Australian gold rushes

The Australian Gold Rush was a period of significant migration of workers, both more locally and from overseas, to areas which had discoveries of gold deposits. There were a number of discoveries of gold in Australia prior to 1851, but it is only the discoveries from 1851 onwards which created gold rushes. This is mainly because, prior to 1851, the colonial government of New South Wales (Victoria did not become a separate colony until 1 July 1851, and Tasmania did not become a separate colony until 1856) had suppressed news of gold finds which it believed would reduce the workforce and destablise the economy. It was only after the Californian Gold Rush, which began in 1848, caused gold prospectors to move from Australia to the United States that the New South Wales government rethought its position, sought approval of the Colonial Office in England to allow the exploitation of the mineral resources and also offered rewards for payable gold to be found.

The discovery of gold in payable quantities was an epoch-making event in Australian history, for as one writer aptly phrases it, this event "precipitated Australia into nationhood." A reference to the population figures prior and subsequent to the year 1851 amply demonstrates this fact. Thus on 3lst December, 1841, the population of the Commonwealth was only 220,968; at the end of 1851 it was still under half a million, viz., 437,665, while by the end of 1861 the had reached 1,168,149 persons, that is, the population had quintupled itself in twenty years.

The first gold rush in Australia began in May 1851 after prospector Edward Hargraves claimed the discovery of payable gold near Bathurst, New South Wales at a site he called Ophir. Hargraves was offered a reward by both the Colony of New South Wales and the Colony of Victoria. Before the end of the year the gold rush had spread to many other parts of the state where gold had been found, not just to the west, but also to the south and north of Sydney.

In July 1851 Victoria's first gold rush began on the Clunes goldfield. In August the gold rush had spread to include the goldfield at Buninyong (today a suburb of Ballarat) 45km (28m) away and, by early September 1851, to the nearby goldfield at Ballarat (then also known as Yuille's Diggings), followed in early September to the goldfield at Castlemaine (then known as Forest Creek and the Mount Alexander Goldfield) and the goldfield at Bendigo (then known as Bendigo Creek) in November 1851. Gold, just as in New South Wales, was also found in many other parts of the state. 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 in age, and made its impulses felt in the most distant regions of the earth.

The gold rushes caused large influxes of prospectors from overseas resulting in mass international immigration. Australia's total population more than tripled from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871. Australia first became multi-cultural during the gold rush period. The non-European immigrants, however, were unwelcomed, especially the Chinese.

The Chinese were particularly industrious, with techniques that differed widely from the Europeans. This and their physical appearance and fear of the unknown led to them to being persecuted in a racist way that would be regarded as untenable today.

Aborigines as well as Chinese immigrants were especially identified in population statistics. Chinese travelling outside of New South Wales had to obtain special re-entry certificates. Victoria had much more restrictive anti-Chinese legislation and thousands of Chinese miners crossed from Victoria to New South Wales after the major gold finds in New South Wales in the mid-1850s.

In 1885, following a call by the Western Australian government for a reward for the first find of payable gold, a discovery was made at Halls Creek, sparking a gold rush in that state.

Pre-rush gold finds

1788: A Hoax

In August 1788 convict James Daley reported to several people the discovery of gold, "an inexhausible source of wealth", "some distance down the harbour (Port Jackson, Sydney)". On the pretence of showing an officer the position of his discovery Daley escaped into the bush. For this escapade Daley was to receive 50 lashes. Still insisting that he had found gold Daley next produced a specimen of gold-ore. Governor Phillip then ordered Daley to again be taken down the harbour to point out where he had found the gold. Before being taken down the harbour, however, on being warned by an officer that he would be put to death if he attempted to deceive him, Daley confessed that his story about finding gold was "a falsehood". He had manufactured the specimen of gold-ore that he had exhibited from a gold guinea and a brass buckle and he produced the remains of the same as proof. For this deception Daley received 100 lashes. Many convicts, however, continued to believe that Daley had indeed found gold, and that he had only changed his story to keep the place of the discovery to himself. James Daley's fate was to hang in December that same year (1788) for breaking and entering and theft.

1815: Blue Mountains, New South Wales

Some convicts who were employed cutting a road over the Blue Mountains were rumoured to have found small pieces of gold in 1815.

1820: Blue Mountains, New South Wales

F. Stein was a Russian naturalist with the 1819-1821 Bellinhausen expedition to explore the Southern Ocean. Stein claimed to have sighted gold-bearing ore while he was on a 12-day trip to the Blue Mountains in 1820. Many people were sceptical of his claim.

1823: Bathurst region, New South Wales

Gold was first officially discovered in Australia on 15 February 1823, by assistant surveyor James McBrien, at Fish River, between Rydal and Bathurst (in New South Wales). McBrien noted in his field survey book:

At E. (End of the survey line) 1 chain 50 links to river and marked a gum tree. At this place I found numerous particles of gold convenient to river.

1834: Monaro district, New South Wales

In 1834 with government help John Lhotsky travelled to the Monaro district of New South Wales and explored its southern mountains. On returning to Sydney in that same year he exhibited specimens that he had collected that contained gold.

