Australian Gold Rush Research Paper

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How did the discovery of gold effect colonial Australia in population and society ? The gold rush in Australia is to be one of the biggest turning points in Australian history. The gold rush did not just mean finding gold, but the population increasing dramatically, changes in culture, and social and political lives. The gold rush is one of the main reasons for such a population growth and has made Australia what it is today. How it started/Where The gold craze of the 19th century in Australia all started by one man Edward Hargraves. Hargraves was a mountain main that had just came back to Australia from California during the gold rush in America. Hargraves was mining for gold in California and thought Australia had a similar landscape…show more content…
The discovery brought on social, economic, and culture changes throughout the whole country. This discovery sparked right away people in Sydney instantly went off in search of gold. In Onhir near Bathurst, within 4 months over 1,000 prospectors showed up searching for gold. A few months later in Victoria in the Buninyoung Ranges many lucrative gold fields where found. Gold was later found in other states; Western Australia early 1850's Queensland in 1853, Northern territory 1865,and Tasmania in 1877 and South Australia never really had…show more content…
Prospectors came from the United States and China as well, with a few from Germany and elsewhere. In London, even the young artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood considered joining the rush to Australia, though they decided not to Within ten years the population of Australia doubled. The first arrivals were mainly young men in search of a quick fortune, and the diggings were wild and lawless, but the prospectors were followed by business and professional men, traders and skilled craftsmen, who changed the nature of immigration to Australia. They brought with them middle-class standards, and often wives and children. The Victorian authorities, eager to prevent its population from joining the gold frenzy in NSW, offered a reward of 200 for any gold found within 200 miles of Melbourne. In 1851, six months after the New South Wales find, gold was discovered at Ballarat, and a short time later at Bendigo Creek. Victoria contributed more than one third of the world's gold output in the 1850s and in just two years the State's population had grown from 77,000 to 540,000! The total population trebled from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in
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