Phil Lambert-Smith
Philip Lambert-Smith was born on 15 January 1906 at Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, son of Percy Lambert-Smith and Philippa Lambert-Smith. He arrived in Australia from England in about 1925, travelling with his younger brother, and was working on the Lightning Ridge opal fields by the early 1930s.
Between 1930 and 1936, Lambert-Smith was working at the Three Mile and Deep Three Mile fields. He partnered with Bill Seymour and Ted Downey, and together they sank a shaft to 92 feet at Deep Three Mile. The third level produced very good colour.
He met Scotia Wylva Doreen O’Sullivan at Lightning Ridge in 1936. O’Sullivan was working as a gem cutter at the time. Lambert-Smith left the Ridge in order to marry, and the couple wed in 1927. They later built a home at Avalon, known as Wallangulla, before purchasing the pastoral property “Knightsvale”, near Byrock in the Bourke district.
“It’s the hardest work I know of, and It gets terribly hot down below.”
Philip Lambert-Smith died on 25 December 1968 at Bourke, New South Wales, aged 62, and was buried there. Probate of his estate was granted to his widow, Scotia Wylva Doreen Lambert-Smith, in 1969.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: ‘Paradox of Opal Fields - Nothing Flash - Lightning Ridge - All is So Primitive’, The Sun, 13 June 1935, p. 25; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, p. 42; ‘Legal Notice’, The Western Herald, 28 March 1969, p. 7.