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28-October-2020
28-October-2020

Photographs supplied by Chris Abbott

The plaque commemorates Charles Yelverton O'Connor CMG (11 January 1843 – 10 March 1902) who was an Irish engineer best known for his work in Australia, especially the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme.

The plaque is located approximately 500 metres from where the opening ceremony for the water reaching Coolgardie took place in 1903. The site where the Exhibition Buildings once stood where the ceremony took place, is now a truck rest area.

A succession of gold rushes in the Yilgarn region near Southern Cross in 1887, at Coolgardie in 1892, and at Kalgoorlie in 1893 caused a population explosion in the barren and dry desert centre of Western Australia, exemplified by towns like Cunderdin and Merredin. On 16 July 1896, John Forrest introduced to Western Australian Parliament a bill to authorise the raising of a loan of £2.5 million to construct the scheme: the pipeline would pump 23,000 cubic metres of water per day to the Goldfields from a dam on the Helena River near Mundaring Weir in Perth, pumped in eight successive stages through 560 kilometres of 760 millimetre pipe to the Mount Charlotte Reservoir in Kalgoorlie. The water is then reticulated to various mining centres in the Goldfields.

O'Connor was subjected to prolonged criticism by members of the press and also many members of the Western Australian Parliament over the scheme.  Forrest, always a supporter, had left Western Australian politics to become federal defence minister; defamatory attacks by the press had wounded him. O'Connor committed suicide less than a year before Forrest officially commissioned the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme.

 

Location

Address:McKenzie Street, Opposite Warden Finnerty`s residence, Coolgardie, 6429
State:WA
Area:AUS
GPS Coordinates:Lat: -30.957993
Long: 121.167327
Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.
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Details

Monument Type:Plaque
Monument Theme:People
Sub-Theme:Government - State
Approx. Event Start Date:1898
Approx. Event End Date:1903
Link:http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/adbonli…

Dedication

Actual Monument Dedication Date:Tuesday 25th February, 1992
Front Inscription

        A Tribute To 
C. Y. O`CONNOR
Who Created The Water Supply
By Pipeline 557km From 
Mundaring To Coolgardie 1898 - 1903.
"He Made A Way In The Wilderness"
     Unveiled By
BRIGADIER SIR GREGOR MacGREGOR
Of MacGregor, Bart
          And
LADY MacGREGOR
On February 25th 1992
In The Centennial Year.

              Assisted By
The Coolgardie Water Supply & Coolgardie Shire

 

Inscription in Proximity

Water Works Designed & Erected By

RODNEY HIGGINS
MICHAEL FERGUSON
KEVIN GOULD

Earthworks By 
Mick McNally
25. 2. 92.

Source: MA,ADB
Monument details supplied by Monument Australia - www.monumentaustralia.org.au