Faiz and Tagh Mohamet Camel Proprietary Store heritage sign in Cue
Stories Above the Street  •  Cue

Faiz & Tagh Mohamet

Camel proprietors, merchants and carriers whose business helped connect Cue and the Murchison before the railway changed everything.

Before rail, the camel was king

Their business carried the supplies that kept new goldfields towns alive.

Faiz and Tagh Mahomet were among the most significant camel proprietors operating in Western Australia during the gold rush years. Their enterprise combined camel transport, stores, water supply and forwarding services across some of the driest country in the colony.

Cue became one of their Murchison bases. By the mid-1890s the brothers had established a store here as part of a much wider network that also reached Day Dawn, Mullewa, Geraldton and the Eastern Goldfields.

At a glance
Business: Faiz & Tagh Mahomet
Trade: Camel proprietors, carriers & merchants
Western Australia: from 1892
Cue office/store: operating by the mid-1890s
Advertised stores: Cue & Day Dawn
Tagh Mahomet: died 1896
Faiz Mahomet: died c.1910
Historic evidence from Cue

The recreated sign comes straight from the historical record.

A surviving published photograph of the brothers' Cue Office shows FAIZ & TAGH MAHOMET across the façade and CAMEL PROPRIETARY STORE across the verandah. A contemporary advertisement uses almost the same wording and identifies their stores at Cue and Day Dawn.

Historic photograph of the Faiz and Tagh Mahomet Camel Proprietary Store, captioned Cue Office
Historic image captioned “Cue Office”. The original façade carries the names Faiz & Tagh Mahomet and the words Camel Proprietary Store.
Historic advertisement for Faiz and Tagh Mahomet Camel Proprietary Stores at Cue and Day Dawn
Period advertising for the Camel Proprietary Stores, Cue and Day Dawn, describing Faiz & Tagh Mahomet as merchants and carriers.
What the advertisement offered

The business promoted special inducements to prospecting and exploring parties and claimed the largest stock on the Murchison to select from.

Machinery and goods could be forwarded across the field, while camels were offered for sale and hire.

They also advertised timber and building materials, showing just how broad the operation had become.

The advertisement names E. Duesbury as local manager and gives the firm's head office at Post Office Chambers, Marine Terrace, Geraldton.

More than a store

The shopfront was only one part of a much larger transport operation.

The Mahomet brothers' business existed because remote mining settlements needed almost everything brought in from somewhere else. Camels could travel long distances with far less water than horses and bullocks, making them exceptionally well suited to the inland goldfields.

TRANSPORT

Camel carrying

Their camel trains moved food, equipment, building materials, mail and other supplies between railheads, ports and inland mining settlements.

STORES

Goods where they were needed

Shops and depots at places such as Cue and Day Dawn allowed the brothers to combine carrying with the sale and distribution of supplies.

WATER

A lifeline in dry country

Their operations also depended on water. The brothers developed wells and condensers along camel routes, helping make long-distance transport possible.

Cue • 1890s

One of Austin Street's earliest business stories.

A contemporary account says the firm began Western Australian operations in 1892 and chose the Murchison district as its base. Faiz obtained a large quantity of merchandise in South Australia and had it transported from Geraldton to Cue.

On that journey he also took a large party of miners inland free of charge. The surviving Cue Office photograph and the brothers' advertising then place their store firmly within Cue's early commercial streetscape.

This was more than a shop. Cue was one point in a transport and supply network linking Geraldton, the Murchison and the rapidly expanding inland goldfields.

A business built around camels

The brothers arrived with the transport system the goldfields urgently needed.

Faiz had already spent years working with camels in South Australia before entering partnership with his younger brother Tagh. In 1892 their business expanded into Western Australia with hundreds of camels and experienced cameleers at a time when new goldfields settlements were growing faster than roads, railways or reliable water supplies could keep up.

1892

Western Australia

Faiz and Tagh Mahomet established themselves in Western Australia as the gold rush created intense demand for inland transport.

