William Ford (prospector)
William Ford (* 1852 in Wickliffe near Ballarat , † November 1932 ) was a gold prospector in Australia . After numerous unsuccessful attempts, he and his partner Arthur Wellesley found Bayley gold in 1892 on the gold fields of Coolgardie in Western Australia .
In 1883 Ford worked in the mines for a year and then for a period in the Northern Territory and the Gulf Country . He found gold at Croydon in Queensland, where he met gold prospector Arthur Bayley , with whom he worked as a junior partner for 16 years.
After selling his shares in the Queensland Golden Queenmine, he moved to Broken Hill in Victoria , where he worked in a mine in 1888. After a brief stay in New Guinea , he came to Western Australia via Queensland , which he reached in 1889 and where he worked in various mines. In 1892 he met Bayley again and they planned a joint gold hunt, which failed because the horses ate poisonous grass. Ford and Bayley made another search in the Southern Cross area of Mount Burges. Bayley and Ford found 200 ounces of gold there over a period of five to six weeks. According to Bayley, Ford was the first to find a gold nugget in a block of quartz stone in a place called the Fly Flat. Three months later, on September 17, 1892, Bayley returned to Southern Cross with 554 ounces of gold (15.7 kg), which started the gold rush.
Bayley and his partner secured a claim of 20 acres at Fly Flat. Two months later, in the middle of November, several hundred prospectors were already on the gold field. Bayley and Ford had obtained the water they needed to dig for gold from the rocks 20 kilometers west at Gnarlbine Rock and a waterhole twelve kilometers away. Water became as valuable as gold. This gold field was only supplied with sufficient water by the Golden Pipeline in 1903 .
Bayley and Ford sold their claim in the late 1892 or early 1893 years for £ 36,000 and a £ 4,000 stake in the new company. 500,000 ounces of gold were mined from this field in 70 years until closure.
Ford left the gold field after the sale and died in November 1932.
Today the main street of Coolgardie bears his name.
Web links
- William Ford (1852-1932) ( Memento of September 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- Illustration by William Ford
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on www.coolgardie.wa.gov.au ( Memento from November 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved June 29, 2009
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ford, William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Australian prospector in Western Australia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1852 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wickliffe , Ballarat |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 1932 |
| Place of death | Australia |