The Australian Gold Rush Begins | History Today The Australian Gold Rush Begins Australia Australian prospectors struck gold on February 12th, 1851. Minor discoveries of gold were made in Australia in the early days, but it was the Californian goldrush of 1849 which sharpened interest. A tough brash mountain of a man named Edward Hammond Hargraves returned from California to try the prospecting skills he had acquired there. On February 12th, 1851, he and a young fellow named Lister were working along Lewis Pond Creek near Bathurst in New South Wales, where his instincts told him he was surrounded by gold. Filling a pan with the gravelly soil and sluicing it in the creek, he saw the glint. ‘There it is!’ he cried, or so he later recalled. ‘I shall be a baronet, you will be knighted and my old horse will be stuffed and put into a glass case and sent to the British Museum.’ None of these predictions came true, but word quickly spread and in April Lister and another man made a rich strike nearby at Yorky’s Corner.

Hargraves, who took a proprietary interest in the whole phenomenon, christened the place Ophir, after a fabled gold-producing region in the Old Testament. The local paper, the Bathurst Free Press, prophesied ‘a complete social revolution’ in Australia, and was not so far wrong. By May, half of Sydney seemed to have left for the goldfields and there was a sensation in July when the Kerr Nugget was found, a whole hundredweight of gold. In August fabulously rich fields were found in Victoria, in the Buninyong Ranges near Ballarat. By the end of the year ships were on the way bringing hopefuls from Britain, many Cornish, Scots and Irish among them. Prospectors came from the United States and China as well, with a few from Germany and elsewhere. In London, even the young artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood considered joining the rush to Australia, though they decided not to. Arriving at Melbourne or Geelong, the prospectors walked to the fields, each loaded down like a human mule with a tent, blankets, tools, cooking pots and a supply of flour, tea and sugar. Some of them pushed their belongings in wheelbarrows.

The fields were honeycombed with diggings, each with a mound of spoil, and dotted with the diggers’ tents or lean-to huts of poles and bark. Along a rough main track would be shops, grog shanties selling spirits, and amusement halls, built of canvas or calico on a wooden frame. Prices of food and necessaries rose to astonishing heights. At the richest fields there were houses, hotels and dance halls, built of wood. The main recreations were drinking, gambling and dancing. Dance girls were in short supply and hairy diggers in pea jackets and boots, their pipes in their mouths, would dance solemnly together on a floor thick with mud. Stage shows were popular and Lola Montez’s sensuous ‘spider dance’ was a sensation in the goldfields in 1853. Diggers who struck it rich might whoop it up in the bars and theatres of Melbourne, lighting their pipes with five-pound notes and treating everyone to drinks. One man filled a horse-trough with champagne and offered every passer-by a free swig. Within ten years the population of Australia doubled.

The first arrivals were mainly young men in search of a quick fortune, and the diggings were wild and lawless, but the prospectors were followed by business and professional men, traders and skilled craftsmen, who changed the nature of immigration to Australia. They brought with them middle-class standards, and often wives and children. Yet courage, resourcefulness, friendliness, helpfulness and good humour were qualities admired in the goldfields, while Old World social distinctions meant nothing. There was a democracy to the quest for gold which helped to form the Australian spirit. Australian gold rush timeline, Discovering gold, Gold and mining, SOSE Year 6, SA | Online Education Home Schooling Skwirk Australia 0 Exams The first major mineral discovery - gold - was a watershed (a turning point or landmark) for Australian society. The initial stages of the gold rush were responsible for tremendous changes in the community, bringing Australia's first great waves of immigration from countries other than England and Ireland. Ambitious prospectors from Asia, Europe and America made the trek to the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo in Victoria, and Bathurst in New South Wales, in the hope of striking it rich.

