Early years George Philip Doolette was born on 24 January 1840 at Sandford near
Dublin,
Ireland, the son of a carpenter, George Dorham Doolette, and of his wife Elizabeth 'Eliza' (
née Reynard). George's maternal uncle, a
carpenter named George Reynard, had emigrated to
South Australia within a few years of the colony's establishment, arriving at
Adelaide in December 1837 aboard the
Navarino. In 1855 fifteen year-old George emigrated with his parents to
South Australia on the immigrant ship
Nashwauk. The ship left Liverpool on 13 February 1855 with 300 (mostly Irish) migrants on board. In the early hours of 13 May, as the
Nashwauk neared its destination, the ship ran aground in two fathoms of water near the mouth of the
Onkaparinga River, nineteen miles (30 km) from Adelaide. During the following afternoon the passengers were landed and taken to nearby
Noarlunga township. The
Melbourne steamer and the government schooner
Yatala were sent to the scene. Many of the passengers were taken across the Onkaparinga River to
Port Noarlunga from where they were conveyed to Adelaide aboard the
Melbourne and the
Yatala, and the remainder were transported from Noarlunga by bullock-drays. Doolette's father died of a "disease of the heart" on 20 June 1863, aged 49, at 'Sandford Cottage' in the Adelaide suburb of
Kensington. On 9 November 1865 George Doolette married Mary Bartlett McEwin, the eldest daughter of orchardist
George McEwin. The marriage was conducted at McEwin's 'Glen Ewin' estate, in the
Adelaide Hills near
Houghton, South Australia. The couple lived initially at Kensington and were closely connected with the local Clayton
Congregational Church. They later moved to a
North Terrace residence in the city where they attended
Stow Memorial Church. The couple had three children, two sons and a daughter, born in the period 1869 to 1876. In about 1867 Doolette was made a partner in the drapery business with Macgeorge. In May 1873 Doolette opened his own drapery business, Messrs. G. Doolette & Co., at
Moonta on the
Yorke Peninsula of
South Australia. It was reported that "Mr. Doolette comes to the Peninsula with a high reputation in the trade, obtained in Adelaide". His business in Moonta was the local agent for the Adelaide Marine and Fire Assurance Company. While living at Moonta Doolette invested in the South Moonta Mining Company and in June 1874 he chaired a meeting of shareholders of the company. In March 1875, following the retirement of Alexander Macgeorge, Doolette left Moonta to return to Adelaide after becoming the sole proprietor of Messrs. Macgeorge & Co. The business continued operating until 1890. In 1880 George and Mary Doolette left South Australia for a visit to Europe and Britain. They left from Adelaide on 16 May 1880 aboard the
R.M.S. Hydaspes and arrived in England in August. While the couple were in Scotland Mary Doolette suffered a severe attack of bronchitis. In the 1880s when land in suburban Adelaide at
Parkside and
Unley was subdivided for sale, Doolette "was a heavy buyer" of allotments for investment purposes. In Adelaide Doolette was a respected businessman and a supporter of philanthropic causes. In 1887 he was appointed as a
justice of the peace. He served as vice-president of the
Young Men's Christian Association in 1884-85, president of the
Congregational Union in 1885-86 and was an office-bearer of the
London Missionary Society. In 1889 Doolette and Philip Charley formed a partnership to purchase '
Narrung' station on
Lake Albert, near the mouth of the
Murray River. Mary Doolette died on 19 February 1890, after a serious illness, at her residence at
Blackwood in the Adelaide foothills. In early 1892 Doolette undertook a trip to China and Japan. In common with other Adelaide businessmen, Doolette became a speculator and investor in the early years of silver and lead mining at
Broken Hill. At a half-yearly meeting of the Yongaleatha company in August 1892, chaired by Doolette, it was explained that in view of the difficulty of raising "the necessary capital... for carrying out the objects of the company" due to the prevailing severe financial depression, the directors had opened up "negotiations with London, and the matter is now in the hands of an influential gentleman there with the view of securing the amount required". Doolette was also a director of the Moorkaie Mining and Flux Company incorporated in May 1891, operating in an area north-east of Broken Hill.
