Sovereign Hill

Believe it or Not

Accounts of Goldfields Life

Primary and Secondary Sources

Sovereign Hill Education

Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

IndexSome of these quotes are primary sources and some are secondary. You will have to device which are the most appropriate and trustworthy for your topic.

Characters

The Women of Bendigo – James BonwickThe amiable female – Ellen ClaceyWhat Men – William HowittDescription of the Chinese – R. Butler

Diggings Life

Gold in the Grass Roots – William HowittTragedy in Peg Leg Gully – C Rudston ReadBad Air – Ballarat Goldfields DiaryBallarat in Winter – William HowittNight at the diggings – Ellen ClaceyChristmas Day cooking – Charles Napier Hemy Flies – William HowittBridie’s Fire - Kirsty MurraySurvey of Bendigo – James BonwickThe Drovers Wife - Henry LawsonWe live in a City – Carole WilkinsonThe Commissioners Report – John Richard HardyA crisis has arrived – William Howitt

The Township

Moon – Geoffrey BlaineyLight – Geoffrey Blainey Smells - Geoffrey BlaineyMain Road 1858 – Nathan Spielvogel

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

Characters

The Women of Bendigo – William Howitt (mp3 sound file )

“The women of Bendigo are much more neatly dressed than you would expect … There is no lack of handsome mantillas, polkas, smart bonnets, and parasols. … Yet, in a morning , you may often see these ladies – and very often, too, smart young girls, not more than fifteen- hanging out their wash, busy at their cooking, or chopping wood with great axes, which they seem not to swing, but which rather swing them, as they cut splinters from the stumps which ornament this digger landscape …

As to girls marrying here-the great temptation- that is soon accomplished.- for I hear lots of diggers get married almost every time they go down to Melbourne to spend their gold. A lot of the vilest scoundrels are assembled here from the four winds of heaven. Nobody knows them; much less whether they have left wives behind them in their own country.”

(William Howitt Land, Labour and Gold; or Two Years in Victoria Longmans, London, 1855 quoted in Nancy Keesing (ed) History of the Australian Gold Rushes by those who were there. Angus and Robertson, Melbourne 1981 edition. P 129)

The Amiable Female – Mrs Clacy (mp3 file sound file )

“Whilst her husband was at work farther down the gully, she kept a sort of sly-grog shop, and passed the day selling and drinking spirits, swearing, and smoking a short tobacco-pipe at the door of her tent. She was a most repulsive looking object. A dirty, gaudy-coloured dress hung unfastened about her shoulders, course black hair unbrushed, uncombed, dangled about her face, over which her evil habits had spread a genuine bacchanalian glow, whilst in a loud masculine voice she uttered the most awful words that ever disgraced the mouth of man – ten thousand times more awful when proceeding from a woman’s lips”

(Mrs Charles (Ellen) Clacy, A lady’s Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852 – 53 Hurst& Blackett, London, 1853 as quoted in Nancy Keesing (ed) History of the Australian Gold Rushes by those who were there. Angus and Robertson, Melbourne 1981 edition. P 134)

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

What Men! – William Howitt (mp3 sound file)

"What men! and what costumes! Huge burly fellows with broad, battered straw or cabbage-tree hats, huge beards, loose blue shirts, and trowsers (sic) yellow with clay and earth, ….

almost every man had a gun, or pistols in his belt, and a huge dog, half hound half mastiff, led by a chain. Each had his bundle, containing his sacking to sleep upon, his blanket and such slight change of linen as these diggers carry. They had, besides, their spades and picks tied together; and thus they marched up the country, bearing with them all they want, and lying out under the trees."

(William Howitt, Land, Labour, and Gold: or Two Years in Victoria With Visits to Sydney and Van Diemon's Land, Longmans, London, 1855)

Description of the Chinese

"And so they set off in the gently falling rain on their long march to the gold fields. A winding column of small men in blue tunics and trousers with European jackets or capes to keep out the cold and their wide conical hats on their heads. Each man carried with him a long pole balanced on his shoulder and a basket or bundle suspended from each end.They moved in the Chinese way with a fast, shuffling step that eats up the ground at a surprising speed and can be kept up for hours at a stretch, their feet barely leaving the ground and the harsh swish-swish of their thick soled boots making a rhythm that kept them going in step."