1839: Bathurst region, New South Wales

Paweł Edmund Strzelecki geologist and explorer, discovered small amounts of gold in silicate in 1839 at the Vale of Clwyd near Hartley, a location on the road to Bathurst.

1840: Lefroy, Tasmania

Gold is believed to have been discovered in Northern Tasmania at The Den (formerly known as Lefroy or Nine Mile Springs) near George Town in 1840 by a convict. In the 1880s this became known as the Lefroy goldfields.

1841-1842: Bathurst and Goulburn regions, New South Wales

The Reverend William Branshite Clarke found gold on the Coxs River, a location on the road to Bathurst in 1841. In 1842 he found gold on the Wollondilly River. In 1843 Clarke spoke to many persons of the abundance of gold likely to be found in the colony of New South Wales. On 9 April 1844 Clark exhibited a sample of gold in quartz to Governor Sir George Gipps. In that same year Clark showed the sample and spoke of the probable abundance of gold to some members of the Legislative Council of New South Wales including Mr Jusitce Therry and Mr Robinson, then member for Port Phillip. In evidence that Clarke gave before a Select Commitee of the NSW Legislative Council in September 1852 he stated that the subject was not followed up as "the matter was regarded as one of curiosity only, and considerations of the penal character of the colony kept the subject quiet, as much as the general ignorance of the value of such an indication." Towards the end of 1853 Clark was given a grant of £1000 by the New South Wales government for his services in connexion with the discovery of gold. The same amount (£1000) was voted by the Victorian Gold Discovery Committee in 1854.

1841: Pyrenees Ranges and Plenty Ranges, Victoria

Gold found in Pyrenees Ranges near Clunes and in the Plenty Ranges near Melborune in 1841 and the gold was sent to Hobart where it was sold.

From 1843: Victoria

Beginning in 1843 gold samples were brought several times into the watchmaker's shop of T.J. Thomas in Melbourne by "bushmen". The specimens were looked upon as curiosities.

1844: Bundalong, Victoria

A shepherd named Smith thought that he had discovered gold near the Ovens River in 1844, and reported the matter to Charles La Trobe, who advised him to say nothing about it.

1846: Castambul, South Australia

Gold was found in South Australia and Australia's first goldmine was established. From the earliest days of the Colony of South Australia men, including Johannes Menge the geologist with the South Australian Company, had been seeking gold "armed with miner's pick, numberless explorers are to be found prying into the depths of the valleys or climbing the mountain tops. No place is too remote". Gold was found in January 1846 by Captain Thomas Terrell at the Victoria Mine near Castambul, in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, about 10 miles (16km) east of Adelaide. Some of the gold was made into a brooch sent to Queen Victoria and samples were displayed at the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1851. Share prices rose from £2 to £30, but soon fell back to £3 when no further gold was discovered. Unfortunately for the investors, and everyone else concerned, the mine's total gold production never amounted to more than 24 ounces.

1847: Victoria

Gold was discovered at "Port Phillip" by a shepherd. About April 1847 a shepherd took a sample of ore about the size of an apple, that he believed to be copper, into the jewellery store of Charles Brentani in Collins Street, Melbourne, where the sample was purchased by an employee, Joseph Forrester, a gold and silver smith. The shepherd refused to disclose where he had obtained the nugget, but stated that "there was plenty more of it where it came from" on the station where he worked about 60 miles (96km) from Melbourne. The sample was tested by Forrester and found to be 65 per cent virgin gold. A sample of this ore was given to Captain Clinch who took it to Hobart.

1847: Beaconsfield, Tasmania

It is said that John Gardner found gold-bearing quartz in 1847 on Blythe Creek, near Beaconsfield, on the other side of the Derwent River from Georgetown.

1848: Wellington, New South Wales

Gold found by a shepherd named McGregor at Mitchells Creek near Wellington, New South Wales, in 1848 on the Montefiore's squatting run, "Nanima". The Bathurst Free Press noted, on 25 May 1850, that "Neither is there any doubt in the fact that Mr M'Gregor found a considerable quantity of the precious metal some years ago, near Mitchell's Creek, and it is surmised he still gets more in the same locality."

1848: Bathurst, New South Wales

William Tipple Smith finds gold near Bathurst in 1848. Smith, a mineralogist and manager of an iron works in new South Wales, had been inspired to look for gold near Bathurst by the ideas of Roderick Murchison, president of the Royal Geographical Society, who in 1844 in his first presidential address, had predicted the existence of gold in Australia's Great Dividing Range, ideas which were published again in "The Sydney Morning Herald" on 28 September 1847 suggesting that gold "will be found on the western flanks of the dividing ranges". Smith sent samples of the gold he found to Murchison.

1848-1882: Murchison and other locations in Western Australia

It appears that gold was first detected in 1848 in specimens sent for assay to Adelaide from the Murchison copper and lead deposits.

In 1852-53 rich specimens of gold-bearing stone were found by shepherds and others in the eastern districts, but they were unable afterwards to locate the places where the stone was discovered. The late Hon A. C. Gregory found traces of gold in quartz in the Bowes River in 1854. In 1861 Mr Panton found near Northam, while shortly afterwards a shepherd brought in rich specimens of auriferous quartz which he had found to the eastward of Northam, but he failed to locate the spot again. Various small finds were made up to 1882, when Mr A. McRae riding from Cossack to Roeburne, picked up a nugget weighing fourteen ounces (400g).

