The Victorian Gold Discovery Committee wrote in 1854 that the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851 had transformed the remote colony into a country of worldwide fame and immense wealth. It attracted a huge influx of population that vastly increased Melbourne's size and development, though initially the city's infrastructure could not cope with the crowds. The gold rush profoundly impacted Victoria's society, economy, politics and culture, spurring industrialization and making Melbourne one of the richest cities in the world by the 1850s despite early struggles with disease and overcrowding.

1. Victoria’s new golden
vision

2. The Victorian Gold Discovery Committee wrote in 1854:
The discovery of the Victorian Goldfields has converted a remote dependency
into a country of world wide fame; it has attracted a population, extraordinary in
number, with unprecedented rapidity; it has enhanced the value of property to an
enormous extent; it has made this the richest country in the world; and, in less
than three years, it has done for this colony the work of an age, and made its
impulses felt in the most distant regions of the earth.
Key knowledge:
- To what extent did the gold rush influence social, economic,
- political and cultural life in Victoria?
- What fears and hopes did the gold rush bring to colonial society?
- How was the future progress of the colony imagined by the people of
Victoria between 1851 - 1861?

3. Timeline
Gold was first discovered in Australia on 15 February 1823, by assistant
surveyor James McBrien, at Fish River, between Rydal and Bathurst (in New
South Wales). The find was considered unimportant at the time, and was not
pursued for policy reasons.
Gold found and forgotten about..
Gold in Victoria ….
Found in 1850 by a Mr Campbell - However, not disclosed until 1851
Found across Victoria, Ballarat & Bendigo
‘Gold Fever’

4. Melbourne
Melbourne had been described as being like a ‘very
inferior English town. The streets were unpaved, unlighted,
muddy, miserable, dangerous…’
However, there had been much progress:
Houses, churches warehouses, schools instead of the
original tents and huts.
First Melbourne Hospital built in 1846
Mechanics Institute

5. Melbourne cont.
Gold stretched Melbourne’s resources to its limits.
1852 - 1854 - referred to as crisis years.
Accommodation crisis
1852 Melbourne had highest rental rates in the world.
A canvas town (present day Arts Centre) to house new
arrivals.
Two or three ships arriving daily, up to 300 ships docked in
Port Phillip bay at one time.
Prices for consumer goods were high
number of merchants doubled.
Melbourne of 1852 has been compared to third world cities such as Jakarta -
Infrastructure cannot cope with the population.

6. Melbourne cont.
Lack of proper sewerage system
‘Smellbourne’
Dysentery, typhus, measles - 80% of dead
were Melbourne’s children
However, Melbourne was to become
the capital of one of the wealthiest colonies in the world.

7. Production of 1/3 of the world’s gold output
By 1854 - Growth was ‘marvellous’
Modernisation
‘Civilised’ city
(however, there was not a safe sewerage system until the
1890’s and children continued to die in large numbers from
disease)

8. Impact of gold on the district
(now Victoria)….
Changed Australia from a convict dumping ground
to an enviable home
The ‘Metropolis of the Southern Hemisphere’

9. Federation and Racism
Victoria became one of the wealthiest colonies in the Empire
Challenged the dominance of New South Wales.
Twice the business was generated in Victoria than NSW and
Victoria’s population was 46% of all other Australian colonies.
Rivalry between NSW and Victoria helped stimulate the m
move to Federation.
Miners from Victoria moved interstate and took with them
their radical political views and racist attitudes
from their contact with the Chinese.

10. Gold Rush and the
environment
“almost entirely destructive”
Tree-less hills, mounds of mining waste,
mud and dust
Devastated creek beds
No vegetation or greenery.
Deforestation, pollution, erosion, siltation (pollution of
water)

11. A Digger’s Life
hard life
dawn to dusk, 6 days a week
heat, dust and thirst
mud and water
dangerous, disputes, thieves and bushrangers
Shelter in tents, food expensive, disease
No guarantee of finding gold
Mainly young men, travelling alone or small groups -
no responsibilities of family or work

12. Diggers and Moral Decay
- young men away from the constraints - might
- give in to ideas of anarchy and immorality.
- Uneven sex ratio (however, there were women on
- the goldfields)
Domesticity being abandoned for searching for
wealth.
Orphans and abandoned children
Very masculine society
Women as ‘God’s police’

13. Cultural and educational
institutions
The Gold rush incited fears by conservatives
that the ‘order of society’ was at risk.
‘greed, excitement and anti-domesticity’
the ‘gold disease’
To counteract society falling apart - establishments
and institutions influenced by British and European heritage.
1854 - The University of Melbourne, The State Library
The Exhibition building - Built with the wealth from gold.
Demonstrated that Melbourne was ‘civilised’

14. Sir Redmond Barry
One of the figures associated with the development of
cultural institutions of the 19th century.
He emigrated to Port Phillip from Ireland in 1839
Established himself as a respected lawyer and 1852 -
appointed a judge of the high court
Involved in the Philosophical institution, the Horticultural Society,
The Melbourne Club and the Melbourne Hospital
Barry believed that culture and
education had a civilising
effect on the working man.

15. Uni Melb
Based on Britain’s Oxford and Cambridge -
Also introduced ‘modern’ subjects such as politics, science
and literature.
However, unlike traditional English universities,
it was a secular institution. Students were not required to be
members of the church of England (a ruling that effectively
banned Catholics)
1881 - Women were admitted

16. “The [Melbourne] university was conceived not only
as an academy, but as a machine for the
production of loyal English gentlemen, and hence
as an instrument of social control in a disordered
society.”

17. Eureka Stockade
1854 - 30 diggers and five soldiers killed in a dawn clash
A Rebellion against the government tax (miner’s licence)
the corrupt administration on the field and the lack of democratic rights.
The Ballarat Reform League formed - Based on Chartism
Diggers put on trial for high treason - but were not convicted
Resulted in a ‘Gold Commission’ in which the miner’s license was abolished
and miners were given the right to vote.
Peter Lalor (leader at Eureke) was elected to Parliament representing
mining electorates - Parliament sat for first time in 1855

18. Impact of Eureka
Speeding/being integral in Australia’s democratic process
Gold Rush: politicised immigrants
Chartists from England, discontented Irish, European
revolutionaries and American republicans
Melbourne workers were among the first in the world to
win the eight-hour working day in 1856

19. Land and independance
Hunger for land
Poverty for diggers
1857 - Goldfield finds dwindling
Rights to land
The Selection Acts (land reforms) introduced in 1860