Ted Durrington

Edward Durrington (top right) with family on the opal fields.

Edward “Ted” Durrington was an early storekeeper, hotel proprietor, and miner at Lightning Ridge. He was born on 10 September 1852 in Wilberforce, New South Wales, to Edward and Hannah Durrington. In 1881 he married Sarah Agnes Coleman at Dubbo, and together they had six children over the next 14 years.

By the early 1900s, Edward and Sarah were living at Lightning Ridge. They appear on the 1907 survey map of Old Town and later were shopkeepers at Three Mile Flat before moving into New Town by 1912. The couple owned the original Imperial Hotel for a time.

He remained in Lightning Ridge until his death on 11 September 1934, aged 82.

Ted Durrington’s signature sourced from a petition to resist the relocation of residents from Old Town and The Flat to the surveyed town, 1912.

Edward Durrington @ Find a Grave.

Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales, 2 November 1934, p. 4011.