Charles Thomas Dunlop

• Death Notes
  • Born Gordon (09811)
    Died Granville, NSW
    Buried Rookwood Lawn Cemetery
    
    MEMORIES OF CHARLES THOMAS DUNLOP
    
    Memories of C.T.D.I, eldest son of Thomas. W. Dunlop mining engineer, eldest son of John Dunlop and wife (nee Hailey) of Ayre Scotland and North Ireland, finder of Ballarat first gold. C.T.D. born in Gordon Victoria, March 21st 1884.
    
    Part 1
    I was about 3 years old when I first remember living at Old Chum Hill at Bendigo. My father was the engineer of the Old Chum mine on the crown of the hill. The house was a two residence building with a long wide veranda divided by a common wall, each of which had four or five rooms. The yard at rear was rather spacious with a fence separating each yard. A tool and wood shed was also divided for each yard. There was a row of flowering gums on the east side. It was the only building on that side of the hill between Barnard Street and Montgomery Road ???. Looking east from our house Lilley Street ran up the valley along side the railway line which separated us from the water course. This gully in turn divided the streets running east and west and we had a view straight up Nettle Street onto the Violet Street state school. The house on the bend of Nettle Street was the residence of Mr. David Clarke who was then an engineer in charge of the Garibaldi Gold Nine. Afterwards he asked my father to take over his job as he wanted to go to England. This my father did. They had at Garibaldi a new first motion link engine driving an air compressor and a battery engine driving a thirty head stamper crushing the ore from the mine.
    
    When David Clarke returned from England he got a position selling air rock drills and other machinery for Taylor Horsefield who had started making drills at Long Gully near Eaglehawk. I was about four years old then. Dave Clarke had a buggy and horse to go selling these rock drills to the mines and often took me to accompany him. He was a very friendly man and he took a great interest in me. However, he was not long with Taylor Horsefield's when the Vacuum Oil Company advertised for a man to sell to the mines a new gadget called a site drop lubricator to use their new lubricating oil. Clarke took that job which fitted in well with what he was doing. The lubricator was a great success from the start. By tapping the steam on the intake the condensing steam forced a drop of oil at a time to lubricate the engine. Previously they had depended on a cup secured to the top of the engine cylinder the heat melting the mutton fat which dripped into the engine but needed constant attention. I went with David Clarke on this job, we took our lunch and he used to buy soft drinks. He seemed very proud of me being with him and I often went into the mine engine house while he instructed the fitting of the lubricator and how to work it.
    
    This ended when I was old enough in my fifth year to go to Violet Street school which was only about three blocks away. I went down over the hill across Lilley Street to the end of Nettle Street. It was close enough to come home for midday lunch which lasted one and a half hours at that time. On my way home I would meet a Mr Abram, he lived in Nettle Street and was governor of mines in Bendigo. He used to ride a bicycle to travel around. I was big and very fat for my age and Mr Abram had a good sense of humour. He would get off his bike at one of the cross streets and put me on his bike telling me how ill I looked and didn't my mother feed me enough. I then thought she must have been starving me. When we reached his gate he put me down and told me to tell my mother what he had said. I had been crying on the way home and burst in saying Mr Abram said I was starving and to give me plenty to eat or I might die of starvation.
    
    My sister Addie and I had plenty of playmates, our neighbour Arthur Sculley and Mrs Dyson's children and Florrie Clarke. Mrs Dyson lived near our place on a path that led around the south end of Old Chum Hill. Mr Dyson was an accountant and secretary to a Mr Lansell, who at that time was a very rich man with his office and residence near one of his private mines called the Two Twenty. Mr Dyson always looked very important and very well dressed, mostly wearing a pith helmet. Mr Lansell had made his home very attractive amongst the various sand dumps from the big stamp battery and mine mullock heaps. People used to come from miles around to look at the stately home called Fortuna. Looking along the line of the reef there was a poppet head every few hundred yards in those days.
    
