Edward Peters (prospector)
[16][17] On 31 August 1853 Peters decided to disembark the ship, despite the fact he did not have permission from the British Authorities allowing him to set foot in a Crown colony.
[3][4][10] In spite of having taken unauthorised leave of his ship, as a measure of Edward Peters' integrity, he was said to have completed his enforced labour by escorting himself to and from work sites without any supervision.
[5] Having earnt his freedom and now in his late twenties,[5] Peters travelled southwest from Dunedin toward the Tokomairiro (Milton), Tuapeka (Lawrence) and Molyneux (Balclutha) districts.
Settling in the Glenore area near Milton, Peters initially took work as a hut builder, bullock cart driver and farm labourer.
Unlike some of his contemporaries (e.g. Horatio Hartley and Christopher Reilly), Peters was never secretive about his finds, always willing to talk gold and show the locations of where he found them.
John Thomson, the ferryman at Molyneux (Balclutha) and a black American man prospected the area and found small amounts of gold almost everywhere they tried.
[9][15] The other notable recording of Peters working at Evans Flat is significant and would directly lead to Gabriel Read's eventual discovery nearby.
Though the accounts differ slightly in their versions of events,[9][23] they are broadly consistent in that Peters encountered John Lillie Gillies from Tokomairiro (Milton), who was looking for some vagrant stock.
[9][23] Not all accounts subscribe to this version of events; an article in the Otago Daily Times in 1933 stated vociferously that the notion that Read had followed Peters – or anyone for that matter – was 'without foundation'.
[21] The other story commonly circulated around Peters' finding gold in the region occurred in May 1858 while he was helping drive sheep to the property of Inch Clutha farmer, Archibald Anderson.
[5] The 1861 application for the reward on behalf of Peters was made by John Forster of Kaihiku Falls who wrote: To his Honor the Superintendent, Dunedin Sir, A man of the name of Edward Peters, working near here, has asked me to write to your Honor to say he put in a claim for the discovery of the Gold Diggings on and near the "Tuapeka" and "Waitahuna" Rivers, and also near "Tokomairiro," many months ago, and he now considers he is the person who is entitled to the reward offered by the Government, and not Mr. Read, as it is well known to many in this neighbourhood that he obtained gold from the above locality.
– Disposed of.Why Peters' claim was rejected is not clear but it likely involves elements of racism, local politics and the bad timing of his application which post-dated Gabriel Read's own discovery.
[25] Thomas Gabriel Read, a Tasmanian gold prospector and farmer, arrived in Port Chalmers on board the ship Don Pedro II from Hobart, on 8 February 1861.
[28] On the basis of Gillies' information regarding Edward Peters' workings at Woolshed Creek and Evans Flat, Read set-off in the direction of Tuapeka, prospecting as he went.
Read would later describe his discovery in a letter to the Warden of the Otago Goldfields, Vincent Pyke: At a place where a kind of road crossed on a shallow bar, I shovelled away about 2+1⁄2 feet of gravel, arrived at a beautiful soft slate and saw the gold shining like the stars in Orion on a dark frosty night.Like Edward Peters, Gabriel Read did not hesitate to share his findings for the benefit of the rest of the Province.
Having discovered a confirmed, workable gold field, Read was rewarded with two grants of £500 each (double the initial promised sum) from the Otago Provincial Council for his find.
[5][15] He is mentioned briefly as a new store owner alongside a Mr James Green in Waitahuna[32] following Gabriel Read and William Baldwin's gold discovery there in July 1861.
The memorial was driven largely by the Trust's chairman, local Glenore resident, farmer and historian Alan Williams, who also published Edward Peters' biography.