1848-1850: Pyrenees Ranges, Victoria

Gold discovered in the Pyrnees Ranges by a shepherd. In December 1848 a shepherd, Thomas Chapman, came into the jewellery store of Charles Brentani, in Collins Street, Melbourne, with some stone that he had "held for several months". Chapman said that he had found the gold where he worked on Hall and McNeill’s station at Daisy Hill in the Pyrennes Ranges. Alexandre Duchene and Joseph Forrester, both working for Charles Brentani, confirmed the stone contained a total of 38 ounces of 90 per cent pure gold, and Mrs Ann Brentani purchased the stone on behalf of her husband. A sample of this ore was given to Captain Clinch who took it to Hobart, Captain White who took it to England, and Charles La Trobe. In consequence of the discovery of gold by Chapman official printed notices were posted on a number of prominent places in the town (Melbourne) proclaiming the fact that gold had been found in Port Phillip. The Bertini's shop was thronged by persons wanting to see the nugget and asking where it had been found. This find sparked a mini-gold-rush with about a hunderd men rushing to the site. Charles La Trobe quickly put an end to the search ordering 16 mounted police to prevent any further digging at Daisy Hill, and the story was dismissed by some of the press as a hoax. This did not stop people finding gold, however, and in the year 1850, according to Ann Brentani, the "gold came down from the country in all directions". She and her husband purchased as much as they could but had difficulty in supplying the money.

1849: Lefroy, Tasmania

The first substantiated discovery of gold in Tasmania reported to have been made by a Mr Riva of Launceston, who is stated to have traced gold in slate rocks in the vicinity of The Den (formerly known as Lefroy or Nine Mile Springs) near George Town in 1849.

1850: Clunes, Victoria

In March 1850 pastoralist William Campbell found several minute pieces of native gold in quartz on the station of Donald Cameron at Clunes. William Campbell is notable as having been the first member of the electoral district of Loddon of the Victorian Legislative Council from November 1851 to May 1854. Campbell was in 1854 to receive a £1,000 reward from the Victorian Gold Discovery Committee as the original discoverer of gold at Clunes. At the time of the find in March 1850 Campbell was in the company of Donald Cameron, Cameron's superintendent, and a friend. This find was concealed at the time lest it should bring undesirable strangers to the run. Observing, however, the migration of the population of New South Wales and the panic created throughout the whole colony, and especially in Melbourne, on 10 June 1851, Campbell addressed a letter to merchant James Graham (member of Victorian Legislative Council 1853-1854 and 1867-1886) stating that within a radius of 15 miles of Burn Bank, on another party's station, he had procured specimens of gold. Campbell divulged the precise spot where the gold had been found in a letter to Graham dated 5 July 1851. Prior to this date, however, James Esmond and his party were already at work there mining for gold. This was because Cameron had earlier shown specimens of the gold to George Hermann Bruhn, a German doctor and geologist whose services as an analyst were in great demand. Communication of this knowledge by Hermann to James Esmond was to result in the discovery by Esmond on 1 July 1851 of payable quanities of alluvial gold at Clunes which then resulted in the first Victorian goldrush.

Notable gold finds which started rushes

Large gold specimen from the Ballarat mines, weight over 150 grams, size 7.4×4.4×2.3 cm.

February 1851: Bathurst, New South Wales

Edward Hargraves, accompanied by John Lister, finds five specks of alluvial gold st Sunnerhill near Bathurst in Febraury 1851. Then, in April 1851, John Lister and William Tom, trained by Edward Hargraves, find 120 grams of gold. This discovery, instigated by Hargraves, leads directly to the beginning of the gold rush in New South Wales. This was the first gold rush in Australia and was in full operation by May 1851, even before it was officially proclaimed on 14 May 1851, with already an estimated 300 diggers in place by 15 May 1851. Before 14 May 1851 gold was already flowing from Bathurst to Sydney, an example being when Edward Austin brought to Sydney a nugget of gold worth £35, which had been found in the Bathurst District.

In 1872 a large gold and quartz "Holtermann Nugget" discovered by the night shift in a mine part owned by Bernhardt Holtermann at Hill End, near Bathurst, New South Wales: the largest specimen of reef gold ever found, 1.5 meters (59 inches) long, weighing 286 kg (630 pounds), in Hill End, near Bathurst, and with an estimated gold content of 5000 ounces (57 kg).

