Australian Gold Rushes

The Australian gold rushes made up a period beginning in the 1850s in which thousands of people came to Australia to search for gold, profoundly shaping the continent economically and culturally. The mid-nineteenth century saw many movements to develop natural resources as the world grew increasingly industrialized and new lands opened to the colonial powers. Gold, in particular, stirred dreams of wealth wherever it was discovered and often set off gold rushes, or booms of people attempting to quickly get rich.

The famous California gold rushes beginning in 1848 helped spark a similar movement in Australia. Prospectors came from all over the world to seek their fortunes, rapidly swelling the population. Settlements arose wherever gold was found, and gold exports—along with the businesses and infrastructure that grew up to serve settlers and prospectors—contributed to a surging economy. Through the 1850s, over one third of all the world’s gold production came from the Australian state of Victoria alone. Not all the changes brought on by the gold rushes were positive, however; new settlements displaced Aboriginal Australian populations and often damaged the environment, while racism against Chinese workers and political tension flared up. Still, the gold rushes are seen as a key chapter in Australian history and identity.

Brief History

Explorer James Cook claimed the lands of eastern Australia, which he named New South Wales, for Great Britain in 1770. Eight years later the first English settlement was established there, and the early colonial population of Australia consisted largely of convicts. Before long rumors began to spread that gold could be found in the area, and several reported discoveries were investigated. James McBrien, a surveyor, found the first traces of Australian gold in the Fish River near Bathurst in 1823, but the deposits were small and had little impact. Additionally, the government suppressed news of gold findings, worrying that such reports would stir up the convict population and threaten the colony’s stability.

Australian authorities began to rethink their strategy when the California gold rush began in 1848, drawing away a significant number of Australians. The discovery that started the Australian gold rushes was made at Lewis Pond Creek, New South Wales, in 1851 by Edward Hammond Hargraves, who had recently returned from the California goldfields. He named his mine Ophir, a reference to the riches of Ophir in the Old Testament, and began spreading the word. Soon hundreds of miners were at work, and the government had dispatched its own surveyors to verify Hargraves’s discovery. Hargraves was more interested in being rewarded for his find than in being a miner himself, and accepted a life pension from the government in recognition of what authorities now hoped would be an economic asset.

Indeed, the goldfields quickly proved to be lucrative. In July 1851 the so-called Kerr Nugget, weighing over a hundred pounds, was found, further sparking the rush. The state of Victoria, alarmed at the number of citizens headed to prospect in New South Wales, offered rewards for local gold discoveries, which were soon made and proved to be the richest yet. News of gold in Australia soon spread throughout the world, and immigrants streamed in. Melbourne, Victoria, flourished as a key port of entry for gold seekers (often called diggers) and a popular place for them to celebrate. However, gold was also discovered in Western Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory, and Tasmania. Individual finds, especially those involving large nuggets, each sparked their own rush.

Early gold discoveries and accompanying rushes involved alluvial gold deposits, which were relatively easily mined by small operations or even individual prospectors. By the end of the 1850s the richest of these fields were mostly exhausted, and companies with the capital to sustain other forms of mining began to dominate the gold industry. Periodic rushes continued until about the turn of the twentieth century, with the major Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie fields of Western Australia found in the 1890s.

Impact

The Australian gold rushes made some people rich, though many more failed to find the easy wealth they sought. The influx of wealth from gold exports provided a huge boost to the Australian economy, and many businesses and industries flourished in support of the gold mining operations. The price of food and lodging skyrocketed in the 1850s, and dance halls, saloons, and other businesses catering to the diggers flourished. As the economy boomed, technology and infrastructure improved, with telegraphs and railways in particular springing up to serve the growing settlements. However, many farms and factories suffered for a time from a lack of labor as most people left for the goldfields.

The population boom brought on by mass immigration of hopeful prospectors had an enormous effect on Australia, culturally as well as economically. The population of Victoria swelled until it roughly equaled that of the rest of Australia combined. Most of the newcomers were young men, which exacerbated the demographic imbalance that Australia had experienced since European colonization. The often rowdy, sometimes lawless nature of the early diggers contributed to the independent nature of Australian national identity, and class distinctions from Great Britain and elsewhere were abandoned under the bond of shared experience. Later immigrants, attracted by the strong economy established by the gold rushes, tended to bring a middle-class perspective that further shaped Australian culture.

While many diggers came from England, Scotland, and Ireland, other groups also came in search of gold wealth. Prospectors and entrepreneurs from the United States, Germany, and various parts of Europe were generally accepted into the developing Australian society. However, the largest group of immigrants came from China, with over 40,000 arrivals from the 1850s through the 1880s. Many white miners resented these immigrants, fueled by racism and competition for declining amounts of alluvial gold. Several movements formed to ban Chinese prospectors, riots broke out, and legislation was introduced to limit nonwhite immigration.

Ill will also often developed between miners and displaced Aboriginal Australian populations. While some Aboriginal people found opportunities in the gold rushes as guides, workers, or traders, many others were forced off their land. Increased access to alcohol contributed to Aboriginal poverty, and many prospectors formed negative views of the people they saw only as beggars.

Political tensions also arose during the Australian gold rushes. The British Crown held rights to all gold found in Australia on either public or private lands. Laws required miners to pay monthly fees to license access to just a small plot of land. The law and its vigorous enforcement by police were predictably unpopular with miners. In Ballarat, Victoria, a rebel movement formed to advocate for diggers’ rights and against police corruption. In 1854 their encampment at the Eureka Stockade was attacked by government troops and many rebels were killed, but the movement’s leaders were cleared of treason charges and proved influential in local politics. Additionally, the gold rushes helped convince British and Australian authorities to end the transportation of convicts to Australia, as the practice was essentially giving convicts the opportunity to become diggers.

Bibliography

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