The historical setting
During the Australian gold rushes, a significant number of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of New South Wales had suppressed the news out of the fear that it would reduce the workforce and destabilise the economy. The Australian gold rushes made the convict colonies into more progressive cities with the influx of free immigrants. After the California Gold Rush began in 1848, many people went there from Australia, so the government sought approval from the British Colonial Office for the exploitation of mineral resources and offered rewards for finding gold.
History of discovery
The first gold rush in Australia began in May 1851 after prospector Edward Hargraves claimed to have discovered payable gold near Orange, at a site called Ophir. Hargraves had been to the California goldfields and had learned new gold prospecting techniques such as panning and cradling. Hargraves was offered rewards by 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. With the influx of free immigrants, the Australian gold rushes led to the development of more progressive cities from the former convict colonies.
These hopefuls, termed diggers, brought new skills and professions, contributing to a burgeoning economy. The mateship that evolved between these diggers and their collective resistance to authority led to the emergence of a unique national identity. Although not all diggers found riches on the goldfields, many decided to stay and integrate into these communities. When the rush began at Ballarat, diggers discovered it was a prosperous goldfield. Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe visited the site and watched five men uncover 136 troy ounces (149 oz; 4,200 g) of gold in one day.
February 1851: Orange, New South Wales
Edward Hargraves, accompanied by John Lister, found five specks of alluvial gold at Ophir near Orange in February 1851. In April 1851, John Lister and William Tom, trained by Edward Hargraves, found 120 grams of gold. This discovery, instigated by Hargraves, led directly to the beginning of the gold rush in New South Wales. This was the first gold rush in Australia. It was in full operation by May 1851, even before it was officially proclaimed as such on 14 May 1851. In 1872, a large gold and quartz "Holtermann Nugget" was discovered by the night shift, in a mine part owned by Bernhardt Holtermann at Hill End, near Bathurst, New South Wales.
It was the largest specimen of reef gold ever found: 1.5 metres (59 in) long, weighing 286 kg (631 lb), in Hill End, near Bathurst, and with an estimated gold content of 5,000 troy ounces (160 kg). 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 discover gold at Ballarat "and make it known to the public", a claim he was later to also make about Bendigo, and which resulted in the sitting of a Select Committee of the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1890.)
1893–1899: Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie
Other rich fields were found in the area around Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie in the period 1893–1899. In 1897, Coolgardie was the third largest town in Western Australia after Perth and Fremantle and the largest town in the Western Australian gold-mining districts, with a recorded population of 5,008, while Kalgoorlie–Boulder was the fourth-largest town in Western Australia and the second largest in the Western Australian gold-mining districts, with an estimated population of 3,400. (Kalgoorlie's recorded population was 2,018, while numbers for Boulder were not recorded. The estimate of 3,400 for Kalgoorlie–Boulder is based on the proportional numbers in Kalgoorlie and Boulder in the 1901 census.) The total estimated population for 1897 for the many settlements in the Coolgardie Magisterial Districts (which included Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie) was 17,645 (14,047 men and 3,598 women). Many more people were not residing in residential areas but were out in the field mining.