Deaths on the Lamplough gold field

On 3 December 1859 Hugh Ross Barclay, the Inspector of Police at Avoca, estimated the population of Lamplough to be 10-12,000. In mid-December, the District Surveyor, Richard English, thought it was about 12,000, not more than 5,000 of these were bona fide miners.

By December 1860, a year after it had begun, the Lamplough rush was over, and attention had shifted to a new rush at Mountain Creek (later called Moonambel).

By the time of the census on 7 April 1861 there were 469 people on the Lamplough diggings. 

The Avoca Cemetery Register provides a measure of the rise and decline of the population of Lamplough. In 1859 only three Lamplough burials were recorded. In 1860 the number had increased to 152—75 per cent of all 200 burials at Avoca that year. By 1861, only four Lamplough residents were interred, and over the next decade the average fell to fewer than one per year. Most people died not from mining accidents but from disease. Dysentery and diarrhoea killed 39 people, consumption and other diseases of the lungs 18, and teething and convulsions 13.

Many of the miners who rushed to Lamplough brought their wives and children. The 1860 Lamplough burial records show a community of families not merely a camp of transient diggers. Of the 149 individuals whose ages can be determined, 100 (67 per cent) were children under five years of age. Forty-two were infants under twelve months, a further fifty-eight were aged between one and four years, and only five children were between five and seventeen years old. Adults aged eighteen and over accounted for just forty-four deaths.

Adult deaths were overwhelmingly male, and most adult men were recorded as miners. Adult women appear only rarely in the register. Several female deaths were directly connected with childbirth, including Eliza Cahill and Mary Flanagan.

Infants and toddlers died from poor sanitation, contaminated water supplies, and crowded living conditions that accompanied the rush. Dysentery, diarrhoea, teething, convulsions, whooping cough, diphtheria, and fevers were major causes of death of young children.

Inquests

While the cemetery register reveals the ordinary burden of disease and infant mortality, the inquest records document sudden and tragic events. Between January and November 1860, fourteen inquests connected with Lamplough investigated deaths arising from mining accidents, drowning, illness, alcohol, violence, and the discovery of an unidentified stillborn infant. Together, they provide vivid glimpses of daily life on the diggings and the risks faced by miners and their families.

Lamplough was primarily an alluvial goldfield, but although shafts, drives, and windlasses were dangerous, only four deaths resulted directly from mining accidents. Drownings claimed the lives of adults and children alike, but illness remained by far the more common cause of death.

Mining accidents

Stephen Phillips was the subject of an inquest on 21 January 1860 held at Lamplough. The principal deponents were William Kirkwood, a mining mate of the deceased; George Black, a fellow miner; and Dr Alvara Slater, medical practitioner. Phillips was found to have “accidentally suffocated through a large quantity of earth falling on him whilst at work”.

Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser (Vic.), Monday 23 January 1860, page 3

SMOTHERED IN A DRIVE. An inquest was held by F. M. Laidman, Esq., District Coroner, at Lamplough on Saturday, on view of the body of Stephen Phillips. Wm. Kirkewood, mate of deceased, deposed that on the previous day he was at work in a drive with deceased. He was knocking down the stuff and deceased was at the mouth of the shaft shovelling the dirt that he (witness) knocked down, when suddenly the earth from the drive fell down on deceased, completely covering him, but not enclosing witness. He immediately called for assistance, and deceased was dug out after twenty minutes labor. When got out he was quite dead. The drive was not propped. Deceased was 27 years of age and a native of South Wales. The jury returned a verdict that deceased was accidently suffocated through a large quantity of earth falling on him whilst at work

Edward Huss was the subject of an inquest on 20 April 1860 held at Lamplough. The principal witnesses were Edward Pratt, his mining mate, who was lowering Huss down the shaft when the windlass came out of its socket; Francis O’Reilly, who was working nearby; and Dr Alvara Slater. Pratt noted Huss was 27 and from Leicester. Huss was found to have been “accidentally killed when a windlass fell on him.”

Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser (Vic.), Friday 20 April 1860, page 2

LAMPLOUGH.
(From our own Correspondent.)
A fatal accident happened yesterday (Thursday) morning on the Deep Lead to a man named Hurst [sic. Should be Huss]. It appears that he was in the act of being lowered down a shaft by his mates, who were turning the windlass, and had reached about 20 feet from the surface, when the stands of the machine gave way, causing the roller to jump out of the sockets and to fall direct down the shaft, the men on top being precipitated away from the handles by the sudden jerk the occurrence occasion. Hurst reached the bottom before being struck by the roller, which went whirring down with such precision as to scarcely touch the sides of the shaft. As it reached the bottom it struck the unfortunate man on the hip, and then turned over and smashed every rib on one side of his body. He was speedily brought to the surface, and Dr. Slater sent for, but ere he arrived--about half-an-hour subsequent to the accident--death had claimed another victim.

On 21 April 1860 Edward Huss was buried at Avoca Cemetery, Victoria

John and Daniel Owens, the men who had first found gold at Lamplough, were partners with their brother Owen Owens and with George Juby and James Partington.

The worst mining accident at Lamplough killed Owen Owens and George Juby. On 2 August 1860, fifteen tons of earth collapsed onto the two men when they were working in a drive. Juby died instantly, while Owens lingered for several hours.

Star (Ballarat, Vic.), Monday 6 August 1860, page 2

LAMPLOUGH.
(From our own Correspondent)
3rd August.
It is with painful feelings that I correspond with your readers to-day because I am within a very short distance of the remains of two men that met with a premature end yesterday. The prospectors who caused the rush at this place are Welshmen, bearing the name of Owens In a few days subsequent to finding paying ground, two brothers sent to Pleasant Creek for a brother that was there at the time, doing but very little good to himself. He came down to Lamplough, and a share in the prospecting claim was given him. Another person named George Juby was taken into the company as a half-shareman, and ever since up to yesterday everything went on very pleasingly. Well, yesterday Juby and the brother of the prospectors, Owens, went as usual into one of the drives, and about half-past nine some fifteen tons of earth fell upon the poor fellows. Juby was covered with so much soil that half an hour elapsed before his body was unhearsed, and when found he was dead, and crushed most pitifully. Owen Owens, the other unfortunate, was taken from under the soil alive, and the first words he made use of were " I am done for this world, and may the Lord have mercy upon my soul and my wife." He was taken to the company's tent, and Dr Slater was in a few minutes in attendance. Whatever a medical gentleman could do was done for suffering Owens, but medical skill was of no avail. Owens had four ribs broken, a dislocation of the spine, and other death-serving injuries. Soon after being told of the accident, I went to the spot where it happened, and some scores of yards off him I heard the painful cries of dying Owens. Upon entering the tent I found two of his brothers and three strangers seated around his stretcher, and doing what they could to ease his dying sufferings. I enquired if any extra medical assistance would be of any service, and if it possibly could be, that I would get all the medical men of Lamplough to attend in a short space of time, and was told that Dr Slater had said that the injuries were incurable. The poor fellow died at eleven o'clock last evening, and a magisterial inquiry was held at the Camp today before Mr Barnett, J.P., and Mr Inspector Barclay. The two deceased are to be conveyed to their long resting-place tomorrow at Avoca ; and a most respectable burial I am informed will be given them. I have done all I could to find out the birthplace and family of Juby, but have completely failed. Owens is a native of Holyhead, and left a young wife there to wait his return. He was about leaving here for Wales with a very handsome sum of earnings, bent upon spending the rest of his life in the society of his wife and in his native district.

The inquest files also show evidence of systems of mutual support.
Workmates, family members, neighbours, and sometimes even strangers came
to one another’s aid in difficult times, while medical
practitioners—Dr Alvara Slater and Dr Richard Rose, for
example—strove to provide medical care (limited, of course, by the
lack of appropriate resources available on the diggings).

There were mining accidents, but these affected relatively few of those
who had rushed to the diggings. A far greater danger lay in the
circumstances of daily life: contaminated water, infectious disease,
childhood illness, floods, and the hazards faced by families living
among tents, shafts, and abandoned workings.

Lamplough was a rapidly-formed settlement of thousands rushing in to
find prosperity. Some got rich; many of them were forced to cope with
hardship, uncertainty, and loss.

Wikitree:

• Eliza (Smith) Cahill (1834-1860) died following childbirth at Lamplough
• Mary (Birmingham) Flanagan (1834-1860) died in childbirth at Lamplough
• Stephen Phillips (1832-1860) killed at Lamplough by a fall of earth
• Edward Huss (1831-1860) killed at Lamplough by a falling windlass
• George Juby (abt.1825-1860) killed at Lamplough by a fall of earth
• Owen Owens (1821-1860) killed at Lamplough by a fall of earth