William Ford (prospector)

William Ford (* 1852 in Wickliffe at Ballarat, † November 1932 ) was a gold prospector in Australia. After numerous unsuccessful attempts he was little with his partner Arthur Wellesley Bayley gold in 1892 on the goldfields of Coolgardie in Western Australia.

In 1883, Ford spent a year working in the mines and then for a time in the Northern Territory and in the Gulf Country. He found gold at Croydon in Queensland, where he met the prospectors Arthur Bayley, with whom he worked as a junior partner of 16 years.

After he had sold his shares in the Golden Queen Mine in Queensland, he moved to Victoria to Broken Hill, where he worked in a mine in 1888. After a brief stay in New Guinea, he came across Queensland to Western Australia, which he reached in 1889, where he worked in various mines. In 1892 he met Bayley again and they were planning a joint search for gold, which failed because the horses ate poisonous grass. Ford and Bayley went on a further search in the area of Southern Cross on Mount Burges. Bayley and Ford found there 200 ounces of gold over a period of five to six weeks. According to Bayley Ford was the first to found a gold nugget in a stone block of quartz in a place of Fly Flat is called. Three months later, on September 17, 1892, Bayley returned 554 ounces of gold ( 15.7 kg ) to Southern Cross, bringing the gold rush began.

Bayley secured with his partner, a claim of 20 acres at Fly Flat. Two months later, in the middle of November, a few hundred prospectors were already on the gold field. Bayley and Ford had worried the water required for panning for gold from the rocks 20 km west when Gnarlbine rock and from a twelve kilometer journey waterhole. Water was as precious as gold. This gold box was supplied only in 1903 with enough water through the Golden Pipeline.

Bayley and Ford sold their claim in the late 1892 or early 1893 years for £ 36,000 and a £ 4,000 stake in the new company. For this field 500,000 ounces gold have been mined in 70 years until its closure.

Ford left after the sale of the gold field and died at November 1932.

Today, the main street of Coolgardie bears his name.