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Gold rush

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Australian gold rushes. An Australian gold diggings circa 1855 After the California gold rush began in 1848, causing many people to leave Australia for California to look for gold there, the New South Wales government rethought its position, and sought approval from the Colonial Office in England to allow the exploitation of the mineral resources and also offered rewards for the finding of payable gold.[2] The first gold rush in Australia began in May 1851 after prospector Edward Hargraves claimed to have discovered payable gold near Bathurst, at a site he called Ophir.[3] Hargraves had been to the Californian goldfields and had learned new gold prospecting techniques such as panning and cradling.

Australian gold rushes

Gold Rush Facts. As of July 1, 2013 ThinkQuest has been discontinued.

Gold Rush Facts

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Australian Gold Rush

A powerfully disruptive hysteria seemed to grip the State along with the rest of the country. Farmhands simply left their employers with harvests they could no longer reap and thousands of workers fled Melbourne leaving empty industries in their wake. Wages tripled due to scarce labour. To raise money, many property owners put their houses on the market. But as there was no one interested in buying, house prices collapsed.

Luckily however, this was not to last. Gold rush. Sailing to California at the beginning of the Gold Rush A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold deposits.

Gold rush

Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere. GoldRush. Victorian gold rush. Nerrena Fossickers in Nerrena Creek outside Ballarat Overview[edit]

Victorian gold rush

Gold rush history, Goldfields. The discovery of gold in the 1850s and 60s is the most significant event in the evolution of the state of Victoria.

Gold rush history, Goldfields

Fuelled by extravagant stories of wealth gained at the 1849 Californian gold rush, gold fever hit Victoria following the early gold discoveries in and around Clunes, Warrandyte and Ballarat. But the real rush began with the discovery of the Mount Alexander goldfield 60 kilometres north-east of Ballarat. Mt Alexander (taking in the goldfields of Castlemaine and Bendigo) was one of the world's richest shallow alluvial goldfields, yielding around four million ounces of gold, most of which was found in the first two years of the rush and within five metres of the surface. When eight tonnes of Victorian gold arrived at London's port in April 1852, the Times of London declared: '.. this is California all over again, but, it would appear, California on a larger scale…' The small town of Moliagul became famous when a 69-kilogram gold nugget was found in 1869 at Bulldog Gully.

Gold Rush in Australia! The transportation of convicts to Australia was phased out between 1840 and 1868.

Gold Rush in Australia!

By 1860, the continent of Australia had been divided into FIVE separate colonies (not officially states yet, mate but seperation away from New South Wales), each not seeing eye-to-eye and exhibiting more loyalty to London to each other. A major force within the colonies was the “squatocracy” – the rich officers and settlers a.k.a. opportunists who had followed the explorers into fertile hinterlands. They simply laid claim to or “squatted” upon enormous tracts of land, often 20,000 acres and more.

Free for all, mate with lots of social tension. Development of Australia was at a steady but unspectacular rate. Gold was originally discovered in Australia by Rev. The Australian gold rush. JCF Johnson, A Game of Euchre, col. wood engraving, Australasian Sketcher Supplement [Melbourne], 25 December, 1876.

The Australian gold rush

Image courtesy of the : nla.pic-an8927787. The gold rushes of the nineteenth century and the lives of those who worked the goldfields - known as '' - are etched into our national . There is no doubt that the gold rushes had a huge effect on the Australian economy and our development as a nation. It is also true to say that those heady times had a profound impact on the national psyche. The camaraderie and '' that developed between diggers on the goldfields is still integral to how we - and others - perceive ourselves as Australians.

Indeed, mateship and defiance of authority have been central to the way our history has been told. Even today, nothing evokes more widespread national pride than groups of irreverent Aussie 'blokes' beating the English at cricket, or any other sport for that matter! The discovery that changed a nation.