Transported to Van Diemen’s Land aged 11, Ellen Miles went on to riot in Launceston’s Female Factory, seek fortune in gold-rush Victoria and live to nearly 90.
Panorama of the gold mining town, Graytown, Victoria, approx. 1861.
National Library of Australia
From an effigy hanging from a noose to an angry opponent wielding scissors, those who’ve sought to protect the precious Australian Alps have always been up against it.
In 1867, the US bought Alaska from Tsar Alexander II for a tidy sum of $7.2 million. Trump probably wouldn’t be able to get that kind of bargain for Greenland.
Fanny Finch’s 1856 voting card.
Castlemaine Art Museum
Decades before most white Australian women were granted the right to vote, a businesswoman and single mother of four took to the polls and signed a ballot paper.
A depiction of Fook Shing in Melbourne Illustrated, November 13 1880.
State Library of Victoria
Fook Shing spent 20 years as a Melbourne gumshoe. He policed the thriving Chinese community – claiming opium as an expense – but was never promoted above his entry rank of detective third class.
JCF Johnson’s, Euchre in the bush, circa 1867, depicts a card game in a hut on the Victorian goldfields in the 1860s.
Oil on canvas mounted on board, 42.0 x 60.2 cm.
Courtesy of the Art Gallery of Ballarat
The discovery of gold in California 170 years ago was a turning point in global history. The gold rushes are not mere historic footnotes – they continue to influence the world in which we live today.
Miners in several countries have suffered the side-effects of the gold bonanza.
(AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Canada rushed to counter a deadly lung disease afflicting gold miners in the early 20th century. The “quick fix” cure that was invented is a symbol of the lurch towards global industrialization.
Gold Rush garbage.
S.Hayes. Artefact is part of Heritage Victoria's collection.
What we buy has defined who we are since the Gold Rush. In the 1850s and 1860s, people communicated their social status by buying stuff - dinner sets, junk jewellery - and throwing their old things away.