The story starts with gold finds in and around the Kalgoorlie area in Western Australia and the need for water to sustain the goldfields. In 1893 the then-Premier of Western Australia, Sir John Forrest, said: “Gold in this colony is found only in the most out-of-the-way places, the most desolate places, far away from water, and where it is difficult to obtain supplies.”

Not only that, rainfall was low in the Kalgoorlie goldfields and what rain fell was quickly lost in the porous earth or evaporated.

To O’Connor the problem was a simple one. On the coast they enjoyed a rainfall of over thirty inches per year. At Kalgoorlie the average rainfall was uncertain because there had been few records taken, but it seemed to be about nine or ten inches a year. Why not imprison some of the millions of gallons of water that went to waste each year on the coast and pump it to Kalgoorlie?

The proposal was greeted with derision. Who had ever heard of such a thing? Pump 5,000,000 gallons per day to Coolgardie, a distance of over 300 miles, through 30 inch steel pipes? The idea was absurd, impossible!

However expert opinion was on O’Connor’s side. The Engineer for Sewerage and Water Supply, T. C. Hodgson, said that pumping from a reservoir to a receiving tank had been done scores of times. “We have only to do it eight times in succession to get it to Coolgardie,” he added.

Forrest, although at first suspicious of the scheme, now realised that its success was assured. Thus these two men became united in this single project. O’Connor supplied the engineering brains and Forrest, the political power which made the Coolgardie Water Scheme possible. However, there were many difficulties to be overcome and seven years were to pass before the first water reached Kalgoorlie.

The Coolgardie Water Supply Loan Bill, which called for the building of the Mundaring Weir and the pipeline to Coolgardie, had a stormy passage through Parliament. A score of criticisms were levelled against it. It is surprising that the people doubted the skill of O’Connor.

However, at no time did O’Connor mind criticism. He plunged into the details of the scheme, making surveys, taking levels, estimating costs and arranging to compensate the settlers whose holdings would be affected by damming of the water of the Helena River.

O’Connor had become interested in the invention of an Australian engineer, Mephan Ferguson, who developed a steel rivetless pipe with two joints along its length held together by a locking-bar.

The Engineer-in-Chief realised at once that this was the type of pipe to be used in a line, 300 miles long, much of which ran through dry, hot country. Millions of gallons would be lost through leakage if faulty pipes were used and O’Connor did not want to give the critics the slightest opportunity of saying, “I told you so!”

O’Connor was anxious to use these pipes and John Carruthers, a prominent English engineer and also consulting engineer to the Western Australian government, agreed. In addition, the locking-bar type allowed a slightly heavier steel to be used in the pipes, resulting in greater strength and cheaper pumping costs. The contract for their manufacture was evenly divided between two firms, Messrs G & C Hoskins, of Sydney, and Mephan Ferguson, of Melbourne, and factories were erected at Maylands and Midland Junction for assembling the pipes.

Each pipe consisted of two plates curved in semi-circles and held together on each side along their complete length by the locking-bar. This was a long double-grooved bar into which the burred edges of the plates were fitted and held tightly in position by clamps, while the locking-bars were closed by a machine which exerted terrific pressure. Before each pipe left the factory it was subjected to pressure test of 400 psi, and so effective was the locking-bar that very few faults were revealed.

Since the pipes would have to lie for years in soil which might contain corrosive acids, they were placed in a bath of asphalt and coal-tar and kept at boiling-point, then cooled with air and impregnated with sand.

The pipes were carried by train on two bogie-trucks coupled together, a total length of 30 feet. The pipes went out at a rate of about 100 per train.

Four gangs of men, six in each gang, met the train on its arrival. They had already prepared the pipe-trench and now came forward to unload the train. There was great rivalry between the gangs to see which could unload its section of three trucks in the shortest time. Quite frequently the complete unloading took less than an hour and the train was on its way back to Midland Junction for further supplies.

The pipes were now rolled into the trenches and fitted together. A ring eight inches wide and half an inch larger internally than the pipes externally was slipped over the joint, the space between the ring and the pipe being filled with lead and caulked by hand. To do this, the men stood in the trench on either side of the pipe and forced the lead with a hammer and cold chisel. From the start this was unsatisfactory, for these handmade joints showed slight sweats and pin-squirts when subjected to a water pressure of 400 psi. Moreover, it was slow, tedious work. Thus, by the end of December 1901, only 92 miles of pipes had been laid and jointed.

However, in the middle of 1899 a Perth firm invented a machine for caulking the joints. Six months later, after several improvements had been made, they offered to sell their patent rights to the Government.

The caulking-machine fitted round the joint in two halves, and could be wheeled along the tops of the pipes from joint to joint. The rims of the machine holding the caulking tools were revolved by an electric motor on top of the machine, driven by a dynamo through a cable, half a mile long. Thus the machine could caulk about 100 joints without having to shift the dynamo. Four men were employed in each machine, hand-caulking round the locking-bars. The lead for the caulking was melted in a pot on top of the pipes and run round the entire point.

At first the machines worked slowly because the men engaged on them were inexperienced. O’Connor was blamed for the delays which occurred, but as time passed the men became more experienced in the use of the machines and it was found that 31 joints could be caulked in a day at a cost of one shilling per joint less than hand-caulking. When the inventors of the caulking machine offered to finish the work privately in shorter time than the Government could do it and at a saving of 30,000 pounds, O’Connor recommended that their offer be accepted.

It was declared that O’Connor had been helping himself to public money, or that the company which had offered to complete the machine-caulking must have paid him to recommend that their offer be accepted. O’Connor returned from Adelaide, unaffected by the criticism. He could produce facts and figures. He had nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. He loved a fight and would show the critics that they were mistaken.

Eventually however the fight went out of him. He was tired of all the wrangling and bitterness. Perhaps he would not have minded the attack upon the Water Scheme, knowing full well that he could show that he was right. In the past he had been accused of making mistakes, of dreaming impossible things, but never before had he been accused of dishonesty.

On Monday morning, 10 March 1902, O’Connor mounted his horse and left his home at East Fremantle for his usual early morning ride. As a rule he was accompanied by his daughter and they rode along the shore to South Beach and back. On this day, however, he rode alone. He did not return alive. At half-past seven a boy found his horse near Robb’s Jetty. Tired of the constant criticism, racked by the torture of sleepless nights, and sick at heart because of the wicked lies that had been circulated, O’Connor had taken his own life.

In a letter found later in his study he said: “The position has become impossible. I feel that my brain is suffering, and I am in great fear of what effect all this worry may have on me. I have lost control of my thoughts.

“The Coolgardie Scheme is all right and I would finish it if I got the chance and protection from misrepresentation. But there is no hope for that now. It is better that it should be given to some entirely new man to do.” The country was shocked by his death.

The project grew and grew until the water finally flowed on 24 January 1903 into the reservoir constructed at Mt. Charlotte near Coolgardie. Forrest turned a silver valve head that sent water flowing on to Kalgoorlie. There were huge celebrations with congratulations all round. Gone were the doubting Thomases and vindictive critics.

More than seven years had passed since Forrest had accepted O’Connor’s plans and estimates of some 2,500,000 pounds to construct the project. Initial consumption at the Goldfields proved to be some 1,260,000 gallons daily.

Today, some 9 million gallons daily flow through the concept delivered by O’Connor.

Reprinted with permission in edited version from “The Story of the Pipeline” by John K Ewers.