Pryke, prospector and miner, was the seventh child of John Pryke, an English miner, and his Irish wife, Catherine nee Mongan. He grew up in the Goulburn area and joined his brother, Dan, prospecting in Western Australia and, in 1896, New Guinea. For the next ten years they were involved in gold mining and in 1909 led a government-funded expedition inland from the Gulf of Papua. They led another expedition in 1911 and Frank was shot in the chest with an arrow while attempting to make friendly contact with local tribesmen. He survived and in 1914 joined a prospecting party up the Fly River financed by Sir Rupert Clarke. Pryke worked as a billiard-saloon proprietor, publican and storekeeper on his return to Australia. His brother died in Belgium in 1917. In 1925 Pryke married Ina Sarah Mingay Cruickshank at Coogee, Sydney but went gold mining in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea in 1926 for the last time. This allowed him to retire in comfort.
Pryke read the Sydney Bulletin and the North Queensland Register during his prospecting and wrote verse. Nelson (1988) argues that 'his most valuable writings were his brief diaries and his numerous letters to Dan. Direct and unpretentious, the letters are a unique record of the miners' methods and attitudes.'
(Source: Adapted from H. N. Nelson, 'Pryke, Frank (1872 - 1937)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, MUP, 1988, p. 304).