This influx of people brought many social changes, including an increase in racial tensions with the persecution of some groups, notably the Chinese. 1823 Government Surveyor James McBrien discovers traces of gold in the Fish River, east of Bathurst. 1839 Explorer and geologist Paul de Strzelecki discovers small amounts of gold in silicate near Hartley in the Blue Mountains. On hearing of the find, New South Wales Governor George Gipps officially requests that no mentions are made of it in de Strzelecki's reports. The 1840s Early gold discoveries were greeted with fear. Members of the governing class were afraid that the news of gold discoveries would encourage convicts and free settlers to abandon the cities and newly established townships in their search for gold. 1840 William Campbell finds gold on his sheep run in Strathlodden, Victoria, in 1840. 1844 Clergyman and amateur geologist William Branwhite Clarke discovers traces of gold at Hassan's Wells, near Lithgow.

When presented with these new discoveries, Governor George Gipps responds, 'Put it away, Mr Clarke, or we shall all have our throats cut.' Governor George Gipps moves to suppress all reports of gold discoveries in New South Wales. The 1850s The 1850s saw the beginnings of the great Australian 'gold rush'. Large gold deposits were discovered in various parts of Australia, particularly in the eastern States. A significant development at this time was the establishment of the Sydney Mint. This was the first Royal Mint to be established outside of England. Between 1851 and 1861, Australia produced one third of the world's gold. 1851 First payable gold discovered at Ophir in NSW - beginning of the great Australian gold rush 1854 Gold miners rebel at Eureka in Victoria, in protest at the conditions imposed by the 'Miner's Licence'. The rebellion led to the abolition of the Miner's Licence. 1855 British Secretary of State gives permission for the establishment of the Sydney Mint. This was the first Royal Mint to be established outside of England.

See image 1 The 1860s One memorable find during this decade was the Welcome Stranger nugget, by Richard Oates and John Deason in Moliagul, Victoria. 1866 Gold discovered in Queensland, at Rockhampton. 1869 'Welcome Stranger' nugget discovered by John Deason and Richard Oates in Moliagul, Victoria. It is the world's largest nugget found to date. See image 2 The 1870s The 1870s saw the discoveries of gold in South Australia and Queensland. Interest in these colonies intensified as people started moving to the scenes of gold discoveries in the hopes of striking it rich. 1870 Rich gold deposits found in North Queensland. First gold discovered in SA at Birdwood. 1872 World's largest piece of gold-bearing material, the Holtermann Nugget (a mixture of slate and gold weighing 235 kg) found by William Holtermann at Hill End NSW. See image 3 The 1880s The 1880s were a boom time for Western Australia.

In 1862 the Western Australian Government had offered ï¿½5000 to anyone who could find payable gold deposits. As a result, gold was found in large deposits in several parts of the State. These discoveries led to greater prosperity for many and brought economic stability to the State. 1885 First WA gold discoveries at Halls Creek. Triggers gold rush in WA. 1887 Large amounts of gold found at the Murchison goldfield, WA. The 1890s With the discovery of major gold deposits in WA, moves were made towards combining the colonies into one nation. Prior to the discoveries, the government of WA had been reluctant to join the other colonies as they felt they would have little influence on any decisions made by a Federal Government. With the new found wealth that the gold brought, they decided to become part of the Commonwealth. 1892 Bayley and Ford discover large gold deposits at Coolgardie in WA. 1893 Hannan's discovery at Kalgoorlie, the last and most important early goldfield.

1899 The Australian gold rush | australia.gov.au The Australian gold rush Mateship, diggers and wartime The Australian gold rush JCF Johnson, A Game of Euchre, col. wood engraving, Australasian Sketcher Supplement [Melbourne], 25 December, 1876. Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia: nla.pic-an8927787. The gold rushes of the nineteenth century and the lives of those who worked the goldfields – known as 'diggers' – are etched into our national folklore. There is no doubt that the gold rushes had a huge effect on the Australian economy and our development as a nation. It is also true to say that those heady times had a profound impact on the national psyche. The camaraderie and 'mateship' that developed between diggers on the goldfields is still integral to how we – and others – perceive ourselves as Australians. The diggers' defiance and open disdain of authority during this time is still a dominant theme in any discussion of our history and national identity. Indeed, mateship and defiance of authority have been central to the way our history has been told.

