Goldfields

Victorian gold discovery

History

Discovery of Gold in Victoria
It is a common public belief that nothing was known about gold in Australia before Edmond Hammond Hargraves announced his gold discovery near Bathurst New South Wales; an event that occurred in early 1851.
Regardless of what really has occurred in any aspect of history, the publicity and consequent folklore tends to favour people who could devise the best publicity for their cause: the discovery of gold is no different. The detailed story of gold discovery is a complex and adventurous subject, well beyond the scope of this work and the views of one person. However, the history of gold discovery does need some introduction, for it is background material for mining law and specifically the Victorian Miner’s Right.

Captain James Cook, 1770:
The story begins with Captain James Cook who narrowly missed out on starting a gold rush while exploring the east coast of Australia. This occurred just off the mainland coast of New Holland, as Australia was then known. In Bill Peach’s book, Bill Peach’s Gold, he describes how Captain Cook and his crew placed a flag on the highest point of Possession Island which is near the tip of Cape York, Queensland. They raised the flag on August 22, 1770 and fired three volleys from small arms as they claimed for England the eastern half of New Holland. In 1895 gold was found on that island and 2,480 oz in all were mined. The first shaft was put down where the flag had been raised.

James McBrien, Assistant Surveyor, 1823:
The first recorded discovery of gold was February 15, 1823 when Assistant Surveyor James McBrien marked a tree adjacent the Fish River near Bathurst. The tree was a convenient point of reference for his field-notes: he had observed gold in the sand on the adjacent hills. Gold had now been found and was officially documented; but as was repeated for some time to come, the official response was disinterest or discouragement.

Paul Strezleki, Explorer, 1839:
Bill Peach’s book also tells us that the polish explorer Paul Strzelecki reported finding gold to Governor Gipps in 1839. He then tells us that an amateur geologist named William Clarke showed gold samples to the same governor in 1844. There are further and more detailed accounts about Clarke and Strezelecki in Professor Geoffrey Blainey’s book, The Rush That Never Ended . Also in Professor Blainey’s book is a brief account of how Sir Roderick Murchison, in London, had seen gold samples that had been sent by Strzelecki for display. His book also tells us that in 1846 other people had sent gold samples directly to Murchison, which suggests that in Australia there may have been more than just casual good luck regarding finding gold.

McGregor, The Gold Finding Shepherd, 1840s:
In the latter half of the 1840s the public became aware that a shepherd named McGregor was consistently finding gold in the Wellington area within new South Wales. It would appear he had been finding gold for many years with gold an open secret among the shepherds. He found so much that he gained the name “The gold finder”. Some of his finds were displayed at Cohen’s the jewellers in Sydney. There is an interesting account of this man, his adventures and misadventures, in a book by Ion Idriess called The Silver City. Idriess records the shepherd’s name with the spelling as Macgregor.

Plenty Ranges, Victoria:
As early as 1841, in what was to become the colony of Victoria, reports of gold discoveries were trickling out of the Plenty Ranges near Melbourne. James Flett’s book, The History of Gold Discovery in Victoria, provides several names in regard to exploring the Plenty Ranges. There is also a brief account in the book Australia in the 1870s.

David Reed, Squatter, 1845-1846:
Both Peach and Blainey describe another gold discovery near miss, which occurred over the summer of 1845-1846. A millrace was being constructed near Beechworth in the north east of Victoria. Gold was noticed in the bottom of the race but was dismissed as mica by the owner, David Reid. A second chance was lost when Reid also dismissed as mica the gold found by a brick maker who was digging clay. This mistake was not repeated two years later in California, when gold was found in similar circumstances in a race being dug for Captain John Sutter.
The historic options of America, Australia, or both leading a gold rush depended on these observations of gold. It is an interesting exercise to consider that a few words acted upon or dismissed can have vast effects upon the future of nations.

