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Europe was struck with gold fever and hungered for any taste of the Australian experience. Returning diggers capitalised on this demand by publishing their letters and diaries in the form of memoirs. Journalism flourished as newspapers delivered gold fields news to eager readers in the cities and world news to readers on the diggings.
Journalism on the gold fields
The gold rushes, growth of trade unions, moves towards federation and an exploding population gave burgeoning newspapers plenty to write about. However a largely transient population of diggers made gold fields journalism a risky business.
Literature on the gold fields
Life on the gold fields provided an abundance of literary material for novelists, autobiographers, poets and newspapers.
Raffaelo Carboni: eyewitness to the bloodshed
Raffaelo Carboni wrote the only eyewitness account of the attack on the Eureka Stockade.
Ellen Clacy: a female point of view
Ellen Clacy provides a rare insight into the experiences of women on the gold fields.
William Howitt: traveller with a painter's eye
In his letters to friends and family, William Howitt tells countless tales of Australia's extraordinary diversity and beauty and kept meticulous records of the scenery surrounding the Bendigo gold fields.
Edward Snell: writer and illustrator
Edward Snell's sketches of life on the gold fields add to his wonderfully personal account of his time on the diggings.
Seweryn Korzelinski: a migrant's perspective
Polish migrant Seweryn Korzelinski describes the strange exotic conditions of Australia in his account of life on the gold fields
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Australian soldiers were called diggers, as many men who fought for Australia in WWI were diggers from the goldfields.
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"Gold is not found in quartz alone; its richest lodes are in the eyes and ears of the public."
Samuel Butler.
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It is estimated that at least 20% of all the gold mined since 1500 has been wrung from the earth during only fifty years' worth of gold rushes in the nineteenth century.
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A 150th anniversary is a sesquicentenary.
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In the first few years of Victoria's life as an independent colony, the Victorian Government sold £4,500,000 worth of Aboriginal land.
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The Incas called gold the "sweat of the sun", while the Aztecs and the Mayans called it "the excrement of the sun".
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A census of the Kimberly gold fields showed unqualified practitioners such as faith healers, tonic sellers and clairvoyants out-numbered legally qualified doctors three-to-one.
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Australia now mines about 300 tonnes of gold annually – worth about $4.5million – making it the third-largest producer in the world, after South Africa and the United States. Gold is Australia’s second largest export after coal.
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In 1965 archaeologists discovered the "Ramlah Hoard" – a collection of gold dinars and ingots dating from 761 to 976 – at Ramlah, near Jerusalem.
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Gold fingerprinting technology, developed in Australia to help police trace the origin of stolen gold, is now being used to determine the origin of archaeological artefacts.
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