Victorian gold rush

[1] The Victorian Gold Discovery Committee wrote in 1854: The discovery of the Victorian Goldfields has converted a remote dependency into a country of worldwide fame; it has attracted a population, extraordinary in number, with unprecedented rapidity; it has enhanced the value of property to an enormous extent; it has made this the richest country in the world; and, in less than three years, it has done for this colony the work of an age, and made its impulses felt in the most distant regions of the earth.

[4] Gold was first discovered in Australia on 15 February 1823, by assistant surveyor James McBrien, at Fish River, between Rydal and Bathurst (in New South Wales).

Their presence on the goldfields of Bendigo, Beechworth and the Bright district resulted in riots, entry taxes, killings, and segregation in the short term, and became the foundations of the White Australia policy.

[11] There were rumours abroad about the presence of gold in Australia, but Government officials kept all findings secret for fear of disorganising the young colony.

Flocks were left untended, drovers deserted their teams, merchants and lawyers rushed from their desks and entire ships' crews, captains included, marched off to seek their fortunes.

[12] In March 1850, William Campbell of Strath Loddon, found on the station of his brother-in-law, Donald Cameron, of Clunes several minute pieces of native gold in quartz.

Dr. George H. Bruhn, a German physician, whose services as an analyst were in great demand, had been shown specimens of gold from what afterwards became the Clunes diggings.

He discovered an auriferous deposit in the gully of the Buninyong ranges now bearing his name, on 8 August 1851, and he communicated the fact, with its precise locality, to the editor of the Geelong Advertiser on the 10th of that month.

Dr. George H. Bruhn, a German physician, in the month of January, 1851, (i.e. before Mr. Hargraves' discovery at Summerhill) started from Melbourne to explore "the mineral resources of this colony'.

[14] On 20 July 1851 Thomas Peters, a hut-keeper on William Barker's Mount Alexander station, found specks of gold at what is now known as Specimen Gully.

This find was published in the Melbourne Argus on 8 September 1851, leading to a rush to the Mount Alexander or Forest Creek diggings, centred on present-day Castlemaine, claimed as the richest shallow alluvial goldfield in the world.

Miners discovered so-called deep leads, which were gold-bearing watercourses that had been buried at various depths by centuries of silting and, in some Victorian goldfields such as Ballarat, volcanic action.

Places such as Bendigo and Ballarat saw great concentrations of miners, who were forming partnerships and syndicates to enable them to sink ever-deeper shafts.

Following that uprising, a range of reforms gave miners a greater say in resolving disputes via Mining Courts, and extended electoral franchise to them.

By the end of 1855, more than 19,000 Chinese immigrants, particularly from the Guangdong province of China, were estimated to be working on the Victorian goldfields of Ararat, Ballarat, Ovens, Bendigo, Castlemaine and Maryborough.

On April the 14th 1855, The Argus, a daily newspaper in Melbourne, described the growing Chinese population within Victoria as an "invading army" whose presence will "subject the community to the demoralizing influence of their ideas".

[15] By landing at the port of Robe in the colony of South Australia and travelling more than 400 km across country to the Victorian goldfields, Chinese gold seekers were able to successfully evade the restrictions of Victoria's immigration act.

In December, 1853, an amending Act reduced the fee to £1 per month, but did not alter the diggers' greatest grievance, that they could be imprisoned for not having the actual licence on them, though their possession of one could be proved from the official record.

Charles Hotham, who arrived in Victoria in June 1854, was alarmed at the depleted state of the Treasury and the growing expense of goldfields administration.

These grievances were common to all the Victorian fields, and had under Latrobe's administration produced riots at Beechworth and Castlemaine, but Ballarat, always the most domestic of the goldfields, was renowned for its peaceful progressiveness and quietness.

At an indignation meeting held on 11 November on Bakery Hill, the Ballarat Reform League was formed, with John Basson Humffray (a Welshman) as its first secretary, and Peter Lalor, Frederic Vern (a Hanoverian), Raffaello Carboni (an Italian teacher, of languages), Timothy Hayes (an Irishman), and George Black, a well-educated Englishman, as prominent members.

A deputation of three men waited on Governor Hotham to demand the release of the prisoners, but he refused and had already sent additional troops to Ballarat, which gave considerable offence by marching through the town with fixed bayonets and by other exasperating conduct.

On 29 November, Black, Humffray, and Kennedy reported to a mass meeting held at Bakery Hill the result of their deputation to the Governor, and Vern proposed a burning of the hated licences, which was then carried out.

Next day the police carried out a specially vicious and vigorous licence-hunt, and when the troops marched back to camp, the diggers hastened to a conference with the leaders of the Reform League.

Peter Lalor was elected leader, and under a blue flag adorned with the stars of the Southern Cross the assembled diggers swore 'to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties.'

An area of about an acre on the present Eureka site was hastily enclosed with a pallisade and a deputation was sent to the military camp demanding the release of the morning's prisoners and the cessation of licence-hunting.

The rushes left Victorian architecture in towns in the Goldfields region such as Maldon, Beechworth, Clunes, Heathcote, Maryborough, Daylesford, Stawell, Beaufort, Creswick, St Arnaud, Dunolly, Inglewood, Wedderburn and Buninyong whose economy has differing emphases on home working, tourism, farming, modern industrial and retired sectors.