Look at Australia's World War I 'diggers' (named after their goldfield predecessors) at Gallipoli and how they have been portrayed: mates in the trenches with a healthy disrespect for their 'English superiors'. 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. It is also true to say that the idealisation of goldfield life excludes or overlooks the squalor, greed, crime, self-interest and racism that were part and parcel of the times. Arrival of the first gold escort, William Street, Melbourne, 1852. National Library of Australia: nla.pic-an9091973. Nevertheless, one need only look to the poetry of Henry Lawson to see how inextricably linked our history and mythology can be: The night too quickly passes And we are growing old, So let us fill our glasses And toast the Days of Gold; When finds of wondrous treasure Set all the South ablaze, And you and I were faithful mates All through the roaring days.

Henry Lawson,The Roaring Days, 1889 The discovery that changed a nation In 1851, Edward Hargraves discovered a 'grain of gold' in a waterhole near Bathurst. Hargraves was convinced that the similarity in geological features between Australia and the California goldfields (from where he had just returned) boded well for the search of gold in his homeland. He was proved correct. He named the place 'Ophir' , reported his discovery to the authorities, and was appointed a 'Commissioner of Land'. He received a reward of £10,000, plus a life pension. The discovery marked the beginning of the Australian gold rushes and a radical change in the economic and social fabric of the nation. Gold frenzy Ophir was home to more than 1000 prospectors just four months after Hargraves discovery. Gold fever gripped the nation and the colonial authorities responded by appointing 'Commissioners of Land' to regulate the diggings and collect licence fees for each 'claim'. A complete mental madness appears to have seized almost every member of the community. There has been a universal rush to the diggings.

Bathurst Free Press Hargraves could never have dreamt how significant his discovery would be. New South Wales yielded 26.4 tonnes (850,000 ounces) of gold in 1852. This was a mere drop in the ocean compared to the yield from neighbouring Victoria when they joined the rush for gold. The Victorian authorities, eager to prevent its population from joining the gold frenzy in NSW, offered a reward of 200 for any gold found within 200 miles of Melbourne. In 1851, six months after the New South Wales find, gold was discovered at Ballarat, and a short time later at Bendigo Creek. A nation transformed Thomas Balcombe (1810-1861), Sketch of the gold diggings at Ophir, County of Wellington, New South Wales, 1851. Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia: nla.pic-an9093190. In 1852 alone, 370,000 immigrants arrived in Australia and the economy of the nation boomed. The 'rush' was well and truly on.

Victoria contributed more than one third of the world's gold output in the 1850s and in just two years the State's population had grown from 77,000 to 540,000! The number of new arrivals to Australia was greater than the number of convicts who had landed here in the previous seventy years. The total population trebled from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871. The gold bullion that was shipped to London each year brought a huge flow of imports. The goldfield towns also sparked a huge boost in business investment and stimulated the market for local produce. The economy was expanding and thriving. Because so many people were travelling to and from the goldfields, the 1850s also saw the construction of the first railway and the operation of the first telegraphs. The rush to the rest of Australia Following the gold rushes of NSW and Victoria, deposits were uncovered throughout the land. Only South Australia failed to produce any gold deposits of significance.

The first discoveries in other States were made in Western Australia in the early 1850s (the rich Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie fields were not found until the 1890s); Queensland in 1853; the Northern Territory in 1865; and Tasmania, at Beaconsfield in 1877. Multiculturalism on the goldfields Chinese gold digger starting for work, circa 1860s. Image courtesy of State Library of Queensland: 60526 . Soon after the discovery of the goldfields in Victoria an exodus of unprecedented volume started, bringing to Australia people with a range of skills and professions, unthought of prior to the discovery of gold. Australia attracted adventurers from all around the world. The majority of these new arrivals were British but also included Americans, French, Italian, German, Polish and Hungarian exiles.The largest foreign contingent on the goldfields was the 40,000 Chinese who made their way to Australia. In 1861, Chinese immigrants made up 3.3 per cent of the Australian population, the greatest it has ever been.

