Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery

General

Also known as

Wild Irish Girl Mine and Battery, Emily Battery; Wild Irish Girl Mine;

Classification

State Heritage

Register status

Entered

Date entered

21 October 1992

Types

Archaeological: Archaeological potential

Mining and Mineral Processing: Mill/stamper battery

Mining and mineral processing: Mine

Theme

2.2 Exploiting, utilising and transforming the land: Exploiting natural resources

Construction period

1894–1980, Wild Irish Girl Mine and Battery (1894c - 1980s)

Historical period

1870s–1890s Late 19th century

Location

Address

Palmer Goldfield Resources Reserve, Palmer

LGA

Cook Shire Council

Coordinates

-15.94677763, 144.34032815

Request a boundary map

A printable boundary map report can be emailed to you.

1. Email *

Significance

Criterion AThe place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland’s history.

The Wild Irish Girl Mine (1879) and Emily Battery (1894) is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland’s history, particularly the development of gold mining. The Palmer Goldfield was one of Queensland’s most important goldfields during the 19th century and made a significant contribution to the economic and cultural development of north Queensland. The gold rush to the Palmer River region heavily influenced settlement patterns in north Queensland, attracting a large and diverse population into a region previously unsettled by Europeans. The Emily Battery is important surviving evidence of reef mining and associated ore processing operations on the Palmer Goldfield and is representative of the significant capital investment made by small-scale reef mining operators.

The Chinese alluvial workings and graves, located within the place, are important in demonstrating the presence of Chinese miners on the Palmer goldfield, where they comprised the largest Chinese settlement in Australia in the 1870s.

Criterion BThe place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland’s cultural heritage.

The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery provides rare surviving evidence of ore processing operations on the Palmer Goldfield.  The battery has an exceptional degree of intactness, which is rare in Queensland’s historic mining places and includes a steam-powered three-head battery and associated plant, intact Tangye Archer vertical engine, boiler and battery shed. 

The Emily Battery is the only surviving and highly intact stamp mill on the Palmer Goldfield, and the shed enclosing the Emily Battery is the only known example in north Queensland that includes living quarters. The integrity of these features is rare for a historic mining site in Queensland.

Criterion CThe place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland’s history.

The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery has potential to contribute new knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of important aspects about Queensland’s mining history through historical and archaeological investigations. Investigations may increase our understanding of a 19th century-era ore processing operation as well as living conditions on a remote and challenging mining operation. The results of such investigations may assist in comparative analysis and our understanding of the remains of other processing facilities on the Palmer and other historic goldfields in Queensland.

The Chinese alluvial workings and graves within the site have the particular potential to yield information about domestic and social conditions, and mining technology and methods of Chinese miners on a remote 19th century goldfield.

Criterion DThe place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.

The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of late 19th and early 20th century ore processing complex on a north Queensland goldfield. The place comprises a steam-powered three-head crushing battery, battery shed, associated plant and equipment such as an intact vertical engine, and separate manager’s residence. Together these demonstrate the main elements of small-scale ore processing on remote north Queensland’s goldfields.

Criterion EThe place is important because of its aesthetic significance.

The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery has strong evocative qualities. The setting of the battery at the base of a spur of the Conglomerate Range evokes a strong sense of isolation, is illustrative of a way of life that no longer exists and provides consideration of the many challenges associated with mining in remote areas of Queensland. These qualities are enhanced by the intactness and integrity of the place.

History

The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery is a small mining complex located on the edge of the Conglomerate Range escarpment approximately 13km north-northeast of Maytown [QHR 602255] on the Palmer Goldfields Resources Reserve. Part of the Cradle Creek mining subdivision, it was initially exploited by Chinese and European alluvial miners, and European reef miners, in the 1870s before being abandoned. Mining was revived in 1893, and the Emily battery was erected in 1894 to process ore recovered from nearby reef mines, though it crushed ore transported from other parts of the Palmer Goldfield and mines beyond. It operated on an intermittent basis over an 82 year period before crushing ceased in 1976.

