Godfrey McMillan

Godfrey McMillan was an opal miner and opal cutter at Lightning Ridge. He was born 30 August 1870 in Shepparton, Victoria to Scottish parents Archibald and Mary McMillan. He and his family moved to Eugowra, New South Wales, when he was a child.

He married Lydia Parnell in 1917 in Forbes, New South Wales. Together they had two children.

McMillan was one of the first opal cutters on the Three Mile, with a cutting shed not too far from Fred Bodel’s camp. He is understood to have taught opal cutting to Artie Bruce.

He worked with Andy Gray on the Canfell’s opal field, and later moved out to Grawin with Gray, where he both mined and bought opal.

McMillan and Gray remained lifelong friends, with Gray visiting McMillan at Eugowra decades after their mining exploits.

McMillan was a creative type, with interests in writing and wood carving. He carried a manuscript for a book he had written titled The Ways of Men; it does not appear the book was ever published. He was known for his prize wood carvings, including a one-foot-square carving of mining equipment that was fondly remembered by his family.

Godfrey McMillan passed away on 24 October 1954 at Eugowra, New South Wales, and was buried there.

• Godfrey McMillan @ Find a Grave.

Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: ‘Mr. G. McMillan’, The Forbes Advocate, 26 October 1954, p. 2; ‘Obituary’, The Forbes Advocate, 29 October 1954, p. 8; ‘Obituary’, The Forbes Advocate, 5 November 1954, p. 8; ‘In the Supreme Court of New South Wales - Probate Jurisdiction - In the Will of Godfrey McMillan, late of Eugowra’, Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales, 30 September 1955, iss. no. 108, p. 2917; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, pp. 30, 74, 78-79; Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, p. 60.