Edjudina Goldfield, Menzies Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Edjudina Goldfield	Ore Field
Menzies Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The Edjudina Goldfield is 120 kilometres south-east of Kookynie, and 18 kilometres east of the nearest other goldfield being Yarri. The Edjudina Goldfield contains the longest line of auriferous reefs in Australia at approximately 20 kilometres long. There are four to five parallel reefs for the entire line of lode, with historic workings seen virtually its entire length. Several private batteries have been erected on the goldfield from the 1890's to the 1930's.

The line of lode trends north north-west to south-south east, being fairly narrow, and near surface rich but poor at depth. The northern end of the lode was the richest in gold.

No modern mining has taken place on the main lode. A prominent ridge called the Edjudina Range parallels the goldfield to the east, and immediately east of this the Lake Raeside salt-pan. This goldfield also contains the Patricia locality, bordering the salt-pan, and south-east of the Edjudina line of lode. The Edjudina Station homestead is part of the Yarri Goldfield.

The name is probably of indigenous origin, its meaning lost. One source states the name is a corruption of 'Hedge a Deiner' a slang term used in Two-Up, an Australian developed gambling game popular on the goldfields.

Gold was discovered at Edjudina in 1893 by Dick Peaks and Bill Vickers. During its very early years the locality was known as Peak's Find. Soon after the initial discovery, T.H. Elliott pegged 11 x 24 acres, who he sold to R. Gibson acting for W.R. Wilson for 1000 pounds per lease.

From 1895, several large companies were floated in England to acquire the leases. Large scale development took place, many men employed and shareholder cash splashed around erecting plants before development work had confirmed the amount of gold. Within two years, all but one had collapsed, the remaining company exiting in 1900. While rich surface gold was found, the values at depth were poor. The water level reaching to 100 feet of the surface also limited development to the upper levels.

A small town developed, but was little more than a couple of stores and pub. Gable, Gardener and Jones were early store-keepers. They also built at their own cost, a 100 gallon tank for a condenser between Kurnalpi and Edjudina, and it was only through this prospectors were able to reach the field through the waterless desert. The Clifford brothers were also pioneer storekeepers, while E.J. Monaghan built and ran the pub.

The disastrous foray by English companies onto the goldfield, gave it a bad name as many shareholders got their fingers burned. This retarded development to small groups of prospectors, with very limited capital. The 1930's gold boom, saw companies floated in London again to acquire groups of leases. It was virtually an exact repetition of what happened in the 1890's with the same result. Little has happened since apart from a modern pit at the Patricia locality.

The region is known as an Australite hotspot. The National History Museum in London also contains the Edjudina Meteorite, 4.48 kg H4 olivine-bronzite, discovered in the area in the late 1960's. The meteorite was found by I.R. Williams from the Geological Survey of Western Australia while mapping the area.

Historically the Edjudina line of lode has produced 33 215 ounces of gold at 46.9 g/t.

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References