Book Review - Lasseter's Gold by Warren Brown

 Lasseter's Gold by Warren Brown

Sydney, Hachette Australia, 2015         ISBN 9780733631603

The Lasseter story is never-ending: so much has been written about the man and the expedition to find his gold over the years; films have been made (Lasseter's Bones is well-worth watching), all trying to unravel the mystery that surrounds Lasseter's claim of a reef of gold over ten miles long in the middle of the Australian desert.

I have reviewed Dream Millions, the book written by the first leader of the Central Australian Gold Exploration Syndicate (CAGE) Fred Blakely, and read bits and pieces over the years, but this book by Warren Brown is a well-written entertaining and up-to-date exposition of the entire saga, taking into account current knowledge.

Harold Lasseter (who went by several names) was an interesting man. He enlisted twice in the AIF in World War One, and was discharged as medically unfit both times - once for "mental deficiency", with the Army claiming he was delusional. This may in fact be the key to everything that comes after.

His claim, sent to the government just as the Great Depression was beginning to bite in Australia (and it bit hard) that as a young man he had discovered a gold-bearing reef in Central Australia that was unimaginably rich, hit a chord in trying times. Although the Government did not act on his claim, a report that didn't completely damn it was picked up by the head of the Australian Worker's Union John Bailey, who quickly formed the CAGE and planned how to spend his millions.

Fred Blakely was chosen as the leader of the CAGE not only because he was an experienced bushman, but also because his brother was a minister in the Federal Government. Brown explains that he was not temperamentally cut out to lead a disparate group, especially when both Lasseter and Errol Coote, the pilot, almost immediately set out to discredit him with the shareholders of the company.

Brown explains that the CAGE was the first such expedition into the Centre that relied exclusively on motorized transport - a Moth biplane, and Thornycroft and Chevrolet trucks were made available to transport people and equipment to the site of the reef. Blakely was proven right when he suggested that a properly sorted camel train would be far more effective. The Thornycroft truck in particular proved troublesome, and the 'plane was worse than useless.

In the end, Blakely had enough evidence to convince himself that Lasseter's claims were fraudulent, and he left him to find the reef himself, in the company of Paul Johns, a mysterious German-born bushman, who happened to turn up at the CAGE base camp with a camel train. Brown spends quite a bit of the latter part of the book trying to delve into the mysteries of who was doing what, and suggests quite plausibly, that Lasseter had ensured Johns would appear at the right time with camels to help him continue his quest - it seems likely at any rate that Johns knew where to find him.

What is clear to me from reading this book, and from other sources, is that Lasseter's claims were completely baseless. Brown shows through the evidence that it was simply not possible for Lasseter's story about how he originally found the reef to be true. He may have heard stories about other claims to have found a reef (the mysterious Johansen enters the picture here) and decided to try it on. What is unclear, even after reading this book, is Lasseter's motivation. As a con-man, getting a regular wage from CAGE while he was out searching was something, but then why he continued on after Blakely left him is a mystery. Most people who dealt with him in the Centre realised that he was not an experienced bushman, so why he put himself in such a dangerous position is the over-riding mystery. Did he in the end finally delude himself? We'll never know.

Why have so many people spent so much treasure and time following Lasseter's trail, at the time and even into the present? Brown sums it up in one word: greed. The lure of gold has an effect on men that is hard to credit, and Lasseter's claim of a reef worth a king's ransom was something that people couldn't just leave be.

Brown's book is a comprehensive story of both Lasseter, and the story of the CAGE syndicate. It is a worthy addition to the bibliography of Lasseter (although this is the first book I've read where the bibliography is in alphabetical order by title....not useful!).

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell