Mr. W. Birks, a pioneer of the local field, succumbed on Monday evening at the private hospital to typhoid fever. The deceased had contracted the disease at Coolgardie and arrived in Menzies on 17th March. Then very weak, he immediately took to his bed and never rallied.  He had been on the fields for 24 years.

Birk was on his way to Mount Malcolm to manage the Iease which he had recently sold to a syndicate.

The deceased gentleman arrived from England in the early days of the gold discoveries, and reached Coolgardie towards the close of 1892. He met with a fair amount of success, his best hit being the "Birks Find" mine, beyond Mt. Alice, which property he had just succeeded in selling for the London market prior to his sudden death and untimely end. When the Pioneers of '92 organised their numbers, in order to take a prominent part in the proceedings connected with the recent Railway Opening Demonstration, Mr. Birks was one of the foremost movers, and but a week after his cheery, genial face had been seen at the meetings of Pioneers' Association, the news of his death, resulting from typhoid fever, came to hand from Menzies. As a long and well-known resident Mr. Birks had many friends but no enemies.