The Darkest Day

Bendigo’s worst mining disaster, a memorial and

the forgotten past.

Sue Kimpton – 17714717

Making History – La Trobe University 2018
The Bendigo goldfield has yielded
over 700 tonnes of goldi, which has a
total worth of over 37.8 billion dollars
in today’s marketii. One may ask why
this information is so important. Put
simply; Bendigo was built on this
fortune and has continued to grow
into one of the largest regional cities
in Victoria.
Bendigo has a 103-year history
relating to mining that includes many
boom periods and other periods of
almost non-existence. People came
from far and wide to work the field
and make their fortune. Working
conditions were tough while safety
standards were poor. Many lost their
lives, and not just men; women and
children also died on the goldfield.
This paper looks at the worst mining
disaster in Bendigo; the memorial
erected to it, and looks at what is
missing from this monument.
Gold mining in the early days
consisted of workings that were
alluvial, making use of creeks and
streams that ran through the fledging
settlement. Once these alluvial
deposits were exhausted shafts were
sunk to find the gold bearing quartz
reefs. Initially the shafts did not
venture very far on the basis that
“contemporary geological theory…
suggested gold would not be found at
depths greater than 100 feet [30
meters] or so”.iii Speculation grew
that the shafts were too shallow and
needed to penetrate further
underground. Johann Ballerstedt and
his son, Theodore, were pioneers of
quartz shaft sinking. They sunk the
Victoria Hill mine down to 154
meters, which in turn triggered other
shafts to be plunged deeper in an
effort to reap greater reward.iv
Bendigo has the largest concentration
of deep shafts anywhere in the world.
In an area that covers 64 square
kilometres there were over 5000
registered mines that included sixteen
mines with shafts over 900 meters in
depth from the surface. The ten
deepest are, Victoria Reef Quartz,
1,406 meters; New Chum Railway,
1,316 meters; Lazarus New Chum,
1,122 meters; New Chum and
Victoria, 1,090 meters; North
Johnson's, 1,066 meters; Great
Extended Hustler's, 1,064 meters;
Carlisle, 1,054 meters; Lansell’s 180,
1,025 meters; Clarence, 1,008 meters;
and Ironbark, 990 meters. A further
fifty-three mines were greater than
600 meters in depth.v
With mines being so deep and there
being so many in such close
proximity, accidents were bound to
happen; and very frequently did.
Miners themselves were not the only
victims; women and children were
also killed or injured as a result of the
goldmines. 13-year-old Thomas De La
Cour, and his father were both killed
after falling off a ladder at the Royal
Albert Freehold in 1870. At the
inquest it was noted that children
under the age of 16 should not be able
to work in the mines.vi 14-year-old
Robert John Hobba died in an
explosion at the Johnsons Reef where
he was working in 1878. The Jury
described the incident as “highly
reprehensible that more care was not
taken.”vii Women like Mary Long who
died in 1873 when the explosive
powder she was drying for her
husband, as it got damp in the cellar,
explodedviii, or Elizabeth Watson who
was talking to her husband when she
was caught up in the winding
machinery.ix While they did not work
in the mines per se, they died as a
result of goldmining and the lack of
adequate safety that now follows such
an industry. Even abandoned mines
claimed the lives of men, women and
children due to the inadequacies of
fencing or capping methods. Sabina
Maud David died in 1879 when she
fell into an abandoned shaft that was
improperly fenced at South Victoria
Reef,x while 11-year-old Ida Mansfield
also died after falling into an
abandoned shaft in 1923.xi These
incidents were to be overshadowed
and largely forgotten by Bendigo’s
worst mining disaster, which
occurred at the Great Extended
Hustlers mine on the 2nd of May 1914;
the day Bendigo stopped and
mourned.
When the news broke on the morning
of the 3rd of May, many were in shock
asking ‘how did this happen?’ Seven
miners survived on level 16 but there
were no survivors on level 13, the
location of the explosion. No one
really knows for sure, but speculation
at the time suggested that a large rock
fell from the ‘backs’, or roof of the
mine, and landed on the daily supply
box that contained fuses, detonators
and 25 pounds of explosives.xii
Visitors discussing the disaster at the shaft of the
Great Extended Hustlers mine.xiii
The underground mine manager,
Richard E. Reed, and Mr John Hocking
(the pit man) went underground in
the east cage, as the west cage was
jammed in the shaft, to inspect the
mine for damage. After a cursory look
round on level 13, which is 320
meters underground, Reed noted
broken air lines, water pipes, fumes
and three bodies that were
unrecognisable. They descended to
level 16, or 400 meters, where seven
men had suffered the effects of fume
inhalation preventing their egress
from the mine. After having rescuing
the seven miners from the lower level,
Mr John E. McColl, the mining
inspector, joined Reed and Hocking to
