Lady Florence Gold Mine (Florence; Pericles), Menzies, Menzies Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Lady Florence Gold Mine (Florence; Pericles)	Mine
Menzies	- not defined -
Menzies Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Canadian born prospector Leslie Robert Menzies and John McDonald were investigating a new area around what would become Menzies in 1894. Having become lost returning from a water soak, they stumbled onto the Shenton Ridge, showing an outcrop containing rich gold, and many nuggets surrounding it. Two leases were pegged, the Lady Shenton and neighbouring Lady Florence. The area was dug up as a large open pit by Paddington Gold in 1997, and the historic workings were destroyed at this time.

The Lady Florence Gold Mining Company was soon formed. After some initial rich crushings, the ore body was cut by a huge barren cross-course reef. The gold bearing lode ran north-south, while the cross-course ran east-west, cutting the lode to the south. After much development work, the company was unable to find the continuation of the reef, and let the mine to tributers.

S. Bell and J. Brown sank a shaft south of the cross course in the hope of picking up the lode continuation. After some driving, they discovered no new ore. They had been 30 feet off discovering the rich lode.

Albert Marshall and his brothers had been working as tributers here since at least 1904. Albert escaped serious injury in this year when a fall of earth buried him to his shoulders for three hours, before being rescued. The Marshalls and W. Crowe had their own theory about the country rock movement, therefore the throw of the lode, and took up the area as a 16 acres prospecting lease. They successfully discovered the lode in 1912, and obtained gold worth 2000 pounds money-wise for each individual in the tributing party.

Meanwhile the Lady Florence Gold Mining Company had done very little with the lease, the prior six years. No work at all had been done for the six months prior to 1912. Before that only two men had been on the lease as tributers, when four were needed to comply with labour conditions. The mine had not been under any exemptions. Little money had been spent on development or exploration. The warden awarded the mine to Richard Falconer who headed the Menzies Gold Mines Company. Falconer hoped the Marshall's rich find, which was not part of his annexed lease, would continue into the Lady Florence. After un-watering the main shaft and conducting development work, he was unable to find the southern lode in his lease and abandoned it. Charles de Bernales purchased the machinery on the lease later in 1912, and carted it off to Kalgoorlie.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References