Bert Spicer
Albert “Bert” Spicer, Lightning Ridge, July 1963 (Allan A. Hedges Pty Limited for NSW Government Tourist Bureau NSWSL.)
Albert James “Bert” Spicer (sometimes spelled Speizer) was born around 1855 in Hothfield, Ashford Borough, Kent in England.
Albert and his wife, Margaret Anne “Maggie” Page worked on properties north of Cunnamulla.
Maggie and Bert married in 1926, and their only son Malvern “Mal” was born in 1928 at Cunnamulla. Bert had come mining and did well enough to move his little family over in 1932.
Early in the 1930s, Spicer and his partner Laurie Hart had a big strike, resulting in the naming of the Harts & Spicer’s opal field - they didn’t discover the field, but they had great success after several others had failed. In 1934, when the Governor General Lord and Lady Game came to the region to reopen the Walgett Show (which had closed during World War II), they inspected the Bush Nurse Association (BNA) cottage and visited Hart and Spicer’s on the Three Mile.
The Heritage Cottage, built by Bert Spicer in 1932.
Bert Spicer built a cottage in Morilla Street that would stand the test of time. With a timber structure, bark dividing walls, dirt floors and chimney made from flattened kerosene tins. The cottage would later be occupied by the Graham Brothers and is now preserved by the Lightning Ridge Historical Society as the Heritage Cottage.
Bert Spicer passed away in 1961 at the age of 67 and is buried in Parkes General Cemetery.
Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, p. 42-43; Lightning Ridge: Turning Back Time - A Heritage Trail, Barbara Moritz, 1998, p. 30.