designer, author and song-writer, was married to the Tasmanian surveyor and engineer, Charles Wordsworth James, who designed the Kalgoorlie Town Hall (opened 1907), a concert venue for many celebrated artists. The couple were part of the rush to the WA goldfields, which commenced in earnest in the 1890s. Fortuitously for the underdeveloped colony of Western Australia, gold was discovered at a time of worldwide depression, encouraging people to the inhospitable hinterland, bringing expertise and capital. The population multiplied nearly seven times in only 20 years. Kalgoorlie, founded in 1893, was a thriving city when Charles Wordsworth James, listed as Municipal Engineer for Kalgoorlie in 1898, and his wife, Maude, were in residence at 'Mullingar’. On 30 June 1898, the Mercury reported the death of their 'darling and only daughter’, aged almost nine, at Guildford on 20 June.
A 1900 photograph in the collection of the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society includes Mrs Wordsworth James as an executive officer of the Kalgoorlie Ladies’ Referendum Committee – a young woman with straight brows and determined carriage wearing an elegant, business-like suit. Goldsmiths flocked into Kalgoolie and soon more than a hundred names had been listed in the Post Office directories. This did not deter Maude Wordsworth James, who registered her own 'Coo-ee’ jewellery designs in May 1907, evidently as an enthusiastic amateur. By 1910, when the drawing room of their house in Lionel Street (illustrated in Lane and Serle), was photographed with the wedding breakfast of their nephew Jack Cucel and his bride, Stella Carden, in progress, alluvial mining was exhausted and a gradual decrease in the population of the city began. Maude and Charles Wordsworth James moved to South Australia.
- Writers:
- Erickson, Dorothy
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
