Calvert's Golden West: Albert Frederick Calvert: A Biography and Bibliography by Geoff Blackburn

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Interior and binding are still excellent.

Albert Frederick Calvert is a man of some importance in Western Australian colonial history, and his writings are his enduring legacy. Yet he is a curious historical figure.

Albert Calvert (1872–1946), author, traveller and mining engineer, first visited Australia in 1890, when he undertook a journey of exploration from Lake Gairdner to the upper Murchison River. He went on to circumnavigate Australia and explore the eastern goldfields of Western Australia. Back in England he published the West Australian Review, was courted as ‘Westralia’s Golden Prophet’, and embraced an extravagant lifestyle of yachting, motoring and racing.

In 1896, he offered to fund an expedition to search for Leichhardt and open a stock route from the Northern Territory to the Western Goldfields, but the expedition leaders died and Calvert proved unable to meet the expenses of the expedition. He financed further explorations of Australia, acted as managing director of Big Blow Gold Mines and Consolidated Gold Mines of Western Australia, consulted on engineering for the Mallina gold mines, and wrote fourteen slapdash books on Australia. However, due to Federation and his racing losses, Calvert’s passion for Australia was extinguished. He wrote thirty-six books on Spain, two on Nigeria and five on German Africa. Initiated as a Freemason in 1893, he ended his writing career as an unreliable chronicler of Masonic history. (National Portrait Gallery https://portrait.gov.au/portraits/2002.61/westrali... )