The Educational Needs of the Mining and Minerals Industry in Western Australia with Particular Reference to the Pilbara

The mining and minerals industry has had and will undoubtedly continue to have a considerable impact on the development of this State. For the first 60 years of its history the colony of Western Australia made slow progress; its population in 1889 being only 43,000. However, as a-result of discovering gold at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie the Eastern Goldfields alone had a population of 25,000 by 1897. The income generated by the gold mining industry allowed the Premier of the day, Sir John Forrest, and his Government to support the proposal put forward by the State's Engineer in Chief, C.Y. O'Connor, to construct a pipeline to carry water from the Darling Ranges to Kalgoorlie ; a distance of 600 kilometres. The demand for people knowledgeable in the science and art of mineral exploitation also prompted the State Government to establish a School of Mines in the Goldfields in 1902, where it has remained ever since. The gold mines of this region have been a major source of employment for over 70 years and there is no doubt of the fact that their continued prosperity minimised the effect of the world recession on Western Australia in the 1930's.