    Shortly after I started school we shifted to Monument Hill to live at Olive Street so my father was close to his then work. We had a good brick home rented to us by a little hunch-back called Miss Nicholas. It had large grounds with lots of fruit trees and grape vines. There were two plums, two figs, one quince, four apples, four oranges and two almond trees. We were very happy. Three of my brothers and one sister were born there. My mother's youngest brother came to stay with us and father got him a job mining at Garibaldi. He changed that job after he had been drinking and was put on the mat, the mine manager telling him off. He went to work at the Great Extended Hustlers Mine, but he was not long there. He and his mate had an accident after drilling the holes to block the quartz reef out. While charging one of the holes with dynamite with a ram-rod it discharged and our uncle Charlie was badly injured taking most of the force on his face and right arm. They took him to the hospital in a very bad state. After a long time they pulled him around and when discharged was completely blind and his hand and arm were badly knocked about. He lived mostly with us but spent some time with his other sister Ellen, at Meredith.
    
    During this time my father commenced to study at the Bendigo School of Mines to gain a Mining Manager and Mining Engineer Certificate. He was five to six years in his spare time studying chemistry, assaying and geology. He passed with an Honours certificate.
    
    It was about this time the great land boom burst in Victoria which was early in the 1890's. His only brother Alexander lived with his mother and used to contract for the council mostly pitcher setting kerb and gutter and footpaths (pitchers are bluestone blocks that were used for kerbing etc). However when the boom burst he lost some valuable property and was in a bad way with no work available in Melbourne. He came to live with us with his mother. Father and Uncle Alex commenced business buying used copper plates that had gold in a small way attached to them. They processed them and recovered the gold. The sand and water from the batteries ran over them on a downward path to the dumps. Also magnet iron, old retorts and various other things were processed when gold could be recovered. Uncle Alex used to travel round and buy up. They had a burden pan and other ways of treating these to secure gold. They used to clean the copper plates for a fee by a special process. My father used to fire and treat the scale with acid which would reduce the mass to pure gold. They made a good living with this work until a South African named Crobb, a lecturer appointed to the Bendigo School of Mines, made friends with my father. Father was still keenly interested in the School of Mines and they would talk over a scheme of how to treat the residue tailings from the batteries with cyanide. He told him how they were experimenting with it in South Africa at Johannesburg. They went round to take samples from various sand dumps and took it to the School of Mines to be assayed. Some samples showed from three to five dwts. of gold per ton of sand.
    
    My father set up a huge vat in our yard an erected a paling shed over it and experimented for quite a while. There were properties in the Bendigo sand like a trace of antimony, which he said was destroying the cyanide before it dissolved the gold and gave it the appearance of what he called Prussian blue. After a good while trying new chemicals, father claimed he overcame that difficulty and extracted the gold in liquid form which was deposited on zinc shavings then treated and the gold recovered.
    
    They then secured a block of land at Sparrowhawk, about three acres, close to the water race that brought the city water supply. Uncle Alex, when in Melbourne had much to do with stone mason work, so decided they would build big stone vats. Uncle set to work to quarry the stone at a nearby hill and he built with some help 8, 10 and 12 feet vats in 24 section units with a big stone room. They made an elaborate system of filters filled with zinc shavings. The liquid gold from the vats passed through it and was recovered from the filters. As cyanide is so deadly poisonous the area had to be securely fenced by a six foot paling fence. The liquid was then pumped back to the vats. The tailings sand had to be bought from a mining company and had to be carted about a mile to the works. They let a contract to a man with several tip trays to do this. This took a good while to get in order using the cyanide solution to use the gold and deposit on the zinc shavings. However, when the sand at this dump was used, it was found to have a lot more of the elements that destroyed the cyanide making the prussian blue that they had found in their experiments at home. They got permission from the Water Board to use water from the race above the works to sluice the sand in a wooden race before putting it in the vats which meant a lot of extra handling apart from the labour expense. But it was found that a lot of the fine sand carrying the gold was being carried down the drain into Sparrowhawk Creek. By this time the funds were drying up. There were five of us children and uncle and grandma to keep. After a period together and what was spent on material my father lost heart. Mr. Crabb had gone back to Africa although some of his friends like Dave Clarke, Ben Rogers and George Robinson offered to buy in he said he was not going on for others to get the benefit of his studying so he let the place be sold up and paid off his debts. A duck farmer turned the place into a poultry farm.
    