Gold mining played a major role in the economic and geographic development of Queensland in the late 19th century. Between 1873 and 1906, Queensland's exports of gold and metals regularly exceeded that of wool. The total value of gold produced in Queensland to 1898 was £44,499,955, six times as much as tin, copper and silver combined.[1] The lure of gold also brought more people to Queensland and had a greater influence on white settlement patterns in Queensland's tropics than contemporaneous pastoral or agricultural pursuits.[2] The northern ports of Cairns and Cooktown were created to serve gold mines, while the importance of Townsville was magnified by the establishment of mining fields.[3]

Prior to 1865, little thought was given to the prospect of gold in North Queensland. George Dalrymple’s 1859-1860 expedition of the region for pastoral and agricultural lands noted strong indications of gold, but his discovery met with little interest; North Queensland was considered too far from the established goldfields to attract prospectors. [4] In 1865, a small, short-lived rush followed the discovery of alluvial gold on Star River Station, about 50km inland from Townsville. Payable gold was also located in the Cape River area in mid-1867, the Gilbert River in 1869 and Etheridge in 1870.

The country to the north of these finds and into Cape York was little known to Europeans in the 1870s. In 1872, William Hann led a Queensland Government-sponsored expedition into Cape York, the territory of the Western Yalanji people.[5] Expedition surveyor Frederick Warner located gold on a tributary of the Mitchell River in August 1872. The tributary was named the Palmer River after then Premier of Queensland Arthur Hunter Palmer.[6] Encouraged by the report of gold, James Venture Mulligan led a prospecting party to investigate the Palmer River deposits in June 1873.[7] Mulligan’s party located some of the richest alluvial deposits in North Queensland, returning to Georgetown with 102 ounces (2.89kg) of gold. News of the find quickly spread and triggered a rush to the area.[8] The 2,000 square mile (5,180km2) field was officially proclaimed a goldfield in December 1873, and surveyor AC Macmillan quickly blazed a track to the field.[9] Unprepared miners died en route from lack of supplies, drowning, or confrontation with the original inhabitants,[10] but an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people made their way north to the field’s coastal port of Cooktown.[11]

The Palmer held extensive shallow deposits of gold, and it quickly became the main and most prolific alluvial gold-producing field in Queensland.[12] Between 1873 and 1879, the Palmer Goldfield produced over one million ounces (28 tons) of gold.[13] Combined returns from the Palmer over the first decade reached nearly £5,000,000, more than the combined gold production of the rest of North Queensland over the same period.[14]

Chinese alluvial workings and graves

Much of the Palmer’s mining activity centred on settlements near Maytown, in the southwest of the goldfield. However, in early 1874 there was a rush to Cradle Creek, twelve miles (20km) north of Maytown. James Mulligan reported favourably on the area in February 1874, though noting that work had to stop when the rain began and flooded the area.[15] Alluvial miners were soon discouraged, and abandoned the claims for more promising gold rushes at Sandy Creek (1874) and the Hodgkinson (1876). Chinese miners worked the abandoned alluvial claims, with an estimated 1,000 Chinese miners at Cradle Creek ‘doing well in alluvial’ in March 1876.[16]

The Palmer had an unusually high population of Chinese miners in the 1870s. Arriving overland from the southern colonies, they totalled around 40% of the Palmer’s population at the end of 1874. From 1875 a steamship service ran between Hong Kong and Cooktown, bringing an average of 1,000 Chinese miners per month directly to the goldfield. By 1877, an estimated 18,000 Chinese miners comprised 90% of the Palmer population, forming the largest Chinese community in Australia.[17] The Palmer’s Chinese miners were mostly young single men who intended to return to China once their goldmining activities yielded profit. Living and working cooperatively, they were better provisioned and obtained more consistent gold returns than Europeans. They scoured and reworked their claims multiple times, and used an efficient cooperative cradling system, with two miners digging up the gold bearing wash-dirt, two carting the wash-dirt, two operating the cradle and one bagging gold.[18] Unwanted stones from the creek were stacked systematically to form water races and dams, vital to the water-based alluvial mining methods. Chinese miners also erected forges for fixing mining tools and ovens for communal cooking, affording them self-sufficiency in remote mining settlements.[19]

