Suicide by Gelignite – Wallaroo 1906

Suicide by Gelignite – Wallaroo

 In 1906 an inquest was held by James Malcolm into the suicide of William Frederick White, a quarryman in the local flux quarry.

 Mr White, aged 52, was widowed with five children. His wife, Elizabeth, had died on August 1905.
  It was said his children feared him as he was often drunk and abusive since the death of his wife. Often, he threatened to kill himself.

His children often refused to sleep at the house. The previous evening to the suicide, White had found himself home alone which made him morose. On the Saturday morning of the incident, White’s eldest son, 16-year-old William Jnr. returned home to fetch a box for his sister who had spent the previous night in Moonta.

 William Jnr spoke to his father, who was sober. White Snr. asked where the children were, which William told him that had stayed at friends’ houses. William didn’t think anything suspicious in his father’s behaviour, took the box for his sisters and left.
 William wasn’t fifty meters down the road when he heard an explosion. He ran back to the house and found his father on a sofa at the back of the house, his hand and his head had been blown off.

 Police removed the body, and during their investigation found sticks of gelignite, fuses and caps in the house.

Evidence during the inquest was given by W.F. White Junior and W.A. Webber, son in law of William White Snr.
 The jury, at the end of the inquest declared that: “ William Frederick White came to his death by an act of his own hands while in a melancholy state of mind.”

 Members of the jury then donated the fees paid for jury duty to the children of the deceased who were now orphaned.

Suicide by gelignite was not confined to Wallaroo, South Australia. Cases of this horrific way to die can also be found on Trove in Broken Hill NSW(1917), Castle Hill NSW(1954),  Cairns QLD (1929), Melbourne Vic (1926), Perth WA (1906), Claremont WA (1930) and even across the pond in New Zealand (1922), just to name a few.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2019.

Sources:

'SUICIDE BY GELIGNITE.', The Register, (19 February 1906), p. 5.

'WALLAROO.', The Express and Telegraph, (21 February 1906), p. 2

'WALLAROO.', Chronicle, (24 February 1906), p. 16.

'SUICIDE BY GELIGNITE.', Observer, (24 February 1906), p. 13.

EXPLOSION on North Terrace

 EXPLOSION on North Terrace

On the 28^th of May 1942, The Barrier Miner reported an incident happening in a boarding house on North Terrace West.
 An explosion on the ground floor of the boarding house shook nearby residents due to its immense size. A piano was reduced to matchsticks, sending pieces flying through windows out on to the street, and splinters of wood embedded into the walls, floors and ceiling.

The explosion overturned armchairs, tables and two old heavy radio sets, spreading them across the room.

Although no-one was hurt in the explosion, the residents who were all sleeping upstairs, were shocked by the noise and panic set in. They ran into the street in their night clothes, panicked it was the end of the world.

Police investigated the incident the following morning, finding a small amount of Gelignite traces in the vicinity of the explosions initial point, the piano.
 It would seem a former resident had hidden some of the explosive gel away for safekeeping, and had forgotten about it. The gelignite, being an unstable compound, eventually exploded – luckily for the residents, it happened while they were all asleep, and not whilst gathered around the piano singing!