    Father took a job back as an engineer at the old Chum Nine where he first worked in Bendigo. The old Chum had a problem with the winding engine, a big loose eccentric engine that would not pull the cage away loaded from the bottom of the shaft without jerking the wire rope against the side of the shaft and some of the dividing timber had to be repaired quite often. Father told the management that he could make it pull away steady if they would allow him to work over a weekend and cut the travel back in the main shaft of the engine. It meant cutting with a cold chisel a portion of metal 1 1/2" x 2" x 1 1/4" deep that would give more travel to the slide valve allowing the steam pressure full access to the cylinder that he claimed it did not have. Some of the engineering firms thought the idea foolish. However, he got the manager to agree when father was so pressing with his claim. The result was a great success. The cage came away steadily and firm without any jerk of the rope. News of this got about and father was sought after for problems in several mines.
    
    Uncle Alex took the management of the forty stamp battery at the Great Extended Hustlers Mine. The battery was very much run down. Uncle reorganised it with new gear and recovered gold from lots of old copper plates and other scrap things to pay for the extra labour and material he needed. The directors and management of the company greatly appreciated what he did and gave him a handsome present when the half-yearly report came out. Uncle however, was never happy working for anyone for wages and after a few years was always telling us about his dream of a gold reef at Elaine where he and my father were reared. He resigned from his battery managers job on good money for those days and set off taking me with him in early 1898, I being then fourteen years old. While all the foregoing was happening we were a happy little family together and had very good neighbours. We had been going to the Violet Street State school when Uncle and Grandma came to live with us. Grandma was a staunch Irish Roman Catholic and insisted we be sent to the Marist Brothers school, that is Ron, my younger brother and I. My sister Addie went to the Nun's Day School. We were very happy at Violet Street school. Played ball games and football. I was captain of our junior clan and played against Ironbark and Carry Hill. We generally played well with Herbert Hodge, Ridley Goldsworth and the Duffy boys. The Duffy's had the bakery business at Ironbark. They both changed to the Catholic school about the same time as we did with Dick Morris who was afterwards the Union Secretary and ended the Director of the Commonwealth Bank. Carl Jess, whose people had a paint business near the Garden Gully Mine at Ironbark was also in my class at Violet Street. His mother was a Catholic but he didn't leave the state school. His mother asked me to take him to Sunday School after the 9.15 Mass. He went only a few times and on leaving school went to the military college at Queenscliff. Through the first world war he finished as General Jess and organised the then Prince of Wales visit to Victoria. His son whom I have not met is an M.P. representing one of the electorates in Canberra.
    
    I did not like changing school much, but Grandma contacted a Catholic family, there name was Bertie. They were Italians with two sons who had been at the Marist Brothers school. They sent me with Leo and his brother who we got to know as "Big-head Bertie". The Hybernian Hall where the school was held near the Catholic Church was on the other side of Bendigo on the east, while Monument Hill was on the west side in the mining quarter. We had to walk right through Bendigo along Pall Mall. We sometimes took a route through the park. It was during this time in Pall Mall that Myers opened a big rag shop, I remember it well, buying items for my mother like teatowels and school stockings. After a while Sid Myers anounced a special closing down sale to clear sale to clear stock. It was a huge success. He got so well known for bargains he set to restocking and never looked back.
    
    Continued below

• General Notes
  • MEMORIES OF CHARLES THOMAS DUNLOP
    
    Memories of C.T.D.I, eldest son of Thomas.W.Dunlop mining engineer, eldest son of John Dunlop and wife (nee Hailey) of Ayre Scotland and North Ireland , finder of Ballarat first gold. C.T.D. born in Gordon Victoria, March 21st 1884.
    
