The gold rushes of New South Wales, 1851-74 : a social history

Abstract

After following with excitement for three years the news of the gold-rushes in California, the colonists of New South Wales found similar exciting opportuniies suddely revealed in their own territory in May 1851, when Edward Hammond Hargraves made public the news of his dicoveries near Bathurst. The intensity of the gold fever which swept through New South Wales equalled anything which had been experienced in California, and abated only with the news later in the year of richer and more extensive gold-fields in Victoria. As a result of the greater public interest in the Victorian fields, both in Australia and overseas, the great majority of immigrants attracted by gold went to that colony, and New South Wales was spared the swamping of the pre-gold population by immigrants which Victoria experienced. Moreover, being the seat of an older, more firmly established society than the daughter colony, New South Wales was not changed and dominated by the diggers to the same degree as Victoria. The gold discoveries, after the first wave of excitement had subsided, had little effect upon the colony as a whole other than to increase her population and speed her internal development to a somewaht faster rate than would otherwise have happended, and to add another industry - gold digging - to the colony's tally. The most outstnading incident during this period was the series of riots at Lambing Flat in 1860-1, when the diggers combined to drive the Chinese from the fields, and forced the government to restrict Chinese immigration into the colony. The prevailing element in these proceedings was mpt pme pf reaspmed disapproval or of actual provocation by the Chinese, but blind and passionate prejudice, which spread rapidyly from the gold-fields to infect the whole colony until restriction betokened the removal of the 'menace'. Though the interior was as a result of the diggings thrust into the light of public notice, few of the many gold settlements survived the gold-rushed to become thriving provincial centres, unless there was an economic need for such a community to serve as a real centre for an agricultural or pastoral region. Such centres were served by the communications network which the gold-fields inspired, but the most important requirements, such as roads and railways, did not materialize as a result of gold-field pressures. Unlike the Victorians, the New South Wales miners could not muster enough political influence to win such amenities. gold-digging here was of secondary importance. There was a strong individualist strain in many of the diggers, but this very factor made it difficult for the development of militant political groupings of miners, who, until the spread of wage-labour in the 1870s took effect, had no inclination to combine for any but the most immediate needs. Political apathy rather than radicalism was the hall mark of the New South Wales diggers. Their conduct on the fields was generally marked by a greater calmness and peace than was the case in Victoria, though this disappeared in the continuous rush in the western district during the 1860s. Show more