 6 inches and settles back in your eye with exasperating coolness."

GET YOUR OWN COPY -

If you would like to get a PDF copy of the stories on this website that you can read offline or even print out and turn into your own hard copy book, you can order through PayPal at the link below. All sales of this book help us to gather more information and stories for this site and our main website. It is only $3.99 AUD!