The History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890

by Alexander Sutherland

  4. The Burra Mines.—The discovery of copper at Kapunda caused much excitement in the colony. Every one who possessed land examined it carefully for the trace of any minerals it might contain; and soon it was rumoured that, at a place about one hundred miles north of Adelaide, a shepherd had found exceedingly rich specimens of copper ore. The land on which these were discovered had not yet been sold by the Government, and in great haste a company was formed to purchase it. This company consisted of the merchants, professional men, and officials of Adelaide; but a rival company was immediately started, consisting of shopkeepers and tradesmen, together with the farmers of the country districts. The former always maintained a haughty air, and soon came to be known throughout the colony as the “nobs”; while they, in their turn, fixed on their rivals the nickname of the “snobs”. For a week or two the jealousies of the companies ran high, but they were soon forced to make a temporary union; for, according to the land laws of the colony, if any one wished to buy a piece of land, he had to apply for it and have it advertised for a month; it was then put up for auction, and he who offered the highest price became the purchaser. But a month was a long time to wait, and it was rumoured that a number of speculators were on their way from Sydney to offer a large sum for the land, as soon as it should be put up to auction. It was, therefore, necessary to take immediate action. There was another regulation in the land laws, according to which, if a person applied for 20,000 acres, and paid down £20,000 in cash, he became at once the proprietor of the land. The “nobs” determined to avail themselves of this arrangement; but when they put their money together, they found they had not enough to pay so large a sum. They therefore asked the “snobs” to join them, on the understanding that, after the land had been purchased, the two companies would make a fair division. By uniting their funds they raised the required amount, and proceeded with great exultation to lodge the money. But part of it was in the form of bills on the Adelaide banks; and as the Governor refused to accept anything but cash, the companies were almost in despair, until a few active members hunted up their friends in Adelaide, and succeeded in borrowing the number of sovereigns required to make up the deficiency. The money was paid into the Treasury, the two companies were the possessors of the land, and the Sydney speculators arrived a few days too late.

  Now came the division of the 20,000 acres. A line was drawn across the middle; a coin was tossed up to decide which of the two should have the first choice, and fortune favoured the “snobs,” who selected the northern half, called by the natives Burra Burra. To the southern part the “nobs” gave the name of “Princess Royal”. The companies soon began operations; but though the two districts appeared on the surface to be of almost equal promise, yet, on being laid open, the Princess Royal was soon found to be in reality poor, while the Burra Burra mines provided fortunes for each of the fortunate “snobs”. During the three years after their discovery they yielded copper to the value of £700,000. Miners were brought from England, and a town of about 5,000 inhabitants rapidly sprang into existence. The houses of the Cornish miners were of a peculiar kind. A creek runs through the district, with high precipitous banks of solid rock; into the face of these cliffs the miners cut large chambers to serve for dwellings; holes bored through the rock, and emerging upon the surface of the ground above, formed the chimneys, which were capped by small beer barrels instead of chimney-pots. The fronts of the houses were of weatherboard, in which doors were left; and for two miles along each side of the stream these primitive dwellings looked out upon the almost dry bed of the creek, which formed the main street of the village. Here the miners dwelt for years, until the waters rose one night into a foaming flood, which destroyed the houses and swept away several of their inhabitants.

  In 1845 Burra Burra was a lonely moor; in 1850 it was bustling with men, and noisy with the sounds of engines, pumps and forges. Acres of land were covered with the company’s warehouses and offices, and the handsome residences of its officers; behind these there rose great mounds of blue, green, and dark-red ores of copper, worth enormous sums of money. Along the roads eight hundred teams, each consisting of eight bullocks, passed constantly to and fro, whilst scores of ships were employed in conveying the ore to England. From this great activity the whole community could not but derive the utmost benefit, and for a time South Australia had every prospect of taking the foremost place among the colonies.