make measurements and a reference
map of the location of the victims on
level 13 before the bodies were
hauled to the surface and passed into
the care of the undertaker, Mr
William Farmer, and sent to the
morgue.
The men that died in the disaster.xiv
A great pall of sorrow descended over
the city upon learning the news of the
disaster. Women felt for the
unfortunate wives and children of the
deceased, while men gathered to
discuss the circumstances of the
accident, fearing that the mystery
would never be solved. The citizens of
Bendigo moved about more quietly
and thoughtfully, exploring the true
depths of the tragedy. The outward
signs of mourning were displayed in
shop windows, while flags flew at
half-mast across the city.xv
The funerals for the seven miners
were conducted on the same day,
spread out across the five cemeteries
of Bendigo. William Crowther Blair
and Leslie Duncan Martin were both
interred at the Eaglehawk General
Cemetery. The cortege of William
Blair, led by the Bendigo Fire Brigade,
left his residence in Rowan Street to
the toll of a fire bell, passing through
streets lined with mourners. The
cortege for Leslie Martin, led by the
Golden City Brass Band, left his
father’s residence in Dowding Street
and joined the cortege of William
Blair as it passed en route to the
cemetery, marching abreast through
the streets of Eaglehawk. At the
graveside many tokens of sympathy
were received including domed
immortelles (porcelain flowers under
a glass dome) from the brass band
and wreaths from the management
and staff of the Great Extended
Hustlers Mine.
The funerals of William Blair and Leslie Martin.xvi
The funerals for Matthew George
Forster and John Henry Campbell
were held at Bendigo Cemetery, while
Herbert John Thomas, Frederick
Chinn and William Ryan were buried
at White Hills, Kangaroo Flat and
Axedale Cemeteries respectively with
all funerals drawing large crowds.
The funeral of Matthew George Forster at the
Bendigo Cemetery.xvii
The coroners’ inquest opened just 14
hours after the explosion. A jury of
nine, mostly miners, sat for three days
(May 3rd, 9th and 12th), hearing
evidence from Richard Reed, Stuart
Manley (Mine manager), John
Hocking, John Bawden (one of the
men on level 16), John Milias (Shift
boss working between levels 15 &
16), and John E. McColl, the inspector
of mines. After hearing all the
evidence and there being no
survivors, no blame was attributed.
The jury noted the bravery of Richard
Reed, however nothing formal was
ever issued by the Victorian Royal
Humane Societyxviii or any other
organisation.xix
On Monday the 11th of May The Great
Extended Hustlers Mine, with the aid
of their insurance company,
contributed financially to the families
of the deceased; £2,100 ($243,428)
was distributed as follows; Mrs
Catherine Blair £345, Mrs Margaret
Campbell £340, Mrs Ethel Thomas Organisations from outside Bendigo
£340, Mrs Maud Forester £330, Mrs also wished to contribute. Korong
Annie Chinn £245, Mr Murdock Vale, Boort, Goornong and Rochester
Martin £200 and Mrs Gertrude Ryan all had successful recitals; while in
£300. While the “company admits no Melbourne a Carnival at the
liability in making this payment…the Exhibition Arena attracted a crowd of
relatives in taking the money regard approximately 35,000, which
the matter as ended.”xx organisers hailed as a success. The
Carnival generated almost £1063 for
Such was the enormity of the disaster the Relief Fund.
many ordinary people from far and
wide dug deep to contribute to the
Great Extended Hustlers Relief Fund.
Many smaller funds were setup to
take donations, which were then
added together to form the Relief
Fund. Many concerts, recitals and
demonstrations by the Citizens’
Forces contributed to the relief fund
along with the combined banks of
Bendigo, including the “Australasia,
Colonial, Commercial, London,
National, New South Wales Royal,
The Melbourne Charity Carnival.xxiii
Union and Victoria”xxi, each giving
£10. Many private donations also On Saturday the 27th of June a
flowed in from the Governor General,
meeting was called by the Mayor of
Federal Parliamentarians, Bendigo
Bendigo, Councillor Andrew, to devise
Mine Managers Association and Old
ways and means of distributing the
Bendigonians living in Melbourne. Relief Funds that now amounted to
Many prominent Bendigo names of
£4508 16 shillings and 5 pence
the day also contributed including
($522,654.10 as of 2017).xxiv It was
Stilwell Brothers, Bolton Brothers,
decided that Sandhurst and Northern
Abbotts, Hendersons, Cohns, Lansells, District Trustees would handle the
Sir John Quick and Barkly Hyett.xxii
Relief Fund and pay the beneficiaries
a weekly stipend at a rate of £1.10 per
week for each widow/parent ($173 as
of 2017)xxv and a further 5 shillings
($29 as of 2017xxvi) for each child. The
fund was expected to last around six
years (1920), however the funds
lasted until June 1922.xxvii

Lists like these appeared in newspapers.xxviii

 The Victims

William Crowther Blair - 40 Years -

Wife and youngest son, Harold, were both gravely ill.