Chinese miners who died on the field were buried in makeshift graves or cemeteries with little ceremony by kin, neighbours, friends or European authorities. 148 Chinese burials were recorded between 1873 and 1883. The Palmer burials were viewed as temporary resting places, while families or local associations raised money to return bodies home for burial. Where possible, burials observed feng shui traditions and some were exhumed and returned to China in the late 19th and early 20th century.[20]

Despite relatively peaceful interactions between Chinese and European miners[21]the large influx of single Chinese men onto the goldfield caused concern in parts of the colony.[22] In 1877 the Goldfields Act Amendment Act and the Chinese Immigrants Regulation Act (Qld) were passed to restrict immigrant numbers and activities, and impose high tariffs and mining licence fees. Diminishing alluvial returns, the high cost of living, poor living conditions and the discovery of new alluvial goldfields exacerbated the impact of the legislation. Chinese miners departed Cradle Creek and the Palmer, with the total population plummeting from 18,000 in 1877 to just 2,000 in 1882.[23] Most returned to China, but some sought other goldfields; and some settled in Cooktown, which became home to a diverse population. Alluvial mining ceased almost entirely, and in 1883 the Palmer’s mining warden reported that the alluvial material had been exhausted. The population of alluvial miners dropped to 450 in 1886 and remained around this level until 1900.

Wild Irish Girl Mine

As miners attempted to extract maximum yields from the goldfield, reef mining processes were introduced to the Palmer.[24] Reef mining involved the location of veins of ore in situ, rather than in the Palmer’s rich and shallow alluvial deposits. Surface deposits of gold were worked and, if the results warranted it, deep shafts sunk to mine the reef. Reef mining required additional equipment, including boilers, pumps and winding equipment, and crushing batteries to process the ore on site. Three principal quartz reefs were located, and reef mining concentrated on five reef subdivisions north and east of Maytown: Butcher’s Creek, Gregory Gully, German Bar, Revolver Point, and Cradle Creek.[25]

European prospectors began searching for Cradle Creek’s reefs in 1874, finding promising leads, but the lack of ore processing machinery, and high cost of transporting ore, discouraged activity. In 1876, a machine was despatched to the area and erected at Lone Star, northwest of Cradle Creek.[26] A small reef was located under the escarpment of the Conglomerate Range, northeast of Cradle Creek, and was named the ‘Wild Irish Girl’. Good stone was obtained from the claim in 1879 and carted to the Lone Star battery. However, the mine was abandoned and reportedly dynamited closed shortly afterwards.[27]

A total of 145 reefs were discovered on the Palmer by 1883, but the majority of the reefs were small and of average value.[28] The cost of mining, processing and transporting gold was so high that the reef mines of the Palmer were among the most expensive to operate in Australia. Almost all of the reef mining operations on the Palmer, funded with insufficient capital and backed by companies with limited mining experience, were short-lived and unprofitable. Attempts at extensive and expensive reef mining operations at the Palmer’s most prominent reefs – the Ida, Louisa and Queen of the North – had appeared promising until 1883, when an investigation revealed the limited potential of the reefs. Investment stopped, and reef mining activity trickled away until the Palmer gold warden was removed in 1893.[29]

