Coolgardie Wedding
1894

THE FIRST WEDDING
       IN COOLGARDIE

         On 4th July 1894 Clara SAUNDERS & Arthur WILLIAMS were married by the
Rev. Thomas TRESTRAIL at John DE BAUN'S Great Western Hotel in Bayley Street
Coolgardie. (now the site of the Coolgardie Motel on the corner of Bayley & Hunt Streets)
Clara was seventeen & Arthur was twenty eight years old. Three weeks after the wedding
Clara & Arthur set off with all their possessions by wagon to start a Hotel & Billiard
saloon at the “Ninety Mile” - Goongarrie

There were very few young ladies on the Goldfields in those early days and the novelty
of the first wedding caught the imagination of all the diggers who rolled into town from
all parts of the fields. The hotel where the ceremony was to be performed was crowded
to overflowing. With champagne at 25 shillings a bottle, whisky 12/6 and beer 3 shillings
it was expensive if you had a big thirst. But there was no lack of liquids, water perhaps,
but not red claret which had been brewed down a mine shaft on Fly Flat or whisky
from Duncan MacLeods whisky mill at the 90 Mile Road Distillery which after it was
bottled & labeled looked like “the Real Stuff” anyway!

The ceremony was performed by Rev Thomas TRESTRAIL, the pioneer minister on the
Goldfields witnessed by 500 miners and listened to by hundreds outside, hanging through
the windows and crowding the doorways. Regardless of how difficult life on the Fields
was, the dresses worn by the Wedding Party did the women credit and was
described in unusually apt mining terminology by Smiler HALES in the Coolgardie
Miner newspaper :-

 “ The bride wore a rich cream quartz-coloured silk with orange blossom outcrops.
Miss HICKEY was dressed in a reddish substance, with sandstone coloured leaders
running round the main body, looking so nice that many a digger wished he could get a
miners right and apply for a perpetual lease or freehold of this young lady. Mrs
FAAHAN wore a pale milk quartz combination, with gold outcrops running across the
full breadth of the face. Mrs BURNS appeared in a charming outfit, the main body being
blue trimming all down the footwall side, with laminated leaders of dark slate colours.
Miss BRENNAN set envious teeth on edge as she waltz round in a slate coloured robe,
the principal outcrops being decorated with diorite colored stringers, and other
indications of a highly pleasing character. She moved round the room with a native grace
which was charming, and which made many a digger wish that, even for once, he owned
so good a claim. Miss KENNEDY wore a kaolin coloured silk and was much admired
whilst Miss SMITH was arrayed from peg to peg in a slate coloured material relieved at
the throat by a white quartzite band. Miss DWYER in a rich limestone coloured creation
relieved at the datum points near the neck & shoulders look pretty as a picture”
Invited and uninvited guests alike joined in the party and those who did not dance inside
with the ladies “tripped the light fantastic toe with their
mates outside.” All were in the highest degree satisfied with the opening of the
matrimonial market and the wedding was a great success. Many of the dust
begrimed & sunburnt diggers swore that as soon as the fickle jade Fortune smiled on the
and they could afford the luxury of a wife, provided suitable partners were obtained, they
would follow the example of Arthur WILLIAMS and peg out claims of their own &
strike good prizes in the Benedict´s Sweepstake”

Clara SAUNDERS with her mother & younger sister Susan left Brisbane and arrived in
Southern Cross in 1892 age 14 years old. Clara had only been in Southern Cross a few
weeks when Arthur BAYLEY arrived in the town with 554 ounces of gold from a
new find 120 miles east of the Southern Cross. She worked for her brother-in-law Tom
FARREN, who managed the Club Hotel, and looked after Warden John Michael
FINNERTY & his young wife Bertha who had taken a suite of rooms at the Hotel.

In May 1893 Clara was offered a job by Evan WISDOM to assist his housekeeper Mrs
FAGAN at his Exchange Hotel in Coolgardie. Everyone warned her how bad conditions
were and that it was no place for a young girl on her own but with her mothers
permission, Clara set off in a coach on the long dusty trip to Coolgardie. She enjoyed the
work and was very popular. Mrs FAGAN & Clara tried to do everything they could for
the miners sick with dysentery, making barley water & sago, and cutting up towels for
face cloths so they could sponge the miners faces to make them more comfortable.
Paddy HANNAN arrived in Coolgardie quite ill and as there were no spare guest rooms
Clara gave up her room to Paddy and nursed him with plain boiled rice and some
medicine until he was well. When he left he gave Clara a small nugget of gold, telling
her it was the first piece he found on his new lease at what is now known as Kalgoorlie.
When Clara was getting married she had the nugget mounted on a gold brooch which she
wore on her wedding day for good luck. When Evan WISDOM sold the Exchange Hotel
Clara was offered a job by John DE BAUN of the Great Western Hotel in the centre of
Bayley St. DE BAUN wanted Clara to run his dining room. It was while working at the
Great Western she met Arthur WILLIAMS who ran the billiard room at the same hotel.

After their marriage Clara worked along side Arthur to build their business at the very
isolated settlement of Goongarrie, she nursed many prospectors with fever & injuries and
also acted as midwife when needed. On 22 May 1896 Clara & Arthur´s first child was
born, Lilian Mary. A second daughter Violet Catherine was born in December 1897.
They sold their business at the Ninety Mile and moved to Mt Morgans to another hotel.
In 1902 Arthur returned to England to visit relatives while Clara stayed at Mt Morgans
to run the business. Arthur contracted pneumonia & died. Clara took over the hotel
license herself and ran it for seven years, she remarried Joseph LYNCH and had 2 boys
John Leo & Edward Joseph. Clara & Joseph sold the hotel and bought new farm land
east of Narrogin which Clara helped Joseph clear. In the depression they lost the farm
& Clara opened a boarding house in Marvel Loch.

In 1939 her husband died. In 1944 Clara married for the third time to John PATON.Clara
died in 1957 of a stroke during an operation for cataracts.
She was 80 years old
              
*****

During World War 11 the brooch was used for the War effort fundraising.
Clara sat a table in the Perth Town Hall and for a small viewing fee would show Paddy
HANNAN'S nugget on her brooch. Clara´s family still have the brooch as one
of their most treasured possessions.

*****

Refs: Daughters Of Midas - Norma KING
         A Claim to Fame - Tess THOMSON
         Battling for Gold - John MARSHALL