Joseph Cook (6th Prime Minister of Australia, 1913–1914), after having visited Wyalong while Minister for Mines and Agriculture (Reid government, pre-federation), concluded:

Other efforts are to be made in connection with the improvement of the water supply, now derived from a well at Pine Ridge, and they are going to prospect that shaft further, in the hope of getting a good pumping supply, and I have given orders to proceed at once with that work. Even should this fail to provide a permanent supply, it will still be open to make better provision for the catchment and storage of the rainfall than exists at present.

The Daily Telegraph, Sydney NSW, Wednesday 12 July 1899.

“Strangely, but a few feet from the grave of Hall is that of Kate Kelly, the sister of the notorious Ned and Dan Kelly, whose exploits caused such an uproar in Victoria and New South Wales after the death of her brothers.” Sunday Times, Perth WA, Sunday 14 June 1925.

Even more strange that we continue to have such a deep fascination with Ned and his gang in modern Australia, while stories about Ben Hall barely, if ever, rate a mention. What follows are just but a few sections of a verse originally published in ‘the Wyalong paper’:

That he had been persecuted,
Had been brought before the court,
For branding other’s cattle;
The charges well he fought.

That his hunters were outrageous,
His stock they did impound,
And to prevent his house from sheltering him
They burned it to the ground.

For he never harmed a woman,
To children he was kind.
And many a sympathetic friend
Did Ben Hall leave behind.

The wicked man who shared his gold
His life he did betray,
And many bullets pierced Ben Hall
On that eventful day.

The diggers were indignant
For many miles around:
They swore what ere the consequence
He’d lie in sacred ground.

And it may be wrong, as many say,
Of such to make a fuss,
But sympathy’s a lovely thing,
And so say all of us.

The wild old days are dead and gone,
They’ll say I’ve got some gall.
But here’s a toast that men will drink,
“To the memory of Ben Hall.”

Last week, said a Wyalongite, shaking a threatening finger and quivering with indignation, “We’ve got the mineowners, and the mineowners won’t exactly say that they won’t employ any man that lives in West Wyalong, but they presently will only employ the men that live in Wyalong. That’ll stiffen ‘em.” And the West retorts with adjectives, red as the churned-up dust of its main street. In fact, this feud and the utter vileness of the road to either Wyalong probably account for the extremely high colour of the vernacular. If one accepted the West estimate of the East it would be that they are a dour and stiffnecked generation, while the East regards the West as the “slimmest” of the “slim” in the Boer sense of the term. They are such whole-hearted fellows in the two towns, so full of the virtues of a mining population—of hospitality, energy, and heartiness, of dogged pluck and determination, all expressed of course in language like unto that of the returned troopers from South Africa—that it is a pity some modus vivendi cannot be quickly arrived at. If development goes on as it is doing the trouble will be got over by the runs of the two towns overlapping, and when the electric trams are running down the main street the sectional differences will simply have resolved themselves into penny sections. Already the telephone is coming, and that will check things a bit, for the regulations will not permit the free interchange of the “language,” and in which East describes West and West, East.

The Sydney Mail, Saturday 13 October 1900

“In the early days rain-water was very scarce, and the bank supply was contained in a small galvanised iron tank, which was kept locked. The water disappeared much faster than seemed reasonable, and the officers decided to lie in wait for the suspected culprit. About 4 a.m. he appeared, unlocked the padlock, and took a bucket of water. The manager fired a revolver, but fortunately missed the intruder, who dropped the bucket and ran for his life. This put a stop to the leakage of the bank’s water supply.”

Royal Australian Historical Society

Hey Dawn … yes I believe it will be warmer from now on

“WYALONG will be known to the future historian as it is to the present inhabitant, as the place for boarding houses and summer drinks, for it contains more notices to that effect to the square yard than any other part of the Australian territory between the Gulf of Carpentaria and Wilson’s Promontory.”

The Wyalong Star, Friday 5 April 1895

The Bland

The mighty rolling western plains are very fair to see.
Where, waving to the passing breeze, the silver myalls stand.
But fairer are the giant hills, all rugged through they be
From which the two great rivers rise that run along the Bland.

A.B. Paterson., The Land, February 7, 1930 (an excerpt from The Wind’s Message, Snowy River, October 1895)

The Victoria Hotel

For such an old established and well-known Hotel, … who knew? [1]

[1] The Wyalong Star, November 3, 1903.

Aussie Politics: Back to Basics

"just because you're better than me doesn't mean I'm lazy"

When the Australian Prime Minister is backing in decisions with reference to Billy Bragg and to the generosity inherent in the Australian character, then you know that we’re in good hands, and back on track.

This, as Australians consider a constitutional voice to Parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples:

“A constitutional society furnishes formal or vacuous equality of opportunity. A just society secures fair or substantive equality of opportunity. Whether we have a good society depends on the kind of opportunities that the society provides for its citizens.” (theconvivialsociety.substack.com, What Do Human Beings Need?)

Recognising and Celebrating Wiradjuri History

“Traditional names are like echoes in the landscape and give us an idea of what the area is traditionally valued for”

Riverina Indigenous Placenames: Booberoi Hills, Tallimba, Ungarie and Wyalong

#wiradjuri

Exactly 123 years ago in the lead up to Christmas and turn of the twentieth century—six years after gold was first discovered at Wyalong—a series of mysterious fires obliterated one side of the West Wyalong Main Street…

#WestWyalong

let’s get this party started