Towards the end of 1893, however, Gold Warden orderly Sam Wonnacott and miners John Trainor and James Burchell began exploring the abandoned Wild Irish Girl reef. The party took over the Wild Irish Girl prospecting claim (PC) in 1894, employing six men to excavate a shaft and drive a 190ft tunnel into the side of the escarpment. They struck new formations which they named the Native Girl Reef, and began mining ore.[30] Trainor and Burchell also worked the nearby Baal Gammon reef, about 1km south of the Wild Irish Girl, while another miner began working the Best Friend reef, about 200m from the Wild Irish Girl mine, in 1895.[31]

Trainor and Burchell left the Palmer goldfield around the turn of the century. Wonnacott remained at the Wild Irish Girl mine until circa 1925, working the reef occasionally. A residence for the Wonnacott family (including Sam, wife Emily and three daughters) stood on the mine site south of the main shaft; it was removed by 1946.[32]

Emily Battery

As the reef was several kilometres from the nearest crushing plant, the Wild Irish Girl proprietors invested in a small ore processing machine to save on cartage costs. The crushing plant or battery, originally named the ‘Emily’, began operating in October 1894.[33]

The Emily – possibly named for Wonnacott’s wife – was a compact crushing plant comprising three head of gravity stamps powered by a small vertical Tangye engine and boiler.[34] The three-head battery was a fifth of the size of the Palmer’s largest battery, and its value (£300) about a sixteenth of the most expensive Maytown machines.[35] The battery was a Marcolino quartz crusher, a small portable machine invented in 1885 by New South Wales gold miner Paolo Marcolino. The Marcolino was purpose designed for single operators in rugged country, being inexpensive, light and transportable in pieces. In 1889 a Marcolino machine had been installed at the ‘Star of the East’ claim, about 4km north of the Wild Irish Girl, but after being reported to ‘do its work well’,[36] no crushing results were recorded, and the battery was apparently abandoned. The Wild Irish Girl proprietors purchased the machine in late 1893, relocating it to the Wild Irish Girl reef in 1894. Water for the operation came from a small well near the battery.[37]

By January 1895, the Wild Irish Girl mine had not met ‘the sanguine expectations of Sam and party’, but as the Emily battery did ‘good work,’ the North Queensland Register reported that ‘our Sam is confident of making good wages, enjoying the freedom of being his own master, and finally have sufficient to live comfortably.’[38] For a fee, Wonnacott processed ore from nearby mines, greatly improving their profitability by reducing transport costs.[39] This, as well as Government Geologist RL Jack’s declaration that the Palmer reefs ‘have never had a fair trial’,[40] helped to spark a revival in the Cradle Creek region. Between 1894 and 1897 the Emily crushed 342 tons which yielded 427oz (12.11kg), returning five times the cost of the battery.[41]

Interest in the area slowly declined, but in the early years of the 20th century the battery periodically crushed material from local reefs.[42] A Mining Inspector visited the Emily in 1903, noting the machine’s Tangye engine and vertical boiler.[43] The Emily continued to process stones for the few remaining reef miners, and by 1909 was the only functioning battery on the Palmer.[44] Its boiler was replaced in 1913.[45]

Prospectors continued small-scale reefing operations on the Palmer through World War I and the 1920s. Reefs were discovered and worked near Kipling's Crossing, not far from the Wild Irish Girl reef, and claims were reopened at the Star of the East and Mount Atlas. Ore was again sent to the Emily for crushing, though the costs of transporting stone to the battery were high.[46]

No operations were reported from 1925 until 1932, when the battery, by now renamed the ‘Wild Irish Girl’, was transferred to a new operator, William (Bill) Lane.[47] Lane appears to have undertaken substantial repairs with the assistance of William Condron, constructing engineer for the Palmer River Gold Company dredge.[48] The fireplace is believed to have been added to the battery complex at this time.[49] After the alterations were made, Lane went into partnership with Percy Parsons, a Maytown ore packer and postmaster, but the partnership folded.[50] By 1939 Lane reportedly sold the battery to Sam Elliott, but with the outbreak of World War II, Elliott enlisted and did not commence operations until 1945.[51]

Elliott continued to occasionally operate the Wild Irish Girl for the small population remaining on the Palmer until circa 1976, when crushing finally stopped.[52] In conjunction with a local preservation society, Elliott restored the mill between 1982 and 1986, with tool and boiler sheds rebuilt. Elliott died at the battery site in January 1986 and was buried in the Maytown Cemetery.[53] Some elements on the site deteriorated following Elliott’s death: a well on the site which supplied water to the operation collapsed and was repaired with sandbags in the 1990s; and the shed was damaged in a wildfire in 2016.