Thomas Chapman, Shepherd, 1849: ( The story of Thomas Chapman is being researched in more detail)
An event written about by Peach, Blainey and Flett is the story of a youthful shepherd named Thomas Chapman. While working on Hall and McNeill’s Glenmona run in January 1849, Chapman found gold close to his hut near what would become Amherst and Daisy Hill, not far from the future Central Victorian town of Maryborough. He found 38 oz of gold, which he took to Melbourne and sold to a jeweller named Charles Brentani, creating a soap opera adventure that included the first gold rush. Professor Blainey’s book tells how the youth led a party back towards the site, but he disappeared as they drew near. An article in the archive says that Chapman led Brentani and his assayer Duchene but absconded miles short of the objective.   The same notes include a brief family history that tells us Chapman was born at Prior Swaffham, Cambridgeshire, England in 1831 while Convicts of the Port Phillip District by Keith M. Clarke gives his birth as 1828. Mr Clarke also tells that on November 27th 1843 Chapman got a ten-year sentence for robbing his own father and duly arrived at Williamstown via the Maitland on November 6th 1846. In regard to this gold find, the Melbourne based Argus newspaper speculated on February 6th that this find might exceed all else except for California. On the same day that this article appeared, a party of police were sent from Melbourne to throw off the trespassers gathered at Chapman’s hut. The police dispersed around thirty to forty people; hopefuls who were trying to find where the gold came from. Professor Blainey’s book tells us only one shallow hole had been dug when the police arrived.
The Maryborough & Dunolly Advertiser of June 12th 1863 has a snippet of undated information. It reports that Clarke of Elizabeth Street Melbourne, in the company of William Vickary went to Hodgkinsons Station at Burn Bank where they found a specimen of auriferous quartz then they continued onwards to come upon Chapman’s hut where they found La Trobe’s sixteen native police. The article says that with the assistance of the sergeant they found several quartz specimens and they took away a bag of earth from which they obtained 2-Dwt by amalgamation.
It would appear that Captain Dana did not remain in the area but Sergeant McLelland and the Native police did as this excerpt from McLelland’s report of March 10th 1849 shows: " I have also to inform you that in consequence of the water at the Daisy Hill hut having become unfit for use, I had to remove the party from that place to the creek near the station of Messrs McNeill and Hall – however I patrol over the ground daily where the gold mine is supposed to be, (which is all the duty we perform) – but without having seen any person for the last month in search of gold."

Again, what might history look like if the hopefuls of the first gold rush had a few more hours to try their luck or some needed basic skills? Two years later, when the gold rushes near Bathurst erupted to the detriment of Melbourne, there began an official and unsuccessful search to find the shepherd Chapman and his secret. In James Flett’s book, in regard to the discovery of Clunes, there is a reproduced letter from William Campbell who commented on Chapman’s find. He stated in the letter that the gold was found on the Glenmona run owned by McNeill and Hall. Twice in his letter Campbell states that the displayed gold was a lump, leaving little doubt that the gold found by Chapman was a single nugget.

Mining, Other Than Gold, Before 1851:
We can see from these examples that gold was known to exist before the rushes broke out. There is strong evidence that many of these finds were indeed rich. This in turn leads to the question of why the rushes did not start earlier than they did.
There appears to be a few factors that interacted to prevent an earlier gold rush; there was a lack of publicity and a possible lack of credibility; for many finds were made by people at the bottom of the social order such as shepherds. There was also a lack of government interest, which seems to have been driven by fear of social upheaval. These points were further compounded by a lack of experience when it came to gold; no one had any idea of how to go about finding or recovering gold. The discovery of gold in California was to be the training ground that would open Australia, for it provided the experience needed to work any Australian finds. California was a big discovery that had substance; it was big news and the news kept coming, which may have focused the attention of people in Australia away from the local possibilities.
Prior to the gold rushes there was an existing mining industry in Australia, but this industry did not include gold. The lack of any attempt to prospect or mine gold was a result of politics, not practical issues. Shifting for a moment from gold, Professor Blainey’s book, The Rush That Never Ended, clearly shows that the mining of other metals was an established industry prior to the gold rushes. Some examples include lead being found and worked in 1839 at Glen Osmond, a short distance from Adelaide; a very large copper mining industry developed in the 1840s near Adelaide; lead and copper were also mined at this time at Geelong in what would become Victoria.

William Tipple Smith, Mineralogist, 1848:
An interesting example that provides the clue to the apparent oversight of gold is the mining and smelting of iron ore at Mittagong in 1848. That example exposes a major stumbling block as to why there was no earlier gold rush. In The Rush that Never Ended, in the book’s first chapter ‘Pickpockets Gold’, Professor Blainey points out that after the English revolution of 1689, gold and silver remained ‘royal mines’. As such, gold belongs to the Crown and woe to anyone who said otherwise. As an example he tells of Irish peasants in trouble with the law as a result of recovering gold from a stream in County Wicklow. This drama occurred in 1796. In the same chapter, Professor Blainey cites that the mining investors who owned the iron ore smelter at Mittagong had the following complaint in 1848:

"Why should we mine gold when any gold we find will necessarily lapse to the Crown."

