Alan Dale Telfer

Born: 27 Oct 1890 (Tantanoola, SA) | Died: 13 Sep 1937 (Wilga Tank, Girilambone, NSW) | Mother: Martha Clara Henstridge (1854–1921) | Father: John Telfer (1840–1913) | Occupation: Coalminer / Ganger (railway labor) | Buried: Unknown (Girilambone district)

Family

Life Summary

Alan Dale Telfer was born on 27 October 1890 in Tantanoola, South Australia, the 13th child of John Telfer (1840–1913) and his second wife Martha Clara Henstridge.

He never married. During the Great Depression of the 1920s-1930s, Alan migrated far from the agricultural safety of South Australia's Limestone Coast to the interior of New South Wales. He found work as a ganger (railway labor foreman) and coalminer — a gruelling and highly itinerant profession that took him deep into the state's central-west.

Death — Resolved (NSW Government Gazette)

Alan's fate was a long-standing mystery in the Telfer family tree. The resolution came via an NSW Government Gazette intestate estate notice, which confirmed:

Alan Dale Telfer, late of Wilga Tank, Girilambone, in the State of New South Wales, died intestate on 13 September 1937.

Girilambone and the associated Wilga Tank area was a remote railway siding and copper mining outpost in central-western New South Wales. His death there, without a will, paints a picture of a rugged, transient, and likely impoverished life in his final years — a stark contrast to the settled farming life of his Tantanoola siblings.

His exact burial location is unknown but likely in the Girilambone district.

Timeline

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