Tommy Lewis

Thomas “Tommy” Lewis was one of the early miners and was among the first opal cutters and valuers at Lightning Ridge. He was described as a swarthy man with a dark moustache.

Ion Idriess mentions Tommy Lewis in his Lightning Ridge: The Land of Black Opals (1940), describing him in some detail. Idriess also connects Lewis with the sinking of a ship, which can be identified as the Cospatrick, a British sailing ship that went under in 1875, with three survivors. One of those survivors was indeed a man named Tommy Lewis, but modern research’s reported by the BBC has identified Tommy Lewis from the shipwreck as Twm Pen-Stryd, a Welshman with no connection to the opal miner and valuer.

It is uncertain when Tommy Lewis found his way to Lightning Ridge, but it is clear he was present and working prior to 1910, as per Ion Idriess’s accounts and his inclusion in Stuart Lloyd’s list of early opal miners.

For a time, he was the go-to man for opal valuations. Parcels brought to him were assessed quickly and brutally, as per Idriess: “Ask £400, take £350.” He charged a shilling in the pound commission, and many tens of thousands of pounds worth of opal passed through his hands. His valuations appear in court records, where he was called upon to testify to grading parcels for local miners.

His years at Lightning Ridge allowed him to retire comfortably, though years later he was working as a drover in south-western Queensland.

Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: Lightning Ridge: The Land of Black Opals, Ion L. Idriess, 1940, chapter XVII, p. 111; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, pp. 30, 30, 90, 133, 135; A Journey With Colour: A History of Lightning Ridge Opal 1873-2003, Len Cram, 2003, pp. 39, 77, 79; ‘Burning of the Cospatrick’, Maryborough Chronicle, 9 March 1875, p. 2; ‘The Survivors from the Cospatrick,’ The Illustrated London News, 16 January 1875; N. Prior, ‘Welsh sailor’s heroic role in grisly shipwreck’, 9 December 2024, BBC.com.