John Shine was christened in 1875 at Parish of Shanagolden, Shanagolden, Co Limerick, Ireland.
He was christened on 21 November 1875 at Shanagolden Parish (St Senans), Shanagolden, Co Limerick.;
The relationship between John O'Kelly #3290 (the baptism sponsor) and John Shine #598 is unknown: but it thought that he was a cousin or uncle.1
He was the son of Henry Shine and Catherine Sheehy.
John Shine married Jane (Maria) Hanrahan, daughter of Michael Hanrahan and Margaret Cunningham, on 5 May 1900 at Basilica of St Patrick, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia; (marr wit: Ellen Hanrahan).2
John Shine died on 30 November 1942, at Bunbury, Western Australia, Australia, at age 67.3,4
John was buried at at Bunbury Cemetery, Bunbury, Western Australia, Australia.
He emigrated in 1894 from Co Limerick, Ireland, travelling on the Oruba.
Shipping Intelligence: Line Pengelly & Co., Plymouth, Ship Master: Lindsay Hayes, 5552 tons; 125 passengers; voyage 75 days; departed Plymouth, England 7th April, 1894 arrived Melbourne 16 May, 1894. The ship called for provisions at Columbo, King George Sound (Albany WA) arrived 10 May 1894, Adelaide SA 14 May 1894, Melbourne, Victoria 16 May, 1894 and Sydney, NSW.5
Research note from Terry Shine:
I checked the Western Autralian newspaper and found that no Shine had disembarked at Albany. The Oruba, bound for Sydney, sailed from Albany on he 11th.May and arrived in Adelaide on the on 14th May 1894. The next reference to the Oruba in the WA archives states that it had docked in Sydney (no date given), presumably having called into Melbourne about the 20th. May 1894 to disembark passengers.
I now know that my grandfather John arrived in Australia and disembarked at Melbourne in 1894 and did not get off the ship at Fremantle as has been 1told in the past.6,4
He sailed on 12 May 1898 to Western Australia, travelling on the SS Inaminka. Source: The following inter-colonia shipping record was found and it is assumed that it is for John Shine. It is assumed, but not proven, that the second entry is for his brother Con.5,4
Shipping Passenger Arrivals Fremantle Interstate 1885-1908
Shine, J. 2 May 1898 SS Inaminka embarked Melbourne forecabin - and disembarked at Fremantle on 2nd May 1898.
Shine, no initial. 25 February 1898 SS Waroonga Embarked Adelaide forecabin - and disembarked at Fremantle on the 25th Feb. 1898.4
In 1900 John Shine was a grocer at Boulder City.
In 1903John Shine was a farner at Bunbury.
In August 1903 John Shine was living at at "Killarney", Roelands, Western Australia.
John visited Melbourne (Source: Jack McInerney).
Research Notes:
John travelled to Australia with his mother, Catherine Shine, and his brothers Patrick and Henry and sisters, Bridget, Cathleen, Mary and Margaret. They left England on the 7th April 1894 and after a journey of seventy-five days the family arrived in Melbourne 20 June 1894.
Not long after John's arrival in Fremantle a very important date on the Irish calendar was being celebrated, St Patrick's Day. John entered in the Irish jig competition. He won and was awarded a prize of £5.00 – and thereafter he always said 'it's a great country where they pay you to dance and play a tune'. He was known as the "Champion Irish Jig Dancer", a title which he defended for several years.
Gold Fever
In the mid to late 1890s gold was discovered at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. John, with the £5.00 in his pocket set off for the diggings pushing his wheelbarrow, first to Coolgardie and then on to Boulder City.
Shipping Passenger Arrivals Fremantle Interstate 1885-1908
Shine no initial 25 February 1898 SS Waroonga Embarked Adelaide forecabin - and disembarked at Fremantle on the 25th Feb. 1898.
Shine J 2 May 1898 SS Inaminka embarked Melbourne forecabin - and disembarked at Fremantle on 2nd May 1898.
