Wentworth D'Arcy Uhr

Wentworth D'Arcy Uhr (31 October 1845 – 18 February 1907) was a noted Australian gold prospector. Born at Wivenhoe station, Moreton Bay, Uhr served as a police officer with the Queensland Police between 1866 and 1869, and then spent his time cattle driving. He pioneered the Gulf-McArthur-Katherine route, and was the first to strike gold at Pine Creek in 1872.^[1]

Mixing cattle farming with gold prospecting, Uhr travelled Queensland and the Northern Territory before settling on the Goyder River managing a gold station there. He gained a reputation as "a fearless and competent bushman who had little sympathy for natives" after brushes with hostile Australian Aboriginals. In 1883 he led reprisals against an Aboriginal population for the murder of a stockman.^[1] He won damages in 1885 to the value of 3,000 Pounds sterling after a wrongful arrest for cattle theft, and from then on followed the Australian gold rush from Western Australia to Coolgardie where he founded the D'Arcy Uhr Goldmining Co.^[1]

He expanded his portfolio by founding Butcher and Uhr, and settled in Coolgardie with his wife Jane Hayes. However he was widowed after the couple had two children, and he remarried Myra Essie Thompson. He died in Coolgardie and was given a lavish public funeral. His grandson, Clive Uhr, would become a noted radiologist and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.^[2]

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