Leslie Lewis Hill
Leslie Lewis Hill was born at 84 Gold St Collingwood, 13 February 1888, the sixth of the seven children of William Samuel Hill and Margaret Roberts. Three sons had already died by the time LLH was born. In about 1899 WSH took his wife and remaining four children, Beatrice, Ethel, Leslie and Elsie to Western Australia to make his fortune (or not) on the goldfields.
Apart from a brief return to his earlier occupation as a bootmaker in Kalgoorlie, William Samuel pretty much stuck at mining. Alex Palmer describes him as being by about 1906 the sole occupant of what had been the town of Linden.
W S (Billy) Hill, together with his ten dogs and as many goats were the only sign of life on the field. Over the years he had built himself a battery from the scrap of the abandoned shows. Its two stamps were kept moving by a long doglegged arm that buckled in the middle about ten times an hour. Each buckle meant a drop. It worked, but its through put [sic] at the best was five ton a month. The coughing and spluttering associated with its operation acquired it the name of the consumptive battery. (Palmer: 78)The 'consumptive' epithet is not very amusing, given that Billy's wife died of consumption (tuberculosis), as did his daughter Ethel May.
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Here's a mining inspector's report from 1907, which describes the Great Carbine Gold Mine, owned by W.S.Hill and Son - the son must of course be Leslie, so he must have been working on the claim, despite his youth. The report refers to a letter that Billy Hill had written, which the inspector supports, requesting that a battery be supplied by the government not far from his mine at Linden.
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WSH remained at Linden until 1914 [the author doesn't say what happened to any of his children] living on his homestead lease and operating the Great Carbine mine [above], from which he did quite well. He left the district and later died at Claremont WA on the 2-12-1924 [sic]. He was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery. (Palmer: 82)
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Here is the only photo I have of Leslie. He's on our right, next to his sister Beatrice: he was 6'2" tall. My guess is that this photo is to mark the marriage of Ethel and Fletcher Hogarth, the couple on our left. Billy Hill is in the middle with his grandsons William Robert and David Michael Gillard. |
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Leslie Hill enlisted 17 February 1915 and saw active service in France. |
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His sister Ethel wrote him a letter in verse, addressed to 'Les', which has survived (as a photocopy?) in the possession of GMG. He married (to Vera Close?) but had no children - possibly because of his war wound? |
Leslie Hill was wounded at Ypres 19 September 1917, sustaining a compound fracture of the left femur, which led to him being discharged 30 August 1918 with a 1914-1915 Star, a British War Medal and a Victory medal.
The military records are from files in the National Archives. The pages above are only three of the seventy-nine (79!) in his file.
References
Coate, Yvonne E. & Kevin Coate, More Lonely Graves of Western Australia, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, WA, 2000.
Palmer, Alex, Yundamindra: Its Towns, Mines, People and Station, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, WA, 2006.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to fellow descendant and researcher Adrian Spall.
New: 1 February, 2011 | Now: 1 February, 2011 | garrygillard[at]gmail.com