Even if the gold was known to be there, ownership by the Crown removed any possibility of mining.
William Tipple Smith, a mineralogist in New South Wales, had specimens of gold and knew where they came from. He was one of the investors in the iron ore smelter, but he was not into gold mining because of the Crown ownership problem. The gold he had in his possession came from Yorky’s Corner, a shepherds favoured watering hole on Lewis Ponds Creek west of Bathurst. Smith wrote about the gold found in that area in a field guide for prospectors dated April 19th, 1850.

Edward Hargraves, John Lister, William and James Tom, 1851:
When Edward Hammond Hargraves returned to Australia from the California diggings, he knew that the gold was already here because he knew about the shepherd McGregor near Wellington and he also knew about gold being found in the Bathurst area. His prominence in history came from his advertising loudly and widely that he would find gold.
The important thing Hargraves brought with him from California was the knowledge of how to separate gold from the soil. Guided by John Lister from the Wellington in, which had specimens on a mantle piece, Hargraves found five specks in Lewis Ponds Creek on February 12th, 1851. (Compare that date with the date of Smith’s field guide.) Hargraves followed this up by instructing John Lister and Lister’s friend William Tom on how to build and use a cradle, which William Tom set about building. Soon after, these two, in the company of James Tom, found some gold using the newly constructed cradle. William Tom and John Lister then went prospecting further down the creek and made a rich find on April 7, 1851. They got close to 4 oz from the junction of Lewis Ponds Creek and Summerhill Creek. Admittedly two ounces was in the form of a nugget they spotted in tree roots but the rest was found using the first cradle in Australia. It was they who found the payable gold, not Hargraves. But without Hargraves knowledge of tools and techniques, they would not have recovered this gold. Hargraves bought the gold found by John Lister and William Tom, a situation that was exploited by Hargraves to include owning the discovery. That gold was used to set off the first uncontrollable gold rush in a chain of discoveries and rushes. Hargraves subsequently received a handsome reward and went on to prospect Victoria with no success and was then employed by Western Australia of which he said no gold would ever be found.
In a letter written to the Victorian Government on January 25th 1856 Hargraves notes his reward of ₤10,000 from the New South Wales Government and laments the reward of ₤2381 out of a pool of ₤5000 set aside by the Victorian Government, while saying he found gold in Victoria:

    "… out of a sum of ₤5000 voted by the legislative Council of Victoria to myself and other discoverers of gold in that colony… "
It would be some fifty years before John Lister and William Tom achieved recognition. Even so, this author recalls being taught in school in the late 1960s that Hargraves discovered gold in Australia. At the time of writing, you can still readily find modern commentaries that assert that Hargraves discovered gold in Australia: such is the power of a popular notion regardless of the facts.

New South Wales Government and Gold Discovery, 1851:
The opening of the California goldfields caused the Sydney government to rethink its attitude towards gold: too many people were leaving the colony. A reward was offered for the finding of a payable gold field and Governor Fitzroy developed a contingency plan just in case a field should be found. As drifting smoke and rumbling noises from a volcano warn of what is to come, evidence was mounting that something was about to be unleashed . Letters and specimens of gold resulted in more disbelief, more official meetings and procrastination. Only when an undeniable rush broke out did officialdom finally became convinced it was true – after reading about it in the Sydney Morning Herald. With the prospect of sudden wealth and the benefit of having safety in great digger numbers, the illegal digging of the Crown’s gold lost its fear value and the gold rush was on. Fitzroy knew he could not stop a gold rush so he introduced a legal remedy; ownership of any gold found would be transferred to the finder by paying a fee to posses a licence to dig.
Through delays created by bad weather and roads mail transport was slow and then the reports had to filter upwards through the chain of bureaucracy; Governor Fitzroy was a little slow to realise what was really happening in respect of gold. He did anticipate that gold worth working would be found eventually and he was ready; he introduced a contentious and expensive license system designed to force the diggers back to their previous employment: it did not work.

Melbourne Proclaims a Reward to Encourage Gold Discovery, June 1851:
With the discovery of gold in the Bathurst region, the population of Melbourne and the surrounding areas began an exodus northward. Melbourne was heading for economic disaster. A public meeting was held and a reward of 200 guineas was offered for the discovery of a gold field within 200 miles (320 kilometres) of Melbourne. The reward appeared on June 11th in the Port Phillip Gazette. This prompted some people to try their luck.

