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LIFE UNDER THE CANVAS
Life on the goldfields has been depicted by many, but never more colourfully than by Edward Snell in his 1850's diaries.
"The sketch represents faintly the bustle and confusion that exists in the Golden Gully. The Gully is full of holes which are tunnelled into one another under ground and I should say there are at present about 20,000 people there, all digging and 'fossicking' like mad fellows... Snell captured the essence of life under canvas. -
THE GOLD FINDER
Edward Hargraves was also the man who would set off the first Australian gold rush. He was a sailor, publican, shopkeeper and adventurer. As self-appointed leader of a small group which travelled to California in 1850, Hargraves learned the craft of prospecting for gold with pans, cradles and excavation. More importantly he noticed similarities in the Californian terrain with that of his Australian home. Unsuccessful in California, he returned to Australia, determined to discover gold -
NO PLACE FOR A GAL
Most of the men who flocked to the diggings in the early years of the Australian gold rush left their wives and family at home. The harsh life of the goldfields was considered too rough for a respectable woman. It was not long, however, before women travelled to the goldfields, and as early as 1851 there were women digging for gold alongside their husbands.There were 4023 women compared to 12,660 men living on the diggings and only 5 percent of these women were single. -
TRANSPORT RELOLUTION
The huge cost of railways meant no alternative was available for the Victorian goldfields before 1862 and in NSW before the 1870s. Instead, faster horses and light, durable, American-engineered Concord coaches replaced slow-moving bullocks. In the mid 1850s it cost 80 pounds a ton to send goods 100km from Ballarat to Geelong - 10 times the price it was to cost by rail in the next decade.