Butler, R. Hills of Gold, CCH Australia, North Ryde, 1981. p. 39.

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

Diggings Life

Gold in the grass-roots - William Howitt (mp3 sound file)

“Yet out of the very roots of the grass we shake gold. We can see the particles shining as we open pieces of the grass roots, …”

(William Howitt Land, Labour and Gold; or Two Years in Victoria Longmans, London, 1855 quoted in Nancy Keesing (ed) History of the Australian Gold Rushes by those who were there. Angus and Robertson, Melbourne 1981 edition. pp 48 and 49)

Tragedy in Peg Leg Gully - C Rudston Read (mp3 sound file )

“Four brothers were digging in Peg Leg Gully, endeavouring to bottom a hole again that had been filled up during the floods … One of the banks slightly giving way, they endeavoured to keep it up (when too late) with shores, branches of trees etc. Whilst in the act of doing this, the younger brother, who was down in the pit, stuck fast …finding he could not extricate himself, his brothers immediately rendered their assistance; this was to no avail, and immediately they called for help.

In less than a minute many arrived with ropes, buckets, bailers, shovels scoops &c. and set to work endeavouring to clear away the stuff, and some sailors dropping down got him slung, when every one that could get hold, tried to pull him out, he was at the same time having his arms around his elder brother’s neck … but it was of no avail, the stuff slowly filled in upon him, and as it rose the poor brother was compelled to let him go to save his own life, and the unfortunate lad was smothered.”

(C Rudston Read, What I Heard, Saw and Did at the Australian Goldfields T.&W. Boone, London, 1853 as quoted in Nancy Keesing (ed) History of the Australian Gold Rushes by those who were there. Angus and Robertson, Melbourne 1981 edition. P 102)

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

Diggings Life

Bad Air – Ballarat Goldfields Diary

“Harry told me of a melancholy accident which befell two men yesterday afternoon, one of whom was working for me at our claim on Wednesday last, … The accident arose from foul air. One of the men having went down the shaft and the air having caught him when about 60 feet from bottom he dropt out of the bucket and was killed. This lad who was working for me t'other day then jumped into the bucket and sd. lower away cheerily boys to we see what's up. Poor fellow he got served out the same way, and was awfully smashed. Then a man was lashed to the rope and sent down and pulled up again insensible, so they got on fanners and went down and shut up the two bodies.”

In 2009, the State Library of Victoria acquired a diary of a digger in Ballarat in 1855. It is incredible. The author is believed to be a Scotsman and records daily life in meticulous detail. Reproduced with kind permission of the State Library of Victoria.

Ballarat in Winter - William Howitt

“This was called Gravel Pit Lead, but might with more propriety have been called Mud Hole; for a more astonishing scene of mud, muddy water, muddy diggers, muddy tools, and clay trodden into the most vilely adhesive filth, it is impossible to conceive. In fact, Ballarat in winter is unquestionably the most dirty place, the most perfect Serbonian Bog, on earth… .

The whole surface is thrown into heaps of clay from six to ten feet (2 to 3 metres) high – for it appears to be all clay they throw out here. Here is, indeed, accumulated all the mud and clay which for thousands of years have been flowing from the hills around. It is this which has buried the gold 160 feet (54 metres) deep and through which the diggers have to sink for it.

Between these muddy mountains thrown up by the diggers, the water accumulates in deep pools, which they avail themselves to wash their gold out with; and the heaps of clay are trodden by hundreds of men constantly crossing them in all directions, into a slippery, adhesive limbo of bird-lime and filth which require not only much nerve, but much muscular power to traverse, for your jack boots sink deep into it, and refuse to come out again … right and left you are menaced by yawning gulfs and what once were diggers’ holes, but which now have tumbled in, and present clay pits of some score of feet deep … “

(William Howitt Land, Labour and Gold; or Two Years in Victoria Longmans, London, 1855. P 380)

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

Diggings Life

Night at the diggings – Ellen Clacy (mp3 sound file)

“Night at the diggings is the characteristic time; murder here - murder there - revolvers cracking - blunderbusses (big firearms) bombing - rifles going off - balls whistling - one man groaning with a broken leg - another shouting because he couldn’t find his way to his hole, and a third equally vociferous (loud) because he has tumbled into one - this man swearing - another praying - a party of bacchanals (drunks) chanting various ditties to different time and tune, or rather minus both.”