  5. Governor Robe.—In 1841 Governor Grey had been of the greatest service to the colony in changing the state of its prospects, but he was not permitted to see more than the commencement of its great prosperity; for, in 1845, he was sent to govern New Zealand, where troubles had arisen similar to those which he had helped to cure in South Australia. His place was filled by Colonel Robe, a military gentleman, of what is called the old school, honourable and upright, but inclined to think that everything ought always to be as it has been. He disliked all innovation, and did what he could to prevent it, much to the discontent of the young and thriving colony, which was of necessity the scene of constant and rapid changes. He passed a very troublous time for three years, and in 1848 was heartily glad to be recalled.

  6. Governor Young.—The colony was then placed under the care of Sir Henry Young, whose policy was completely the reverse. He sought by every means in his power to encourage the ceaseless activity of the people. His failing was, perhaps, an injudicious zeal for progress. For instance, in his desire to open up the river Murray to navigation, he wasted large sums of money in schemes that proved altogether useless. He made an effort to remove the bar at the mouth of the river, but fresh deposits of sand were constantly being brought down by the current, and lashed up into a new bar by the waves that rolled ceaselessly in from the Southern Ocean. He spent about £20,000 in trying to construct a harbour called Port Elliot, near the entrance to the Murray; but there are now only a few surf-beaten stones to indicate the scene of his fruitless attempt. He offered a bonus of £4,000 to the first person who should ascend the Murray in an iron steamer as far as the river Darling. A gentleman called Cadell made the effort, and succeeded; he obtained the reward, but it was not enough to pay his heavy expenses, and when he endeavoured afterwards to carry on a trade, by transporting wool to the sea in flat-bottomed steamers, he found that the traffic on the river was not sufficiently great to repay his heavy outlay, and in a short time he was almost ruined. The attempt was premature; and though, in our time, the navigation of the Murray is successfully carried on, and is, undoubtedly, of immense advantage not only to South Australia, but also to New South Wales and Victoria, yet, at the time when the first efforts were made, it led to nothing but loss, if not ruin to the pioneers.

  CHAPTER XII.

  THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD.

  1. Importance of the Year 1851.—The year 1851 was in many ways an eventful one to Australia. In that year the colonies received from the Imperial Parliament the amended Constitutions they had so long expected. Tasmania, South Australia, Port Phillip, and Western Australia were now no longer under the absolute control of Governors sent out by the colonial authorities in England; they could henceforth boast the dignity of being self-governed communities, for, in 1851, they were invested with political powers which had previously been possessed by New South Wales alone. They now had the privilege of electing two-thirds of the members of a Legislative Council which not only had the power of making laws each for its own colony, but also of framing any new constitution for itself according to its own taste and requirements. Each colony kept its Legislative Council for only a year or two until it could discuss and establish a regular system of parliamentary government with two Houses and a Cabinet of responsible Ministers. Again, it was on the 1st of July in the same year that Port Phillip gained its independence; from that date onward its prosperous career must be related under its new title—Victoria.

  But the event which made the year 1851 especially memorable in the annals of Australia was the discovery, near Bathurst, of the first of those rich goldfields whic
h, for so long a time, changed the prospects of the colonies. For several years after the date of this occurrence the history of Australia is little more than the story of the feverish search for gold, with its hopes, its labour, its turmoil, and its madness; its scenes of exultation and splendid triumph, and its still more frequent scenes of bitter and gloomy disappointment.

  2. Early Rumours of Gold.—For many years there had been rumours that the Blue Mountains were auriferous. It was said that gold had been seen by convicts in the days of Macquarie, and, indeed, still earlier; but to the stories of prisoners, who claimed rewards for alleged discoveries, the authorities in Sydney always listened with extreme suspicion, more especially as no pretended discoverer could ever find more than his first small specimens.

  In 1840 a Polish nobleman named Strzelecki, who had been travelling among the ranges round Mount Kosciusko, stated that, from indications he had observed, he was firmly persuaded of the existence of gold in these mountains; but the Governor asked him, as a favour, to make no mention of a theory which might, perhaps, unsettle the colony, and fill the easily excited convicts with hopes which, he feared, would prove delusive. Strzelecki agreed not to publish his belief; but there was another man of science who was not so easily to be silenced. The Rev. W. B. Clarke, a clergyman devoted to geology, exhibited specimens in Sydney, on which he based an opinion that the Blue Mountains would, eventually, be found to possess goldfields of great extent and value. Some of these were taken to London by Strzelecki; and in 1844 a great English scientist, Sir Roderick Murchison, read a paper before the Royal Geographical Society in which he expressed a theory similar to that of Mr. Clarke. In 1846 he again called attention to this subject, and showed that, from the great similarity which existed between the rocks of the Blue Mountains and those of the Urals, there was every probability that the one would be found as rich as the other was known to be in the precious metals. So far as theory could go, the matter had been well discussed before the year 1851, but no one had ventured to spend his time and money in making a practical effort to settle the question.

  Edward Hargraves.

  3. Edward Hargraves.—About that, time, however, the rich mines of California attracted a Bathurst settler, named Edward Hargraves, to seek his fortune on the banks of the Sacramento; and though, among the great crowds of struggling and jostling diggers, he met with but little success, yet he learned the methods by which gold is discovered and secured, and laid the foundation for adventures in Australia which were afterwards to bring him both wealth and renown. Whilst he toiled with increasing disappointment on one of these famous goldfields, the scenery around him, and the appearance of the rocks, recalled to his memory a certain secluded valley beyond the Blue Mountains, which he had visited thirteen years before; the notion floated vaguely through his mind that, perhaps, in that silent spot, there might lie great treasures, such as he saw his more fortunate companions from time to time draw forth from the rocks and soil around him. Day after day the image of that winding creek among the hills near Bathurst recurred with increasing vividness to stimulate his imagination and awaken his hopes. At length this feeling impelled him to seek once more the shores of Australia in order to examine the spot which had so often been present to his day-dreams. He lost no time in sailing, and scarcely had he arrived in Sydney ere he set out on horseback to cross the Blue Mountains. On the 11th of February, 1851, he spent the night at a little inn a few miles from the object of his journey, and shortly after dawn he sallied forth on his ride through the forest, carrying with him a spade and a trowel and a little tin dish. In the cool air of the morning the scent of the spreading gum trees braced up his frame as he plunged deeper and deeper among those lonely hollows and wood-clad hills. In an hour or two he reached the well-remembered spot—the dry course of a mountain torrent which, in rainy seasons, finds its way into the Summerhill Creek. He lost no time in placing a little of the grey-coloured soil into his tin dish, and at once carried it to the nearest pool, where he dipped the whole beneath the water. By moving the dish rapidly, as he had learned to do in California, he washed away the sand and earth; but the particles of gold, which are more than seven and a half times heavier than sand, were not so easily to be carried off. They sank to the corner of the dish, where they lay secure—a few small specks, themselves of little value, yet telling of hidden treasures that lay scattered in all the soil around.

  A few days were spent in a careful examination of the neighbouring valleys, and when he was absolutely certain that the hopes he had so warmly indulged would not prove empty, he set out for Sydney, taking care, however, to breathe no word of what he thought or of what he had proved. On the 3rd of April he wrote a letter to the Colonial Secretary, in which he stated that, if the Government were willing to give him £500, he would point out localities in New South Wales where gold was abundantly to be found. In reply, the Colonial Secretary announced that no preliminary reward could be given; but that, if he chose first of all to point out the localities, he would afterwards be recompensed in proportion to the results. He accepted these conditions; and Mr. Stutchbury, the Colonial Geologist, was sent to accompany him to the Summerhill Creek. On the 8th of May they set to work, and soon obtained several ounces of grain gold; on the 13th, they discovered a single piece worth £30, and next day Mr. Stutchbury reported to the Government that he had seen enough to convince him that the district was rich in the precious metal. Five days afterwards, the little valley of the Summerhill contained four hundred persons, all stooping over the creek in a row about a mile long, each with a dish in his hand, scarcely ever raising his head, but busily engaged in washing the sand for gold. Lumps were frequently found of value varying from £5 to £200. A week later, there were a thousand persons at work on the creek near the formerly lonely gully.

  4. Rush to the Goldfield.—The excitement throughout the colony now became intense: workmen quitted their employment, shepherds deserted their flocks, shopkeepers closed their stores, and a great tide of fortune-seekers pressed onward, day by day, to the west. Most of these had sold everything they possessed, in order to make up a little bundle of necessary articles. Yet there were very many but ill-provided for a lengthened stay; they hurried along the road with the fallacious idea that gold was simply to be shovelled into bags and carted to Sydney. But when they came upon the scene, and saw that in the case of most of them it would only be after weeks and months of severe and constant toil that they could be rich, they grew faint-hearted, lounged for a week or two on the diggings, and then started for home again; so that, for some time, there was a counter-current of grumbling and discontented men passing back to Sydney by the road. These men thought themselves befooled by Hargraves, and it might, perhaps, have cost him his life had he fallen into their hands. On his trip to Sydney he was careful to disguise himself, to avoid their threatened revenge. He received from Government, however, his preliminary reward of £500, and, in after years, New South Wales voted him the sum of £10,000, which was supplemented by a present of £2,381 from Victoria. Other profits also accrued to Hargraves; so that he was, in the end, recompensed for his toil and trouble with a handsome competency.

  The gloomy reports of returning diggers checked for a time the flow of people to the west; but in the month of July an aboriginal shepherd on a station near Bathurst burst in upon his master while seated at dinner, his eyes glistening with excitement. He was only able to stammer out: “Oh, massa, white man find little fellow, me find big fellow”. When his master drove him in a buggy through the forest, the shepherd pointed to where a hundredweight of gold was sticking out from a rock. It was so heavy that they had to chop it in two with their axes before they could lift it into the buggy. It was afterwards sold for £4,000. So splendid a prize, obtained in so easy a manner, was a temptation too dazzling to be resisted; and the stream of people along the Bathurst road was now tenfold denser than before.

  5. Government Regulations.—When the population on the goldfields began to grow numerous, the Government fo
und it necessary to make arrangements for the preservation of law and order. A commissioner was appointed, who was to act as a magistrate; he was to be assisted by a small body of police, and was to take charge of the gold escorts. As the lands on which the gold was being found were the public property of the colony, it was thought to be but just that the community, as a whole, should participate, to some small extent, in the wealth raised from them; and the order was, therefore, issued that diggers should in all cases take out licences before seeking for gold, and should pay for them at the rate of thirty shillings per month.

  New diggings were, from time to time, opened up, and fresh crowds of eager men constantly pressed towards them, leaving the towns deserted and the neighbouring colonies greatly reduced in population. For some months the Turon River was the favourite; at one time it had no less than ten thousand men upon its banks. At Ophir, and Braidwood, and Maroo the most industrious and sagacious miners were generally rewarded by the discovery of fine pieces of gold, for which the Californian name of “nuggets” now began to be extensively used.

  6. Gold in Victoria.—When Latrobe was sworn in to fill the office of Governor of Victoria on the 16th July, 1851, it appeared probable that he would soon have but a small community to rule over. So great were the numbers of those who were daily packing up their effects and setting off for the goldfields of New South Wales that Victoria seemed likely to sink into a very insignificant place on the list of Australian colonies. In alarm at this prospect, a number of the leading citizens of Melbourne on the 9th of June united to form what was called the Gold Discovery Committee, and offered a reward of £200 to the person who should give the first intimation of a paying goldfield within two hundred miles of Melbourne. Many persons set out, each in hopes of being the fortunate discoverer; and a report having been circulated that signs of gold had been seen on the Plenty Ranges, there were soon no less than two hundred persons scouring those hills, though for a long time without success. The first useful discovery in Victoria seems to have been made on 1st July, by a Californian digger named Esmond, who, like Hargraves, had entered on the search with a practical knowledge of the work. His experience had taught him the general characteristics of a country in which gold is likely to be found, and he selected Clunes as a favourable spot. He found the quartz rock of the district richly sprinkled with gold; and his discovery having been made known, several hundred people were quickly on the scene. Almost on the same day, gold was discovered by a party of six men, at Anderson’s Creek, only a few miles up the Yarra from Melbourne. It is thus difficult to determine with certainty whether or not Esmond was in reality the first discoverer; but, at any rate, he received honours and emoluments as such; and in after years the Victorian Parliament presented him with £1,000 for his services.