These Chinese were nearly all men (38,337 men and only eleven women!) and most were under contract to Chinese and foreign businessmen. In exchange for their passage money, they worked on the goldfields until their debt was paid off. Most then returned to China. Between 1852 and 1889, there were 40,721 arrivals and 36,049 departures. Racism There were campaigns to oust the Chinese from the goldfields. The motivation was based on racism and fear of competition for dwindling amounts of easily found gold as the Chinese were known as untiring workers. A simmering discontent Diggers on the Turon fields, on the Turon River near Bathurst, had grown angry and had threatened to riot if the cost of licensing fees was not reduced. The monthly fee of 30 shillings for each claim was tough to pay in hard times and the claims were only 13.5 square metres on the surface, which made them difficult to work.

The governor of New South Wales, Governor Fitzroy, wisely reduced the fees by two thirds, but stood firm on the way it was collected, so resented by the diggers who called them the police 'digger hunts'. Police would descend on the goldfields seeking out those diggers who had not paid their fees. Those who hadn't paid were hauled before magistrates and fined 5 for the first offence. The fine doubled for each subsequent offence. As the police digger hunts grew more unpopular, the police began using more and more force. The Eureka Stockade The Eureka Flag was based on the constellation of the Southern Cross. Courtesy of the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. Between 1851 and 1854 tension was building on the goldfields. Clashes between the miners and the authorities became more frequent with significant discontent brewing over the injustice of the goldfield licensing system and police corruption. At Ballarat, the tension was rising quickly. The Ballarat Reform League was set up under the leadership of an Irish engineer, Peter Lalor.

His fellow rebels were a passionate and colourful bunch, including a Prussian republican, Fredrick Vern; the Italian redshirt, Raffaelo Carboni; and the Scottish Chartist, Tom Kennedy. In December 1854, 1000 men gathered at Eureka, on the outskirts of Ballarat and unfurled their flag, a white cross and stars on a blue field, to proclaim their oath: We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other, and fight to defend our rights and liberties. In a tragic climax to the rising tensions, troops from Melbourne overran the stockade and killed 22 of its defenders. Vindication Juries in Melbourne refused to convict the rebel leaders who were put on trial for high treason. A Royal Commission condemned the goldfield administration and the miners' grievances were remedied. Their demands for political representation were also met. Within a year, Peter Lalor – the leader of the rebels – became a member of the Victorian parliament. The end of transportation The discovery of gold in NSW and Victoria accelerated the abolition of convict transportation to the east coast of Australia, and ultimately to the nation as a whole.

By continuing to send convicts to the eastern colonies, it was, in effect, giving free passage to potential gold diggers. And why would the new convict arrivals want to work for a living when a fortune awaited them on the goldfields? Useful links The Australian Gold Rush The Australian Gold Rush 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. Edward Hargraves, an Australian immigrant from England, had already (unsuccessfully) tried his luck in the California gold rush and spent his last dollars on a passage back to Sydney. He was familiar with the terrain west of the Blue Mountains not far from Sydney and became struck by the similarity of its quartz outcrops and gullies with those he had seen in the Californian goldfields.

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. In his own words, once in the creek bed he somehow felt "surrounded by gold." Scratching in the gravel with his pick and shovel he filled and washed several pans, a number of which did indeed produce gold. Word spread quickly and within a few days 100 diggers were frantically tunnelling for instant wealth. The road over the Blue Mountains from Sydney became choked with men from all walks of life, carrying tents, blankets, and rudimentary mining equipment hastily bought at inflated prices. By June there were over 2000 people digging at Bathurst, and thousands more were on their way. Edward Hargraves did not make a fortune from gold.