April 1851: Castlemaine district and Clunes, Victoria

In January 1851, before Hargraves' discovery of gold in February 1851 at Summerhill near Bathurst in New South Wales which started the first Australian goldrush, George Hermann Bruhn had left Melbourne to explore the mineral resources of the countryside of Victoria. On his trek Bruhn found, on a date unknown, indications of gold in quartz about 2 miles (3km) from Edward Stone Parker's station at Franklinford (between Castlemaine and Daylesford). After leaving Parker's station Bruhn arrived at Donald Cameron's station at Clunes in April 1851. Cameron showed Bruhn samples of the gold that had been found on his station at Clunes in March 1850. Bruhn also explored the countryside and found quartz reefs in the vicinity. "This information he promulgated through the country in the course of his journey." One of the people to whom Bruhn communicated this information was James Esmond who was at that time engaged in erecting a building on James Hodgkinson's station "Woodstock" at Lexton about 16 miles (25km) to the west of Clunes. This then indirectly lead to the first gold rush in Victoria from Esmond's subsequent discovery of payable gold at Clunes in July 1851. Bruhn also forwarded specimens of gold to Melbourne which were received by the Gold Discovery Committee on 30 June 1851. Bruhn was in 1854 to receive a £500 reward from the Victorian Gold Discovery Committee "in acknowledgment of his services in exploring the country for five or six months, and for diffusing the information of the discovery of gold".

June 1851: Sofala, New South Wales

Gold was found at the Turon Goldfields at Sofala in June 1851.

June 1851: Warrandyte, Victoria

Gold was discovered on 30 June 1851 in the quartz rocks of the Yarra Ranges at Anderson's Creek, Warrandyte, Victoria by Louis John Michel, William Haberlin, James Furnival, James Melville, James Headon and B.Gruening. This gold was shown at the precise spot where it had been found to Webb Richmond, on behalf of the Gold Discovery Committee, on 5 July, the full particulars of the locality were communicated to the Lieutenant-Governor on 8 July and a sample was brought to Melbourne and exhibited to the Gold Discovery Committee on 16 July. As a result the Gold Discovery Committee were of the opinion that this find was the first publisher of the location of the discovery of a goldfield in the Colony of Victoria. This site was later named as Victoria's first official gold discovery. Michel and his party were in 1854 to receive a £1,000 reward from the Victorian Gold Discovery Committee "as having, at considerable expense, succeeded in discovering and publishing an available goldfield". On 1 September 1851 the first gold licences in Victoria were issued to dig for gold in this locality, "which was previous to their issue on any other Goldfield". About 300 people were at work on this goldfield prior to the discovery of Ballarat.

July 1851: Clunes, Victoria

On 1 July 1851 Victoria became a separate colony and, on the same day, James Esmond in company with Pugh, Burns and Kelly, found alluvial gold in payable quantities near Donald Cameron's station on Creswick's Creek, a tributary of the Loddon, at Clunes, 34km (22m) north of Ballarat. Esmond and his party found the gold after Esmond had been told by George Hermann Bruhn of the gold that had been found in March 1850 on Cameron's property at Clunes and that in the vicinity were quartz reefs which were likely to bare gold. Esmond rode into Geelong with a sample of their discovery on 5 July. News of the discovery was published first in the Geelong Advertiser on 7 July and then in Melbourne on 8 July.

Gold in the Pyrenees. The long sought treasure is at length found! Victoria is a gold country, and from Geelong goes forth the first glad tidings of the discovery. Esmonds arrived in Geelong on Saturday with some beautiful specimens of gold, in quartz, and gold-dust in a "debris" of the same species of rock. The specimens have been subjected to the most rigid test by Mr Patterson, in the presence of other competent parties, and he pronounced them to be beyond any possibility of doubt pure gold...

The particulars of the precise location, with Esmond's consent, was published in the Geelong Advertiser on 22 July 1851. Publication of Esmond's find started the first gold rush in Victoria in that same month. By 1 August between 300 and 400 diggers were encamped on the Clunes Goldfield, but soon moved to other fields as news of other gold discoveries spread. Esmond was in 1854 to receive a £1,000 reward as "the first actual producer of alluvial gold for the market".

July 1851: Bungonia, New South Wales

The goldfields of Bungonia (aka Shoalhaven), Hill End, and Louisa Creek (now Hargraves) near Mudgee were discovered in July 1851.

July 1851: Castlemaine, Victoria

On 20 July 1851 gold was discovered near present-day Castlemaine, Victoria (Mt Alexander Goldfields) at Specimen Gully in today's Castlemaine suburb of Barkers Creek. The gold was discovered by Christopher Thomas Peters, a shepherd and hut-keeper on the Barker's Creek, in the service of William Barker. When the gold was shown in the men's quarters Peters was ridiculed for finding fool's gold, and the gold was thrown away. Barker did not want his workmen to abandone his sheep, but in August they did just that. John Worley, George Robinson and Robert Keen, also in the employ of Barker as shepherds and a bullock driver, immediately teamed with Peters in working the deposits by panning in Specimen Gully, which they did in relative privacy during the next month. When Barker sacked them and ran them off for trespass, Worley, on behalf of the party "to prevent them getting in trouble", mailed a letter to The Argus (Melbourne) dated 1 September 1851 announcing this new goldfield with the precise location of their workings. This letter was published on 8 September 1851. "With this obsure notice, rendered still more so by the journalist as 'Western Port', were ushered to the world the inexaustible treasures of Mount Alexander" also to become known as the Forest Creek diggings. Within a month there were about 8,000 diggers working the alluvial beds of the creeks near the present day town of Castlemaine, and particularly Forest Creek which runs through the suburb today known as Chewton where the first small township was established. By the end of the year there were about 25,000 on the field.

