Victorian gold rush
Nerrena Fossickers in Nerrena Creek outside Ballarat Overview[edit] The Victorian Gold Discovery Committee wrote in 1854: The discovery of the Victorian Goldfields has converted a remote dependency into a country of world wide fame; it has attracted a population, extraordinary in number, with unprecedented rapidity; it has enhanced the value of property to an enormous extent; it has made this the richest country in the world; and, in less than three years, it has done for this colony the work of an age, and made its impulses felt in the most distant regions of the earth.[3] For a number of years the gold output from Victoria was greater than in any other country in the world with the exception of the more extensive fields of California. Gold was first discovered in Australia on 15 February 1823, by assistant surveyor James McBrien, at Fish River, between Rydal and Bathurst (in New South Wales). Melbourne was a major boomtown during the gold rush. Background[edit] Gold discovered[edit] Dr.
The Australian Gold Rush
www.patricktaylor.com | articles First published April 28th, 2006 The Australian Gold Rush - Diggers (State Library of NSW) Many people associate the Gold Rush with California or the Klondike, but the Australian gold rush remains the world's richest. The discovery of Australian gold Isolated gold finds had been reported in New South Wales since the 1820s, but it was another thirty years before a fully-fledged gold rush would take its hold on the British penal colonies in Australia. In February 1851 Hargraves took his pan and rocking-cradle and with his guide, John Lister, set out on horseback to Lewes Pond Creek, a tributary of the Macquarie River close to Bathurst. Word spread quickly and within a few days 100 diggers were frantically tunnelling for instant wealth. Edward Hargraves did not make a fortune from gold. The discovery in New South Wales and the resulting rush of labour from the adjoining state of Victoria prompted the Governor of Victoria, Charles J. The British perspective
Australian Gold Rush: 1850
The bonanza in California was only the beginning. An Australian named Edward Hammond Hargraves, who had been there, was certain that the same geological features were to be found in his own country. Returning on the boat from California late in 1850, he predicted that he would find gold within a week. The news of the fresh gold field reached England, along with the first gold, aboard the Thomas Arbuthnot. In fact, Hargraves had touched only the fringe of Australian gold. Other secondary rushes followed.
The Australian gold rush
JCF Johnson, A Game of Euchre, col. wood engraving, Australasian Sketcher Supplement [Melbourne], 25 December, 1876. Image courtesy of the : nla.pic-an8927787. The gold rushes of the nineteenth century and the lives of those who worked the goldfields - known as '' - are etched into our national . There is no doubt that the gold rushes had a huge effect on the Australian economy and our development as a nation. The camaraderie and '' that developed between diggers on the goldfields is still integral to how we - and others - perceive ourselves as Australians. Indeed, mateship and defiance of authority have been central to the way our history has been told. Even today, nothing evokes more widespread national pride than groups of irreverent Aussie 'blokes' beating the English at cricket, or any other sport for that matter! It is this early flowering of a national identity that makes any study of the gold rush days so intriguing. The discovery that changed a nation Gold frenzy Racism Vindication
Chinese at the Australian Goldfields
Chinese at the Australian Goldfields At the time that news about the Australian goldrush reached China in 1853, the country had been suffering from years of war and famine. In order to raise money for the fare to Australia, a man would take a loan from a local trader, agreeing to make regular repayments. His wife and children stayed behind, and worked for the trader if the man was unable to repay the money he had borrowed. To reach Melbourne, it was a journey of several months by ship in cramped conditions. A village in China When the Chinese arrived at the goldfields, they stayed together in large teams with a head man in charge. There was ignorance about Chinese customs and culture, and the Chinese seemed very strange and different to the European diggers. In an attempt to limit the number of Chinese at the goldfields, a law was passed in 1885 that any Chinese person entering Victoria would pay ten pounds tax, and one pound for a protection fee, the right to mine and live in the colony.
Gold rush history - Australia's Golden Outback
The Western Australian gold rush began with the first discovery of gold in the late 1890s. News of the gold spread as fast as the region’s wildfires and soon gold prospectors were arriving to seek their fortune and set up gold rush towns in the dusty landscapes of the Kalgoorlie, Goldfields and Murchison regions. They came slowly at first, but as the finds grew so too did the population. Lonely clusters of tents and rough bough sheds were soon transformed into booming Western Australian gold rush towns. Many of the original townships remain and though the populations are not as huge, the character buildings and museums provide a fascinating glimpse into the wild and colourful spirit of the gold rush era. Take a journey of discovery, starting at the Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame in Kalgoorlie-Boulder and visiting some of the region’s many museums.
1853 Gold Mining Licence | Australia's migration history timeline | NSW Migration Heritage Centre
Era: 1840 - 1900Cultural background: Chinese, EnglishCollection: Powerhouse MuseumTheme:Gold Government Labour Movement Miners Riots Settlement Licence for gold mining, 1853. Courtesy of the Powerhouse Museum Collection Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia. Object Name Gold Mining Licence. Object/Collection Description Licence for gold mining, framed, paper / wood / glass, issued to J McDonnell, printed by John Ferres, Government Printing Office, Victoria, Australia, 1853. In March 1851, Edward Hargraves wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald to announce that he had found payable gold just outside the New South Wales town of Bathurst. Lambing Flat miners’ camp, c.1860s Courtesy State Library of New South Wales With so many people leaving for the gold fields, many businesses found it hard to keep operating. Although there were some remarkable discoveries on the gold fields, few people made their fortune and most drifted back to towns and cities looking for work. Bibliography Websites
Australian Gold Rush
In fact they only got worse. A powerfully disruptive hysteria seemed to grip the State along with the rest of the country. Farmhands simply left their employers with harvests they could no longer reap and thousands of workers fled Melbourne leaving empty industries in their wake. Wages tripled due to scarce labour. To raise money, many property owners put their houses on the market. But as there was no one interested in buying, house prices collapsed. Luckily however, this was not to last. And of course, lucky miners returning from the gold fields spent extravagantly easing the pressure on the suffering Melbourne. The incredible wealth that poured out of Victoria was unthinkable. Robert Coupe says in his book Australia's Gold Rushes (New Holland, 2000) that: "When the first reports of gold in the colonies were published in English newspapers late in 1851, few took much notice. This wealth brought many imports and improvements to Australia.
