Thomas Flanagan (prospector)

The Centenerary Plaque of 1993, on the wall of the Town Hall in Kalgoorlie
Thomas Flanagan
Born 01 January 1832
Ennis, County Clare, Ireland
Died 16 November 1899 (aged 67 years 10 months)
Bendigo, Victoria, Australia

Thomas "Tom" Flanagan (1 Jan 1832 – 16 Nov 1899) was a gold prospector who 1n 1893, together with fellow Irishmen Paddy Hannan and Dan Shea, found the first gold in what would turn out to be the richest goldfield in Australia, in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

Childhood

Thomas Flanagan was baptised on 1 January 1832. His parents were Mary Lyons (c.1790-1870) and Michael Flanagan (c.1782-1865) who leased a farm in the district of Clonkerry, County Clare.[1] Thomas was one of at least ten Flanagan children baptised in the parish of Doora Barefield (also known as Doora Kilraghtis). The parish is 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometres) from the town of Ennis, which appears on various official family documents as their place of residence.

From 1831 all Irish children received an elementary education in literary and moral subjects, under the regulations of the state-funded National School (Ireland) system. Nevertheless, their childhood must have been bleak, as the Irish famine of 1846-1851 caused the starvation and death of about a million people, and drove another million to leave the country.

Emigration to Australia

The passenger ship "Marco Polo", in service from 1852 to 1867

By contrast with the deprivations of a famine-ravaged Ireland, Australia was enjoying the luxury of numerous Australian gold rushes.[2] One of Thomas’ older brothers, John, set off for Australia in 1858, arriving in Melbourne on the Marco Polo in July. Thomas followed, docking in Melbourne on the William Kirk in July 1860.

Margaret O’Halloran, also from Ennis, had arrived in Geelong in 1850, on the Lady Kennaway. She was recorded in the ship's passenger list as a domestic servant, 18 years old. By 1861 she had married John Flanagan, moved to Bendigo (then known as Sandhurst) and started a family.

Thomas Flanagan was with Margaret O'Halloran and her family in Bendigo in 1864, when he had the tragic duty of signing the death certificate of his brother John. In his final year (1899) Thomas would return to lodge with Margaret (by then a widow for the second time), in her house at 26 Howard Street, Quarry Hill, Bendigo.

Discovery of Kalgoorlie Gold

Since 1897 a tree has marked the spot where gold was found on 14th June 1893
Close up of one of the dedications

Flanagan was like many men in late 19th century Australia, making his living by prospecting in new goldfields as they were discovered. His death certificate shows that he spent a number of years in each of the states of New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.

Many reputable Australian historians and biographers have described the 1893 finding of the first gold in Kalgoorlie. Amongst some of the best-known works are those by Martyn and Audrey Webb;[3] Jules Raeside;[4] Tess Thomson[5] and Geoffrey Blainey.[2]

Accounts of the event vary as to who is said to have actually come across the first nuggets. Although the argument became quite heated in certain reports, it did not cause any trouble amongst the partners at the time or for many years afterwards.[6]

Even Shea, who asserted at the end of his life that he was the original finder, acknowledged Flanagan as the first finder in an interview in 1904 with the Murchison Advocate.[7]

A lively version was told in the Perth Sunday Times in 1909 by another prospector, who worked on the claim adjacent to Hannan's at the time, Fred Dugan.[8] He quoted the words of Thomas Flanagan as follows:

I saw gold lying in the sand in a small watercourse. Blood and hounds! I was afraid to pick it up as some of the men might see me from the hill above, so I threw an ould bush on it and went away.
— Thomas Flanagan to Fred Dugan

Inevitably the surface gold ran out after a few months and the majority of the original prospectors moved on, in search of new finds. Thomas Flanagan is next officially heard of in Bendigo, in 1899, lodging with Margaret O'Halloran.

Final year

Flanagan's grave, White Hills Cemetery, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia

Whilst in Bendigo, in November 1899, Flanagan caught influenza. Many miners, Flanagan among them, suffered from fatally weakened lungs, and he died after a two-week illness. He was buried in the White Hills cemetery, in an unmarked grave in Section H5.

