“Big Jim” Denis
“Big Jim” Denis. Photograph: Deborah Collett.
William James “Big Jim” Denis was born on 20 October 1868 at Cassilis, New South Wales, the son of William and Jane Denis. In 1892 he married Cecilia Margaret Smith at Dubbo, and the couple went on to raise four children.
Denis and his family were early settlers at Old Town in 1905. Denis built a large hall at the old settlement, transferring a billiard licence from Collarenebri to Lightning Ridge in 1906. He was resident blacksmith on the Four Mile field by 1907. He held a miner’s right in 1909 and again in 1913.
As a miner, Denis partnered with “Long” Ben Burren. Together they purchased Vertical Bill’s claim at the Three Mile, where they found stones worth around £2,000. He was involved in the 1917 rush at the Shallow Four Mile and had success again at the Grawin in 1919. In 1920 he reportedly sold a large of number small black opals from the Nine Mile for £1 each. Denis continued working intermittently through the 1920s and 1930s, and in 1942 he survived a cave-in at the Grawin, saved by fellow miner Frank Brown.
“Big Jim” is believed to be in the audience of this photograph. The referee of the match was Con Coleano’s father, Cornelius Sullivan. Photograph: Lightning Ridge Historical Society.
Outside of mining, Denis ran a portable sawmill which he later sold to the Kennedy family of Bendeena Station. His son, John William James (“Son”), also worked in timber with a sawmill at Cumborah and helped construct St. George’s Anglican Church at Lightning Ridge in 1935.
With his wife Cecilia, he raised not only their own children but also Gwen, the daughter of their own daughter Clara, as one of their own. After Cecilia’s death, Denis remarried to Fanny Madden.
“Big Jim” Denis died on 12 November 1958 at Parramatta, aged 90.
Signature of “Big Jim” Denis, sourced from a petition to resist the move from Old Town and The Flat into the surveyed town.
Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, pp. 29, 44, 222-223; Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, p. 71; Lightning Flash Newspaper, 19 May 1994; Walgett Spectator, 23 October 1913, 19 October 1907, 14 August 1919, 28 August 1930; ‘Outside District News’, Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative, 20 September 1906, p. 19.