About Western Australian Virtual Miners Memorial

This website is a partially a virtual representation of the physical miners memorial which is located in the forecourt of the WA museum at 17 Hannan Street, Kalgoorlie Boulder. The physical miners memorial was opened on the 1st of March 2013 by the Minister for Mines and Petroleum the Hon. W. (Bill) Marmion BE MBA MLA and dedicated by the most reverend Roger Herft AM Anglican Archbishop of Western Australia.

Following on from the launch of the Eastern Goldfields Miners Memorial, it was decided that, although minimal informationwas able to be inscribed on the Memorial the online version would contain full details. When the WAVMM came into being it was decided to encompass not only the whole state of Western Australia but also to include all types of mining.

Whilst conducting research on the names for the WAVMM we found that many people thought that those who had died from the various diseases of “Miners L ung’ or ‘Dusted Miners’ as they are often known, should also be remembered. It was at this point that the WAVMM project welcomed Dr Criena Fitzgerald, a renowned authority on the social and medical history of these conditions, joined the WAVMM team.

Compiling and researching the names to be included on the memorial has been a challenge, which is ongoing. The gathering of names of those to include on the WAVMM has been a collaboritive affair with Moya Sharp and Criena Fitzgerald. However we would never have reached this point without the continued support of the mining community and of course the families and friend of the victims.

At the start of 2017 the number of names on the WAVMM was over 2000 names. This is being added to daily.

The WAVMM will now be accepting miners from all forms of mining and for the whole state of Western Australia.