The Palmer Goldfield was declared a resources reserve in 1986, and some mining activity continues on the reserve in 2018.

Description

The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery site is situated on the edge of the Conglomerate Range[1] escarpment approximately 13km north-northeast of Maytown. The place comprises:

• Emily Battery with shed including workshop and living quarters, and associated plant and equipment;
• Reef mine workings (including Wild Irish Girl, Native Girl and Friendly Girl);
• Former Wonnacott’s house site;
• Alluvial workings; and
• Chinese graves.

The Emily Battery

The highly intact battery is located in a shed positioned at the bottom of a spur in a steep sided gully at the base of the Conglomerate Range, where a number of creeks converge. The intact 7x10m shed comprises four connected sections: the main gable-roofed structure, which is aligned northwest-southeast and contains the stamp battery; a high skillion attached to the northwest (rear), which contains the boiler and engine; a low enclosed skillion to the northeast, which contains the former workshop; and a low open-sided flat-roofed verandah (partly collapsed) to the southwest, which contains the former living quarters. A caved well and water tank are located alongside the shed. The remnants of a stone forge are located to the east and a small watercourse which runs past the battery contains three stone overshot weirs.

• Shed – constructed of round timber posts, with a corrugated metal roof and cladding (where enclosed).
• Stamp battery – the stamp battery was run by a belt wheel running from the engine and the camshaft is located 4m from the engine crankshaft. The mill was made by Walkers Limited of Maryborough, though components appear to have been scaled down from their usual size to suit three small stamps. The mortar box is 1m wide and the stamps are 2m long. The mill is sited on hardwood timbers and discharges onto an amalgamating plate 1.6m in length.
• Boiler and engine – the semi-portable engine is a Tangye single-cylinder ‘Archer’ model.  Steam was supplied by a vertical boiler made by Smellie and Co., Brisbane which stands 2m in height and 0.9m in diameter.  This boiler may have been installed in the 1910s, though is similar to those originally supplied with Tangye engines in the late 19th century.
• Workshop – enclosed area containing a bench and a dense scatter of fixtures, containers, tools, and measuring implements.
• Living quarters – open area with timber furniture and an enclosed fireplace in the southern corner that retains assorted metal cooking implements.
• Water tank – a corrugated metal water tank on a collapsed timber stand is located adjacent to the northern corner of the main shed.
• Well – water was provided by a well located immediately in front of the main shed structure by means of a timber rocker arm actuated by a crank on the camshaft which operated a small lift pump. This well has been sandbagged to help stabilise the edge closest to the battery shed.
• Associated artefacts – the place retains an extensive collection of metal, glass, timber and ceramic artefacts associated with former industrial and domestic activities.

Reef Mine Workings

The remains of the reef mines that provided most of the stone to the Emily Battery are located to the north-northwest and connected to the battery shed by a skid path. There are three groups of mine workings, of which the Wild Irish Girls was historically the main source:

• ‘Wild Irish Girl’ – comprising a horizontal shaft or adit and other underground workings.
• ‘Native Girl’ – comprising narrow open cut workings and underground workings with air shafts; and
• ‘Friendly Girl’ – comprising shallow open cut workings.