He named the Bathurst goldfield Ophir and was paid £15,000 by the governments of New South Wales and Victoria, but a dispute arose when James Tom, a farmer involved by Hargraves in early diggings at Summer Hill Creek, protested that it was he who had discovered gold. An official enquiry resolved the dispute in favour of Hargraves, who was appointed Crown Land Commisioner for New South Wales and later received an annual pension of £250. However, a second enquiry just before his death in 1899 reversed the earlier decision, upholding claims by John Lister and William Tom (whom Hargraves had shown how to make a Californian-style washing cradle, and was the brother of James Tom) that it was they who had discovered the first payable gold, and they were each awarded £1000. 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. La Trobe, to offer a £200 reward to anyone who found payable gold within 200 miles of Melbourne.

William Campbell had already claimed to have found gold in 1850 on Donald Cameron's sheep station at Clunes but this was kept secret by Cameron, fearing the station would be overrun by diggers. Now, in June 1851, Cameron decided to announce the discovery and it was worked by James William Esmond - who had accompanied Edward Hargraves on the return journey from California - and Dr George Bruhn. Other prospectors realised that Victoria was a geological extension of New South Wales and shortly afterwards gold was discovered in even greater abundance by a septuagenarian digger, James Dunlop, at Poverty Point, Ballarat. Thomas Hiscock and others struck it rich nearby at Buninyong, and more was found by Henry Frenchman at Bendigo Creek. The Australian gold rush was on, and by the end of 1851 some 250,000 ounces had been taken from the central Victorian region. Gold in abundance - the colonies transformed Very soon the fabulously wealthy alluvial goldfields (stream and river deposits) at Ballarat and Bendigo turned Victoria into a magnet for immigrant adventurers, who came in their hundreds of thousands - literally.

The Australian gold rush would transform the British colonies, eventually into a nation. In 1851 the population of Victoria stood at around 80,000, and a decade later it had risen to over 500,000. The total population of Australia increased threefold from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871. Deposits were also uncovered in other states: Western Australia and Queensland in the early 1850s, the Northern Territory in 1865, and Tasmania in 1877, though the rich Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie fields in the west were not uncovered until the 1890s. But Victoria was the epicentre of the Australian gold rush. The huge influx of population threatened to collapse the administration of the fledgling state, exacerbated by the fact that a large part of the civil service and police of Melbourne - including the city's most senior government officials - abandoned their posts and flocked to the gold diggings. It seemed as if a plug had been pulled. Businesses lost their workers and schools emptied.

Ships' crews deserted and headed inland in droves. Fathers left their families to dig for gold, and whole families travelled the short distance from the city to set up camp on the goldfields. Mining camps appeared seemingly overnight with each new find, then moved on when the gold ran out to set up elsewhere. The Australian gold towns grew quickly as the state of Victoria convulsed with gold fever. Ballarat was proclaimed a township in 1852, a municipality in 1855, a borough in 1863, and a city in 1870. Bendigo - known as Sandhurst until 1891 - was proclaimed a city in 1871 and introduced trams in 1890. The Forest Creek diggings at Mount Alexander proved to become the finest alluvial goldfields in the world, where the town of Castlemaine was proclaimed a municipal district in 1855 and a borough in 1863. Gold placed the financial viability of Victoria and New South Wales beyond doubt, and Britain no longer had any excuse for withholding self-government from its Australian colonies.

A long economic boom followed, spurring the development of state infrastructure, local legislatures, and land policies. The authorities also introduced a licence system on the goldfields. A miner's licence allowed a digger to keep whatever gold he (or she) found on his (or her) claim. Without a licence - which had to be purchased in advance, at an exorbitant fee of 30 shillings per month - a miner was deemed to be stealing from Crown property and was liable to suffer criminal proceedings. Licence hunts caused great resentment within the mining communities, especially as the police employed to enforce the licencing system were notoriously corrupt and behaved with excessive brutality. A miner was required to carry his (or her) licence at all times and to produce it on demand from an authorised officer of the law. Failure to produce it, no matter what the circumstances, meant being chained to a log and fined by the resident commissioner. The Eureka stockade rebellion The alluvial gold on the goldfields soon became exausted, and by 1854 the days of easy "pick and shovel" or sluice mining by individuals or groups of mates were clearly numbered.

