William's Story:
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A history of gold mining in Australia and Malaysia
Unmarked and forgotten graves, an old pickle jar, a stamp shoe worn to a slipper, abandoned mines in Victoria and remotest Queensland, floods and rebellion. All are stops and clues along the way as Victor Bibby treads in the footsteps of a gold mining pioneer to discover long-lost relatives and the truths about his own family, bringing alive an historical account of life on the goldfields and events that made colonial history. A fascinating tale of a toolmaker from industrial England who created a new life in Australia as an engineer, innovator and gold miner before struggling against the odds to find fame and fortune as a mining pioneer in the Malayan jungle.
A fascinating account of the role a larger-than-life Liverpool-born adventurer, traveller, miner and engineer played in the development and management of gold mines in Australia and Malaya, skillfully assembled from a wealth of documents by an equally diligent and energetic descendant and author, Victor Bibby.
—Chris McGuigan, The Kensington Review
This story is excellently researched and very interesting. It is very rewarding to read Victor’s story as I am sure it has had untold rewards for him as he discovered his family roots and lost family contacts and history.
—John Morrow’s Pick of the Week
About the Author
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Victor Bibby is a retired engineer and this is his first book. He started his career in the Australian Army as a boy apprentice soldier, became an officer, studied, married, had a family, and saw more of the world than he expected. He retired as a major after a service distinguished by its ordinariness. Another career in commercial aviation followed and he saw even more of the world, acquiring an attachment to Cornwall without realising the county’s wheal (the Cornish name for a mine) houses were signposts to his past. He returned to Australia in the aftermath of the Hawke and Keating years to a changed country and continued working in aviation and saw even more of the world, much of it through aeroplane and hotel windows. Following his last retirement he decided to research his ancestry, which has since become a consuming passion. He lives in Geelong, Victoria, married to his dear and long suffering partner while continuing to look for a place to call home. He has four grandchildren.
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