Lawlers, Western Australia

Lawlers is a ghost town on the Old Agnew Road, 982 kilometres (610 mi) northeast of Perth, Western Australia, in the Shire of Leonora in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia.

Lawlers
Western Australia
O&K locomotive N° 731 of 1902, 610mm, 0-4-2T, 40hp, East Murchison United Ltd, Lawlers, WA
Lawlers is located in Western Australia
Lawlers
Lawlers
Coordinates28.05°S 120.31°E / -28.05; 120.31
Established1896
Postcode(s)6437
Elevation482 m (1,581 ft)
Location
  • 982 km (610 mi) north east of Perth, Western Australia
  • 32 km (20 mi) south west of Leinster
LGA(s)Shire of Leonora
State electorate(s)Kalgoorlie
Federal division(s)O'Connor

Gold was discovered in the area by Anderson, Hall and Heffernan, a party of prospectors that left Cue in 1892. Patrick Lawler and his party arrived in 1893 and had little success until they left and returned in 1894.[1]

The townsite was surveyed and gazetted in 1896 and named after Patrick Lawler.[2] A ten stamp battery was established about 4.5 kilometres (3 mi) northwest of town in 1899 on a five-acre lease. A police station/courthouse was built the same year; it was closed in 1927, reopened in 1938, then closed permanently in 1950. In 1996 it was used as an office by the gold mining company Plutonic Resources.

At its peak, Lawlers was the state's third-largest town, with a population of 8,000. It had a separate local government area (the Lawlers Road Board) until 1929, when it was divided between the Leonora-Mount Malcolm and Mount Margaret Road Boards.

Notable residents
  • Dan Mackinnon, a prominent pastoralist, was chairman of the Lawlers Road Board from 1928 to 1929.[3]
  • Charles Maley, a future state MP, managed a brewery in Lawlers in the early 1900s, and also served on the Lawlers Road Board.[4]
  • Emil Nulsen, another future state MP, was secretary of the Lawlers branch of the Australian Workers' Union in the late 1900s.[5]

References
  1. "Morowa District Historical Society" (PDF). 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 March 2011. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
  2. "History of country town names – L". Western Australian Land Information Authority. Archived from the original on 14 March 2022. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
  3. Mackinnon, Donald de Burgh D'arcy (Dan) (1900–1963), Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  4. Charles Crowther Maley – Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  5. Emil Nulsen – Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
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