Dead Man’s Pennies

Dead Man’s Penny

Yesterday, on the ABC radio, we heard some ladies had found a Dead man’s penny at the Longreach RSL Club. Well we have a bit of a story to tell about one too.

A couple of Christmases ago our youngest, Angela gave Greg a strange present – it was a Dead man’s penny with the name George Ernest Sherwin written on it. George would be Greg’s great uncle and died in 1918 of his wounds in France. Well Greg was dumfounded to say the least having never heard of Dead man’s pennies before. It transpired that the manager of Mt Margaret Station and his wife had found the Dead man’s penny on the rubbish dump. Mt Margaret is near Eromanga and Quilpie in SW Qld.

 The penny is not in pristine condition having been burnt but it is bronze and did survive, the engravings are all still visible and it has no dents or scratches on it. Evidently the manager or his wife knew Angela through the work she was doing in the area at that time and as her surname was Sherwin they contacted her and gave her the penny.

 It was George’s brother who had worked on Mt Margaret many, many years ago, he must have had the penny in his possion.  When he died from being run over by a train in Quilpie whoever was at Mt Margaret must have eventually thrown his belongings onto the dump and that penny was just sitting there all those years waiting to be found. If those people had not known Angela we would probably never have known about the penny and would not now have it in our possession. So thank you very much Anne Whiteman and Peter who recently passed away at a far too young age. Our condolences, it was a very tragic accident.

And I’ve just remembered, it’s Anzac Day today, so quite fitting that I put this post up!  Serendipitous!

George Ernest Sherwin