Clunes Gold Discovery, 1850:
The official location of gold discovery in Victoria is the township of Clunes, which was not far south from the area of Chapman’s discovery. The official discoverer of Clunes as a goldfield was James Esmond. For this discovery, made in June 1851, he received a reward as a result of a later inquiry.
James Esmond came back to Australia from California on the Emma, the same vessel and the very same journey as Hargraves. As with Hargraves, Esmond knew that gold was here and he too brought back with him valuable practical knowledge. Esmond was well aware of Chapman’s find for he was working nearby in the Burnbank area, now called Lexton, primarily as a mail-coach driver. At the time of Chapman’s discovery Esmond did not believe the story of Chapman's gold.
The story for Clunes is made complicated by the fact that three different people, including Esmond, attracted separate rewards for finding the exact same place. In James Flett’s book, The History of Gold Discovery in Victoria, Flett presents numerous documents about Clunes and those documents reveal a complicated story.
At the same place where Esmond found gold on Donald Cameron’s Clunes Run in June 1851, William Campbell, a neighbouring squatter, found gold in March 1850. It was Campbell’s reading of news items from California that inspired this find, items about gold in quartz reefs. He knew about a quartz reef near Cameron’s home, having at one time suggested to Cameron that the white quartz, if broken up into gravel, would look good used on paths around the house. In a letter to the government regarding his part in the discovery of gold, William Campbell tells us that it was a ruse to get people breaking up the quartz to see if any gold would be found. Campbell told many people about his views on gold: nothing happened. In March 1850 he returned to the reef with the specific intention of searching for gold. Donald Cameron, Lewis Grant and the overseer McLennan accompanied William Campbell to the reef. They found several pieces of quartz showing gold. William Campbell, in his letter, was careful to point out that McLennan was the first to find a piece of gold.
The physician Dr Herman Bruhn was a quiet and respected man who saw the plight of the colony due to the California discoveries. In January 1851, the month before Hargraves and Lister’s find, Dr Bruhn gave public lectures about finding gold convenient to Melbourne. He spoke of a proposed expedition to explore the nearby regions and the possibilities of finding gold. He found very strong public support for his ideas, resulting in a lone exploratory journey of some months. He set off and had no luck until the middle of April when he found a small specimen near what would become Daylesford. At the time he was travelling towards Clunes from the Clowe’s Holcombe run, located near present-day Glenlyon. The Clowe brothers had told him about a quartz reef near Cameron’s house. When he was only a few kilometres from the house shepherds confirmed to Bruhn that the reef existed. It would seem that Dr Bruhn was one of the few to respect the knowledge and experience that shepherds possessed and actively sought their knowledge.
Donald Cameron showed the reef to Bruhn as well as some specimens and explained how he and Campbell, in the company of Cameron’s overseer, found gold over a year ago. Bruhn then moved on towards Burnbank but he met up with Esmond and some of his mates erecting a hut on the property of James Hodgkinson. Esmond learned from Bruhn about the reef at Clunes. When Bruhn got to the inn at Burnbank, he saw for the first time the reward offer for the discovery of a goldfield. Bruhn then sent a claim to the reward committee for the discovery. Esmond quietly went about organising a party, which travelled to Clunes where they tested and confirmed the find. Bruhn saw some of Esmond’s finds when Esmond returned to Burnbank. Bruhn went on his way, continuing the task of exploring while Esmond went to Geelong where he set up some delayed publicity with the Geelong Advertiser. He then travelled to Melbourne for the ironwork to build the cradle he needed for serious work. When the news of Clunes broke, it was Esmond’s name that everyone learnt and he was now hard at work recovering gold.
With the rising interest in gold and rumours of its discovery, Campbell, Bruhn and Esmond put in claims for a reward; it was Esmond who prospected the reef properly and his follow-up publicity gained him the fame. There was a small rush to Clunes but it soon failed. Plenty of people went to Clunes but it was not suited to the individual small-scale miner, being mostly solid rock. Later on, the Port Phillip Company started the first large company mine in Victoria, working the reef where the gold was first found.

