the dividends of his syndicate by his discretionary powers. Yet, though so engrossed in his companies' business, he has found time for a few enterprises which have been singularly happy. Around Kalgoorlie he pegged out 228 acres of good auriferous country, the largest contiguous block of leases pegged out and taken up by anyone man, the cost of application money alone amounting to £311. Among others that he pegged out and purchased are the Boulder North Extended, Boulder Nor' West, Hannan's East, two of the leases of the Hesperus Gold Mining Company, the Pirie Gold Mining Company, and the Outridge Boulder. His personal interests in mining are extensive.
This string of enterprising results betokens the energy and activity of the agent. His work has been onerous, but with the felicity attached to it the hard and rough edge is forgotten. His duties of manager, mining and consulting engineer and legal adviser to all his companies keep him in endless employment. In the more extended field of public life he takes a lively interest. He is chairman of the East Coolgardie Roads Board, and associates himself with schemes whose motto is progress. He is a member of the Kalgoorlie, Perth, and White Feather stock exchanges, and a vice-president of the Mine Managers' Institute of Western Australia. He has been and still is a director of the Kalgoorlie Prospecting Gold Mining Company. In the exercise of his multiple duties Mr. Brimage is assisted by his brother, Mr. J. Sale Brimage, an able and skilful business man, who superintends the office work for his brother.
Mr. Brimage is a man of a truly courteous disposition, with a kind and friendly spirit. He is respected by all those who have the pleasure of his acquaintance, and is admired for his commercial instincts. His zealous desire to see Hannan's progress with rapid strides, and his enthusiastic endeavour to forward that end, has conciliated for him the good wishes of every citizen in Kalgoorlie.
S. B. SCHLAM, F.G.S.
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Photo by S.B. SCHLAM, F.G.S. Greenham & Evans. |
COOLGARDIE had not emerged from the swaddling-clothes stage of civilisation before the rich auriferous district of Menzies was discovered. The hardy prospectors did not hang round the spot where Arthur Bayley made his sensational discovery, but moved ever on. They spread out in all directions, and those who took the Ninety-Mile Road faced a country to exist in which one had to "rough life" in the most literal sense of the term. With indomitable will and courage they went through dreary saltlake country, across mulga scrub and salt-bush plains, and over burning, arid wastes. But the pluck of the sturdy pioneers was rewarded, and soon afterwards, when Leslie Robert Menzie made his rich find in September, 1894, on the spot where the Lady Shenton Mine now stands, the district became famous for the riches Nature had so unstintingly bestowed upon her. Then the township grew both in size and importance, until to-day it is one of the busiest centres of the Western Australian goldfields.
The town of Menzies was fortunate from its inauguration in having in its midst men of keen business acumen and tireless industry. The gentleman whose name heads this biographical sketch has contributed materially to the welfare of Menzies, and in mining circles he has done much to foster local interests by the introduction of capital. In this and other ways he has become a representative man of Menzies.
S.B. Schlam was born on the Bendigo Goldfield, Victoria, in 1806. He started work as a telegraph messenger, at the age of fourteen. Three years later young Schlam—he being then only seventeen—opened up business for himself as a storekeeper in a country town in Victoria. Two years of this kind life sufficed, and he accepted an appointment in the Mines Department of the Victorian Civil Service. After being some considerable time in this branch he was transferred to a responsible position in the Water Supply and Irrigation Department, and during the régime of the Gillies-Deakin Coalition Government he rendered very valuable service to his department. The irrigation and water supply schemes of that Government were broad and comprehensive, and in seeing all these brought to an issue Mr. Schlam played no small part in arranging the departmental work, details, &c.
When Mr. Schlam had been several years in he Victorian Civil Service, he longed for the freer life of the goldfields of the West. Bayley had made his phenomenal find at Coolgardie, but Mr. Schlam had already decided to go to Pilbarra. Though Coolgardie held out strong inducements, he proceeded to Pilbarra, reaching here about the middle of 1893. He did considerable prospecting work on these north-west fields, but Fortune did tap at his tent door. For about fifteen months he worked round and about Pilbarra, and reading and hearing from time to time of