"Miner" and "speculator" are the occupations that are recorded on the death certificate and probate documents respectively. At the time these activities alone could provide an adequate income, but not great riches. Although at the time of his death he was thought to be a pauper,[9] in fact Flanagan’s estate was valued at just under 820 Australian pounds in 1900. (To put this in perspective, houses in Bendigo cost around 450 pounds in 1900.)

Since he died unmarried and without leaving a will, the probate administrators decided, in June 1900, that the estate would be shared amongst five people named as his next of kin. The first was the only son of his brother John, namely Michael John Flannigan, the District Surveyor of King Island (Tasmania).

The other beneficiaries were said to be living together in Stevens Street, off Halifax Street, Adelaide, South Australia and were named as Michael and John Flannagan, Mary Cahill and Kate Handy. They were probably the children of one of Thomas Flanagan's siblings who went to America. Sand's and McDougall's Street Directory of Adelaide records that the householder of 23 Stevens Street was John Cahill, in 1899 and 1900. No other information has been found to identify these relatives of Thomas Flanagan.

Acclaim

The Kalgoorlie street dedicated to Tom Flanagan in September 1981

Official Western Australian recognition for the prospecting skills of Hannan and partners began to emerge in the year following the find, with the grant of two blocks of land in Kalgoorlie in 1894. Then in 1904 small life pensions were accorded to Hannan and Shea (Flanagan no longer being alive). And on notable anniversaries of the find (25th, 50th, 100th) ceremonies and plaques have eventuated.

In 1981 the Bendigo Advertiser of Thursday September 10, page 7, announced the discovery of Thomas Flanagan's unmarked grave in the White Hills Cemetery in Bendigo. Reporter David Horsfall wrote:

The grave was found by namesake, Mr B.J. (Barney) Flanagan, who claims in an article in the Kalgoorlie Miner of August this year [1981] to be no relative, has done extensive research on the origins of the [gold] field. He thinks Flanagan found the first gold, and induced Hannan to stay with him. He researched his subject in the Battye Library in Perth, the Latrobe Library in Melbourne, and the National Library in Canberra ... and in Bendigo.

The same year, 1981, a street in the Kalgoorlie suburb of Hannan was named Flanagan Parade.[10]

In 1993 the citizens of Kalgoorlie-Boulder paid for the restoration of the grave with a smart and durable monument and headstone to mark his burial place in the H5 section of White Hills Cemetery. Thomas Flanagan's brother John and his immediate family are all buried together across the cemetery, in section E4 in a family grave created in 1901 at the request of Margaret O'Halloran.

References

  1. ↑ O'Brien, Antoinette (December 1998). Flanagan. Clare, Ireland: unpublished report from Clare Heritage Centre.
  2. 1 2 Blainey, G 1963, The rush that never ended: the history of Australian mining, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria.
  3. ↑ Webb, M & A 1993, Golden destiny: the centenary history of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia, City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Boulder WA.
  4. ↑ Raeside, J 1929, Golden days : being memoirs and reminiscences of the Goldfields of Western Australia, Colortype Press, Perth WA.
  5. ↑ Thomson, T 1992, Paddy Hannan: a claim to fame, Thomson's Reward, Kalgoorlie WA.
  6. ↑ Webb, M & A 1993, Golden destiny: the centenary history of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia, City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Boulder WA, page 104.
  7. ↑ "A goldfield pioneer: Hannan's mate. Interview with Dan O'Shea". Murchison Advocate WA (p. 4). 5 November 1904.
  8. ↑ Thomson, T 1992, Paddy Hannan: a claim to fame, Thomson's Reward, Kalgoorlie, page 8
  9. ↑ Raeside, J (1927). Golden days: being memoirs and reminiscences of Western Australia. Carlisle, Western Australia: Hesperian Press. p. 158.
  10. ↑ Government of Western Australia, Landgate. "Geonoma Enquiry: Flanagan Parade": 11 Sep 1981.

See also

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