Biography

The deceased was found dead outside his camp on Tuesday afternoon. The upper portion of the body was terribly shattered, the head being completely severed and scattered in all directions. It was evidently a case of suicide. A jury was summoned and a formal inquiry held before Mr. S. P. Wheeler, acting coroner. An order was made for burial and the inquiry was to be resumed the next day. A large number attended the funeral. On 30 May 1901, the deceased, along with Arthur George Cavendish and Ephraim Hobbs, applied for an auriferous lease and subsequently another lease, the two claims which later became known as The Savage Captain and The Hard Lump. On 24 August 1904, Robert Grahame and Ephraim Hobbs sought to recover from the defendants, James Moore, Archibald Aitken, Edward Fahey and Robert Hogan, the sum of £770 as damages for certain breaches of a tribute agreement and asked for the cancellation of the agreement and an injunction to restrain the defendants from further prospecting or mining on the lease known as the Savage Captain, situated at Burtville. The Warden, in his judgment, after outlining the terms of the agreement, stated that it is alleged by the plaintiffs in their particulars of claim, that the defendants committed breaches of the agreement. Warden Burt's judgment concluded: "On my findings on the evidence, judgment is entered for the plaintiffs for £596 11s 6d, with costs, and I order that the agreement be cancelled and I grant an injunction restraining the defendants from prospecting, mining or trespassing on G.M. lease 1099t." Having won this case just a few months prior to his death, it is curious to know if this was still playing on his mind at the time of his death. Within a very short time after the death of Grahame, The Savage Captain lease cleaned up a parcel of 124 tons, for 324oz, which was treated at the local public battery. Huge tonnage followed from this mine. Grahame was the second child of a family of three boys and three girls born in Cheshire, England, to Robert Graham, born 1847 in Ontario, Canada, and his wife, who was born in Liverpool. Their six children were all born in Cheshire, England. The other children were Agnes Ottilie, born 1872; William E born 1876; Henry Francis born 1878; Marion Isabel York born 1883; and Susie D.A. born 1886. The couple married in 1872 and, together with the deceased, were still living in Cheshire in 1881. Mr Graham Senior died in Torquay, Devon, in 1918, leaving the amount of £28,526 1s 6d to his wife, who died in Torquay in 1935. The estate of the deceased was settled in Bristol, England, on 23 September 1937, with effects to the value of £1038 2s 11d being left to William Percy Tyrwhitt Grahame and John Henry Clifton.