There was a switch towards deep-lead mining, which required shafts to reach the gold in quartz reefs much further below the surface, together with capital investment in machinery. The easy going atmosphere of the Australian gold rush began to slide. The Governor of Victoria, Sir Charles Hotham, ordered the frequency of licence hunts to be increased, and tensions between the diggers and the authorities rose even more. At Ballarat, miners formed the Ballarat Reform League to campaign for a relaxation of the licencing system and the vote for every man. After two further incidents - one being the alleged corruption of a local magistrate who acquitted an inn owner of the murder of a miner, and another involving the arrest and religious victimisation of a crippled Armenian digger (who also happened to be the servant of a Roman Catholic priest) - the miners took a stand. Under the leadership of Peter Lalor, an Irish immigrant, a group of several hundred miners erected a stockade of logs at Eureka near Ballarat. They withdrew into the stockade and unfurled the Southern Cross flag to proclaim an oath to fight to defend their rights and liberties.

After a day or so most of the rebel miners returned to their claims, partly because many had intended the event to be symbolic, and partly because it took on a distinctly Irish nature. In any case they were short of arms and ammunition. Nonetheless, more than 400 troops and police were sent from Melbourne to crush what remained of the "rebellion". They rushed the 120 or so miners still inside the stockade, killing more than 20 and trampling their Southern Cross flag into the dust. The rebel leaders were tried for treason but the juries in Melbourne refused to pass any guilty verdicts, and the authorities sensibly let the matter drop. A Royal Commission subsequently condemned the goldfield administration, and the miners' grievances were eventually remedied - including their demands for political representation: a year later, minus an arm lost at Eureka, Peter Lalor (illustrated) was duly elected to the Victorian parliament. Life on the Victorian goldfields Even setting aside the harshness of the licence system, life on the goldfields was very hard. Diggers sometimes worked ten metres below the surface, often waist deep in water. Poorly shored up shafts would collapse, killing those below.

Digging frequently involved accumulating a load of gravel on one's claim and then carrying it quite long distances to the nearest creek or river to wash it for gold using pans, puddling boxes, or cradles. Some miners struck it rich but the hopeful majority enjoyed only moderate success, or no success at all. Miners, and the families who chose to accompany their men, lived in tents. Brawls amongst individual diggers or between different national contingents were common, as were theft and drunkenness. Diggers of the same nationality tended to congregate together in unofficial territories. Others made a good living not from digging but as small agriculturalists selling mutton and vegetables. Once a goldfield had been officially proclaimed the state government would then set up administrative and police personnel in that area, imposing a semblance of law and order. A resident Gold Commissioner, protected by a military garrison, provided the means by which the miners' gold could be weighed, paid for, and transported under the protection of the gold escort to the Melbourne Treasury, and thence into canvas bags and down to the waiting ships to England.

The gold escort, as well as diggers or anyone else travelling in the goldfield region, was always at risk of ambush by bushrangers - an Australian type of outlaw. The risk was much greater for a traveller 'coming down' (from the goldfields to Melbourne) rather than 'going up' (to the goldfields). The robbers liked to adopt witty names like Captain Melville (Francis McCallum), Captain Moonlight (Andrew Scott), and Captain Thunderbolt (Frederick Ward). There was also the Eureka Gang, Black Douglas, and Boogong Jack. Many were hunted down and killed in pursuit or were rounded up and imprisoned or executed. However romantic the notion of digging for gold in the Australian bush, life on the goldfields remained characterised by squalor, greed, crime, self-interest - and racism. The diggers had come from many nations but by far the largest national contingent other than British and Irish were the 40,000 Chinese who had somehow made their way to the Australian goldfields.

