No-one saw Thomas Hood, driver of the mail coach from Mudgee to Wellington in rural NSW, get kicked in the face by a horse, but the mark of the shoe was plainly visible on his face. Death-by-horse was a reasonable common occurence in early Australia, particular as horses were essential for transport of people andContinue reading “Horses hasten men’s end”
Author Archives: Sharyn Moodie
Good deed goes fatally wrong
Young Duncan Denovan, a contractor for Wellington gasworks, was out shooting rabbits near Stuart Town in mid-western New South Wales on a Thursday evening in 1904 when he came across the body of a man floating in the river. He secured the body and borrowed a horse, heading to Stuart Town to inform police. HeContinue reading “Good deed goes fatally wrong”
Jockey predicted his own death
Jockey John J Evans had a premonition that he would not make it through the day of racing at Coolgardie on August 11, 1901. He was right. His mount, Arthur, refused to rise at the first obstacle in the first race of the second day of the sixth Coolgardie Cup, the hurdle. It crashed intoContinue reading “Jockey predicted his own death”
Paddle steamer accidents often fatal
Steam paddle boats accidents were common and often fatal on the rivers of inland NSW, prompting this scathing opinion in the press by an unnamed correspondent. It followed the death of 28-year-old Henry Pitcher on board the steamer Princess Royal on August 15, 1870 – the same year the vessel was launched. “As the Princess Royal arrivedContinue reading “Paddle steamer accidents often fatal”
Little Alice went out to play
A weathered moss-adorned wooden grave marker tilts slightly towards the horizon at the Strahan cemetery, high on a hill overlooking the water. Only a few hundred metres below lies the West Coast Wilderness Railway station at Regatta Point, which takes tourists on fun day trips. And there one finds the Strahan-Zeehan railway turntable, which wasContinue reading “Little Alice went out to play”
Rain damps fire too late for firefighter
As the shearer’s dispute of 1891 raged around him, a union carrier named Mark Cavanaugh was burned to death helping to put out a bushfire. The strike, which sparked the development of the Australian Labor Party, was over the use of non-unionised shearers. From February until May that year, central Queensland was on the brinkContinue reading “Rain damps fire too late for firefighter”
Shortcut ends to gruesome demise
It was 64-year-old Alfred James Hockey’s habit to meet the Forbes mail train by taking a short cut across the tracks at Orange Railway Station. He had “rheumatism’’ and so avoided the longer route via an overhead footbridge, half a mile away. His mangled remains were found near the station by two railway shunters onContinue reading “Shortcut ends to gruesome demise”
Typhoid takes down strong policeman
The scourge of typhoid ripped through mining camps across Western Australia, but it was not only miners who caught the disease. The disease peaked over the 1890s and 1900s. The Western Australia gold fields boasted the” largest episode of epidemic typhoid in Australia’s history”, according to the Western Australia museum. “In the early years ofContinue reading “Typhoid takes down strong policeman”
Typhoid terrorised the nation
Epidemics of infectious diseases came and went in early Australian history – smallpox, measles, the plague, Asiatic and Spanish flu – but typhoid was considered endemic. Outbreaks in the goldfields were inevitable, with overcrowding, no sanitation, a limited water supply and co-existing gold fever. It tended to occur in healthy young men and showed noContinue reading “Typhoid terrorised the nation”
Sacked man takes tomahawk to boss
Ilfracombe’s Railway Hotel licencee Bernard Muldoon sacked his yardman William Sheehan. The next day, Sheehan killed him. How did it come to this? Muldoon was only 44, Sheehan “older than 60”, although his exact age is unknown. Why Muldoon sacked him is lost to history, but details of an altercation the two had in theContinue reading “Sacked man takes tomahawk to boss”
Way to go Australia 