John Henry Campbell - 31 Years -

Wife, Margaret, 7 months pregnant with third child

Herbert John Thomas - 30 Years

- His father, John, was killed in the same mine 15 years
earlier at the 600 meter level.
- Left behind a wife, Ethel, and 3 sons

Mathew George Forster - 28 Years

- Left behind a wife, Maud, and two children.

Frederick James Chinn - 26 Years

- 8th child of Annie and James Chinn

William Ryan - 26 Years -

Left behind his wife Gertrude, buried his father 3 months
earlier.

Leslie Duncan Martin - 23 Years

- Older brother, Murdock, died in a rock fall at the Clarence
United mine 9 years earlier. Never married.

The Unsung Hero

The jury records the bravery of Richard Ernest Reed.xxix

On the 2nd of May 2008 a memorial
was dedicated to those who died at
the Great Extended Hustlers Mine on
that day 96 years earlier. Set on
110m2 the reserve is bordered by
Hustlers and Niemann Streets.
Aerial photograph of Hustlers Reserve
shaded in red.xxxi
The memorial, at the Hustlers street
end (pictured on the front page),
features seven granite slabs in an arc
with a plaque at the centre of the
arrangement, placed in front of a
group of fenced off peppercorn
trees. The plaque lists the names of
the deceased and acknowledges the
other 850 miners that died on the
goldfield; the peppercorns mark the
entrance to the shaft of the Great
Extended Hustlers Mine. Closer
towards Niemann Street there is a
revegetation project that serves as a
living memorial to the
approximately 850 that died on the
goldfield. At the Niemann Street end
of the reserve another granite slab
Niemann Street end of Hustlers Reef
Reserve.xxx
sits, to acknowledge the women and
children who lost husbands on the
goldfield and a plaque from the
Cornish Association as many miners
had Cornish ancestry.xxxii
While the memorial itself is fitting
and justified, it is essentially
incomplete.
Men, women and children lived and
worked on the goldfield making no
one immune to the accidents or
disasters that may have occurred.
While it is true that many men lost
their lives on the goldfield, so did
women and children, who are not
represented at the Hustlers Reserve,
and as such these ‘silent victims’
deserve a place at the memorial.
i Central Deborah Gold Mine, ‘Bendigo’s Golden Heritage’, Central Deborah Gold Mine [website],
(2017) http://www.central-deborah.com/about-us/bendigo-s-golden-heritage, accessed 22 May
2018
ii http://goldpricez.com/au/kg
iii Geoffrey Blainey, The Rush that Never Ended: A History of Australian Mining. Melbourne,
University Press, 1963, p. 65. In ‘The Ballerstedts And The Bendigo Quartz Reefs’, Charles Fahey,
The Latrobe Journal, No. 30 December 1982.
http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-30/t1-g-t2.html
iv ‘The Ballerstedts And The Bendigo Quartz Reefs’, Charles Fahey, The Latrobe Journal, No. 30
December 1982. http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-30/t1-g-t2.html
v Department of Mines, ‘Annual report of the secretary for mines for the year 1914’
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1915No31P1-20.pdf, 9, accessed 10
Sep. 2018
vi PROV, VPRS 24/P0 unit 246, item 1870/1045 Male
vii PROV, VPRS 24/P0 unit 375, item 1878/560 Male
viii PROV, VPRS 24/P0 unit 300, item 1873/184 Female
ix PROV, VPRS 24/P0 unit 135, item 1863/72 Female
x PROV, VPRS 24/P0 unit 402, item 1879/414 Female
xi PROV, VPRS 24/P0 unit 1034, item 1923/325
xii John Kelly, ‘A Bereaved City, Bendigo 1914’, (Maryborough: McCarthy Printing, 2002,) 11
xiii James A. Lerk, ‘Bendigo’s Mining History 1851-1954’, The Bendigo Trust, Bendigo, 1991, p.56
xiv ‘List of the dead’,Bendigonian, 5 May 1914, 14, accessed 5 Aug. 2018.
xv ‘The Mining Disaster’, Bendigo Independent, 5 May, 1914, 6, accessed 4 Aug. 2018.
xvi ‘Funerals of Victims’, Bendigonian, 12 May 1914, 14 & 19, accessed 2 Aug. 2018.
xvii John Kelly, ‘A Bereaved City, Bendigo 1914’, (Maryborough: McCarthy Printing, 2002), 26
xviii Colin Bannister, ‘7000 Brave Australians’, (Melbourne: Royal Humane Society, of Australasia,
1996), Index.
xix John Kelly, ‘Bendigo’s Bravest’, (Bendigo: John Kelly, 2011), Index.
xx John Kelly, ‘A Bereaved City, Bendigo 1914’, (Maryborough: McCarthy Printing, 2002), 46
xxi Ibid. p. 39
xxii Ibid. p. 43
xxiii ‘Great charity carnival’, Age, 9 Jun. 1914, 8, accessed 6th October 2018.
xxiv https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html
xxv Ibid.
xxvi Ibid.
xxvii John Kelly, ‘A Bereaved City, Bendigo 1914’, (Maryborough: McCarthy Printing, 2002), 46
xxviii ‘Bendigo Advertiser Fund’, Bendigo Advertiser, 8 May 1914, 7, accessed 16 Aug. 2018.
xxix PROV, VPRS 24/ P0 unit 912, item 1914/623
xxx Photograph taken by author 11 September 2018.
xxxi ‘Hustlers Reef Reserve’, City of Greater Bendigo [website], (2018),
https://www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/About/Document-Library/hustlers-reef-reserve accessed 18
Oct. 2018.
xxxii ‘Tragic Ground’, Victoria Walks Incorporated [website], (2018),
https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/1266 accessed 18 Oct. 2018
References
Primary Sources
Department of Mines, ‘Annual report of the secretary for mines for the year 1914’
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1915No31P1-20.pdf,
9, accessed 10 Sep. 2018