MID-1890s

A branch network

Their camel stations and stores stretched across the Murchison and Eastern Goldfields, including Cue and Day Dawn.

RAILWAY ERA

The market changes

As railways pushed deeper into the goldfields, much of the long-distance freight work that had sustained the camel carriers began to disappear.

Jamadar Faiz Mahomet with his son Gholam Mahomet in a historical newspaper portrait
Jamadar Faiz Mahomet and his son Gholam Mahomet, reproduced in a contemporary newspaper feature.
Known as the miners' friend

When miners were stranded, Faiz sent camels, flour and water.

A contemporary profile records that small mining camps sometimes faced famine in the arid interior. Faiz responded by sending camel teams loaded with flour and water and bringing men back to goldfields towns without charging them.

The report says that when the Government invited him to submit his expenses for these rescue journeys, he refused reimbursement. His camel drivers were also instructed never to refuse food, water or a ride to safety to miners found in distress.

It is a much more personal side to a business usually remembered for freight and camels — and helps explain why the same newspaper described Faiz as widely respected across the goldfields.

10 January 1896

The partnership ended violently at Coolgardie.

Tagh Mahomet was shot while at prayer in the Coolgardie Mosque in January 1896.

His killer, Goulam Mahomet, was convicted of the murder and later executed at Fremantle Prison. Faiz subsequently bought out his brother's estate and continued the enterprise alone.

The killing removed one half of a partnership that had become one of the best-known camel transport businesses in Western Australia.

Faiz after the partnership

Business success did not protect him from the laws and prejudice of the time.

Faiz continued in business after Tagh's death, but financial setbacks and the changing transport economy weakened the enterprise.

Despite decades in Australia and the scale of his contribution to inland transport, his application for naturalisation was refused. He later became an important supporter of Western Australia's Muslim community.

In 1905 Faiz laid the foundation stone of the Perth Mosque after helping raise funds for its construction. He later returned overseas and died around 1910.

An enduring legacy

Their name remains in Western Australia.

The Mahomet brothers are now recognised for helping open transport and supply routes across the inland goldfields. Geraldton's suburb of Mahomets takes its name from the brothers' former camel grazing grounds.

Faiz and Tagh Mohamet Camel Proprietary Store sign displayed in Cue
Stories Above the Street

A camel above Austin Street tells a much bigger story.

The recreated sign carries the names Faiz & Tagh Mohamet and the words Camel Proprietary Store, with the camel itself sitting proudly above the shopfront.

It is not simply a reference to an unusual form of transport. The brothers' business was part of the infrastructure that made places such as Cue possible before railway transport reached the district.

The sign returns one of the Shire's earliest migrant business stories to the street where the brothers once traded.

Historical note

The historic Cue Office photograph and period advertising directly confirm the business name Faiz & Tagh Mahomet and the wording Camel Proprietary Store / Stores. Historical sources most commonly record the brothers as Faiz and Tagh Mahomet, although spellings including Mahomed, Mohamet and Mohamed also occur in contemporary and later records. The Stories Above the Street sign uses Mohamet, and that spelling is retained in the page title to match the sign. The wording “Camel Proprietary Store” is treated here as the wording of the recreated heritage sign; historical records more broadly describe the brothers as camel proprietors, carriers, forwarding agents, merchants and storekeepers. Sources used for this page include the Australian Dictionary of Biography, State Library of Western Australia, Western Australian Museum, Shire of Cue historical material and published research into the Muslim cameleers of Western Australia.

Stories Above the Street

Before the railway, the road to Cue was carried on camel back.

Faiz and Tagh Mahomet were merchants, carriers and camel proprietors whose network helped move the food, water and equipment demanded by Western Australia's rapidly expanding goldfields. Their Cue store belonged to the earliest years of Austin Street — and the camel above the shopfront now puts their remarkable story back into the streetscape.