August 1851: Buninyong, Victoria

On 8 August 1851 an auriferous deposit of gold was discovered 3 kilometres west of Buninyong, Victoria, near Ballarat. The gold was discovered in a gully in the Buninyong ranges, by a resident of Buninyong, Thomas Hiscock. Hiscock communicated the find, with its precise locality, to the editor of the "Geelong Advertiser" on 10 August. In that same month prospectors began moving from the Clunes to the Buninyong diggings. Hiscock was in 1854 to receive £1,000 reward from the Victorian Gold Discovery Committee as the substantial discoverer of the gold deposits of "superior value" in the Ballarat area.

August 1851: Ballarat, Victoria

On 21 August 1851 gold was discovered at Ballarat, Victoria in Poverty Point by John Dunlop and James Regan. Ballarat is about 10km (6m) from Buninyong and upon the same range. John Dunlop and James Regan found their first few ounces of gold while panning in the Canadian Creek after leaving the Buninyong diggings to extend their search for gold. However Henry Frenchman, a newspaper man, had followed them and noticed their work. As a result, they only had the rich Ballarat goldfield to themselves for a week. By early September 1851 what became known as the Ballarat gold rush had begun, as reported from the field by Henry Frencham, then a reporter for the Argus. (Henry Frencham claimed in his article of 19 September 1851 to have been the first to find gold at Ballarat [then also known as Yuille’s Diggings],a claim he was later to also make about Bendigo, and which resulted in the sitting of a Select Commitee of the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1890.)

In the report of the Committee on the Claims to Original Discovery of the Goldfields of Victoria published in The Argus (Melbourne) newspaper of 28 March 1854, however, a different picture of the discovery of gold at Golden Point at Ballarat is presented. They stated that Regan and Dunlop were one of two parties working at the same time on opposite sides of the ranges forming Golden Point, the other contenders for the first finders of gold at Ballarat being described as "Mr Brown and his party". The committee stated that "where so many rich deposits were discovered almost simultaneously, within a radius of little more than half a mile, it is difficult to decide to whom is due the actual commencement of the Ballarat diggings." They also agreed that the prospectors "had been attracted there (Ballarat) by the discoveries in the neighbourhood of Messrs. Esmonds (Clunes) and Hiscock (Buninyong)" and "by attracting great numbers of diggers to the neighbourhood" that "the discovery of Ballarat was but a natural consequence of the discovery of Buninyong".

in 1858 the "Welcome Nugget" weighing 2,217 troy ounces 16 pennyweight. (68.98 kg) found at Bakery Hill at Ballarat by a group of 22 Cornish miners working at the mine of the Red Hill Mining Company.

This remarkable sketch-map by shepherd William Sandbach tells the story of the birth of the Bendigo goldfield, detailing who was there and where their claims and camp sites were. (Sandbach believed that fellow shepherd William Henry Johnson had been the first to find gold at Bendigo.)

About September 1851: Bendigo, Victoria

Gold discovered at Bendigo, Victoria. According to the Bendigo Historical Society, it is generally agreed today that gold was discovered at Bendigo in the Spring of 1851 by two married women from the Ravenswood Run, Margaret Kennedy and Julia Farrell, at "The Rocks" area of Bendigo Creek at Golden Square, where today's Maple Street crosses the Bendigo Creek, which is about 200 metres (200 yards) from west side of the junction of Golden Gully with Bendigo Creek. Yet when Margaret Kennedy gave evidence before a Select Committee in September 1890 she never claimed to have been the first to have found gold. She did claim, however, to have found gold near "The Rocks" from early September 1851. September 1851 was the date also mentioned in relation to the three other sets of serious contenders for the first finders of gold at Bendigo: Frederick Fenton and Stewart Gibson, the owners of the Ravenswood Run (Fenton claimed that he and Gibson had been together when they found gold in a water-hole at the junction of Golden Gully with Bendigo Creek); one or more of the shepherds living in the hut on the Ravenswood Run at Bendigo Creek, James Graham (alias Ben Hall), Bannister, and hut-keeper Christian Asquith (who found gold near "The Rocks"); and one or both of the husbands of the two women, John Kennedy, overseer of Ravenswood Run, and Patrick Peter Farrell, cooper (who found gold near "The Rocks").

In September 1890 a Select Committee of the Victorian Legislative Assembly sat to decide who was the first to discover gold at Bendigo. They stated that there were at least 12 claimants to being the first to find gold at Bendigo (they included Margaret Kennedy in this number, but not Julia Farrell who was deceased), plus the journalist Henry Frenchman (who had previously also claimed to have been the first to have found gold at Ballarat [then also known as Yuille’s Diggings]). In the evidence that Margaret Kennedy gave before the Select Committe in September 1890 she claimed that she and Julia Farrell had been secretly panning for gold before Henry Frencham arrived, evidence that was substantiated by others, not that she had been the first person to have found gold at Bendigo. She also stated that, prior to finding gold herself, "in August or September of the same year (1851) some shepherds brought specimens of gold to the station, found in the Buninyong district, and that September her husband and Mr Gibson were shown similar specimens". Buninyong, being the shortest distance from Ravenswood about 110km (69m) and that over a mountain range, was the goldfield near to Ballarat that had opened in August 1851. The gold from "Buninyong" is possible evidence of gold prospecting by the shepherds at Bendigo Creek predating any prospecting by Margaret Kennedy.

