Laurie Hart
Laurie Hart (left) and Bert Spicer, 1934.
Lawrence Chalmers “Laurie” Hart (originally Hartt, sometimes Chambers, sometimes Heart) was born on 21 March 1910, the son of Cecil and Ruby Hartt. He came to Lightning Ridge as a young man and worked with fellow miner Bert Spicer.
Hart’s & Spicer’s opal field itself was found in 1932 by Otto Marquet and Otto Schrader (the “Two Ottos”). Seventy feet down, beneath a treacherous roof and in dark opal dirt, Laurie and Bert uncovered black opal described as among the best seen at the Ridge. The opal, cut into broad ribbons and flags of colour set on jet potch, was valued in the tens of thousands of pounds.
In April 1934 the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Philip Game, and Lady Game visited Lightning Ridge. They visited Hart and Spicer’s mine during their tour. That same year, American journalists were shown underground at the claim.
Hart’s partnership with Spicer lasted many years before Spicer and his family left the Ridge for Parkes in 1937. Hart remained on the opal fields for some time before moving north to Queensland. By the early 1940s he was living at Kennedy, but World War II soon took him further afield. He enlisted and served in Papua New Guinea, where he died on 24 November 1942 at the age of 32. He was buried at Port Moresby.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: Walgett Spectator, 11 April 1934; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, p. 72; Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, pp. 42-43.