Andersons Creek Gold Discovery, 1851:
As well as the events of Clunes, the origins of two other small Victorian rushes were developing. One occurred at Andersons Creek Warrandyte, a short distance north east of Melbourne, and the other at Buninyong, south of Ballarat.
Louis John Michel and William Habberlin triggered the Anderson’s Creek rush. John Michel, as he seemed to be known, was the leader and was one of the people influenced by the Melbourne reward offer for finding gold. These two young men were the remnants of a party of six previously organised by Michel. Of their previous efforts over three trips, they brought back, in the company of a reward committee member named Webb Richmond, some stone from a reef that on analysis revealed gold. This limited success saw four members of the party give up.
Louis Michel ran the Rainbow Hotel in Collins Street and because just about everyone had gone to Bathurst there was probably not much happening at the Rainbow Hotel. Michel and Habberlin gave it one more try and, in spite of their lack of knowledge and skill, they succeeded by ignoring the reefs and trying the nearby water courses for gold eventually discovering Andersons Creek. The rush that followed was limited to a small area and a short time because there were only a few good claims in the creek. A reefing field developed later in the hills behind the present town of Warrandyte. The first permits to dig for gold in Victoria were issued at Andersons Creek and issued by Crown lands Commissioner Fenwick, they were only good for one week at a time and cost one shilling. Shortly after the first gold licences were issued at Anderson’s Creek but the field was not then a success with only twenty being sold.

Buninyong and Ballarat Gold Discoveries, 1851:
Buninyong, south of modern-day Ballarat, was already an established settlement when local blacksmith Thomas Hiscock found gold and started a rush. He and one of his sons had been wandering about the hills for some time in response to the events near Bathurst. Hiscock must have been an observant man for he noticed one local Buninyong resident and his improved circumstances; this was before Hiscock took over the blacksmith shop from Scottie McLachlan in 1849.
George Inness was a splitter who gave up his trade and seemed to be bringing in an unusual number of picks to be sharpened. Thomas could guess the reasons behind the apparent retirement, the increased affluence and the outright secrecy of George Inness. To compound this, Thomas also noted the improved condition of the shepherds on Bonshaw station to the north of Buninyong. What Thomas Hiscock lacked in prospecting skills, he more than made up for with determination: eventually he succeeded. The rush to Buninyong was better than Andersons Creek but this also soon died out.
It was people from Geelong who mostly made up the Buninyong rush. Included among the many people who made the journey was a party of five men. Three of them soon lost interest, leaving the remaining pair to consider their options. Now here is where history gets a little confusing because the present thinking has it that Dunlop and Reagan opened up Ballarat. The evidence presented at the first select committee to determine rewards for discoveries gives two very different stories from Dunlop and Regan.
Dunlop’s story basically says that he and Regan went prospecting north of Buninyong towards what would become Ballarat and that they found gold at three different locations. One was adjacent to Yuille’s station in the vicinity of modern day Sebastopol, a southern suburb of Ballarat. A second find at an undescribed location named only as Ballarat and the third and best find was at what became known as Poverty Point, just north of what is now the Sovereign Hill Historic Park.
James Regan said he left Dunlop behind to mind the tent while he travelled to the Pyrenees (refers to Clunes, not Pyrenees Ranges) to check the recent reported find. At Clunes he met Esmond, who was not doing well, and stayed there for four days. On his return he discovered Poverty Point, then he collected Dunlop from Buninyong and returned to Poverty Point. To quote James Flett is the best summary:

"Dunlop and Regan’s evidence as to their movements is confused to say the least… "