The Select Committee found "that Henry Frencham's claim to be the discoverer of gold at Bendigo has not been sustained", but could not make a decision as to whom of the other at least 12 claimants had been first as "it would be most difficult, if not impossible, to decide that question now"..."at this distance of time from the eventful discovery of gold at Bendigo". They concluded that there was "no doubt that Mrs Kennedy and Mrs Farrell had obtained gold before Henry Frencham arrived on the Bendigo Creek", but that Frenchman "was the first to report the discovery of payable gold at Bendigo to the Commissioner at Forest Creek (Castlemaine)". (An event Frencham dated to about 1 December 1851, a date which was, according to Frencham's own contemporaneous writings, after a number of diggers had already begun prospecting on the Bendigo goldfield.) The Select Committee also decided "that the first place at which gold was discovered on Bendigo was at what is now known as Golden Square, called by the station hands in 1851 "The Rocks", a point about 200 yards to the west of the junction of Golden Gully with the Bendigo Creek."The Select Committee found "that Henry Frencham's claim to be the discoverer of gold at Bendigo has not been sustained", but could not make a decision as to whom of the other at least 12 claimants had been first as "it would be most difficult, if not impossible, to decide that question now"..."at this distance of time from the eventful discovery of gold at Bendigo". They concluded that there was "no doubt that Mrs Kennedy and Mrs Farrell had obtained gold before Henry Frencham arrived on the Bendigo Creek", but that Frenchman "was the first to report the discovery of payable gold at Bendigo to the Commissioner at Forest Creek (Castlemaine)". (An event Frencham dated to about 1 December 1851, a date which was, according to Frencham's own contemporaneous writings, after a number of diggers had already begun prospecting on the Bendigo goldfield.) The Select Committee also decided "that the first place at which gold was discovered on Bendigo was at what is now known as Golden Square, called by the station hands in 1851 "The Rocks", a point about 200 yards to the west of the junction of Golden Gully with the Bendigo Creek."

Henry Frencham, under the pen-name of "Bendigo", was the first to publicly write anything about gold-mining at Bendigo Creek, with three reports about the same event, a meeting of miners at Bendigo Creek on 8 and 9 December 1851, published respectively in the Daily News, Forest Creek (Castlemaine), date unknown and the 13 December 1851 editions of the Geelong Advertiser and The Argus, Melbourne. It was Frencham's words, published in "The Argus" of 13 December 1851 that were to begin the Bendigo Goldrush:

As regards the success of the diggers, it is tolerably certain the majority are doing well, and few making less than half an ounce per man per day.

In late November 1851 some of the miners at Castlemaine (Forest Creek), having heard of the new discovery of gold, began to move to Bendigo Creek joining those from the Ravenswood Run who were already prospecting there. The beginnings of this gold-mining was reported from the field by Henry Frencham, under the pen-name of "Bendigo", who stated that the new field at Bendigo Creek, which was at first treated as if it were an extension of the Mount Alexander or Forest Creek (Castlemaine) rush, was already about two weeks old on 8 December 1851. Frencham reported then about 250 miners on the field. On 13 December Henry Frencham's article in "The Argus" was published announcing "to the world that gold was abundant in Bendigo". Just days later, in mid-December 1851 the rush to Bendigo had begun, with a correspondent from Castlemaine for the Geelong Advertiser reported on 16 December 1851 that "hundreds are on the wing thither (to Bendigo Creek)".

September 1851-1852: Other locations in New South Wales

• Araluen, September 1851 [Araluen & Bells Creek]
• Braidwood, October 1851 [Majors Creek]
• Bell's Point on the Bell River, Nov 1851
• Tuena, November 1851
• Near Lake George, 1851 [Carraway Flat & Black Swamp]
• Parshish 80km south of Bathurst, 1851
• Moruya, 1851
• Oakey Creek near Coolah, 1851
• Monaro, 1851
• Hanging Rock, near Nundle (northern tablelands), 1851
• Adelong, 1852

1851-1869: Other locations in Victoria

Further discoveries of gold including Omeo in 1851, Beechworth and Tarnagulla in 1852, Maldon, Homebush near Avoca and Bright in 1853, Maryborough in 1854, Ararat in 1856, Chiltern in 1858, Walhalla in 1863, and Foster in 1869.