    Part 2
    Several families had goats which they milked that roamed around Monument Hill. There was a fair amount of open space at the top of the hill and a Trig. Station. This was a site pole on a small stone mounting and at least two others could be seen in the distance around Bendigo city. My brother Ron and I on weekends and holidays caught billy-goats and with other neighbour's boys would harness to small carts and go around the streets and collect horse manure for our several father's gardens. Often in the warmer weather we would go swimming in mine dams. On one occasion we had rigged a diving plank in the Lazers Mine dam. Ron went out on this plank and fell off into four feet of water fully dressed. None of us saw him for a moment but one of our mates Herbert Brown saw him bob up under the plank. Herb dived in and rescued him. We all got a proper fright and wondered how to get him dried and not tell our parents. I remember taking him up to the stoke hold were they stoked the boiler stripping him and drying his clothes in front of the fire. It was a long time before we could tell anyone about that. We liked to go catching crayfish mostly at the Garden Gully dam. Warm water from their condensing engines made a section of it quite warm making the crays easy to catch. We used to have cotton about six foot long tied to a small stick.
    
    We had three or four each of these and would stick them in the mud at the edge of the water with small pieces of meat tied to the cotton. When the meat touched the water the crays would come and cling to it and we would pull it out steadily and catch them in a small net on a wire frame. After we caught a dozen or so we would boil them until they got red and had quite a feast with bread and butter which we would get from home.
    
    The teachers that taught me at Violet Street school were Mr. Bruston, headmaster, Miss. Ingram, Matchet, Sady, Charlie Johnson and Oscar Flight. I was in fourth class when I was transferred to St. Killian's Marist Brothers. We had some very good neighbours. Next door on the left were a Cornish family named the Glasson's who had a son and daughter a good deal older than us. Mr Glasson was in a party that had a tribute in one of the mines and did very well making good deal of money. Then there were the Harris family further up the hill whom my grandma became very friendly with. Mr. Redpath was another neighbour who had established a foundry business. He made lattice casting for verandahs etc. This became very popular and he did very well. Opposite on the other side was Mr. Sayer's home. He had lost his wife when his second child Alf was born. Dorothy and Alf with their Aunt Miss. Ferguson did the housekeeping. She had one short leg and her boot was built up about five inches. She was very kind and kept the home beautiful. Dot was the same age as me and Alf two years younger. We were continually in one another's home. Dot was in my class at school and we generally did our homework together at night.
    
    Mr. Sayer had a Pyritic Burner to treat the concentrates from the stamper battery to get the gold. The ore had to be burned in a long brick furnace fired at one end. The flames travelled over the layers of the ore and drove the sulphur and arsenic up a high chimney stack. Some was recovered in the flue and bottom of the stack but most escaped in the air. The works were some distance out of town. The ore was then put into a pan ground with revolving rollers and quick silver recovered the gold. We used to go and see him work there.
    
    My mother became very ill and lost her baby when three weeks old. My father was very angry with the doctor because he claimed it was a good deal of neglect. After the baby was buried in Bendigo cemetery and my mother was well again she used to take us children with the Sayer's children on many Sunday afternoons to tend the grave. It was a long walk, must have been nearly two miles up past quarry hill over the railway line and walk to the south. We children enjoyed these outings although very tiring. Mother also liked to go the early vegetable markets near the Town Hall. Dot Sayers would come with us when we went nearly once a week. We would get down there before daylight most times taking a big wheeled perambulator. We would bring home half cases of fruit in season and lots of vegetables, often getting one of the growers to bring a case of apples home with him when we could not bring home all mother bought.
    
    We had another neighbour and one of the daughters was a pupil teacher at the school. Her brother Bob was a very popular fellow employed in the city. He used to sing a lot. He got into trouble with some money missing and was jailed for three months. In the Independent Bendigo paper the incident was reported as "High Diddle Diddle for Donovan's Fiddle". There was also great acts on at the school. Each year we produced a theatre. There was several outstanding talents in some families, Amy Castle, Dolly and George Castle, Bunny Rooney and Jack Lee gave a very fine show. My sister Addie was also a great actress, she was always in the party.
    
    I was always interested in the football and played with older boys. We played against Grammar and private schools at the oval in Queen Steet and sometimes in the showground. While playing I happened to kick the ball and break a window in the Military Orderly rooms. There was a big fuss about it, it was a fairly large pane. The Sergeant Major came to our school next day and I was told to get another pane of glass, which I did with help and replaced the glass satisfactorily.
    
