scores of them were paraded for purchase.’
And, yes, the hands that rock those cradles are frantically grasping, reaching for ever more supplies, but it is not hard to see why it is so and why the rush is filled with people from all walks of life. The price of gold at this time is around £3 an ounce, while the average labourer is earning little more than £20 and certainly no more than £30 for an entire year ’ s work. With just one nugget, one lucky find, you could earn many times more than your annual wage.
The Maitland Mercury sagely notes: ‘Many persons are now going to dig for gold who are wholly unfit for such work; men who would hesitate to walk the length of George Street in a shower of rain are going, at the beginning of winter, to a district where the climate is almost English, and where they will not be able to get shelter in even the humblest hut.’
Not for nothing does the alarmed Governor write to the Colonial Secretary in London, informing him that the rush is already ‘unhinging the minds of all classes of society’.
Will unhinged minds agree to pay the license fees? This is far from sure, and it is the Government Surveyor, Samuel Stutchbury, still on site at the diggings, who is the first to pinpoint the problem, in a letter to his masters in Sydney on 25 May: ‘Up to this time the miners are quiet and peaceable, but almost to a man armed. With such numbers as will without doubt in a very short period be brought together, good order will very much depend upon the government adopting wise measures for collecting dues, which should be made as easy as possible in the mode of payment; as I fear that no police power could enforce the collection of dues against the feelings of the majority.’
And there will be many more diggers coming, so extraordinarily munificent are these goldfields proving to be. He estimates there to be currently 1000 people there, ‘and with few exceptions they appear to be doing well, many of them getting large quantities of gold. Lumps have been obtained varying in weight from 1 oz to 4 lbs, the latter being the heaviest I have heard of’.
Upon reading such reports, the authorities are not long in concluding that the rush will soon get a whole lot more intense. Clearly something must be done to maintain order, as well as putting in a structure to collect the license fees, and on 23 May the government announces the appointment of its first Commissioner over the Gold Region, with the former Police Magistrate of Parramatta, Mr John Richard Hardy, being appointed to the post. It will be for him to oversee Her Majesty’s peace and ensure that the law and regulations are being obeyed. As ‘the Crown writ small’, he will have the responsibility of issuing the licenses and, most importantly, collecting the fees.
The appointment of such a figure is an obvious course, but The Sydney Morning Herald thinks the authorities have picked the wrong man: ‘We feel particularly curious to know upon what grounds Mr. Hargraves is overlooked [as Gold Commissioner], or if not overlooked, why his claims are the last to be considered [when] to Mr. Hargraves, and Mr. Hargraves principally, does the merit of the discovery belong . . .
‘Already, a general feeling of indignation has been expressed, and more particularly at the diggings, at the apparent slight with which Mr. Hargraves has been treated in this matter.’
Within a little over a week, the government caves in and agrees to appoint Edward Hargraves. Again, the Herald is honoured to report it, in an edition that also carries an apology for the fact that many recent editions have been delivered late, because ‘our runners being found wanting, have rushed for the Diggings without leave or license, at least without ours’.
The good news is that the Herald pronounces itself ‘satisfied, as will be the Colony and the parent country, extreme gratification in learning that the local government, as a preliminary bonus to Mr.
And, yes, the hands that rock those cradles are frantically grasping, reaching for ever more supplies, but it is not hard to see why it is so and why the rush is filled with people from all walks of life. The price of gold at this time is around £3 an ounce, while the average labourer is earning little more than £20 and certainly no more than £30 for an entire year ’ s work. With just one nugget, one lucky find, you could earn many times more than your annual wage.
The Maitland Mercury sagely notes: ‘Many persons are now going to dig for gold who are wholly unfit for such work; men who would hesitate to walk the length of George Street in a shower of rain are going, at the beginning of winter, to a district where the climate is almost English, and where they will not be able to get shelter in even the humblest hut.’
Not for nothing does the alarmed Governor write to the Colonial Secretary in London, informing him that the rush is already ‘unhinging the minds of all classes of society’.
Will unhinged minds agree to pay the license fees? This is far from sure, and it is the Government Surveyor, Samuel Stutchbury, still on site at the diggings, who is the first to pinpoint the problem, in a letter to his masters in Sydney on 25 May: ‘Up to this time the miners are quiet and peaceable, but almost to a man armed. With such numbers as will without doubt in a very short period be brought together, good order will very much depend upon the government adopting wise measures for collecting dues, which should be made as easy as possible in the mode of payment; as I fear that no police power could enforce the collection of dues against the feelings of the majority.’
And there will be many more diggers coming, so extraordinarily munificent are these goldfields proving to be. He estimates there to be currently 1000 people there, ‘and with few exceptions they appear to be doing well, many of them getting large quantities of gold. Lumps have been obtained varying in weight from 1 oz to 4 lbs, the latter being the heaviest I have heard of’.
Upon reading such reports, the authorities are not long in concluding that the rush will soon get a whole lot more intense. Clearly something must be done to maintain order, as well as putting in a structure to collect the license fees, and on 23 May the government announces the appointment of its first Commissioner over the Gold Region, with the former Police Magistrate of Parramatta, Mr John Richard Hardy, being appointed to the post. It will be for him to oversee Her Majesty’s peace and ensure that the law and regulations are being obeyed. As ‘the Crown writ small’, he will have the responsibility of issuing the licenses and, most importantly, collecting the fees.
The appointment of such a figure is an obvious course, but The Sydney Morning Herald thinks the authorities have picked the wrong man: ‘We feel particularly curious to know upon what grounds Mr. Hargraves is overlooked [as Gold Commissioner], or if not overlooked, why his claims are the last to be considered [when] to Mr. Hargraves, and Mr. Hargraves principally, does the merit of the discovery belong . . .
‘Already, a general feeling of indignation has been expressed, and more particularly at the diggings, at the apparent slight with which Mr. Hargraves has been treated in this matter.’
Within a little over a week, the government caves in and agrees to appoint Edward Hargraves. Again, the Herald is honoured to report it, in an edition that also carries an apology for the fact that many recent editions have been delivered late, because ‘our runners being found wanting, have rushed for the Diggings without leave or license, at least without ours’.
The good news is that the Herald pronounces itself ‘satisfied, as will be the Colony and the parent country, extreme gratification in learning that the local government, as a preliminary bonus to Mr.
Similar Books