The Golden Mile By late 1892 reports began to be published of significant discoveries of gold in the remote country east of
Southern Cross in the south-west of
Western Australia. The earlier scientific and exploring expedition led by
David Lindsay, financed by Sir
Thomas Elder and supported by the
Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, had noted the presence of an auriferous belt across the region. The news in September 1892 of the discovery of alluvial gold at the future site of
Coolgardie by
Arthur Bayley and
William Ford led to a rush to the locality. The interest generated in Adelaide by the reports from Western Australia prompted Doolette and a fellow businessman and stockbroker,
George Brookman, to explore ways to invest in the opportunity. Brookman's brother
William, together with an experienced miner named Sam Pearce, had been prospecting for gold at
Dashwood's Gully near Adelaide, with very little success. A syndicate of investors was formed, referred to as the 'Adelaide Prospecting Party', to provide finance for William Brookman and Sam Pearce to travel to the Coolgardie goldfields. The original capital of the syndicate was made up of ten contributing shares of £15 each, plus five fully paid-up shares for the prospectors. In addition to George P. Doolette and George Brookman, the eight other contributing members of the syndicate were:
E. Neale Wigg (a director of the
Broken Hill Proprietary Company), Messrs. Wilkinson & Harrison (Adelaide stockbrokers), Colin Templeton (Broken Hill bank manager and company director), Dr. James Alexander Greer Hamilton (Adelaide surgeon), William E. J. Brocksopp (a partner in the firm of G. & R. Wills and Co., clothing manufacturers and merchants), Francis D. Hodge (Adelaide businessman and deacon of the Congregational church), Robert James M. McBride (pastoralist) and R. McEwin (possibly Robert McEwin, younger brother of Doolette's late wife). The two prospectors,
William Brookman and Sam Pearce, left Adelaide for Perth on 7 June 1893 aboard the steamer
Australia. They travelled east to
York where they purchased a spring-dray and two horses in order to convey their equipment and supplies. The pair arrived at
Coolgardie on 29 June, where a claim had been offered for sale to the syndicate, but after inspection they decided to decline the sale. Twelve days before their arrival the prospector
Paddy Hannan had registered a find of payable gold, by he and his two partners, at a location 24 miles (38 km) to the north-east of Coolgardie. Within days a
rush had begun to the location that became known as 'Hannan's Find' (and later
Kalgoorlie). Brookman and Pearce decided to visit the new goldfield. Most of the early diggers were searching for alluvial gold, but the two Adelaide miners had purchased a
dolly pot to crush quartz samples from potentially gold-bearing reefs. While they were camped on a six-acre block in the ironstone hills to the south of 'Hannans' (later known as Central Boulder), leased by miners named Flynn and Tucker, the two prospectors dollied some stone for the owners. The results were exceedingly good and the next morning Pearce pegged out the nearby Ivanhoe lease, "situated on a low, scrubby hill, with ironstone blows surrounding it, and contains no less than five well-defined quartzite and iron reefs". In September 1893 the eleven members of the Adelaide Prospecting Party formed the Coolgardie Gold-Mining and Prospecting Company in order to finance the works required to operate the mines. The capital of the company was agreed to be one thousand shares of five pounds each. One hundred paid-up shares were divided amongst the eleven members. The elected directors of the new company were Doolette, James Marshall, J. F. Cudmore, W. F. Wilkinson and Colin Templeton. By early 1894 the company decided to send Doolette to England to raise capital. The directors of the company were under cash flow pressure to comply with labour conditions imposed by Western Australian mining laws which required constant employment of a large workforce on the different claims. He had sent his son Dorham Longford Doolette, then in his early twenties, to the Western Australian goldfields "to watch over his interests... and keep him advised as to developments". The Great Boulder Proprietary Gold Mines Ltd. was floated in London on 20 June 1894, one of the earliest Western Australian gold-mining companies to be registered on the
London Stock Exchange. The object of the float was to acquire Great Boulder claims at Kalgoorlie. The capital was £175,000 in one pound shares, of which one hundred thousand were offered for subscription to the public. Doolette was one of the directors of the company. In December 1894 Doolette formed a corporation named the Associated Gold Mines of Western Australia Ltd., which absorbed the balance of the claims held by the Coolgardie Gold Mining Prospecting Company. George Brookman joined Doolette in London to assist in the financial adjustments. In 1894 Doolette was admitted as a fellow of the
Royal Colonial Institute in London. On 25 September 1895 in
Birmingham George Doolette married Fanny Lillie Robinson (
née Dale), the daughter of Dr.
R. W. Dale the eminent theologian of the
Congregational church in Birmingham. Doolette remained in London as a mining promoter and administrator. The original Coolgardie Prospecting Syndicate was gradually extended into a cluster of mining companies". By 1896 the mines had a market value of nearly five and a half million pounds. Only a few of the original shareholders "benefited to any great extent by the phenomenal development of the property". Doolette and George Brookman held their shares throughout and were "said to be millionaires". Following some of the early adverse reports from the mines many of the original shareholders "pocketed a small profit instead of waiting to see how the mines would turn out". In October 1898 the original syndicate was formally wound up, dividing up dividends to the few remaining members that began with a total working capital of £150 in 1893. After distributing £950,000 in shares and £3,421,000 in cash, the remaining syndicate members found themselves holding shares in eight mines to the value of £9,275,075 (see table below), making aggregate assets of £13,646,750. In 1907 Doolette was made a fellow of the
Royal Geographical Society. During
World War I Doolette served as president of the
Australian Voluntary Hospital at Wimereux and he also took an active interest in the
Australian Red Cross. In 1922 it was written of Doolette that he was "a warm and open-handed supporter of everything Australian". He was cremated and his ashes were dispatched to Adelaide where they were interred in his first wife's grave in the
North Road Cemetery. ==Notes==