    
    While I was going to school, the Law Courts next to the Post Office were built and completed and the Sacred Heart Cathedral was commenced. We used to see the stones being dressed when the foundation was laid. A Clerk of Works always there checking everything. The Brothers at the school got a choir of us boys at the laying of the foundation stone by the then Bishop Carroll. I remember a Latin Hymn we sang to the Holy Spirit, Veni Sancte Spiriitus. I can still remember most of that Latin Hymn and often hum it to myself.
    
    When my mother had recovered somewhat the whole family went for a holiday trip to visit her parents at Meredith and her sisters at Geelong. She had four married sisters, one at Geelong, one on a farm out from Meredith near Elaine, one at Dunnstown married to a Station Master. Her elder brothers had farms down Cape Ottway and others near Colac. Their families still farm in these parts. My mother was born and reared at Lara near the You Yang Mountains. She had often told us of them and their exploits as a girl. Her father had a business making boots, not just mending them and had a big clientel in the Stations of Victoria and Southern New South Wales making boots to order. Wooden pegs were used greatly in those days. They lived near to a non-conformist church and Mother related to us how the members would gather greeting one another talking about their crops etc. One old chap would be asked, " did he have his crop in yet", and would remark "Oh, plenty of time yet". But he would turn up one Lord's Day as soon as he had sown his crop saying "the man who has not got his crop in now is too late". Mother had a great fund of humourous stories. There is a lot of limestone country near Lara which was burnt to make quick lime for building material in Geelong and Melbourne.
    
    When she was much younger, her eldest brother John McDonald, before he left to farm for himself, was ploughing a small paddock attached to their home. The draught horse he was using was very lazy and a bit of a jib, however he coaxed it to plough across the block a couple of chains by giving it a handful of oats and a spell. One of the neighbouring farm chaps came along riding a pony and saw a nice bit ploughed up, stopped to speak to John remarking what a good job he was doing. He said he wanted to get hold of a draught horse to plough and suggested he would make a deal with the pony he was riding for the draught horse. After some talk John agreed as they had other horses he could plough with. The neighbour left his pony and took the draught horse away, but was back in a couple of days and said he would rather have his pony back. But John said he would sooner have the pony, that is why I dealt with you, saying "it was your idea anyhow and you will have to stand by it". The man went away very aggrieved.
    
    Now by this time all the brothers and sisters had left home and married except Mother's younger brother. Grandfather sold his business at Lara and shifted to Meredith where their eldest daughter had married and settled. Mother had been visiting her at Meredith before she married and that is where she met my father. They were both quite young and I will tell you more of how this romance developed when I tell you more of my father's young days.
    
    We all went to Geelong on this holiday and visited one of her sisters Aunt Jan ???, who had married a hotel keeper. His people were also residents of Lara. We spent about a week there. The hotel was close to the Barwon River. We went to Queenscliff to the beach. It was the first time we had seen the ocean and enjoyed it so much. Also it was the first time we had dined together in a restaurant and ordering for us five children was quite a problem. Afterwards we all went to Meredith to Mother's parents. Grandpa was a Scotchman, Joseph McDonald who migrated with some of his kin originally from Glencoe, Scotland. He was always in the leather trade and some of his clan were tanners and settled at St. Albans near Geelong. We spent a very happy time with them at Meredith visiting her sister on the farm a mile or two away. It is the first time I remember hearing a magpie call and warble. They had a paddock where Uncle Walter used to take me when he went to catch his horse giving me a ride on its back to the shop and house. My father was always was always more interested in mining. There were mines operating at Steiglitz. Out from Meredith near the Moorabool River, where he was born he went and spent a few days visiting old acquaintances.
    
