Welcome to the Witness Podcast

from the BBC World Service with me Claire Bowes.

On the 17th of September 1892,

gold was discovered in Kool-Gardi in Western Australia.

It wasn't the first gold find in the colony, but it was the biggest,

and it began a gold rush that changed the fortunes of the area forever. I've been listening to

one man's tale of what happened from the BBC Archive.

In 1892 Southern Cross was a frontier town, 230 miles inland.

It had been founded just four years earlier by gold prospectors.

A little community of 200 or so in which life ran peacefully.

Yet Southern Cross showed me more drama and starting adventure in that short time

than many meet with in a lifetime.

Frank Gerald, who'd once run a theatre company,

told his story with dramatic flourish to the BBC in 1937 more than 40 years after the

events he was describing. What magic there is in the finding of gold, even now, old as I am, I feel that thrill of long ago.

I think he's a fairly reliable witness allowing for the fact that it may also be layered by memories of all the

buzz that happened around this gold find. Jenny Gregory is professor of history at the University of Western Australia.

She says the men who made that first find were two experienced prospectors from the east of Australia, named Arthur Bailey and Bill Ford.

These guys had already been prospecting in Victoria, they'd prospected in

Queensland, they know the ropes by the time they make this strike at

Korgaadi. What are they looking for in the landscape? Are there nuggets of gold

just lying on the surface?

...