"Article compiled by Joan McEwan, great-granddaughter, researched by James Tibbett, great, great grandson." Richard Williams was born in St. Blazey, Cornwall in 1831 to James and Ann Williams. Married to Mary Thomas with whom he had 12 children: Eliza Ann "Lou" Thomas, Sarah Mary "Molly" Williams, Margaret "Peg" Williams (born 1858), Ellen Williams (1859-1860), George Williams (b. 1861), Richard Williams (b.1862), John Williams (1863-1866), Ellen Williams (b.1865), Stephen John Williams (b.1867), Albert James Williams (b. 1868), Michael Thomas Williams (b.1871) and Laura Williams (b.1872). Worked in the Cornish mines until he was 21 and sought work in America. Landed in Melbourne on 20 December 1857 in search of gold. Was given supervision of the work conducted in the 1864 Cinderella Claim belonging to Geroge Lansell, among others. Williams was later named manager of all of Lansell's mines. Williams later opposed Lansell in favour of better working conditions for miners. Williams was then in charge of the Johnson Reef Company until his retirement. He worked on the administrative council at the Bendigo School of Mines, was named Justice of the Peace and was a founding member of the California Hill Methodist Church. Williams died in Eaglehawk in 1903. Additional articles further narrate the history of Eaglehawk BoroughA3 colour photocopies of the 18 February 2005 edition of the Eaglehawk Times newspaper. Date of photocopy unknown. Location of original paper unknown. Page 12 contains the biography of Richard Williams, aka Cap'n Dick. The article was compiled by Williams' great-granddaughter, Joan McEwan, and 2 x Great Grandson, James Tibbett. The article shows significant discolouration, rips and tears, folds and cuts. Unknown page number contains articles written about the history of Eaglehawk borough.richard williams, cap'n dick, newspaper, eaglehawk times, lansell mines, biography, johnson reef company, eaglehawk heritage society, allan james, ian glanville, noelene wild, sailors gully mission hall

This image is a reproduction of an 1899 original depicting the 'Williams Good Luck Mine' on the Mopoke Reef (also called 'Morepork Gully') in the Dingle Ranges, approximately three miles from Beechworth. The foreground of the image is littered with piles of smashed rock and detritus, known as ‘mullock’, beside a reinforced mine shaft, a vertical access passageway allowing miners to enter the mine and haul ore out using lifting technology such as a poppet heads, whims or windlasses. A group of miners and a dog appear close to an open-sided miner’s hut. Following the discovery of gold at Beechworth in 1852, rushes quickly followed at surrounding creeks and gullies in the district. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, small syndicates of miners continued to work old or abandoned quartz reefs, often persisting without the assistance of heavy machinery to remove the large amounts of rock, in order to obtain yields at ever greater depths. The group of miners in this photograph are Mr. Roger Williams and Sons, who revived operations at the ‘Old Good Luck’ mine on the Mopoke Reef in the Dingle Range near Beechworth around 1892, working the site for more than two decades. An emigrant from Cornwall with experience in the tin mining industry, 19 year old Roger Williams senior sailed to New Zealand in 1840, then to Australia where he spent time in the Bendigo Gold Fields before settling in Beechworth in the early 1860s. Mr Williams senior worked on various mining activities in the district, including the Rocky Mountain Tunnel project. Conversant with the character of gold-bearing reefs in the area, the syndicate dug an eight hundred foot tunnel, digging down as far down as two hundred feet with little capital save their labour, to connect and provide better working access to the mass of reefs and veins in the vicinity. Progress was hampered by poor air quality charged with fumes from dynamite and large quantities of rock had to be crushed to obtain payable yields. The Victorian Goldfields are filled with ruins and remnants of the area's rich mining history, ranging from small alluvial diggings to the remains of huge mining companies. Site names often changed several times throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some sites were abandoned and forgotten, others were worked continuously over many decades. The names of mines were often repeated at different locations throughout the Victorian Goldfields. For example, there is a Mopoke Gully heritage mine near Fryers Creek, Victoria. 'Mopoke' is a common onomatopoeic name for Morepork and Australian Boobook owls. This image has historical, social and research significance for patterns of emigration during of the Victorian Gold Rush, and the historical, social and environmental impacts of mining at Beechworth at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As gold became scarce and government support and large company investment waned, poor hard-working miners laboured intensively to make a living through periods of high unemployment. This image can be compared and studied alongside other historical mining photographs and objects in the Burke Museum Collection. It has potential to improve our understanding of miners working conditions and the shifting character of mining in the Beechworth district. Black and white rectangular reproduction photograph printed on matte photographic paper.Obverse: Williams Good Luck Mine Beechworth / Roger! / Reverse: 6858 / burke museum, beechworth museum, beechworth, gold fields, gold rush, victorian gold rush, gold ming history, colonial australia, australian gold rushes, mining technology, beechworth historic district, indigo gold trail, migration, indigo shire, good luck gold mine, victorian goldfields, mining syndicates, gold fever, quartz-mining, small-scale mining, old good luck mine, mopoke gully, quartz reefs beechworth