 |
William Strutt
born England 1825, died England 1915
Thomas Ham (engraver)
born England 1821, died Australia 1870
Gold diggings of Victoria, preparing to start
1854
lithograph
12.0 x 19.9 cm (sight); 10.0 x 18.8 cm (comp.)
The University of Melbourne Art Collection
Gift of the Russell and Mab Grimwade Bequest 1973
1973.002
"… the news almost daily poured into
the town of large nuggets having been found one after the other.
The sober “Melbournites” became dizzy, and a veritable
gold fever of great virulence seized the population, resulting
in the lords of creation leaving all their avocations and starting
off, almost en masse; thus merchants, doctors, lawyers, military
officers, artisans, labourers, all forsook their avocations and
left their wives, daughters and sweethearts to carry on the prosaic
home affairs as well as they could, while they picked up the golden
nuggets that lay glittering in the sun whichever way you looked."
Cited Mackaness, G (ed.), ‘The Australian journal
of William Strutt, ARA, 1850–1862’, in Australian
Historical Monographs, part 1, vol. 41, 1958, p. 21.
"Not only have the idlers to be found in every
community, and day labourers in town and the adjacent country,
shopmen, artisans, and mechanics of every description thrown up
their employments, and in most cases, leaving their employers
and their wives and families to take care of themselves, run off
to the workings, but responsible tradesmen, farmers, clerks of
every grade, and not a few of the superior classes have followed;
some, unable to withstand the mania and force of the stream, or
because they were really disposed to venture time and money on
the chance, but others, because they were, as employers of labour,
left in the lurch and had no other alternative. Cottages are deserted,
houses to let, business is at a stand-still, and even schools
are closed. In some of the suburbs not a man is left."
Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe, 10 October 1851.
Cited Serle, G, The Golden Age. A History of the
Colony of Victoria, 1851–1861, Melbourne, 1977, p. 22.
|
click
image to enlarge
|