As the alluvial deposits dwindled there were moves to restrict the untiring Chinese diggers as they seemed to be comparatively more successful, able to sustain the viability of their claims longer than their Western counterparts. They would rework ground abandoned by Europeans, and continue to work a claim until the whole of the gold bearing earth had been cleaned. The Chinese did not bring their wives, intending instead to send their wealth home. In 1855 the Victorian Parliament imposed a tax of £10 a head on all Chinese entering the colony and a poll tax of £1 per annum levied on every Chinese person on the goldfields. Restrictions were eventually placed on Asians in general, to prevent an influx from other nearby nations: Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. And of course the native Aborigine was rarely permitted to own gold. Meanwhile, in the young city of Melbourne a round-the-clock orgy was going on. Shanty towns sprung up to house the tens of thousands of immigrants pouring off the ships from England and Ireland, and in the hotels and grog shops lining the city's jam-packed muddy streets the diggers were drinking their gold away.

Intoxicated miners with their pockets bulging with gold dust lurched from bar to bar and through the newly opened luxury shops, festooning their girls with jewellery and lighting their pipes with £5 notes. Biddies - unattached young women - were looking for diggers to marry. Merchants of all kinds flourished in the bonanza, and gold money began to finance the construction of a more respectable suburbia in Melbourne, with imported Italian Marble and English Axminster carpets. The gold rush in Western Australia By the turn of the century Australia had become the world's largest producer of gold, half of which came from Western Australia. Gold was produced at Kimberley for a short time in 1885, and then at Southern Cross (1888) and Coolgardie (1892), but it was three Irishmen - Patrick Hannan, Tom Flanagan, and Daniel Shea - who triggered the rush in Western Australia in June 1893. While camping at Mt Charlotte, by chance they discovered some 100 ounces of gold in alluvial nuggets. After a few days they reported the find to the mining warden in Coolgardie.

As in the east, when the word got out the rush began. Hundreds of diggers were soon pegging out new claims around Kalgoorlie, then elsewhere in the region. The early pickings were rich, but the circumstances were different from those in New South Wales and Victoria. This was desert and water was scarce. It was enormously expensive to obtain supplies of food and equipment in such a remote part of the continent. Eventually a reservoir was built at Kalgoorlie, by which time the surface gold was working itself out and highly capitalised companies financed by British investors were mining gold leads deep underground. The experience of the gold rush in the east had been learned. Hundreds of companies were floated and the population of Western Australia swelled with people streaming in from Victoria and New South Wales. As the prosperity of the region improved, large public works programmes were undertaken. A habour was built at Freemantle and a railway network linked the dozens of newly established gold towns, though many townships died when the seams were exhausted. Nonethless the dramatic improvement in the state's fortunes tipped the balance of public opinion in favour of the Federation of the Commonwealth of Australia after the referendum of 1900.

The British perspective Before the Australian gold rush, Britain had regarded the distant colony as little more than a penal settlement. The discovery of gold brought a marked change in attitude. To the fortune-hunting optimists who set sail from England in the 1850s, a berth on a ship to Australia had become worth a life's savings rather than a life-sentence. At the same time, pressure was increasing to end the transportation of convicts - there were actually empty cells in British prisons - and the 'purpose' of Australia began to look different. The British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir John Pakington, pronounced that the very existence of gold made it "a solecism to convey offenders... to the immediate vicinity of those very gold fields which thousands of honest labourers are in vain striving to reach." Gold began to tilt not only the order of Australian society as the wealthy bourgeoisie expanded its power base, but also the feelings of association with the "old country". Victorians took pride in the fact that the emerging success of the state was not primarily founded on the back of convict transportation.

In 1852 the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Melbourne petitioned Queen Victoria, protesting against the transportation of convicts to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) from where, once freed, they crossed over to contaminate the very colony which bore her name. It was subsequently ended in 1853, and soon after, to Australia as a whole. Page last modified: November 30, 2014 ~ GOLD ~ 1858 150,000 The majority of migrants came from the United Kingdom. Between 1852 and 1860, 290,000 people came to Victoria from the British Isles. Of the other migrants, less than 15,000 came from other European countries and 18,000 migrated from America. In 1861, 29% of the population was Australian born, 60% were from the United Kingdom and 11% were from other parts of the world. Canvas towns The colonial town of Melbourne was unequipped to deal with the thousands of people arriving at its docks every day.

