Bill Younger
William Montague “Bill” Younger was born in 1873 at St Leonards, New South Wales, to Charles Daniel Younger and Rebecca Bloodworth.
Younger held a Miner’s Right at Lightning Ridge by 1909. In May 1909 he and George Cormie purchased Walter Vause’s billiard room at Old Town. In January 1910 they built a new billiard room in New Town opposite the hotel. In April 1914 Frank Elliott took over the billiard room.
Younger also traded as a newsagent at the Ridge as of 1912, and is listed as proprietor of a billiard saloon in 1914.
In later years he worked on northern tin fields, Ion Idriess records meeting him again in Far North Queensland. Younger moved around Far North Queensland quite a bit in later life, eventually settling in Cairns.
Bill Younger died at Cairns on 15 February 1961, aged 88, and was buried there.
Signature of Bill Younger, sourced from a petition to resist the move from Old Town and The Flat into the surveyed town.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: Walgett Spectator, 8 May 1909, 24 January 1910, 16 April 1914; Sands Directories: Sydney and New South Wales, 1912, 1914; Lightning Ridge: The Land of Black Opals, Ion L. Idriess, 1940; A Journey With Colour: A History of Lightning Ridge Opal 1873-2003, Len Cram, 2003, pp. 90, 112.