The West Australian Goldfields is where 127 years ago a family from 3,000km to the east claimed a unique piece of history. I told a version of this story live on Ipswich’s West Bremer Radio.

When one of the brothers died in Kalgoorlie in 1899 he established a special connection to the Kalgoorlie Recreation Ground.

James Patrick Ritchie was born in Ipswich in 1875.

His father George Ritchie was born in Arbroath, Scotland. He was a labourer for the Ipswich City Council and the family lived at Woodend for thirty-six years. The end came for George when returning soldiers from the First World War brought home the Spanish flu which killed him.

His son James or “Jim” Ritchie worked as a compositor on the Ipswich Advocate newspaper. In 1897 after the death of his brother George Junior from Colic, Jim wanted a change. And so he was just 20 years-old when he joined the West Australian goldrush and went to Kalgoorlie.

Jim was quite an athlete and while working as a miner, he also became a prominent sportsman. He won a number of big races, and was a star outside back known for his dashing play for the Boulder Pirates Rugby Football Club. And he was reliable too because he also became club secretary. His brother Henry would later win a premiership in Ipswich with the Wanderers club.

The Boulder Pirates was a top team in the goldfields where strong play was the norm. At one stage the club was called out for insulting the referee, and also for using the innovative tactic when going out of bounds, of throwing the ball into opponents’ faces in order to get the throw in.

Now the reason that Jim went west was to work in the goldmines, and that he did in the Great Boulder mine. The Kalgoorlie–Boulder goldfields are the richest goldfields in Australian history, but they are also the most dangerous. More than 1,400 miners have been killed there since the 1890s goldrush began.

Sadness struck in May 1899 when back in Ipswich George Ritchie received a telegram saying that Jim had fallen down one of the shafts of the Great Boulder mine. The fall didn’t kill Jim outright, because he lingered for months before succumbing in Kalgoorlie hospital on the 10th of September 1899.

That was awful news for the Ritchie family in Ipswich, but even worse for the Boulder Pirates because the death of their twenty-three year old star outside back came on the morning of the grand final.

The game was to be played at the Kalgoorlie Recreation Ground now known as Sir Richard Moore Oval. This was already a well-known venue because just two years earlier it hosted a highly unusual cricket match in which an Australian cricket eleven prepared for the upcoming Ashes tour. They played on a concrete wicket covered with matting, the outfield was gravel, and five of the team were either past, present or future Australian captains.

Anyway, the death of Jim came too late to postpone the grand final, so the match went ahead with both teams wearing black armbands. Jim’s Boulder Pirates were favoured to beat Bulong, and the teams battled manfully to the end. Neither side scored a single point, so the match finished in a nil-all draw, and they had to come back for a replay two weeks later.

And so on at the Kalgoorlie Recreation Ground on Sunday 24th September 1899, the Pirates and Bulong played again in Jim’s honour in front of a crowd of over 700 people. But I’m sorry to say that Bulong won to claim the proud title of inaugural Premiers of the Goldfields of 1899.

This was a classic season of rugby in Kalgoorlie – inspired by Ipswich’s own Jim Ritchie who died the morning of the Goldfield’s rugby association’s inaugural grans final. There were not one but two grand finals played on gravel in Jim’s honour, which is something that no other Australian can claim.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON WEST BREMER RADIO.

Photo credits:
A Star on the Goldfields – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
Kalgoorlie Recreation Ground 2026 – Harold Peacock 20260606_064558.
Wanderers Football Club Premiers for 1904 Ipswich and West Moreton Rugby Union – Saturday Observer, Brisbane, 22nd October 1904, page 13.
Interstate Rugby Football – The Goldfields Representatives – Western Mail, Perth, 10th August 1907, page 26.
Kalgoorlie cricket team v Australia – Kalgoorlie Western Argus, 3rd June 1897, page 13.