Otago Gold Rush

File:NZ-Gabriel's Gully.png

The Central Otago gold rush (often simply called the Otago gold rush) occurred during the 1860s in Otago, New Zealand. Constituting the country's biggest gold strike, the discovery of gold in Otago led to a rapid influx of foreign miners - many of them veterans of other hunts for the precious metal in California and Victoria. The rush started at Gabriel's Gully but spread throughout much of Central Otago, leading to the rapid expansion and commercialisation of the new colonial settlement of Dunedin, which quickly grew to be New Zealand's largest city.

Background

Previously gold had been found in small quantities in the Coromandel Peninsula (by visiting whalers) and near Nelson in 1842. Commercial interests in Auckland offered a £500 prize for anyone who could find payable quantities of gold anywhere nearby in the 1850's, at a time when some New Zealand settlers were leaving for the California and Australian gold rushes. In September 1852, Charles Ring, a timber merchant, claimed the prize for a find in Coromandel. A brief gold rush ensued around Coromandel township, Cape Colville and Mercury Bay but only £1500 of gold was accessible in river silt, although more was in quartz veins where it was inaccessible to individual prospectors. The rush lasted only about three months.

A find in the Aorere Valley near Collingwood in 1856 proved more successful, with 1500 miners converging on the district and removing about £150,000 of gold over the next decade, after which the gold was exhausted. The presence of gold in Otago and on the West Coast during this time was known, but the geology of the land was different from that of other major gold-bearing areas, and it was assumed the gold would amount to little.

Gold in Otago

Maori had long known of the existence of gold in Central Otago, but had no use for the metal, as they relied on greenstone for weaponry and tools, and used greenstone, obsidian and bone carving for jewellery.

The first known European discovery of gold in Otago was at Goodwood, near Palmerston in October 1851. The discovery was of very small size, however, and no rush ensued. In any case, the settlement of Dunedin was just three years old, and more practical matters were of higher importance to the young town.

Further discoveries around the Mataura River in 1856 and the Dunstan Range in 1858 stirred some interest, but again this was minimal. A further discovery near the Lindis Pass in early 1861 finally started producing flickers of interest from around the South Island, with reports of large numbers of miners travelling inland from Oamaru to stake their claims. It was not until two months later, however, that the discovery which was to cause the major influx of prospectors occurred.

The trickle turns to a flood

Gabriel Read, an Australian prospector who had hunted gold in both California and Victoria, Australia, discovered gold in a creek bed at Gabriel's Gully, close to the banks of the Tuapeka River near Lawrence on May 20 1861. "At a place where a kind of road crossed on a shallow bar I shovelled away about two and a half feet of gravel, arrived at a beautiful soft slate and saw the gold shinning like the stars in Orion on a dark frosty night".

The public heard about Read's discovery via a letter published in the Otago Witness on June 8, 1861, documenting a ten day long prospecting tour he had made. There was little reaction at first until John Hardy of the Provincial Council stated that himself and Read had prospected country "about 31 miles long by five broad, and in every hole they had sunk they had found the precious metal."

With this statement, the gold rush began. By Christmas 14,000 prospectors were on the Tuapeka and Waipori fields. Within a year, the region's population swelled greatly, growing by 400 per cent between 1861 and 1864, with prospectors swarming from the dwindling Australian goldfields. A second major discovery in 1862, close to the modern town of Cromwell, did nothing to dissuade new hopefuls, and prospectors and miners staked claims from the Shotover River in the west through to Naseby in the north. By the end of 1863, the real gold rush was over, but companies continued to mine the alluvial gold. The number of miners reached its maximum of 18,000 in February 1864.

Results

The city of Dunedin reaped many of the benefits, briefly becoming New Zealand's largest town even though it had only been founded in 1848. Many of the city's stately buildings date from this period of prosperity. New Zealand's first university, the University of Otago, was founded in 1869 with wealth derived from the goldfields. The rapid decline in gold production from the mid 1860s led to a sharp drop in the province's population.

Later gold rushes in New Zealand

The Wakamarina River in Marlborough proved to have gold in the early 1860s, and 6,000 miners flocked to the district. Although they found alluvial gold, there were no large deposits.

The West Coast of the South Island was the second-richest gold-bearing area of New Zealand after Otago, and gold was discovered in 1865-6 at Okarito, Bruce Bay, around Charleston and along the Grey River. Miners were attracted from Victoria, Australia where the gold rush was near an end. In 1867 this boom also began to decline.

Gold was long known to exist at Thames, but exploitation was not possible during the New Zealand land wars. In 1867 miners arrived from the West Coast, but the gold was in quartz veins, and few miners had the capital needed to extract it. Some stayed on as workers for the companies which could fund the processing.

Later gold mining in Otago

After the main gold rush, miners began labouriously reworking the goldfields. About 5,000 European miners remained in 1871, joined by thousands of Chinese miners invited by the province to help rework the area. There was friction not only between European and Chinese miners, which contributed to the introduction of the New Zealand head tax, but also between miners and settlers over conflicting land use. In the 1880s, quartz miners at Bullendale and Reefton were the first users of electricity in New Zealand. Although mining declined in the 1880s, it experienced a resurgence in the 1890s and 1900s due to the advent of dredging and new large-scale sluicing techniques. Gold is still mined in commercial quantities in Otago at one site - Macraes Mine, inland from Palmerston.

References

• King, M. (2003). The Penguin History of New Zealand', ISBN 0-14-301867-1
• McKinnon, M. (ed.), Bradley, B. & Kirkpatrick, R. (1997). New Zealand Historical Atlas: Ko Papatuanuku e Takoto Nei. Auckland: David Bateman Ltd. ISBN 1-86953-335-6.
• McLaughlan, G. (ed.) (1995). Bateman New Zealand Encyclopedia (4th ed.). Auckland: David Bateman Ltd.
• McLean, G. & Dalley, B. (eds.) Frontier of Dreams: The Story of New Zealand. Auckland: Hodder Moa Beckett. ISBN 1-86971-006-1
• Miller, F.W.G. (1971). "Gold in Otago", in Knox, R. (ed.) New Zealand's Heritage, volume 2:. Wellington:Paul Hamlyn.
• Oliver, W.H. (ed.) (1981). The Oxford History of New Zealand. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-558063-X
• Reed, A.H. (1956). The Story of Early Dunedin. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed.