Follow the events that shaped the first 25 years of the goldfields from 1851 onwards through the contemporary accounts of the day as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. Trace more recent developments from Mines Department annual reports available after the department’s formation in 1875.
ABOVE: Gold washing, Summer Hill 1851. Reproduced courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW. Call: PX*D 243. Digital:a1837003
Why do we value gold above all other metals? Where does its power to inflame our emotions and excite our interest come from? What’s the difference between alluvial and reef gold and what processes were used to recover these different forms of the metal?
ABOVE: Puddling Machine on the Black Lead, Gulgong. Reproduced courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW. Call: ON 4 Box 2 No 18198. Digital:a2822145
The opening years of the 1860s marked an extraordinary chapter in the history of bushranging in NSW. It was during this time that a group variously led by Frank Gardiner, Johnny Gilbert and Ben Hall terrorised the goldfields across central and south west NSW, challenging the very structure of law and order throughout the region.
ABOVE: Capture and death of Ben Hall. Reproduced courtesy State Library of Victoria. Image IAN25/05/65/1
The presence of Chinese on the NSW goldfields increased dramatically after Victoria placed entry restrictions on these immigrants in 1855. The tensions already seen on the southern fields resurfaced here culminating in the Lambing Flat riots in 1861 followed by discriminatory new laws to restrict Chinese presence on the NSW diggings.