1851-1886: Managa and other locations in Tasmania

Woods Almanac, 1857, states that gold was possibly found at Fingal (near Mangana) in 1851 by the "Old Major" who steadily worked at a gully for two to three years guarding his secret. The discovery was probably at Mangana and that there is a gully there known as Major's Gully. The first payable alluvial gold deposits were reported in Tasmania in 1852 by James Grant at Managa (then known as The Nook) and Tower Hill Creek which began the Tasmanian gold-rushes. The first registered gold strike was made by Charles Gould at Tullochgoram near Fingal and Managa and weighed 2lb 6ozs. Further small finds were reported during the same year in the vicinity of Nine Mile Springs (Lefroy). In 1854 gold was found at Mt. Mary. During 1859 the first quartz mine started operations at Fingal. In the same year James Smith found gold at the River Forth, and Mr. Peter Leete at the Calder, a tributary of the Inglis. Gold was discovered in 1869 at Nine Mile Springs (Lefroy) by Samuel Richards. The news of this brought the first big rush to Nine Mile Springs. A township quickly developed beside the present main road from Bell Bay to Bridport, and dozens of miners pegged out claims there and at nearby Back Creek. The first recorded returns from the Mangana goldfields date from 1870; Waterhouse, 1871; Hellyer, Denison, and Brandy Creek, 1872; Lisle, 1878 Gladstone and Cam, 1881; Minnow and River Forth, 1882; Brauxholme and Mount Victoria, 1883; and Mount Lyell, 1886.

1852 and 1868: Echunga, South Australia

Payable gold was found in May 1852 at Echunga in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia by William Chapman and his mates Thomas Hardiman and Henry Hampton. After returning to his father's farm from the Victorian goldfields William Chapman had searched the area around Echunga for gold motivated by his mining experience and the £1,000 reward being offered by the South Australian government for the first discoverer of payable gold. Chapman, Hardiman and Hampton were later to receive £500 of this reward as the required £10,000 of gold had not been raised in two months. Within a few days of the announcement of finding gold 80 gold licenses had been issued. Within seven weeks their were about 600 people, including women and children, camped in tents and wattle-and-daub huts in "Chapman's Gully". A township sprang up in the area as the population grew. Soon there were blacksmiths, butchers and bakers to provide the gold diggers' needs. Within 6 months 684 licences had been issued. Three police constables were appointed to maintain order and to assist the Gold Commissioner. By August 1852 there were less than 100 gold diggers and the police presence was reduced to two troopers. The gold rush was at its peak for nine months. It was estimated in May 1853 that about £18,000 worth of gold, more than 113kg (4,000oz, 250lb), had been sold in Adelaide between September 1852 and January 1853, with an additonal unknown value sent overseas to England. Despite this, this goldfield could not compete with the richer fields in Victoria and by 1853 the South Australian goldfields were described as being ‘pretty deserted’. There were further discoveries of gold in the Echunga area made in 1853, 1854, 1855, and 1858 causing minor rushes. There was a major revival of the Echunga fields in 1868 when Thomas Plane and Henry Saunders found gold at Jupiter Creek. Plane and Saunders were to receive rewards of £300 and £200 respectively. By September 1868 there were about 1,200 people living at the new diggings and tents and huts were scattered throughout the scrub. A township was established with general stores, butchers and refreshment booths. By the end of 1868 though, the alluvial deposits at Echunga were almost exhausted and the population dwindled to several hundred. During 1869 reef mining was introduced and some small mining companies were established but all had gone into liquidation by 1871. The Echunga goldfields were South Australia's most productive. By 1900 the estimated gold production was 6,000 kg (13,225lb), compared with 680g (24oz, 1½lb) from the Victoria Mine at Castambul. After the revival of the Echunga goldfields in 1868, prospectors searched the Adelaide Hills for new goldfields. News of a new discovery would set off another rush. Gold was found at many locations including Balhannah, Forest Range, Birdwood, Para Wirra, Mount Pleasant and Woodside.

1854-1893: Other locations in New South Wales

• Sunny Corner, 1854
• Rocky River near Uralla, 1856
• Broulee, 1857, on the Araluen Field
• Mogo, 1858, on the Araluen Field
• Kiandra, 1859
• Young, 1860, known at that time as Lambing Flat
• Nerrigundah 1861
• Forbes, 1861
• Parkes, 1862
• Lucknow near Orange, 1862
• Grenfell 1866
• In beach sands at northern rivers, 1870
• Gulgong, 1870
• Hillgrove, 1877
• Mount Drysdale, 1892
• Wyalong, 1893

1858-1865: Canoona and other findings in Queensland

In 1858 the first discovery of payable gold in Queensland was that made at Canoona near Rockhampton by a party under the leadership of W. C. Capel. This sparked the first Queensland Goldrush. In 1863 gold was found at Canal Creek and Gladstone; Crocodile Creek field was discovered in 1865.

1865-1867: Cape River and other findings in Queensland

In 1865 Richard Daintree discovered the Cape River goldfield in North Queensland Ridgelands was found in 1867, followed shortly afterwards by Rosewood.

1867-1904: Gympie and other findings in Queensland

In 1867 James Nash discovers gold in the Gympie region of Queensland, Australia. Townsville was opened up in 1868, and the Gilbert River fields in 1869. Charters Towers dates from 1872; the Palmer goldfield from 1873; the Hodgkinson from 1875; while the celebrated Mount Morgan was first worked in 1882, Croydon in 1836, the Starcke field in 1890, Coen in 1900, and Alice River in 1904.

