Jack Phillips

John Edwin “Jack” Phillips was an early miner at Lightning Ridge. Jack was born in Colac Otway Shire, Victoria, in 1870. 

Phillips came to Lightning Ridge around 1908, previously residing at Broken Hill, New South Wales. A heavy drinker, Phillips is recorded as being detained by police a number of times at Broken Hill prior to moving over to Lightning Ridge.

Phillips was one of the discoverers of The Flame Queen, one of the most striking and recognisable of the “named stones” to have been found in the early years of The Ridge. The other miners who found The Flame Queen were Walter Bradley and “Irish” Joe Hegarty.

Jack Phillips passed away on 26 August 1960 at the age of 89 at Lightning Ridge and is buried in an unmarked grave at Walgett Cemetery.

• Jack Phillips @ Find a Grave.

Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: New South Wales Gaol Description and Entrance Books, Broken Hill, 1898-1912, 30 May 1908, p. 139, line 116; New South Wales Gaol Description and Entrance Books, Broken Hill, 1898-1912, p. 147, line 56; ‘Found Flame Queen Opal, Now Pensioners’, The Courier Mail, 25 March 1950, p. 3; ‘Old Timer tells how the “Flame Queen” was found’, The Commonwealth Jeweller and Watchmaker, August 10, 1957, p. 142; The Opal Book, Frank Leechman, 1961, p. 223; The Book of Opals, W. C. Eyles, 1964, pp. 94-95; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, pp. 19, 38; ‘For One Opal, $37,500 - But the Flame Queen, found in Australia, is as big as a poached egg’, The Australian Women’s Weekly, 28 May 1969, p. 3; Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, pp. 78, 124;