Canada, Australia & New Zealand Business Association Luncheon:

"In fact, our airport at Lae was the last place Amelia Earhart was seen in 1937 on her failed first ever circumnavigation of the globe by a female pilot. "

George Palmer Putnam Collection description -- Purdue Libraries: "Amelia Earhart Putnam (1897-1937)."

Canada, Australia & New Zealand Business Association Luncheon: "Placer Development's roots extend back to the1920s with alluvial gold workings in Bulolo, Papua New Guinea (then a territory and a UN protectorate of Australia), where our predecessor company, Bulolo Gold Dredging, produced more than two million ounces of gold in the remote, mountainous jungles. "

My Uncle,
"Alfred George (Dick) Lapham was there - in his letters from New Guinea and Australia to his father
C/o Bulolo Gold Dredging,
Bulolo, New Guinea
July 11 1937

he was from about January 1934 and describes himself as an old man soon to be 35
he was acting as cook on the dredge because the boy broke his arm

and everyone is talking about Mrs Putnam.

C/o J Temperley Tully North Queensland
March 4, 1932
Driving a team of horses to cart stones from the creek to the cow yard.
He says altough slower bullock teams are better, on rough and hilly ground, than horses for hauling the timber out, which is very valuable and railed to Brisbane and shipped to America.

c/o B. G. D. Co. Ltd.
Bulolo
New Guinea
January 6 1935

he is logging cedar
no income tax to pay because the country is under the League of Nations



February 20th 1937

He flew for the first time in his life in a
Guinea Airways: "Guinea Airways Lockheed Super Electra (? L14 VH-ADY)"
8 passengers 2 pilots 250 mph



November 20 1937
dear Dad
no best girl
thanks for pen - birthday present

"What a funny world this is, here we are over here digging gold
to provide money for world to make another war,
which I think will be in the near future, at the rate things are going on.

Bulolo
February 7 1938
Heard King George[VI] speak on radio

discusses threatened strike
he was the dredge crew's representative

He had been asked to join the Free Masons
a "gay and debonair bachelor" up to (his brothers ) Norman and Howard to keep the Lapham name going strong

Only Howard was to have two daughters so the name died with that generation.

C/o Bulolo Gold Dredging,
Bulolo, New Guinea
December 14 1938

16 men and a chinese cook of course
transfering to a camp 15 miles from Bulolo and 4 miles from Wace
eating underdone steak with a mug of beer and pay the company £12 a month for what they ate
he had a sort of foreman's job, a winchman to be correct
he has a spot of cash about £500 wrapped up in gold shares
and hopes to use it to come home to Bristol 1940 -1944

July 10 1939

9 months since his last letter home
4 days day in Sidney and 6 weeks in Melbourne
On his first afternoon at the Carlton Hotel he caught a thief in his room and after fighting him and managing to "king-hit" him

The theif turned out to be a criminal 6 months out of jail after serving 15 years for murder !
the hotel manager gave a bottle of champagne

3 days after that he go a car in Melbournend drove about 2000 miles touring Victoria
put on about 2 stone in weight leading the life of a gentleman

But "after the Lord mayor's show comes the sanitary cart"

July 10 1939 to his mother (not living with my grandfather )
back in Bololo about a month
Played golf with Billy Hughes
First World War.com - Who's Who - Billy Hughes: "William Morris ('Billy') Hughes (1862-1952) served as Australia's Prime Minister from 1915-23,"
welsh but born in London


October 7 1939 Bololo
going to be engaged to be married
her names is Lilian (hole torn in letter)
sister in hospital Port Moresby

must win this war first

"Russia is only in for what she can get out of it , with the hope that she may extend extend her communist doctrine to Germany after Hitler has fallen. * * * * *

All our news comes over the radio which does not amount to much.

2/11 Field Engineers
September 4 1940

"the duty of all fit single men to join up" so he had 6 weeks earlier
no good having jobs or money if Germany is allowed to win the war.

April 7 1941
2/11 Field Engineers Darwin, North Australia
gossip about the place and the regiment
Japan mentioned
written by the light of a hurricane lamp

Lastly to his father from Staf Sergeant Frank J White 25 april 46
who knew Dick from Jan 1934

was with him the day he died and attended his burial. "His death was absolutely painless."
only 123 out of 900 POW in Ambon returned to Australia

c/o David Knox
"River View"
Kurrumby
S W Line
Queensland
Feb 22 (undated but a more boyish hand)
there 3 months
working at burning prickly pear
2000 sheep
cows

saw a large red fox

the immigration people in Brisbane want to send him up north.
amd he dreams of gold.

>> Source: The Collins English Dictionary © 2000 HarperCollins Publishers:

king-hit (Australian) (informal)
noun
1 a knockout blow, esp. an unfair one
verb (-hits, -hitting, -hit)
[transitive]
2 to deliver a knockout blow to
<<


Pacific Book House - Book Lists: "BOOTH, Doris R.
MOUNTAINS GOLD AND CANNIBALS.
Cornstalk Publishing. Sydney. 1929. Second Australian Edition; xix, 203, index; 29 illusts.; hardcover (rebound with gilt titles, new endpapers) reproduction dust jacket protected; (sporadic foxing, numerous library stamps) a readers copy. Very Scarce. The author, Mrs Booth, arrived at the goldfields in 1924 where her previous training as a nurse undoubtedly saved many lives, while at the same time she was supervising the work on her claim. Much sought after book on the Bulolo and Edie Creek goldfields with references to the Buang and Watut. "




(son of Alfred Thomas Lapham and Florence Caroline Evans) was born October 19, 1912 in Bristol England
and died July 1, 1945 in Royal Australian Army (Prisoner of Japanese). "