Richard Tuckey Greaves, [1] better known as Dick Greaves, was a prospector and an expert marksman with a rifle.
Richard Tuckey Greaves, [1] better known as Dick Greaves, was a prospector and an expert marksman with a rifle.
Greaves was born near Flinders Street, Melbourne, on the banks of the Yarra River in the colony of Victoria in 1852or1853. [1] As a child he lived on the Victorian Goldfields, where his father was a prospector. [2] [3]
After the death of both his parents Greaves settled in the Williamstown area, where in 1866 he joined the Williamstown Volunteer Artillery. In 1873 he joined the Victorian Permanent Artillery, one of the first paid forces in the colony. Greaves stayed with them for about two years. They spent every day drilling and marching; on parade they were renowned for their precision and skill. However rifle shooting was never practised, and during this time Greaves did not once fire a rifle. [3] He joined the Victoria Police, where his commanding presence and physical attributes made him an ideal recruit, but here again his interest in rifle shooting was not nurtured. [3]
He moved to New South Wales and joined the New South Wales Artillery unit, where he was encouraged by his officers to regularly shoot rifles; he was a leading marksman representing NSW in many interstate competitions. Greaves rose to the rank of sergeant and was assigned as the recruitment officer for the No 1 Battery of the Volunteer Artillery; this battery was set to embark to the Sudan. Just before the battery sailed his wife objected to the separation, so he left the artillery. [3]
In 1885 he moved to Western Australia, and began prospecting for gold, funded by £600 that he had brought with him. [2]
Greaves competed on over 50 different rifle ranges across Australia, representing Victoria, NSW, and later Western Australia, and collected over 300 prizes as a marksman. Greaves founded the Perth Rifle Club and was later recognised for his efforts with life membership. [3]
Due to ill-health caused by mining, Greaves became the caretaker of James Street State School. He died in the caretaker's quarters at the James Street school on 17 March 1916 and was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery in grave Baptist AA 160A. [1] [2] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Just after arriving in Perth Greaves was shown a rock owned by William Lawrence, who thought it was copper. Due to his experience Greaves identified it as gold. Lawrence gave Greaves approximately 1 pound (0.45 kg) of the rock, from which he extracted 6 ounces (170 g) of gold, which he sold for £4 per ounce. This started Greaves on his search for gold in Western Australia, though it was some years before he was successful. [8]
Greaves and Ted Payne found gold in the Yilgarn region of Western Australia in 1887, [9] starting the first of the major gold rushes in Western Australia. [10]
Greaves struggled to be rewarded for his involvement in the discovery of gold. [11] [12] As leader of the party, Harry Anstey collected a £500 reward for the discovery. Lawrence, on behalf of the syndicate, through the courts was able to recover £50 from Anesty for the expense in funding the expedition, while Greaves was given £5. It has never been established what Anstey did with the remaining £445. [13] In 1906 a petition was presented for the Government of Western Australia to pay Greaves an annuity of £100. [14]
In 1906 Greaves published a book called The Golden West, [15] which detailed the experiences of prospecting for gold and the people who were there. In it he noted that Anstey was rewarded for finding gold by the Western Australian Colonial Government, and would never had found anything without the support of Payne and himself. [16] [17]
Leonora is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located 833 kilometres (518 mi) northeast of the state capital, Perth, and 237 kilometres (147 mi) north of the city of Kalgoorlie.
Southern Cross is a town in Western Australia, 371 kilometres east of state capital Perth on the Great Eastern Highway. It was founded in 1888 after gold prospectors Richard Greaves and Ted Paine during their October 1887 expedition successfully found gold, and gazetted in 1890. It is the major town and administrative centre of the Shire of Yilgarn. At the 2016 census, Southern Cross had a population of 680.
Harry Francis Anstey was a metallurgist and gold prospector who led the prospecting expedition that discovered gold in the Yilgarn, leading to the gold rush that established Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields.
Paynes Find also called Paynes is a settlement approximately 430 kilometres (267 mi) northeast of Perth in the Mid West region of Western Australia. It is reachable by the Great Northern Highway. It was originally founded after the discovery of a gold bearing quartz vein; a roadhouse, a battery, and a few other buildings remain today. Alongside its fluctuating gold activity the area is known for its annual everlasting bloom, and sheep stations.
John Francis Connelly (1860–1928) was an Australian prospector and mine owner. Born in Victoria, he prospected and owned mines in New South Wales.
Moorine Rock is located in the eastern agricultural region of Western Australia, 347 km east of Perth and 22 km west south west of Southern Cross.
Arthur George Fulton was a British sport shooter who competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics and 1912 Summer Olympics. He was the first person to win the prestigious King's Prize at Bisley three times, a record not matched until 1996 – over twenty years after his death.
Kalgoorlie railway station is the easternmost attended station in Western Australia, located at the eastern terminus of the Eastern Goldfields Railway. It serves the city of Kalgoorlie. Beyond Kalgoorlie, the line continues east as the Trans-Australian Railway.
During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of New South Wales had suppressed the news out of the fear that it would reduce the workforce and destabilise the economy.
Beria is an abandoned town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located 8 kilometres (5 mi) north of Laverton on the Laverton-Leonora Road.
Yundamindera, also once known as The Granites, is an abandoned town located between Leonora and Laverton in the Shire of Leonora in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia. The town is surrounded by pastoral stations, mostly raising sheep. Some of the leases include Yundamindera Station, Mount Remarkable Station and Mount Celia Station.
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, discoveries of gold at a number of locations in Western Australia caused large influxes of prospectors from overseas and interstate, and classic gold rushes. Significant finds included:
Callion is an abandoned town in the Goldfields-Esperance region in Western Australia. It is between Coolgardie and Leonora, in the Shire of Menzies.
The Kingdom of Twilight is a 1929 British-Australian film directed by British author and explorer Alexander MacDonald.
State Batteries in Western Australia were government owned and run ore-crushing facilities for the gold mining industry. Western Australia was the only Australian state to provide batteries to assist gold prospectors and small mines. They existed in almost all of the mineral fields of Western Australia.
Lilian Wooster Greaves was a Western Australian botanist and poet.
Hints to Prospectors and Owners of Treatment Plants was a booklet published and distributed to gold prospectors in Australia, although its original focus was Western Australia in the 1930s.
Francis Ambrose Moss was a mine manager in Perth, Western Australia.
Richard Hamilton was a mine manager at Boulder, Western Australia.
Sir Richard Greenslade Moore was an Australian politician who served as Mayor of the Municipality of Kalgoorlie between 1937 and 1966. He was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council between 1932 and 1936.