By August 1852 the first ships began arriving from England, flooding Melbourne with an extra 15,000 people, all looking for a place to sleep. A canvas towns of tents sprang up in the south of Melbourne. The existence of "Canvas Town" was legalised by Governor LaTrobe in 1852, who imposed weekly rent of five shillings per tent. The rows of tents formed streets which were usually better signed than those in Melbourne. They took their names from prestigous London streets like the Strand, Bond, Regent, Oxofrd and Liverpool. Letters written to the Australian and New Zealand Gazette describe the scene: Melbourne, October 14 1852 "One of the most striking peculiarities here to a new arrival is the immense encampments that surround Melbourne.

The vast number of tents that stud the open ground in every direction conveys a clear idea of that enormous emigration to Victoria, which requires, in addition to the house accommodation of an overgrown city, the erection of canvas suburbs, where the hordes of adventurers daily arriving, may find a temporary shelter on landing, and before starting to the great storehouses of Mammon at Mount Alexander and Ballarat." Melbourne, September 6, 1852 "It would be utterly impossible to give you any idea of the state of things in Melbourne now. It is such as the world never saw before, and perhaps never will again. With thousands arriving every day from England, California, and America, &c., we have still the same number of houses in Melbourne that we had when the population was only about 24,000 before the gold discovery. You may think what it must be now.

A complete wilderness of tents has sprung up all round the city, in which all the most hardened villains in the colony have their haunts, and through which it is not safe to walk in broad daylight." Melbourne, August 31 1852 "People are flocking in from all countries now, and there is not accommodation for a tenth of them. Some have to sleep in sheds, &c., who never knew anything but a feather-bed in England. We have had very heavy rains lately; several people have been drowned on their way to and from the diggings in attempting to swim the creeks, as the Government does not think of putting any bridges where required; indeed, the people are beginning to murmur against the abominable way in which our government is carried out." From the Gold Treasury Museum’s online education resources database Built on Gold . Deserting towns, deserting ships Despite the massive influx of people, many Australian towns were deserted. The rush for gold lured able-bodied men away from city centres to the gold fields.

In a letter to Lord Grey, Secretary of the State, Victorian Governor Hotham, announced: "Within the last three weeks the towns of Melbourne and Geelong and their large suburbs have been in appearance almost emptied of many classes of their male inhabitants. Not only have the idlers and day labourers in town and country thrown up their employments and run off to the workings, but responsible tradesmen, farmers, clerks of every grade, and not a few of the superior classes have followed. Cottages are deserted, house to let, business is at a standstill, and even schools are closed. The ships in the harbour are in a great measure deserted; and we hear instances where even the masters of vessels, foreseeing the impossibility of maintaining any control over their men otherwise, have made up parties among them to go shares." From the Gold Treasury Museum’s online education resources database Built on Gold . Credits Population On The Goldfields | Australian Gold, History & Culture Info/Immigrant Influences - Australian Gold Fields - Historic Gold Rush Village Mogo South Coast NSW Australia Population On The Goldfields The Start Of Multi-Cultural Australia The Australian Colonies had gradually evolved into more than just a penal settlement.

However the Gold Rush heralded an influx of immigrants out to seek their fortune. It is estimated that between 1851 and 1860, about 500,000 people came to the Australian colonies from Great Britain. Of these 300,000 were from England and Wales,over 101,000 from Ireland and 100,000 from Scotland. At least 42,000 Chinese, and another 5,000 from around the South Pacific mainly New Zealand joined the rush. People also arrived from North America and Europe, from Germany, France,Italy, Poland and Hungary. Of these new immigrants, 60% went to the colony of Victoria. In 1854, the Ballarat goldfields alone had about 25,000 diggers and support people of all nationalities,including Aboriginal people. By 1858, the Victorian population peaked at 150,000, of whom over half were British and 40,000 were Chinese.

Question: In which Australian state did a gold rush begin in July 1851?
Answer: Victoria