Charlie Gibson
Charlie Gibson alongside a humpy on the opal fields, ca. 1915. (National Library of Australia.)
Charles John Sweet Gibson was one of the earliest opal miners at Lightning Ridge. Born in Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1860, he came to Australia in the late 19th century.
He worked as a boundary rider on Angledool Station and is recorded as prospecting on the Nebea Ridges while scrub cutting in 1901.
He would later return to Nebea to mine after the Syndicate rose and fell in 1903, after Nettleton proved the worth of Lightning Ridge black opal with the first sale at White Cliffs.
Gibson's name appears on an early 1905 petition for mail services at Wallangulla. By 1907 he was living on the Angledool field, and in 1909 he held a Miner's Right.
He later worked fields at Mehi with Dick Davidson and Bat Pearson, and mined on the Old Chum and New Chum fields in his later years.
According to Stuart Lloyd, Gibson was among the first to recognise Lightning Ridge opal. Gibson recalled picking up potch near what would later become known as Potch Point, long before opal was known anywhere in the area.
“I remember the place when there were no workings and opal wasn’t thought of. We used to pick up potch where Potch Point is now. The boss’s son once said to me, ‘I wonder would there be anything in these hills’.”
Charlie Gibson died at Bangate Station on 1 May 1946 and was buried on the station.
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. 145; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, pp. 7-8, 18, 90.