Always the entrepreneur he prospered by growing fresh vegetables and selling them to the miners. He also carried fresh water, another scarce commodity in the dry interior. Most of the miners were a transient population living in rough digs but as patronage for John's supplies grew he built himself a small house.
The 1890s land crash in Victoria meant hard times for many so his brother, Cornelius, decided to quit Melbourne and join John at Coolgardie. Con found work as a ganger on the transatlantic railroad. John and Con missed their family so they returned to Melbourne It was here that John met Jane Hanrahan whom he had known at home in Ireland. Jane had emigrated to Australia in the mid-1880s with her brother James and sisters, Ellen and Johanna.
John and Jane Hanrahan returned to Western Australia and were married at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, Fremantle, Perth on Saturday 5th April 1900 (Note: the marriage was registered on 12th April 1900 number 670/1900. Also note the certificate contains a correction by the Registrar: In column 2. In place of 5th April it reads 5th May. Furthermore, in the Church records held at the Basilica of St Patrick, Fremantle it states the marriage as 6 May 1900) Jane's sister, Ellen (signed the marriage certificate as Ellie Hanrahan), who was a witness at their wedding joined up with them and they returned to Boulder City Together they set up a boarding house and supplied the miners with hot meals – for many of these men they were eating their very first hot meal since leaving home.
They continued working until they had saved enough money to buy a 300-acre allocated block. At the end of winter, in August 1903, they arrived at Roelands to take up their land. It was uncleared and without proper drainage; consequently it was covered in large pools of water. Jane burst in tears and named it "Killarney" as it reminded her of the lake district in County Kerry and the hard work and times that had faced her family in Ireland and now faced them.
Life on the Farm
In the hills above their farm were three sawmills, Bunning at Yarloop, Whittaker at Mornington and Miller at Wolsey. To keep production efficient management insisted on a ‘dry' camp – no liquor was sold at the company store. John and Janie never missed a business opportunity and supplied stores to the mill hands in the hills. Jane and Ellen made pots of jams and jellies and for a price they also found a way to smuggle the illegal liquor into the camp by sewing bottles into sacks of grain and potatoes – they even hollowed out large pumpkins to hide a few extra bottles. By arrangement with the mill workers John devised a warning system, a tune on an Irish tin whistle which alerted the men of his arrival.
John, good at horse breaking, was paid by his neighbours for this service and never missing a trick he turned this skill into a further advantage. John took his supplies into the hills carried in a cart drawn by two horses, one quiet and docile, the other newly broken and frisky. By the end of the return trip the frisky horse would be well broken in and the quiet horse he'd sell to the saw-millers.
As a long time resident at Brunswick he became very well respected in the area. John was an excellent entrepreneur and entertainer, and the locals, many of them Irish, were very happy to buy him a drink at the local hotel which was located in the south eastern corner of "Melville Park" farm. This hotel is still standing.
A family story tells the following: John found out that the local hotelkeeper was secretly milking his cows. So one evening John marched into the hotel, occupied his favourite stool at the bar and called for a whisky adding, "Paddy, my good man, pour me a whisky, and will you be putting a drop of me own milk in it?"
John Shine refused to drive a car and to the end of his life always rode to town or church in the spring cart; he remained active and fiercely independent all his life. In his latter years he would lament ‘all this money and I'm too old to enjoy it'
John Jane and Ellen are both buried at Bunbury cemetery Western Australia.
Today "Killarney" has been amalgamated with William's property and it is known as 'Melville Park'.
John and Jane's story courtesy of Terry Shine
DISCOVERY OF GOLD WESTERN AUSTRALIA
On 17th September 1892 Arthur Wellesley Bayley [his partner was William Ford] rode into the town of Southern Cross from Coolgardie with 554 oz. of gold, which started the greatest gold rush in Western Australia's history.
On the 10 June 1893 Patrick Hannan, Thomas Flanagan and Dan Shea discovered gold at Kalgoorlie, near the hill, now called Mt Charlotte. Initially the three men kept the find secret for a few weeks until they were forced to declare the 'find' and register the site.
