The
Californian
goldrushes
of the
1840s
captured
the
popular
imagination
around
the
world
with
tales of
the huge
fortunes
to be
made
gold-prospecting,
and it
wasn't
long
until
Australia's
first
goldrush
took
place -
near
Bathurst
in New
South
Wales in
1851.
Victoria
had been
a
separate
colony
for only
nine
days
when
gold was
found at
Clunes
on July
10,
1851;
the
goldrush
began in
earnest
when
rich
deposits
were
found in
Ballarat
nine
months
later.
The
richest
goldfields
ever
known
soon
opened
at
Bendigo,
and
thousands
poured
into
Victoria
from
around
the
world.
In the
golden
decade
of the
1850s
Victoria's
population
increased
from
eighty
thousand
to half
a
million,
half of
whom
remained
permanently
in the
state.
The
British
and
Irish
made up
a large
proportion
of the
new
population
but over
forty
thousand
Chinese
came to
make
their
fortune,
too,
along
with
experienced
American
gold-seekers
and
other
nationalities
such as
Russians,
Finns
and
Filipinos.
Ex-convicts
and
native-born
Australians
also
poured
into
Victoria,
leaving
other
colonies
short of
workers;
even
respectable
policemen
deserted
their
posts to
become "diggers",
and
doctors,
lawyers
and
prostitutes
crowded
into the
haphazard
new
towns in
their
wake.
The
goldfields
were a
great
equalizer;
all you
needed
was a
shovel
and
perseverance,
and a
fortune
was as
likely
yours as
the next
man's.
In
the
beginning,
the
fortune-seekers
panned
the
creeks
and
rivers
searching
for
alluvial
gold
,
constantly
moving
on at
the news
of
another
find.
But gold
was also
deep
within
the
earth,
where
ancient
riverbeds
had been
buried
by
volcanoes;
in
Ballarat
in 1852
the
first
shafts
were dug,
and
because
the work
was
unsafe
and
arduous,
the men
joined
in bands
of eight
or ten,
usually
grouped
by
nationality,
working
a common
claim.
For deep
mining,
diggers
stayed
in one
place
for
months
or years,
and the
major
workings
rapidly
became
stable
communities
with
banks,
shops,
hotels,
churches
and
theatres,
evolving
more
gradually,
on the
back of
income
from
gold,
into
grandiose
towns.