(Ellen Clacy, A Lady’s Visit to the Gold-Diggings of Australia in 1852- 3, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1963 (first published 1853)

Christmas Dinner – Charles Napier Hemy

“We had Xmas dinner at the diggings and everyone helped me to cook. I found there were no blackfish in the waterhole but plenty of claw fish (yabbies) almost six inches long. These were caught with a piece of meat on a string and soon I had a pot full of them for our Xmas dinner. We had mutton soup and the everlasting chops and rice and a plum pudding made with real plums I had bought up in a tin. We nearly lost the rice and plum pudding for in the midst of my cooking the claw fish all got out of the pot and had to be caught and put back and I let the water boil away from the pudding and the smell of burnt rice made me take off the lid to see what was wrong. I found the pot red hot and rushed to the water hole for a tin of water which I then threw into the pot over the pudding. There was an explosion and the pot cracked and the pudding blew up but was not lost and the dinner was a success after all.”

Charles Napier Hemy, (ed. Peter McGann) Days of My Youth, (Viglione Press, Black Rock, 2009) pp. 54. The original hand written manuscript is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Taken from the personal recollections of Charles Napier Hemy who arrived in Melbourne as a 10 year old in December 1850. These notes were written in 1904 to record his memories of his adventures on the Victorian goldfields.

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

Diggings Life

Flies! – William Howitt (mp3 file)

“The little black-devil fly all day attacked our eyes, nose and mouth: and great blowflies in thousands blew our blankets, rugs and everything woollen, all over with their maggots, which were at once dried upon by the sun. They covered spaces of a foot square at once with them, all adhering by a sort of gluiness.”

(William Howitt Land, Labour and Gold; or Two Years in Victoria Longmans, London, 1855 quoted in Nancy Keesing (ed) History of the Australian Gold Rushes by those who were there. Angus and Robertson, Melbourne 1981 edition. P 110)

Bridie’s Fire – Kirsty Murray

Bridie is an 11 y.o. Irish girl who has escaped the famine. Gilbert is a 10 y.o. rich boy from Melbourne. They have run off to the Ballarat goldfields.

“Bridie rolled over and opened one eye. Beside her, Gilbert was curled up like a kitten under a thin blanket. The sun was just peeking over the horizon but already the hill was alive with noise and movement.

Bridie stretched her aching limbs. She set the fire and walked down to the creek to catch a cupful of muddy water for the damper.

As she mixed a handful of flour with the water and set to kneading, a knot of worry formed in her mind. Their supplies were almost gone. The evening before, it had cost her a whole shilling to buy half a pound of flour and a few potatoes. If they didn’t find gold soon, they’d starve.

They’d spent most of the last few days wandering along the edge of the creek with a pannikin, being shouted at by the other miners for encroaching on their territory. They’d swilled handfuls of grit around in the pan, hoping for a glimmer of the precious gold. All day, the goldfields resounded with the sound of pistols being fired into the air as miners announced their good luck, but Bridie and Gilbert found nothing to celebrate. At night they’d go and watch the men play cards at Big Bill’s camp with well-thumbed, greasy decks.

Gilbert awoke and joined her by the campfire. Bridie grinned at him.

‘Todays going to be our lucky day,’ she said, handing him a cup of muddy, sweet black tea. ‘I feel it in my bones.’”

Kisrty Murray, Bridies Fire, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, 2003. Pp 183 -4

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

Diggings Life

Survey of Bendigo - James Bonwick (mp3 file)

“We live in canvas homes, or huts of bark and logs…Our furniture is of simple character. A box, a block of wood, or a bit of paling across a pail, serves as a table … We have those who indulge in plates, knives and forks but … the washing of plates and cleaning of knives and forks require an application of cleanliness most foreign to the … diggings. Besides, chops can be picked out of the frying pan, placed on a lump of bread, and cut with a clasp knife that has done good service in fossicking during the day”

… “And yet, in spite of the weather, exposure, dust, mud, filth, flies and fleas, the diggings have such attractions that even the unlucky must come back for another trial. The wild, free and independent life appears the great charm. They have no masters. They go where they please and work when they will.”

