18511851–1860s · Ballarat, Victoria

Victorian gold rush

S. T. Gill's 1852 view of tents, stores and diggers crowding the Forest Creek goldfield at Mount Alexander — Archival image: Samuel Thomas Gill. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Finds at Clunes and Ballarat in mid-1851 started a rush that lifted Victoria's population from about 75,000 to some 500,000 within ten years. Diggers came from Britain, Ireland, Europe, America and China; Chinese miners, taxed on landing from 1855, walked overland from South Australia instead. Gold paid for 'Marvellous Melbourne', whose banks, arcades and 1880 Exhibition Building still stand.

Sites

Site 1: Sovereign Hill, BallaratOpen-air museum of an 1850s gold town, beside the Gold Museum.Map ↗
Site 2: Golden Dragon Museum, BendigoMuseum of Bendigo's Chinese goldfields community and its processional dragons.Map ↗
Site 3: Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton GardensWorld Heritage exhibition hall of 1880, built on gold-rush wealth.Map ↗

Guides who take you there

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Also in Melbourne and Victoria

More from the 18th & 19th Century

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