Underground memories
I APPRECIATED the story of the Mount Mulligan mine disaster (AG 167). My great uncle Ernie Riseley was one of the miners who died in the 1921 explosion.
Ernest William George Riseley was born in Launceston in 1889. He was the great-grandson of Henry Randall Riseley, an English convict transported to Port Arthur in 1821 for stealing a horse. After escaping Port Arthur, Henry was recaptured and sent to the hellish Sarah Island penal settlement. He was one of the last convicts to leave when it closed in 1833. Henry was pardoned in 1845 and went on to become a successful businessman in Launceston.
Ernie’s family moved to Gormanston in about 1904 when the Mount Lyell copper mine was being developed and Ernie got a job as an underground miner. He was working at the mine at the time of the North Lyell disaster in 1912 but was not on shift when the fire started that ultimately killed 42 miners.
Ernie enlisted in the AIF