(James Bonwick, Notes of a Gold Digger and Gold Digger’s Guide, E. Connebee, Melbourne, 1852 as quoted in Nancy Keesing (ed) History of the Australian Gold Rushes by those who were there. Angus and Robertson, Melbourne 1981 edition. P 157 &159)

Henry Lawson is a very famous Australian author of the 1880s and 1890s and this is one of his well-known stories. This mother knows that there is a snake under her house.

The Drover’s Wife - Henry Lawson

“Near midnight. The children are all asleep and she sits there still, sewing and reading by turns. From time to time she glances round the floor ... The thunderstorm comes on, and the wind, rushing through the cracks in the slab wall, threatens to blow out her candle. She places it on a sheltered part of the dresser and fixes up a newspaper to protect it. At every flash of lightning, the cracks between the slabs gleam like polished silver. The thunder rolls, and the rain comes down in torrents.

There are large cracks in that wall opening under the floor of the dwelling-house. She is not a coward, but recent events have shaken her nerves. A little son of her brother-in-law was lately bitten by a snake, and died. Besides, she has not heard from her husband for six months, and is anxious about him.”

Henry Lawson, The Drovers Wife, first published in The Bulletin magazine 23 July, 1892

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

Diggings Life

We live in a City – Carole Wilkinson

“We live in a city. It’s not a city of buildings made of wood and brick. It’s a city made of canvas. Our home is a tent on the Ballarat Goldfields.

I like the goldfields at night. The tents glow softly, lit by lamps inside. Campfires blaze. You cant see the messy mullock heaps at night. The moonlight makes everything look pretty. I can hear the sound of a jig played on a fiddle and people singing. Father is out there somewhere at a secret meeting with the other diggers.”

As told by the character of a fictitious young girl

Carole Wilkinson, The Night We Made the Flag: A Eureka Story Walker Books Australia, 2013

The Commissioner’s Report - John Richard Hardy, first Gold Commissioner in New South Wales Camp, June 1851 (mp3 file)

"…I am happy to say that I have not experienced the slightest trouble or annoyance from any person here; they refer all their disputes to me without attempting to settle them by violence, and submit to my decision without murmur. I have not sworn in any special constables; it is perfectly unnecessary, for everything goes on in as orderly and quiet a manner as in the quietest English town. There is no drinking or rioting going on.”

John Richard Harding, Further Papers Relative to The Discovery of Gold in Australia, Parliamentary Papers, Great Britain and Ireland, H.M. Stationery Office, 1852 as quoted in Nancy Keesing (ed) History of the Australian Gold Rushes by those who were there. Angus and Robertson, Melbourne 1981 edition. P 26 & 27

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

Diggings Life

A crisis has arrived – William Howitt (mp3 sound file)

“Hermsprong …was appointed to the post of Inspector of Police on one of the chief diggings…Nothing was so frequent in the newspapers and police reports as the exploits of Hermsprong, in discovering, fining and burning down the tents of sly grogsellers. …

A poor Irishwoman was left a widow with several children, the youngest of which was only a few days old. Hermsprong had discovered that this poor woman sold grog. He appeared before her tent … and, ill as she was, summoned her out. When he charged her with the sale of grog, she did not deny it, but said that her husband being killed in an accident, her countrymen had advised her, as her only means of support for herself and her little children, to sell grog, promising to give her their custom; and the poor woman said, piteously, “What, your honour, was I to do?”

Without replying to her remark, Hermsprong turned to the police with him, and said, “Fire that tent!”

The poor woman shrieked out, “For God’s sake, sir, spare my tent! Spare my children!” The children were all at that moment in the tent; the infant of a few days old fast asleep. The police … refused to a man to execute this diabolical order. Swearing at them … Hermsprong leapt from his horse, stalked up to a fire burning before the tent, seized a burning brand, and fired the tent with his own hand.

The poor woman, uttering a frantic cry, rushed into the tent, snatched up her baby, and, followed by her other children, came out and stood shrieking and tearing her hair like a maniac, while her tent, and all she had in the world, consumed before her eyes. …

For two years [Hermsprong] was permitted to continue his savage and corrupt career … He was dismissed; and he retired with these memorable words – his official salary be it remembered was 400 per year –“I don’t mind being turned out; for in these two years I have cleared 15,000!””

