A city's progress: Melbourne 1851 - 1861

The City of Melbourne experienced great change and growth during Victoria’s gold rush decade.

The wealth generated by the Victorian gold-fields and the large number of immigrants attracted to these fields contributed to the growth of Melbourne from pastoral settlement to Australia’s leading city by the mid-1850s.

Buildings, roads and businesses were not all that developed in Melbourne during the gold rush: the cultural life of the city also expanded considerably.

One of the most significant changes that occurred in Melbourne during this time was the increase in the number of professional artists practising in the city. This increase can, in part, be attributed to the return of many of the gold-fields artists to Melbourne after the first frenzied months of the gold rush.

By the mid-1850s, Melbourne could boast the presence of several professional artists, including Nicholas Chevalier, Eugène von Guérard, Ludwig Becker, Charles Summers, Thomas Clark and Henry Burn.

While such a concentration of skilled artists may have placed a strain on a limited art market, it ensured that Melbourne was a culturally dynamic city in which art was created, exhibited, reviewed and discussed. Within years, artistic societies and cultural institutions emerged and contributed to the further cultural growth of the city.

The city’s progress was recorded by many of the artists who resided in Melbourne and who contributed to its strengthening cultural status.