Paddy Hannan's Miner's Right

In the book "My life's Adventure" by John Kirwan the following account by Paddy Hannan of finding the goldfield is given:

 "I arrived in the colony in March, 1889, and was at Parkers Range about forty miles from Southern Cross, when Bayley reported the discovery of a rich reef at Coolgardie. I joined in the rush.

Early in June, 1893, news arrived at Coolgardie of a good discovery at a place called Mount Yuille, somewhere to the east or north-east. Parties left Coolgardie in search of the find. A few days after the report had been received, my mate, Thomas Flanagan, and I left Coolgardie. We left on June 7. We would have left earlier with the others, but we could not obtain horses, and so were delayed two or three days. We were lucky enough to pick up some animals in the bush ten or twelve miles from Coolgardie. The other parties going to Mount Yuille were mostly travelling with teams. Only one or two of the prospecting groups had horses of their own. We were a separate party, as we wished to be free to travel when we liked. We could also by this arrangement if we chose prospect any country during the journey.

A very large number was in the main party going to Mount Yuille. Only Bayley's claim was working at Coolgardie, and the alluvial had become exhausted just about the time we left, hence the strong desire amongst the men to reach the new find.

On June 10, three days after leaving Coolgardie, we reached what is now Kalgoorlie. The other parties had gone on in the direction of the reported discovery, but it was only to find later that the report had been false.

Well, as I have said, when we came on June 10 to Mount Charlotte, my mate and I decided to stop and prospect the country round about. To us it looked country where there might be alluvial. We found colours of gold and then got good gold at the north end of Mount Charlotte to down south of Maritana Hill.

There was another man by the way, Dan Shea was his name, to whom we gave an equal share in our venture.

We soon realised that we were located on a valuable field. Alluvial gold was in abundance. We got scores of ounces. It was agreed that I should go to Coolgardie and apply for a reward claim. I left Flanagan and Shea to watch our interests, and on June 17 started for Coolgardie. I got there on a Saturday night.

The news of our find soon got abroad. There was a good deal of excitement. Hundreds of men set out for the scene. The flats and gullies all about our reward claim became alive with diggers dryblowing and finding gold.

The water difficulty, which had been unusually great, was solved. Rain began to fall as I was on my way to Coolgardie to report the find, and continued for some time. The fall was fairly heavy. It was exceedingly welcome to us all and relieved the shortage from which we suffered. The downpour left plenty of water in rock holes and lakes. The supply lasted until November.

Where the ground was too wet for dryblowing, the men dried the earth by fires and so could work their claims."

Paddy did not stay long in the area and returned to the Eastern States for a holiday in 1894. He returned six months later and went on to prospect between Kalgoorlie and Menzies. He left W.A. in 1911 at the age of 71. The West Australian Government had granted him an annuity (pension) of 150 pounds a year.

On the 4th of November 1925 he passed away in Brunswick (Melbourne) at the ripe old age of 85. Apart from a small grant of land and a pension, Paddy Hannan did not reap many rewards from one of the world's richest gold strikes but at least he was not a poor man when he died. He lies in the Melbourne general Cemetery.

Although Hannan is usually credited with the discovery of gold at Kalgoorlie, it was in fact a Canadian Miner called Larry Cammilleri who discovered that the richest ore was not associated with deposits of quartz (which is normally the case) but with iron stone.

Tall tales & true: Twice lucky.

Paddy Hannan may have been just a footnote in history if he didn’t have just a little luck on his side.

At the same time Paddy had set off to register a claim on the land he and his mates had found gold on, another man was travelling in the same area and was getting very short of food. After setting up camp he took out his rifle to go hunting and after some searching he leveled his sights on what he took to be an emu coming through the scrub. To give himself a better chance of bagging the bird he let it come closer and it was only at the last minute he realised that the ‘emu’ was in fact a man, a man that turned out to be Paddy Hannan!