‘Great Charity Carnival’, Age, 9 Jun. 1914, 8, in Trove [online database], accessed
10 Oct. 2018.

‘Bendigo Advertiser Fund’, Bendigo Advertiser, 8 May 1914, 7, in Trove [online

database], accessed 16 Aug. 2018.

‘Funerals of Victims’, Bendigonian, 12 May 1914, 14 & 19, Trove [online

database], accessed 2 Aug. 2018.

‘List of the dead’, Bendigonian, 5 May 1914, 14, in Trove [online database],
accessed 5 Aug. 2018.

“The Mining Disaster’, Bendigo Independent, 5 May 14, 6, in Trove [online

database], accessed 4 Aug. 2018.

PROV, State Coroners Office, VPRS 24/P0, Inquest deposition files, unit 135, item
1863/72 Female, Elizabeth Watson.

PROV, State Coroners Office, VPRS 24/P0, Inquest deposition files unit 246, item
1870/1045 Male, Samuel De La Cour & Thomas William Gordon De La Cour.

PROV, State Coroners Office, VPRS 24/P0, Inquest deposition files, unit 300, item
1873/184 Female, Mary Long.

PROV, State Coroners Office, VPRS 24/P0, Inquest deposition files, unit 375, item
1878/560 Male, Robert John Hobba.

PROV, State Coroners Office, VPRS 24/P0, Inquest deposition files, unit 402, item
1879/414 Female, Sabina Maud David.

PROV, State Coroners Office, VPRS 24/ P0, Inquest deposition files, unit 912, item
1914/623, William Crowther Blair, John Henry Campbell, Frederick Chinn,
William Ryan, Leslie Duncan Martin, Mathew George Forster.

PROV, State Coroners Office, VPRS 24/P0, Inquest deposition files, unit 1034,
item 1923/325, Ida Mansfield.
Secondary Sources
Central Deborah Gold Mine, ‘Bendigo’s Golden Heritage’, Central Deborah Gold
Mine [website], (2017) http://www.central-deborah.com/about-us/bendigo-s-
golden-heritage, accessed 22 May 2018.

‘Hustlers Reef Reserve’, City of Greater Bendigo [website], (2018),

https://www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/About/Document-Library/hustlers-reef-
reserve accessed 18 October 2018.

Colin Bannister, ‘7000 Brave Australians: a history of the Royal Humane Society of
Australasia, 1874-1994, (Melbourne: Royal Humane Society of Australasia, 1996)

The Ballerstedts And The Bendigo Quartz Reefs’, Charles Fahey, The Latrobe
Journal, No. 30 December 1982.
http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-30/t1-g-t2.html

Gold pricez [website], (2018) http://goldpricez.com/au/kg, accessed 6 Oct.

2018.

Kelly, John, ‘A Bereaved City, Bendigo 1914’, (Maryborough: McCarthy Printing,

2002)

Kelly, John, ‘Bendigo’s Bravest’, (Bendigo: John Kelly, 2011)

Lerk, James A, ‘Bendigo’s Mining History 1851-1954’, (Bendigo: The Bendigo

Trust, 1991)

‘Tragic Ground’, Victoria Walks Incorporated [website], (2018),

https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/1266 accessed 18 Oct. 2018