    We moved on then to Dunnstown where my mother's youngest sister lived, six miles south of Ballarat on the Bacchus Marsh line. Uncle Dan Brady was station master there at the foot of Mount Warrenheip and nice pure water ran down stream where there was a whiskey distillery (Bunds). Most of the settlers around were on small farms and were of Irish decent. There was a Catholic church and a Nun's Convent ran the school. When my family went home to Bendigo I was left behind with my aunt and uncle who had one small infant daughter. I was there about six months, I think the idea was that mother would have less to do recovering from her illness. I was sent to the Nun's school and got a pretty rough time among the Irish kids as I had till then been at the state schools in Bendigo. The kids called me a podgy blue-gut. The Nun's used to rescue me and take me into their quarters where they had an alter and gave me special instruction teaching me the Latin responses to the Mass. I however, survived all this treatment. Uncle got on well with the farmers around, they used to bring him their different problems to work out and to correspond for them to various departments and businesses. The country around is very rich basalt, growing mostly potatoes, field peas and oaten hay. There was a chaff mill where the farmers brought their hay on the opposite side of the road near the station where Uncle lived. There were gates which had to be closed when trains were due to pass. Aunty used to mostly attend to that service, also the fettlers when they were working nearby used to do it. Uncle used to signal from the station when a train would be coming. It was a single line and the train driver had to get a staff to travel to the next station to ensure there would be no train coming in the other direction. The chaff mill was a busy place employing about six men and had a built-in Cornish boiler and steam engine. There was always a little steam fed into the hay to condition it while being cut and was bagged automatically, each weighing about one hundred weight and loaded railway trucks on a nearby siding. One day there was an awful noise and an explosion while the staff were at lunch, fortunately most sitting outside. The boiler had blown up, scattering iron and brick right across the road towards Aunt's house. Only one man was severely hurt as most were not in the shed at the time.
    
    One Sunday, Uncle Dan drove in the buggy to Ballarat and Lake Wendouree, where he took us on a trip on the paddle steamer. Another Sunday he took us for a ride on a railway trolley along the line to visit farms, bringing home vegetables, potatoes and fruit in season. When the time came for me to return to Bendigo, a neighbour who was visiting Ballarat was asked to get me and see me to Bendigo. An opportunity came for me to go to Ballarat a few days before she was returning. In Ballarat, where she was staying with her friends, the Eleanors had a bone crushing and stock working factory. It was situated between Eureka and Canadian along the Bunniyong line. I remember the awful smell of the bone dust. Some of their children were going to school so I was sent off with them, I suppose for their company or just to get me out of the house to the Eureka State School. The new boy of course had to fight which I remember quite well, making a boy's nose bleed after some name calling, so I was in trouble with the teacher.
    
    Anyway I got home to Bendigo safe and well. I was welcomed back to school and relating my experiences to the kids was thought quite a hero.
    
    I must now tell you of the hotel on the corner of Violet and Barnard Streets. Only a few hundred yards from our place but set back quite a distance from the street. The Publican was a man named Jock Murdock. I remember he had a very prominent red nose and would say he wished he now had the money it cost to make it so red. It was also customary to see children of various families going there with a quart bottle to be filled with draught beer. If you asked them where they were going it was always to the store for kerosene. Another hotel a little farther on in Barnard Street, The West End, a Mrs. Potter ran. She had a daughter named Maud who married and became Mrs Maud Duffy. Mrs. Potter also married a man named Anchor who had a son who later on went to Marist Brothers with us when we transferred from the state school.
    
    We were always late home Saturday night shopping to 10.00 pm. My father and family always went to the Pall Mall which was usually crowded. Father always made for Mining Stock Exchange where there was a huge blackboard. Posted on it were tonnage crushed, the results of various gold recovered and retorted and smelted gold. It was quite a long list. Father dabbled in shares on the stock exchange. I think it kept him poor like horse race betting, often loosing on script that had lost value.
    
    About that time our Uncle Charlie, Mother's brother who had the mine accident and was blind left us for a time to go to his sister's at Geelong. He was then twenty seven years old. It was about this time the land boom in Melbourne burst and Uncle Alec and his Mother, Grandma Sarah, came to Bendigo to stay with us and started the business I have already told you about. Uncle Alec left his job in Bendigo as Battery Manager because of a change in the mine management. He was always dreaming about Elaine and when I had just reached fourteen years of age he took me with him there to prospect for the mine of his dreams.
    
