Paddy the Flat; a bookkeeper extraordinaire

The Australian bush is known for eccentric, resourceful characters; particularly in the pioneering days when Europeans first settled in remote areas.

Paddy the Flat, as he was known, had a bakery, store and unlicensed pub at Nullagine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. After gold was discovered in the area in 1886, the town boomed.

Paddy was part of its rapid growth and we only know of his quirky bookkeeping skills because of the area’s Gold Warden, William Lambden Owen.

Warden Owen spent several decades in the Pilbara, as well as the Kalgoorlie region, and around Bunbury, resolving disputes primarily about gold mining. He also had authority, along with Justices of the Peace, in other legal matters.

He wrote two books about his time as a public servant: Cossack Gold (about the Pilbara) and Early Days of Menzies (of his time north of Kalgoorlie).

Squarely built

Warden Owen’s description of Paddy the Flat and his actions starts:

He was an Irishman, sinewy and spare; in height some five feet ten inches; broad in proportion; so squarely built as to look almost flat from the front; erect as a wooden soldier; and impassive as a North American Indian. He was also a genius who expressed himself through a diary.

Flat from the front! That explains how Paddy got his name!

Warden Owen goes on to describe in detail Paddy the Flat’s ingenious method of keeping his books.

Why ingenious?

Even though Paddy could not write he could keep figures. And he had a unique way of using illustrations which explained the amounts owed to him; and by whom.

He guarded his diaries so fiercely that Warden Owen had to coax him to share his “secrets” in adjudicating on a dispute.

The issue arose after Warden Owen brought a sick man to stay at Paddy’s “groggery” for a time. But the man did not pay Paddy the agreed amount for his stay there.

Warden Owen relates some of the dialogue that followed:

Warden: “I understand,” I said, “that you keep books?”
Paddy: “Yes, your Hanna.”
Warden: ”Well, produce them.”
Paddy: “Your Hanna, you’ll never understand them.”
Warden: “Well, I’ll get you to explain them. I must have documentary evidence to prove your debt, otherwise shall have to enter judgment for the defendant with costs.”

That got Paddy’s attention, so he opened up his books and began explaining his numbers and what the accompanying illustrations meant.

Stick man, sick man

Warden Owen looked at a drawing of a “stick man” lying down and asked what it meant.

Paddy: “Sure, your Hanna, that’s the defendant.”
Warden: “How do I know that?”
Paddy: “Can’t you see he’s a sick man! And didn’t your Hanna bring him to my camp on a stretcher?”

Warden Owen then understood how Paddy correlated the drawing with the amount due to him by the now-recovered man.

But there was more to follow.

He then asked Paddy to explain what he (the Warden) owed the Irishman. Quickly he turned to another drawing of a stick-man with items strewn around him.

Now fascinated and marvelling at Paddy’s methods, Warden Owen laughed inwardly at his explanation:

Paddy: “That’s your Hanna’s cook in his kitchen with the pots and pans all round him.”
Warden: “What does he owe you?”
Paddy: “Sure, he got two loaves of bread yesterday. There are the figures.”

If the hat fits

But there was more to follow. Paddy then showed a drawing of a hat.

Warden Owen asked who it represented.

Paddy: “Sure, it’s your Hanna’s own self. Doesn’t your Hanna always wear a big hat?”

Warden Owen was both bemused and amused in equal measure and mightily impressed with Paddy’s unorthodox yet highly effective way of record-keeping.

Another drawing shocked Warden Owen. It was of a stick-man on the gallows

Who was it? Paddy didn’t disappoint with his explanation:

Paddy: “German Bill, your Hanna.”
Warden: “But why on a gallows? He’s a fine man.”
Paddy: “Yes, your Hanna. But his face would hang him in any country but this.”

Warden Owen was so impressed that he tried to buy Paddy’s books. Paddy refused.

“I fancy he felt somewhat indignant that I had forced him to produce them,” Warden Owen concluded.

Cossack Gold can be downloaded from the Western Australian library website as a pdf from this link.

I’m not the first to write about Paddy. In 2010, Peter J Bridge published Paddy the Flat: The life of Patrick Leahey Australian hero, prospector, publican, and fighter for Digger rights. Click here for more information on that book

 

Bully-beef and bread