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he spent in Western Australia, by any of his family. Nor did he visit any of them. Nor, it seems
did he think much of them now, for he died intestate.
Not that he had much to leave them, as his personal effects were worth a mere £9. Of the 14
estates dealt with in November by the Curator of Intestate Estates in WA, John Honeycombe's
was one of the lowest, and probably included a remnant of the money his son and daughter had
sent him.
He was buried in Kalgoorlie Cemetery in Lyall St after a brief service conducted by the most
celebrated priest on the gold-fields, Archdeacon Collick, now aged 55. The following year
Collick became a Canon and moved to Fremantle, where he lived until 1950, dying in poverty
in Perth nine years later when he was 91.
Was Collick personally acquainted with John Honeycombe and did he feel duty bound to give
the dying of this lowly old miner a certain dignity? Or was
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John merely a relic of the Archdeacon's parish? Who attended the service? Perhaps Miss Reid,
who ran the lodging-house in Hannan's Chambers, was among the mourners, and the manager
of the Palace Hotel. Perhaps Henri Wessel played something suitable in the hospital chapel on
the harmonium or piano. Most probably next to no one knew that he had died.
His burial was recorded as being Number 7047. His grave was unmarked, apart from a small
iron spiked cross, numbered 6141. He was now out of sight as well as out of mind.
No one visited his grave for 50 years, until his great-nephew, Bob, from Charters Towers,
sought it out in 1974, and I in 1987 from England.
The cross still marks his unnamed grave, and the red earth heaped over him in 1923 has
somehow resisted the torrents of winter rain and retained its hillocky shape. Hannan's Chambers
is now the Windsor Guest House, and Kalgoorlie is cleaner, smarter and air-conditioned. Much
is changed. But the chimes of the Post Office tower in Hannan St continue to toll the hours
away.
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John Honeyoombe probably heard her sing; and if he had the money and congenial female
company, he may also have been among the Town Hall audiences that occupied the plush red
seats of the Dress Circle and cheered Clara Butt, Houdini and Harry Lauder, the most famous
among the many entertainers, musicians, actors, and singers, who performed there.
At the Cremorne Theatre in Hannan St there was more popular entertainment: comedians,
magicians, circus acts and dancers and other vaudeville acts. In due course, at the southern end
of Hannan St, a Lancashire man, Johnny Morris, built an open-air picture house showing silent
films beside his hotel called the Home from Home, to which he soon added an indoor cinema.
This was for the comfort of the patrons in winter, who were warmed by steel drums filled with
red-hot coals stretching down the centre aisle. Morris went on to build a roller-skating rink
(admission sixpence), which was also used for concerts and carnival occasions. He drowned in
a dam south of Kalgoorlie.
The town was full of characters and adventurers. Some must have been known personally by
John Honeycombe, particularly those men of his generation, who had travelled far and endured
much, but lived it up as well as they could, though less often as they aged, and inevitably more
sedately.
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