The town of Kalgoorlie, 418 km ENE of Perth and 418 km N of Esperance [nearest seaport], was first known as Hannan's Find, settlement at Kalgoorlie began with the discovery of gold in 1893. A municipality of Kalgoorlie was proclaimed 1895. During the ensuing Gold rush to the area known as the 'Golden Mile' over 1,400 miners arrived in one week. They came on foot carrying their swags, by horse or pushing wheelbarrows filled with their possessions, having travelled 200 km from the end of the railway at Southern Cross.
By February 1894 the town warden John Finnerty sent a telegram to the government in Perth 'The scarcity of water is becoming alarming' there were more people than the available water could serve.
Patrick Hannan hailed from an area near the Shannon River in Ireland. He worked as a gold miner in the wet mines of Ballarat in the 1860s and in the cold South Island of New Zealand for part of the 1870s before moving to a succession of gold rushes in Australia. Hannan met up with fellow Irish prospectors Flanagan and Shea at Coolgardie.
The first train from Perth finally reached Kalgoorlie on 8 September 1896 and Port Augusta in South Australia by 1917. December 1896, Kalgoorlie's sister town, Boulder, was born. The following year Boulder gained its own municipal council and a railway line was established to Kalgoorlie. The ambitious Mundaring-Kalgoorlie Pipeline was completed in 1903 to supply the arid area with much-needed safe drinking water.
In 1905 the population was 200,000 and by 1991 the population was 22,230. To this day Kalgoorlie remains a Flying Doctor Base and nearby Boulder also grew and, in modern times, the two towns have become one. Serving as the railhead for several gold and nickel mines in the area, the town's fortunes have fluctuated with metal prices. Kalgoorlie has many architectural treasures from its rich history and is renowned for its once notorious corrugated iron two-up school. The Great Gold Festival is held in July.
Some notes from Jack McInerney
Jack told Kate Press that Con had gone to goldfields to seek work and wrote home and asked John to join him, sending £15.0.0 for the fare. John left home with 10/ - in his pocket; he told his family he was not going to work for a boss and he wouldn't be returning until he had made his first million. He was joined by Jane Hanrahan whom he later married in Perth. John and Jane built a small cottage with a verandah at Boulder City and two children were born there. Jane's sister, Ellen, joined them and together they built a thriving business. John and Janie later moved to Roelands and built a two-roomed cottage on allocated land
By 1925 John was the largest potato grower in WA and had purchased a property that formerly had belonged to John Forest, Governor of WA.
Some of this story is at odds with the story told to the Shine family in the west.5
Paddy Hannan
Patrick (Paddy) Hannan [1843-1925] prospector who in 1893 discovered the rich Kalgoorlie goldfield in Western Australia, so triggering a gold rush that boosted the colony's economy and population.
Paddy Hannan was born in County Clare, Ireland, and, after a hard childhood, arrived in Victoria in 1862, where he worked underground on the Ballarat goldfield.
He was fascinated by the search for gold and from 1868 to 1880 worked on the New Zealand goldfields; he was one of the first onto the fields at Temora in New South Wales (1880), Teetulpa in South Australia (1886) and Southern Cross in Western Australia (1889) and in 1893 joined the rush north-east to Coolgardie.
In June 1893 Hannan and two other prospectors, Thomas Flanagan and Dan O'Shea, pushed further east where they found rich pickings of surface gold; in a week they picked up more than 100 ounces of nuggets. Hannan rode back to Coolgardie field with the news and the Kalgoorlie gold rush began.
The surface gold was worked out by 1894, but was only a fraction of the ore later unearthed from the underground reefs of Kalgoorlie's 'Golden Mile'. Hannan continued prospecting until 1910, then retired to Melbourne where he lived comfortably on an allowance provided by the Western Australian government. He became a symbol of the battler who eventually struck it rich-Kalgoorlie's main street is named for him, as is a local beer.
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%20shine%20(head).jpg "Jane Hanrahan 1872-1945 - Photograph taken c1900")