Wonnacott’s House Site

The remains of a house site are located 85m south-southeast of the shed structure. The remains have been previously identified as Wonnacott's residence and comprise flagstone and earth surfaces, timber uprights and a scatter of domestic items including two iron beds with bedsteads. Although sometimes referred to as a camp, it appears to have been a substantial residence surrounded by large terraces. Bush fires, white ants and recycling of materials have effectively destroyed the fabric of the structure, but substantial archaeological evidence remains. 

Alluvial Workings

Immediately south of the former Wonnacott’s House site, and extending towards Cradle Creek, is evidence of alluvial workings including a water race, stone pitching and stone forge.

Chinese graves

Numerous grave sites, probably of Chinese origin, are also located throughout this area and extending west along Cradle Creek.

References

[1] Tin £4,448,800, copper £2,022,927, and silver £697,418. Geoffrey Blainey, The rush that never ended: a history of Australian mining, Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1969, p87.
[2] Ross Fitzgerald, A history of Queensland: from the Dreaming to 1915, St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1982, p179.
[3] Blainey, The rush that never ended, 1969, p87.
[4] GC Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away: A history of North Queensland to 1920, Canberra: Australian National University, 1972, p44.
[5] Also referenced as the Kokominni, Kuku-Yalanji or Kuku-Mini people. Brady on Behalf of the Western Yalanji People #4 v State of Queensland [2013] FCA 958; Christopher Anderson and Norman Mitchell, ‘Kubara: A Kuku-Yalanji view of the Chinese in North Queensland’, Aboriginal History, Vol 5 Nos 1-2, 1981, pp20-37.
[6] Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away, 1972, p51; Colin Hooper, Angor to Zillmanton: stories of North Queensland’s deserted towns, Brisbane: AEBIS Publishing, 1993, p95.
[7] Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away, 1972, p52; Brady on Behalf of the Western Yalanji People #4 v State of Queensland [2013] FCA 958; Department of National Parks, Sports and Racing, Palmer Goldfield Resources Reserve Management Statement 2016; Queensland Places: Palmer River (http://queenslandplaces.com.au/palmer-river).
[8] Peter Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam: The Industrial Archaeology of the Palmer Goldfield, Townsville: James Cook University, 1987, p5; Hooper, Angor to Zillmanton, 1993, p95.
[9] Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away, 1972, p52.
[10] SE Stephens, ‘The Endeavour River and Cooktown’, Queensland Heritage Vol 2 No 2, 1970, p25; Thorvald Weitemeyer, Missing Friends, Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880), London: T Fisher Unwin, 1908, pp211-227. The Kuku-Yalanji and Kuku-Mini reacted to the influx of Europeans and Chinese with 'fierce resistance and virtual guerilla warfare', and this was widely reported in contemporary newspapers, spreading fear of attack on the long journey to the Palmer. Conflicts were reported between Chinese and Aboriginal people – for example, an 1879 report of Aboriginal people holding Chinese miners under siege in Revolver Point – as well as between European and Aboriginal people. However, the reports of the violence of Aboriginal aggression were often exaggerated, death at the hands of Aboriginal people being statistically less likely for miners than death by drowning, snakebite, or falling from a horse. Christopher Anderson and Norman Mitchell, ‘Kubara: A Kuku-Yalanji view of the Chinese in North Queensland’, Aboriginal History, Vol 5 Nos 1-2, 1981, pp20-37; Wagga Wagga Express, 5 April 1879 p3; Michael Pearson and Australian Heritage Commission, Tracking the Dragon: A guide for finding and assessing Chinese Australian heritage places, Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission, 2002, A9; Kirkman, ‘From Minority to Majority: Chinese in the Palmer River Gold-field 1873-1876’, in Henry Reynolds (ed) Race Relations in North Queensland, Townsville: Department of History and Politics, James Cook University, 1993, pp246-251.