1868: Gawler region, South Australia

Gold found about 10km south-east of Gawler in South Australia in 1868. Gold was found by Job Harris and his partners in Spike Valley near the South Para River. This was unsold Crown Land and was proclaimed an official goldfield with a warden appointed. On the second day there were 40 gold seekers, 1,000 within a week and, within a month, 4,000 licensed and 1,000 unlicensed diggers. Three towns were established nearby with about 6,000 people at their peak. Alluvial gold was easily recovered when the gold was in high concentration. As the alluvial was worked out, companies were formed to extract the gold from the ore with crushers and a mercury process. By 1870 only 50 people remained, although one of the three towns, Barossa, lasted until the 1950s. South of the Barossa goldfield, the Lady Alice Mine in Hamlin Gully, discovered in 1871 by James Goddard, was the first South Australian gold mine to pay a dividend.

1870-1893: Teetulpa and other locations in South Australia

More gold found in South Australia. As settlers took up land north of Adelaide, so more gold fields were discovered: Ulooloo in 1870, Waukaringa in 1873, Teetulpa in 1886, Wadnaminga in 1888 and Tarcoola in 1893. Teetulpa, seven miles north of Yunta, was a rich goldfield where more gold was found than anywhere else in South Australia at that time. Teetulpa had the largest number of diggers of any field at any time in the history of South Australian gold discoveries. By the end of 1886, two months into the rush, there were more than five thousand men on the field. A reporter noted: "All sorts of people are going - from lawyers to larrikins ... Yesterday's train from Adelaide brought a contingent of over 150 ... Many arrived in open trucks ... Local ironmongers and drapers were busy fitting out intending diggers with tents, picks, shovels, rugs, moleskins, etc." God mining at Teetulpa lasted about ten years. For a time it had a bank, shops, hotel, hospital, church and a newspaper. The largest nugget found weighed 30oz (850g).

1871-1909: Pine Creek and other locations in the Northern Territory

Darwin felt the effects of a gold rush at Pine Creek after employees of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line found gold while digging holes for telegraph poles in 1871.

There are numerous deposits of the precious metal at various localities in the Northern Territory, the total yield in 1908 being 8575 ounces (243kg), valued at £27,512, of which 1021 ounces (29kg) were obtained at the Driffield. In June, 1909, a rich find of gold was reported from Tanami... Steps are being taken to open up this field by sinking wells to provide permanent water, of which there is a great scarcity in the district. A large number of Chinese are engaged in mining in the Territory. In 1908, out of a total of 824 miners employed, the Chinese numbered 674.

1872: Charters Towers and Cooktown, Queensland

A significant Queensland field discovered at Charters Towers in 1872 soon moved attention to this area, while in the same year mining began on the Palmer River near Cooktown

1885-1893: Halls Creek and other locations in Western Australia

In 1885 Jack Slattery and Charlie Hall found gold at Halls Creek, in the Kimberleys, Western Australia, prompting the first gold-rush in Western Australia. Further rushes followed with the discovery of gold at Southern Cross in 1887 by Thomas Riseley and Mick Toomey, at Cue in 1891 by Michael Fitzgerald, Edward Heffernan and Tom Cue, at Coolgardie in 1892 by Arthur Bailey and William Ford (who obtaining over 500 ozs. of gold in one afternoon by the aid of a tomahawk), and at the Greenough River in 1893.

June 1893: Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

Irishman Paddy Hannan discovered gold near Mount Charlotte, less than 40 kilometres from Coolgardie, on 17 June 1893. This find lead to the Kalgoorlie gold-rush, and the establishment of Western Australia's eastern goldfields in what is now the twin towns of Kalgoorlie and Boulder. Prior to moving to Western Australia in 1889 to prospect for gold Hannan had prospected at Ballarat in Victoria in the 1860s, Otago in New Zealand in the 1870s, and at Teetulpa in South Australia in 1886. The first to mine for gold at Kalgoorlie were Paddy Hannan and his two mates Tom Flanagan and Daniel Shea. Having pegged out their lease, Hannan, the only one who was literate, raced off to Coolgardie to register the claim. After registering their claim of over 100 ounces (2.8kg) of alluvial gold, an estimated 700 men were prospecting in the area within three days. Other rich fields were found in the area around Kalgoorlie in the period 1893-1899.

The far-reaching nature of the mining excitement (in Western Australia) drew men from all over the world...People immigrated from Africa and America, Great Britain and Europe, China and India, New Zealand and the South Sea Islands, and from mining centres in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia.

1906: Tarnagulla, Victoria

Gold was found near Tarnagulla on 6 November 1906 (Melbourne Cup Day), when a miner who had prospected the district for years obtained seven ounces of gold from a shaft nineteen feet deep. With some fairly large nuggets being found soon after, the so-called Poseidon rush, named after the horse that had won the Melbourne Cup that year, set in with "men of all ranks and professions...trying their luck on the field". Several of the nuggets were unearthed within a few inches of the surface. The largest weighed 953 ounces (27kg) and two others weighed 703 (20kg) and 675 ounces (19kg) respectively. The shallow ground was soon worked out, but operations have given satisfactory results in the deeper alluvial until 1912.

See also

• New South Wales gold rush
• Victorian gold rush
• Eureka Stockade
• Western Australian gold rushes

References

Something special

External links

• Audiovisual titles relating to the Australian gold rushes on australianscreen