Frederick Francis Burdett Wittenoom: Pastoral Pioneer and Explorer 1855–1939: A Biographical Sketch by Catherine Cameron

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Some faint marks on top and right foredges. Dust jacket has creasing to edges and some tearing to right edge front cover. Dust jacket is now enclosed in protective covering. Interior and binding are still excellent.

Frederick Francis (Frank) Burdett Wittenoom, pastoralist, miner and businessman, was born in Gwambygine, near York, Western Australia, in 1855.

Frank spent his young adulthood in the Murchison with his older brother Edward, exploring and opening the area to pastoral activities. They owned many stations, and at their peak, before they sold stations to pay bets, they owned over two million acres.

While his older brother Edward went into politics, Frank, named after his grandfather and Murchison explorer F T Gregory, was a good bushman and a shrewd, versatile investor who thrived in the outback but liked to socialise in style.

He visited England in 1887 to solicit funds for the Midland railway scheme. He returned with several commercial commissions, including the local management of Dalgety's, on whose account he toured fifty-four stations in the north-west in 1888.

Afterwards, he embarked on a world trip. In the mid-1890s, he settled in a bush camp at Boulder, where Z B Lane engaged him as joint general manager of Great Boulder, Perseverance and Great Boulder South mines.

Wittenoom was simultaneously involved with activities as diverse as sawmilling, quarrying, stockbroking, the Boulder Progress Association and the Kalgoorlie Race Club. (Australian Dictionary of Biography)