[11] Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away, 1972, p53.
[12] Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam, 1987, p5; deKeyser and Lucas (1968) cited in Noreen Kirkman, The Palmer Goldfield 1873 – 1883, BA (hons) thesis, Townsville: James Cook University History Department, 1984, p40.
[13] Kirkman, The Palmer Goldfield 1873 – 1883, 1984, p38.
[14] Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away, 1972, p58; Kirkman, The Palmer Goldfield 1873 – 1883, 1984, p38.
[15] Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser 17 March 1874 p2
[16] Queenslander 11 March 1876 p23; Protestant Standard 18 March 1876 p5.
[17] Report of the Department of Mines, Queensland, for the year 1877 (Annual Mining Report 1877), pp9-10; Pearson and Australian Heritage Commission, Tracking the Dragon, 2002, A8-9; Kirkman, The Palmer Goldfield 1873-1883, 1984, p170; Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam, 1987, p6.
[18] Kirkman, The Palmer Goldfield 1873-1883, 1984, p178; Queenslander 27 April 1889 p795; Annual Mining Report 1877, pp9-10; Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away, 1972, p58.
[19] Jillian Comber, The Palmer Goldfield: Heritage Sites Study: report to Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage, Vol 1, 1991, pp23-4.
[20] Kirkman, The Palmer Goldfield 1873-1883, 1984, pp197 & 204; Brisbane Courier, 2 October 1875 p6; Terry Abraham and Priscilla Wegars, ‘Urns, bones and burners: overseas Chinese cemeteries’, Australasian Historical Archaeology Vol 21 (2003), pp59-61.
[21]  Despite occasional threats of violence by Europeans, they were outnumbered by Chinese miners 9 to 1, and were reluctant to risk assault. Australian Heritage Commission, Tracking the Dragon, 2002, A9; Kirkman, ‘From Minority to Majority: Chinese in the Palmer River Gold-field 1873-1876’, 1993, pp246-251.
[22] In debate on the Chinese Immigrants Regulation Bill, the Postmaster-General noted that there was ‘an almost unanimous expression of opinion by honourable gentlemen who spoke on the question, whether for or against the measure, that it was necessary for the welfare, if not for the preservation of this community, that the vast influx of Chinese which has been going on, and is still taking place, to this territory should be stopped… I shall take it for granted that we are all united in believing that it is absolutely necessary to put a stop to the immigration as soon as possible… [its provisions] are necessary, as we conceive, to protect the colony against the admitted and undeniable moral and social evils which accompany the exceptional nature of the immigration against which they are aimed.’ Anti-Chinese meetings were held in Cooktown and Brisbane in 1875, and in Charters Towers and Gympie in 1877. Parliamentary Debates [Hansard], Legislative Council, 11 July 1877, pp105-6; Brisbane Courier 6 April 1875 p3, Northern Miner 6 June 1877 p2, 20 June 1877 p4.
[23] Pearson and Australian Heritage Commission, Tracking the Dragon, 2002, A9; Kirkman, The Palmer Goldfield 1873-1883, 1984, p55.
[24] Comber, The Palmer Goldfield: Heritage Sites Study, 1991, Vol 1, p11.
[25] Kirkman, The Palmer Goldfield 1873 – 1883, 1984, p97.
[26] North of the boundary of the Palmer Resources Reserve.
[27] Queenslander 1 March 1879 p275, 2 August 1879 p146; Northern Miner 16 January 1894 p3.
[28] Kirkman, The Palmer Goldfield 1873-1883, 1984, p101.
