The Marshall Family and Wentworth (Lucknow) Goldfields, 1935 to 1960

At the Wentworth Main shaft a number of buildings were erected in July 1935: fitting shops, miners’ change rooms, a manager’s office and a battery shed. A cyanide plant was erected to rework tailings. A ten-head battery was also installed, intended to crush ore from ‘several of the old dumps’ on the Company’s leases. The Stamper Battery was idle for the latter half of 1935 and during 1936 it ran intermittently.

In 1936 a new board was elected, with William AJ Marshall as chairman, supported by his brother Alexander Marshall, and two investors, Francis H Galloway and Reginald Braid (who was Alexander’s brother-in-law). All four continued as directors until after World War II. Francis Galloway passed away in 1950, Lucknow engineer Eric J Taylor was appointed in 1952 and Braid left in 1955.The Marshalls were not involved in the formation of Wentworth (Lucknow) Company, but were keenly aware there was only one ‘lost reef’ in the northern part of the Lucknow field, where Bismarck Range was operating and there were ‘ten rich lost reefs’ in the south. They bought 45,000 shares in the Wentworth (Lucknow) company.