    Elaine is twenty miles south of Ballarat on the Geelong to Ballarat railway line. My Grandma (Sarah) was left with six young children when her husband (John senior) died. My father was then only fourteen years and an older sister was sixteen years. Grandfather had gone through most of money made in finding gold in Ballarat. Grandma used to tell us that when he went back to Geelong he had the weight of himself plus fourteen pounds in gold. She also often told us how he knew Peter Lalor well and was an ex-military officer of the British Army and had fought at Waterloo. He was in Geelong when the Eureka battle was on and evidently he was involved in supporting Lalor and was one of five who got Lalor and hid him when the government offered a thousand pounds reward for his capture. When Grandpa died he had a butchery business in Elaine which was a fairly prosperous place then. Many small mines were working at Dolly Creek which was a great alluvial deposit in full swing.
    
    My father when about sixteen, and Uncle Alec a little younger were supplying fire wood to run a ten head battery owned by Mr. Arch Kay, who did the crushing for many small mines in the district. Elaine prospered for a good many years. My father found a specimen of gold clinging to quartz under some trees. The next morning he and uncle went to Meredith five miles away to register their claim for a miner's right with the crown land agents there. Murphey, the crown land agent told my father he could not register a claim there or work it as it was freehold property owned by a man named Cleary. This proved not to be true however, he said to my father I think I can make it right for you and sent for Cleary sending a conveyance to bring him down so they could put their heads together. It was not freehold land only leased grazing rights and he had not the rights to minerals or to prevent anyone to secure mining rights. They called my father back again and told him that the way out would be to form a small company if he consented to give them each two shares, two for Cleary, two for Murphey and one each for the brothers, making it a six share syndicate. Cleary then made application with the necessary fee to have the made freehold so my father and brother were robbed of 2/3ds of their find by this lying trick. The mine turned out to be a fairly rich find and were not long opening up and before long made a couple of thousand pounds profit over their wages but of course Cleary and Murphey got their share. The mine was called the Cleary Freehold and it was some time before the deception became known. Being inexperienced boys they were taken in so easily. There was an awful stink about it when it became known, the Battery owner Mr. Archie Kay wanted to take it to the authorities. The mine was worked for quite a time until they got down to the water level but it proved a real water hole and had to be bailed out 24 hours a day. They had a whim erected with a bucket going down the two compartment timber shaft up and down all the time. Then the gold value also went down they had to abandon the show. Pumping machines driven by steam were hard to come by at that time. A lot of small mines about had the same difficulty with water. The quartz reef were only a few inches wide and tended to decrease as they got deeper. Father and uncle found another show a fair way from here near Fallon's Gully. They carted a lot of surface material from about 12 to 18 inches deep to Fallon's Creek to sluice and also there was small quartz reef which they crushed at Archie Kay's Battery. They invited their half-brother, Jack Dunlop, who had a property down near the Moorabool River towards Geelong to join them. It was not long before Jack found fault with the crushing going to Kay's Battery and thought they should have a small battery of their own. They went to Ballarat, twenty miles away and bought a five head stamper and a portable steam engine. While they were dismantling the machinery there was period of very wet weather. They had hired a bullock team to haul the battery to Elaine, no made roads much in those days. It took three week to cover the twenty miles on account of getting bogged so often. They eventually got it erected and crushing the quartz. After a few crushings the quartz reef got chopped off with a cross course. It seemed to be a common fault in that country. It seems volcanic action had shifted the rock and the reef has to be picked up again maybe several feet away. In the Ballarat quartz country there is these cross falls that shifts the country from a few inches to several feet. That is known as the indicator country.
    
    My father was now grown to manhood and was always interested in engineering after being among the machinery at the big mine so when government regulations required a certificate for a mining engine driver he was examined and passed. I still have this engine winding certificate number 16. So he was among the first lot granted. Father roamed about after that and went driving Murray River paddle steamers and qualified for a Marine Engineer's certificate. When he returned to Elaine he and my mother were married, he was then 24 years old. During the time they worked the Cleary mine a farmer nearby supplied them with horses to work the whim that brought the water from the mine. It required six horses, one working at a time changing every four hours. It was a very trying job turning round and round fixed to the pole. This farmer married my mother's eldest sister and as I have said earlier, when she lived at Lara.
    
    

Click here for details of Charles' family with Winifred Merle Victoria Buckland

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This page is within a frameset. View the entire genealogy report of Dunlop families, or surname index of Dunlop pedigrees or report summary of Dunlop heritage from "Potaski McDonald Family Tree".
Genogram Templates.

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