There is a memorial not far back towards Ballarat from Sovereign Hill and on the same side of the road. There is a small park and across a bridge spanning the creek is a monument. This memorial marks the place called Poverty Point. Don't let the name deceive you, as it was a very rich find.
Alfred Clarke is described as a disinterested witness. Clarke was a reporter for the Geelong Advertiser and Argus and documented in detail the activity on the goldfields. It would seem that it was his clear record that led to the rewards committee conclusion that Dunlop and Regan were working at Poverty Point when discovered by Clarke who was searching for the diggers that had mysteriously scattered outwards from Buninyong. This was very early in September and before anyone was on nearby Golden Point. Even within the parties who were the first on Golden Point there was internal dissent as to who found the gold.
In spite of the argument and confusion it is a fact that Golden Point was the richest part opened, which resulted in the first real Victorian gold rush. This rush saw a town called Ballarat start up from nothing. Several parties working on Golden Point had it to themselves for the first few days. These people used the Californian precedent and mutually agreed to claims of 100 feet squared, the modern equivalent being close to 30 metres squared. Among the follow up arrivals was Mr James Esmond and his mates along with Connor and party. Connor found that he had to go further up the hill to obtain some ground; a fortunate circumstance indeed for he and his mates left shortly after carrying away a fortune.
James Flett, in his book, History of Gold Discovery in Victoria, has collected together a lot of material that shows that a lot of people argued their case for discovering Ballarat. In the end the discovery of Ballarat was attributed to Regan and Dunlop: they never received a reward for Ballarat. The discovery was seen as a natural extension of Thomas Hiscock’s discovery, for which he received a government reward and the rest were left arguing.
A strong argument could be made that gold was being worked at Ballarat before the working of Poverty Point by Regan and Dunlop. A letter by James Greenwood claims he was on the diggings at Black Hill, including having a hut, well before anyone else was there. Black Hill would become a very rich reefing area and is to the north of Golden Point, on the other side of a wide flat that was to form the Ballarat East township. His hut, if it is the same Greenwood, is marked on a map of the early claims on Golden Point. This map is reproduced in Professor Weston Bate’s excellent book Lucky City. The map was drawn by one of the people there, Thomas Dunn, who was a member of possibly the first party on Golden Point. Further to this Greenwood is not named as a member of any of the early parties on Golden Point. Recurring in letters and evidence given into the discovery of Ballarat is the name Greenwood. Mr Flett’s book provides compelling evidence that Greenwood was on Black Hill and doing nicely as early as July 7th 1851.
All through the evidence, a scenario often repeated for other goldfields, there is an underlying theme that the person who discovered the gold is swamped by the person who set off the rush or generated the publicity.
In 1888, the Secretary for Mines, C.W. Langtree, recorded the results of a meeting with the mysterious George Inness. One of the things the Secretary learnt was that George Inness claimed to have found gold at Black Hill in 1845. Although Thomas Hiscock seems to have arrived at Geelong in 1841, it appears he did not take up residency at Buninyong until around 1844, which is about the right time leading up to noticing changes in the behaviour of George Inness. Thomas inferred an association between working reef gold somewhere and George’s insatiable consumption of sharpened picks.

The Unknown Truth About The Real Gold Discoverers:
In relation to the discovery of gold, there seems to be either an underlying theme of secrecy or grand promotion. History tends to record the loudest voices or persistent letter writers, leaving many less ambitious people with a lot of knowledge out of the story. This means much of the truth is either unknown, underrated or distorted while we often accept without question those who came to historic prominence. The telling of a fictional story can take on a life of its own; a good example of this is Joan Lindsay’s novel Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The story of gold discovery is one that has a lot of gaps and generates a lot of questions, contradictions and confusion. An excellent example is the entire affair of Harold Bell Lasseter and his reef. Every now and then a mystery is solved. For each mystery solved there is a satisfying increase in our knowledge but a corresponding decrease in our sense of wonder.
The original Melbourne reward committee reduced the numerous claims they received down to Louis John Michel and party, James Esmond, Thomas Hiscock, Herman Bruhn and William Campbell. Given the ambiguous wording of the reward it was plain that all the claimants had merit depending on your point of view. What exactly is a goldmine or what constitutes a deposit and what can be made of the words worked to advantage?

TWO HUNDRED GUINEAS REWARD
The committee appointed by the general meeting held on the 9th instant is now prepared to offer a reward of TWO HUNDRED GUINEAS To any person or persons who shall discover them a GOLD MINE or DEPOSIT within 200 miles of Melbourne capable of being worked to advantage, this amount to be independent of any reward the Government may be disposed to grant.

The reward of 200 Guineas was never paid. Later on, all of these ‘finalists’ were rewarded as a result of the first of several government reward inquiries. The last was held in 1890 to try and sort out some ongoing issues regarding Bendigo: it was not successful. Interestingly, the entire six people who made up Louis Michel’s party were rewarded. The later discovery of the alluvial gold in Anderson’s Creek by Michel and Habberlin, which set off the rush, did not come into consideration. The reward the party received was for the traces of gold found on July 5th in a reef sample. The official rewards reflected the reality of gold prospecting, as they do this day: you just never know your luck.

Gold discovery gets complicated from then on after Ballarat. There was a quick fire explosion of rushes and for a few years Victoria, and indeed the world, went a little mad. Names like Mount Alexander (Castlemaine), Bendigo (Sandhurst) and Ballarat became world famous.