Claude de Bernales

Claude de Bernales
de Bernales in 1935 (?)
Born	31 May 1876 Brixton, London
Died	9 December 1963 Chelsea, London
Occupation	mining promoter
Spouse(s)	Bessie Picken Berry, Helen Florence Berry (née Halse)
Children	Beryl (d. 1923), Daphne Isobel Albo, Elizabeth Marguerita Albo (Betty)
Parent(s)	Manuel Edgar Albo de Bernales, Emma Jane Belden

Claude Albo de Bernales (31 May 1876 – 9 December 1963) was a Western Australian mining entrepreneur whose business activities and marketing did much to stimulate investment in Western Australia during the early years of the twentieth century. During the 1930s gold production in the State increased from £1,600,000 to £11,800,000 and employment in the industry quadrupled due in considerable part to de Bernales' marketing of the goldfields to overseas investors.

De Bernales accumulated immense wealth through complex and elaborate schemes by which he acquired many mining companies and attracted overseas investment and personal support. In the latter part of his life however, financial difficulties and ill-health saw him live as a recluse in Selsey, Sussex.

De Bernales was born in Brixton, London, the son of a Syracuse, New York-born Basque, Manuel Edgar Albo de Bernales, and his American wife Emma Jane, née Belden. He was educated at a variety of schools in the USA, Britain and Europe, including one year (1891) at Uppingham School in Rutland in the East Midlands of England, and later at Neuenheim College (now called Heidelberg College) in Heidelberg in the Rhineland, Germany.

In 1897 de Bernales emigrated to the Western Australian goldfields, drawn like many other European immigrants to the lure of the gold rush of the region.

His first job was running Western Machinery Company, Limited, which supplied and financed various mining machinery purchases for the hundreds of large and small gold mining companies in the region.

On 19 May 1903 de Bernales married Bessie Picken Berry at Kalgoorlie.

His business contacts continued to expand and in 1909 became managing director of a major mining plant supplier, Kalgoorlie Foundry, Ltd. In 1911, he purchased a Federation Queen Anne style house in Cottesloe, renaming it Overton Lodge after the house in Brixton, London, where he was born. In 1938 he redeveloped it into an ostentatious Inter-war Spanish Mission style mansion. The house and its grounds are now the Cottesloe Civic Centre. In 1912 he became a director of foundry operators Hoskins & Co, Ltd in Perth.