Frank Brown
Francis Herbert “Frank” Brown was born on 28 November 1889 at Forbes, New South Wales, the son of George and Ellen Brown. He was the younger brother of Edward “Snowy” Brown.
In 1908, the Brown family left the Burra Burra tin field near Fifield. Snowy was sent ahead to Lightning Ridge with £10 and a bicycle, along with his mate Tom Urwin. After some struggles, they had success finding opal on New Town Hill, earning £720 in a month. They sent £100 back to the family, who soon set out by wagon for the Ridge. They arrived just after Christmas 1908 and camped at Hatter’s Flat, later nicknamed “Circus Gully.”
Frank Brown described his first impression of Lightning Ridge as “like an ant hill with tents and bark huts and hessian cribs everywhere.” At the time the field was populated by about 3,000 people.
“The outside colour is the best. Polish the stone and leave it alone. Once they are cut down you lose something in the quality of the colour that never returns.”
Frank was an opal miner and buyer, working on the Three Mile, Canfell’s, New Town Hill and Grawin fields. He worked with Jim Denis in 1909, buying Denis’s American-made cutting machine, one of only two in existence at the time. Brown used it to cut opal in South Australia, reportedly making £800 in the first year.
Brown regularly hired out his horses and cart. He was paid £1 per day for transport work and 27 shillings sixpence per day for carting timber to Nettleton Hall from the Gooraway Sawmill, a 30 mile round trip. He also carted the first load of sawn timber for Lightning Ridge’s first hotel, a three day job for which he earned £3. Later, for a fee of £90, he dismantled and moved an entire billiard room 35 miles to the Grawin, where it was rebuilt.
“In nearly 56 years of experience in opal on the fields of Australia, I have come to realise that nowhere in Australia, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, can opal compare in colour and beauty with the black opal from Lightning Ridge in New South Wales. I believe that gem quality black opal will displace not only diamonds, but rubies and emeralds as the No. 1 gem stone.”
In February 1926, Frank Brown held the “prize claim” on top of the new Four Mile field, finding gem quality stones up to 60 carats. His success helped spark the Four Mile rush.
“I have seen people looking at opal and describing scenes which they can see in the colour pattern. Jndced, an artist would be hard put to describe the trees, waterfalls, bushfires, sunsets, mountains and countless other scenes which are there for the looking. The merging of the various colours shows different scenes to several people looking at the one stone.”
In the 1940s he worked at the Grawin, where he saved Jim Denis from a cave in.
He is credited with owning the first car at Coober Pedy.
In 1925 Frank Brown married Isabella “Belle” Kelly, who passed away in 1940. He later married Esther Elizabeth “Auntie Ethel” Sloan. In the 1950s the couple lived in Harris Park, two doors down from his niece Queenie Maud Allport, following the death of her husband Roy.
Frank Brown died on 15 December 1965 in Parramatta, aged 76.
Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: Walgett Spectator, 3 July 1919, 25 February 1926, 29 July 1926; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, pp. 12-13, 24-26, 29, 53, 98-99, 122-124; Lightning Flash Newspaper, 19 May 1995; A Journey With Colour: A History of Lightning Ridge Opal 1873-2003, Len Cram, 2003, pp. 154, 229.