[29] Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam, 1987, pp6-9.
[30] Queenslander 27 January 1894 p158, 7 April 1894 p639, 13 April 1895 p688; Northern Miner 13 February 1894 p3; HJ Irvine, Wardens’ Clerk, Palmer Gold Field, Queensland Annual Report of the Under Secretary for Mines 1894 (Annual Mining Report 1894), p84.
[31] Robert Logan Jack, ‘Report on a visit to the Palmer Gold Field’ (GSQ Publication 144), Brisbane: Queensland Government Printer, 1899, p6.
[32] Comber, The Palmer Goldfield: Heritage Sites Study, 1991, pp156-7. Wonnacott, was enrolled on the Queensland electoral roll as resident at Wild Irish Girl, in 1902; wife Emily in 1905. Daughters Emily Elizabeth (born 1885), Mary May (born 1888) and Eva (born 1890) may have lived with them before their marriages in 1911, 1910 and 1920 respectively. Queensland State Electoral Roll 1910, Vol. 3, Electoral District of Cook, Palmer Division, p25; Queensland historic births, reg. no. C7851, C9904 and C10646; Queensland historic marriages, reg. no. C452, C3481 and C2179.
[33] Brisbane Courier 18 October 1894 p2.
[34] Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam, 1987, p87; Brisbane Courier 18 October 1894 p2.
[35] J Hay and B Strike, The “Wild Irish Girl” Ore Stamper Mine, Historical Society, Cairns, North Queensland Bulletin 308, October 1985, p1; Howard St George, Warden Palmer Gold Field, Annual Report of the Department of Mines, Queensland, for the year 1890 (Annual Mining Report 1890), p31.
[36] Howard St George, Warden Palmer Gold Field, Annual Report of the Department of Mines, Queensland, for the year 1889 (Annual Mining Report 1889), p31.
[37] Evening News (Sydney) 6 October 1885 p5; Australian Town and Country Journal 24 September 1887 pp24-5; Brisbane Courier 8 November 1889 p7; The Week 9 November 1889 p7; Annual Mining Reports 1889, p31 and 1894, p84; North Queensland Register 8 November 1893 p24; Cairns Post 23 February 1926 p9; Cairns Post 14 March 1929 p9; Hay and Strike, The “Wild Irish Girl” Ore Stamper Mine, p4; Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam, 1987, p87; Sydney Mail and NSW Advertiser 26 March 1898 p674.
[38] North Queensland Register 16 January 1895 p34.
[39] Brisbane Courier 23 January 1895 p3.
[40] Jack, ‘Report on a visit to the Palmer Gold Field’, 1899, p1.
[41] Jack, ‘Report on a visit to the Palmer Gold Field’, 1899, p7.
[42] Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam, 1987, pp87-8; Brisbane Courier 25 September 1903 p6; Cairns Post 21 January 1913 p3.
[43] Brisbane Courier 25 September 1903 p6.
[44] Northern Miner 20 October 1909 p7.
[45] Northern Herald 22 August 1913 p40.
[46] Cairns Post 19 April 1915 p3; 16 October 1915 p3; Telegraph 22 March 1917 p3; Annual Mining Reports, 1916, pp70; 1918, p67; 1922, p49; 1923, p55; 1924, p57; 1925, p49.
[47] Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam, 1987, p87; Hay, and Strike, The “Wild Irish Girl” Ore Stamper Mill, 1985, p3.
[48] Hay and Strike, The “Wild Irish Girl” Ore Stamper Mill, 1985, p3; Cairns Post 18 July 1930 p4 and 13 March 1937 p10; Northern Herald 2 August 1930 p9 and 3 November 1934 p32.
[49] Hay and Strike, The “Wild Irish Girl” Ore Stamper Mill, 1985, p3.
[50] Cairns Post 19 January 1934 p10 and 23 April 1936 p11; Courier Mail 23 February 1934 p21; Queensland Country Life 1 September 1938 p8.
[51] Comber, The Palmer Goldfield: Heritage Sites Study, 1991, pp 146 & 156; Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam, 1987, p87.
[52] Bell, Gold, Iron and Steam, 1987, p87; Hay and Strike, The “Wild Irish Girl” Ore Stamper Mill, 1985, p4.
[53] Palmer River Historic Preservation Society, newsletters, 1982-1986.

[54] The sandstone plateau known as “The Conglomerate Range” forms part of the Great Dividing Range; see Comber 1991, pp3-4.

Image gallery