page_title: Paddy Hannan
section_title: Prospecting success
hierarchical_section_title: Paddy Hannan / Prospecting success
caption_attribution_description: English: This image shows a photograph of Paddy Hannan's miner's right. The photograph was taken in 1893. The original photograph is held by the State Library of Western Australia. A digital image of the photograph was created by the State Library of Western Australia and is available from the Library Information Service of Western Australia (LISWA) website. The LISWA image includes an assertion of copyright 2001, but this assertion is incorrect: the image is in the public domain under both Australian and US copyright law. This digital image is a cropped version of the LISWA digital image that eliminates the incorrect copyright notice.
context_page_description: Patrick "Paddy" Hannan was a gold prospector whose lucrative discovery on 14 June 1893 set off a major gold rush in the area now known as Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia.
  The resulting goldfield has been mined ever since and is renowned as The Golden Mile, the richest square mile in the world. The modern open cut mine is a vast, astonishing sight known as the Super Pit.
  Hannan from Quin, County Clare, and his partners Thomas Flanagan from Ennis, County Clare and Daniel Shea from County Cork, are still remembered and celebrated in Australia and in Ireland.
context_section_description: In 1893 in Western Australia, Hannan and his partners were the first to find gold near Mount Charlotte, less than 40 kilometres from the existing Coolgardie Goldfields. Hannan, Flanagan and Shea were following a large number of prospectors who set out for a rumoured new prospect at Mount Youle.
  One version of the story of the find has it that on the night of 14 June 1893, Hannan found gold in a gully. Not wanting to cause a rush, he concealed the find. During the night the trio moved one of their horses into the scrub. The following morning Hannan informed the main party they were going to stay behind to find their lost horse.  After the main group moved off east, the three men started to pick up the gold and peg out their lease.
  Amongst the various counter-claims to emerge over the years, one lively version of the story was told in 1909 by Fred Dugan (another prospector, who was present at the time) relating how Thomas Flanagan found the first nuggets, and covered his find with brushwood to conceal it until the following day.
  By law, those finding "payable" gold were required to report the fact to the warden's office within seven days, so  Hannan set off for Coolgardie to register their find, doing so on 17 June 1893.
  It has been suggested that Hannan, rather than Flanagan or Shea, was chosen to officially register the claim because only he could read and write, but there is evidence that Flanagan was literate, since, in 1864, he had clearly signed the official death certificate of his brother John Flanagan, and had written his own place of residence at the time - White Hills (in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia).
  The other possible reasons for Hannan going alone to the office at Coolgardie are set out by Martyn Webb, who relates that:
  The fact that Flanagan and Shea were able to secure another 100 ounces while Hannan was away registering their claim at Coolgardie might help to explain why Hannan was chosen ... simply because they were better at specking than he was – it needs good eyesight.  On the other hand, since the journey was arduous and had to be done as quickly as possible, Hannan might have been chosen because, as Uren and others suggest, he was the youngest and the fittest of the three. … The most likely reason … was that he was the undisputed leader of the party.
  — Webb, page 103
  Hannan registered the claim in Flanagan's name as well as his own.  Within hours a stampede began.  It was estimated that about 400 men were prospecting in the area within three days, and over 1,000 within a week.
caption: Hannan's Western Australian miner's right, 1893
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