Золотая лихорадка Виктории

Period in the history of Victoria, Australia

The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia, approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony and an influx of population growth and financial capital for Melbourne, which was dubbed "Marvellous Melbourne" as a result of the procurement of wealth.

There were rumours abroad about the presence of gold in Australia, but Government officials kept all findings secret for fear of disorganising the young colony. However the Colonial Secretary, Edward Deas Thomson, saw a great future for the country when Edward Hargraves proved his theory that Australia was a vast storehouse of gold. Hargraves had been in the California gold rush and knew gold country, when he first saw it, round Bathurst. The news spread like wildfire, and soon the race was on from coast to gold fields. Flocks were left untended, drovers deserted their teams, merchants and lawyers rushed from their desks and entire ships' crews, captains included, marched off to seek their fortunes.

In March 1850, William Campbell of Strath Loddon, found on the station of his brother in law, Donald Cameron, of Clunes several minute pieces of native gold in quartz. This was concealed at the time but on 10 January 1851, Campbell disclosed it. Others had found indications of gold. Dr. George H. Bruhn, a German physician, whose services as an analyst were in great demand, had been shown specimens of gold from what afterwards became the Clunes diggings. In spite of these and other discoveries, however, it was impracticable to market the gold, and James Esmond's "find" which was made on Creswick's Creek, a tributary of the Loddon River, at Clunes on 1 July 1851, was the first marketable gold field. A party formed by Mr. Louis John Michel, consisting of himself, Mr. William Haberlin, James Furnival, James Melville, James Headon, and B. Groenig, discovered the existence of gold in the quartz rocks of the Yarra ranges, at Andersons Creek, near Warrandyte, in the latter part of June, and showed it on the spot to Dr. Webb Richmond, on behalf of the Gold Discovery Committee on 5 July. The third discovery was by Mr. Thomas Hiscock, a resident at Buninyong; induced by the writings of the Rev. W. B. Clarke, and by the discovery of Brentani's nugget in the Pyrenees district two years before, he had kept a constant lookout for gold in his neighbourhood. He discovered an auriferous deposit in the gully of the Buninyong ranges now bearing his name, on 8 August 1851, and he communicated the fact, with its precise locality, to the editor of the Geelong Advertiser on the 10th of that month. Dr. George H. Bruhn, a German physician, in the month of January, 1851, (i. e. before Mr. Hargraves' discovery at Summerhill) started from Melbourne to explore "the mineral resources of this colony'. During his lengthened tour, he found, in April, indications of gold in quartz about two miles from Mr. Barker's station, and on arriving at Mr. Cameron's station was shown by that gentleman specimens of gold at what are now called the Clunes diggings. This information he made widely known through the country in the course of his journey, and communicated to Mr. James Esmond, at that time engaged in erecting a building at Mr. James Hodgkinson's station. Dr. Bruhn forwarded specimens, which were received by the Gold Discovery Committee on 30 June 1851. The Gold Discovery Committee awarded £1000 to Michel and his party; £1000 to Hiscock, as the substantial discoverer of the Ballarat deposits; £1000 to Campbell as the original discoverer of Clunes; £1000 to Esmond as the first active producer of alluvial gold for the market and £500 to Dr. Bruhn. By 1858 this number increased to roughly 33,000 and Chinese miners were estimated to have made up approximately one fifth of Victoria's miner population. Figures suggest that Victoria's Chinese population began to dwindle after 1858. A minority of Chinese miners in Victoria were also employed by European mining companies. The 1868 census on the Chinese population in Victoria suggests that 700 Chinese miners in the Oven District were working for European companies which were paying their employees £1 to £2 per week. In June 1855, the Victorian government passed 'an act to make provision for certain immigrants'. The act sought to limit the number of Chinese immigrants that a vessel could carry to one for every ten tons of shipping and required the ship's master to pay a £10 poll tax for each Chinese passenger it carried. The act however failed to reduce the number of Chinese arriving on Victorian Gold Fields. In November 1857, the Victorian government passed 'an act to regulate the residence of the Chinese Population in Victoria'. This act required all Chinese residing in Victoria to obtain a £1 license which had to be renewed every two months for an additional £1 in order to remain in the colony of Victoria. The residence tax was however reduced in February 1859 and repealed in 1862 due to Chinese protests against the legislation, increasing levels of tax evasion, and a downturn in Victoria's mining population. The increasing presence of Chinese miners on Victorian goldfields eventually resulted in anti Chinese riots taking place on several Victorian goldfields. On 8 July 1854, an estimated 1500 European miners meeting at a hotel in Bendigo planned a riot to drive the Chinese out of Bendigo. This riot was however brought to a stop by the arrival of police. The worst attack on Victoria's Chinese miners occurred at the goldfields of Buckland River on 4 July 1857. Following a group meeting at the Buckland Hotel, an estimated 100 European miners sought to expel all 2500 Chinese miners that occupied the goldfields of the Buckland River through the use of tent and store burning, robbery and beatings. Drowning and severe beatings are believed to have resulted in the death of several Chinese miners. This event has come to be known as the Buckland Riot.

The conditions which led up to the Eureka Stockade arose mainly from the actions taken by the Government in supervising the various goldfields. To meet the expense of securing order and to restrain unauthorised mining on Crown land, a local Act of January 1852 imposed on all diggers a licence fee of 30 shillings per month, the penalty for mining without a licence being £6 for the first offence and afterwards imprisonment for terms up to six months. Clause 7 of this Act also appropriated half the fine to the use of the informer or prosecutor, a provocative and irritating provision. In December, 1853, an amending Act reduced the fee to £1 per month, but did not alter the diggers' greatest grievance, that they could be imprisoned for not having the actual licence on them, though their possession of one could be proved from the official record. They were also unrepresented in Parliament, and in 1854 the population on the Ballarat goldfields was estimated at 20,000. Charles Hotham, who arrived in Victoria in June 1854, was alarmed at the depleted state of the Treasury and the growing expense of goldfields administration. He ordered the police to redouble their exertions in collecting the fees. To miners just scraping by, the payment of £12 per annum was impossible, and there is no doubt that hundreds did endeavour to evade payment, but the innocent suffered with the guilty. The police, too, had been largely recruited from Tasmania, and many were ex convicts. These grievances were common to all the Victorian fields, and had under Latrobe's administration produced riots at Beechworth and Castlemaine, but Ballarat, always the most domestic of the goldfields, was renowned for its peaceful progressiveness and quietness. On the night of 6 October, however, a Scottish miner named James Scobie was killed at the Eureka Hotel, near Ballarat, and the murdered man's associate blamed the murder on the proprietor, Bentley, a Tasmanian ex convict. Bentley was brought up before a magistrate, who was alleged to be financially under Bentleys' thumb, and he was discharged. The miners were indignant; a meeting was called and a demand made for a fresh prosecution. The meeting itself was orderly, but towards the end of proceedings a cry was raised that the police (who had been ordered to protect the hotel) were trying to disperse the meeting, and the miners, becoming furious, swept aside the police, smashed the windows and furniture, and burned the building. The police arrested three men who could not be proved to have been ringleaders or active in the riot, and they were sentenced to three, four, and six months' imprisonment. At an indignation meeting held on 11 November on Bakery Hill, the Ballarat Reform League was formed, with John Basson Humffray (a Welshman) as its first secretary, and Peter Lalor, Frederic Vern (a Hanoverian), Raffaello Carboni (an Italian teacher, of languages), Timothy Hayes (an Irishman), and George Black, a well educated Englishman, as prominent members. A deputation of three men waited on Governor Hotham to demand the release of the prisoners, but he refused and had already sent additional troops to Ballarat, which gave considerable offence by marching through the town with fixed bayonets and by other exasperating conduct. On 29 November, Black, Humffray, and Kennedy reported to a mass meeting held at Bakery Hill the result of their deputation to the Governor, and Vern proposed a burning of the hated licences, which was then carried out. Next day the police carried out a specially vicious and vigorous licence hunt, and when the troops marched back to camp, the diggers hastened to a conference with the leaders of the Reform League. Peter Lalor was elected leader, and under a blue flag adorned with the stars of the Southern Cross the assembled diggers swore 'to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties.' An area of about an acre on the present Eureka site was hastily enclosed with a pallisade and a deputation was sent to the military camp demanding the release of the morning's prisoners and the cessation of licence hunting. The Commissioner flatly refused the request, saying that the agitation was 'only a cloak to cover a democratic revolution.' On 1 December the occupants of the stockade were hard at work by 5 a. m. drilling and improving the barrier, and a German blacksmith was fashioning pike heads. But neither food nor ammunition was available within the stockade, so that by the evening of the 2nd after a very hot day, not more than 200 remained within. Spies informed the Commissioner of the situation and about 4.30 a. m. on Sunday morning (3 December) a troop of 276 men was marched silently to the stockade. Inside the stockade only 50 diggers had rifles; there was also a troop of Californian diggers armed with revolvers and another of Irishmen with pikes. Many of them were asleep when the signal gun was fired and a storming party of 64 'rushed' the stockade. In the first volleys several men fell on both sides, but the line of advancing bayonets, flanked on both sides by cavalry and mounted police, was too much for the diggers. They turned to seek shelter and all was over. Of the military force Captain Wise and four private soldiers were killed, and about a dozen injured. Sixteen miners were killed, and at least eight others died of their wounds, 114 prisoners were taken, and Lalor, badly wounded, managed to escape; so did Black and Vern. The Government then offered £500 for the apprehension of Vern, and £200 each for Black and Lalor.

Australia's population changed dramatically as a result of the rushes. In 1851 the Australian population was 437,655, of which 77,345, or just under 18%, were Victorians. A decade later the Australian population had grown to 1,151,947 and the Victorian population had increased to 538,628; just under 47% of the Australian total and a seven fold increase. In some small country towns where gold was found abundantly, the population could grow by over 1000% in a decade (e. g. Rutherglen had a population of about 2,000. Ten years later, it had approximately 60,000 which is a 3000% increase). The rapid growth was predominantly a result of the gold rushes. The gold rush is reflected in the architecture of Victorian gold boom cities like Melbourne, Castlemaine, Ballarat, Bendigo and Ararat. Ballarat today has Sovereign Hill—a recreation of a gold rush town—as well as the Gold Museum. Bendigo has a large operating gold mine system which also functions as a tourist attraction. The rushes left Victorian architecture in towns in the Goldfields region such as Maldon, Beechworth, Clunes, Heathcote, Maryborough, Daylesford, Stawell, Beaufort, Creswick, St Arnaud, Dunolly, Inglewood, Wedderburn and Buninyong whose economy has differing emphases on home working, tourism, farming, modern industrial and retired sectors. With the exception of Ballarat and Bendigo, many of these towns were substantially larger than they are today. Most populations moved to other districts when gold played out in a given locality. The slump in gold production never recovered. Gold mining ceased in Stawell in 1920, but recommenced in 1982 and continued into the 21st century. However, as of 2005 the recent increase in the gold price has seen a resurgence in commercial mining activity with mining resuming in both of the major fields of Bendigo and Ballarat. Exploration also proceeds elsewhere, for example, in Glen Wills, an isolated mountain area near Mitta Mitta in north eastern Victoria.