(William Howitt Land, Labour and Gold; or Two Years in Victoria Longmans, London, 1855 quoted in Nancy Keesing (ed) History of the Australian Gold Rushes by those who were there. Angus and Robertson, Melbourne 1981 edition. P209)

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

The Township

The moon – Geoffrey Blainey

In the pioneering era … numerous Australians … were out of doors at night, even sleeping outside, and so they noticed the moon’s presence or absence.

The moon had an influence on many daily activities.

Most newsagents and bookshops sold annual almanacs which set out, to the nearest minute, the predicted movements of the moon for that year. The almanac set out the phases of the moon, stating when the moon would be full, and the hour and exact minute when a new moon would appear.

In rural areas, people planning a journey, or fixing the date for a ball, carefully consulted the almanac to see when the moon would be brightest.

When country people were to visit neighbouring homesteads for an evening, they hoped for a full moon. Sometimes they stayed and danced and sang until daylight because it was too dangerous to ride home on half-made bush roads in pitch darkness.

On the night of the full moon, more people attended church services, dances, and public meetings in the countryside and inland towns. pp. 3 -6

Ned Kelly probably used an almanac or carried in his head a knowledge of the phases of the moon. …he made his two celebrated raids on banks – at the small town of Euroa in December 1878, and Jerilderie the following February – when the moon was full. He knew that after such exploits he might have to make long rides on horseback to evade the police.

pp. 7

Blainey, G. Black Kettle and Full Moon; Daily Life in a Vanished Australia. (Viking, Australia, 2003)

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

The Township

Light - Geoffrey Blainey

The candle was once the light of Australia. In most houses and huts it burned and spluttered after dark. The more expensive candles provided a pleasant light – enough to read a book with ease. On the other hand the cheaper tallow candles used in most huts and humbler houses gave off an offensive odour. They also smoked excessively. When protected by a glass covering, they smeared the glass, thus calling for the use of the cleaning rag each morning.

Children had to be taught the dangers of placing a lighted candle too close to an open window. On a summer night the wind could rustle the curtains, and suddenly they would be alight. Many children were burned to death by a fire that caught on the window drapes. When the wide, bell – shaped dress, the crinoline, was in fashion mid-century; it could too easily brush against a candle or open fire. Another hazard was to read in bed with a naked candle held in the hand. Some family doctor, unduly fearful, warned their patients on no account to read in bed … pp. 46

It was by candlelight that pages of books were read aloud to the family at night – novels, books of travel, history, and the Bible. One girl in Daylesford affectionately recorded in the 1860s a scene that was repeated in thousands of homes; ‘Father would read aloud night after night to mother while she sat with her sewing. Two home-made candles in tall brass candlesticks gave a mild light. Kerosene lamps had not yet come so far into the country.’

pp. 47

In the open air a naked flame needed protection from a puff of wind. Several kinds of glass vessels were used to cup the flame. For a time a common lantern was made from an empty beer or cordial bottle. The bottom of the bottle was neatly removed and a candle was fixed in its throat, thus protecting the flame from wind. In parts of Victoria by the 1870s this was known as a Ballarat lantern… A sophisticated version of the Ballarat lantern was equipped with a wire handle.

On mining fields, when the men on the afternoon shift finished their work, this homemade lantern guided those who had to walk home along unlit roads.

Blainey, G. Black Kettle and Full Moon; Daily Life in a Vanished Australia. (Viking, Australia, 2003)

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

The Township

Smells - Geoffrey Blainey

… the hot days fostered diseases and odours. The garbage in backyards stank; the waste at the back of the butchers’ and fishmongers’ shops stank; the fat that was the main ingredient used at soap and candle factories stank; and those who walked along the city lanes could smell sewerage here and there.

To stifle the more offensive odours, charcoal was sometimes used. As James Johnston wrote in 1855, in praise of charcoal; ‘Mixed with fermenting night-soil or with the contents of our common sewers, it sweetens them almost immediately, and it produces a like effect upon almost every variety of decaying animal and vegetable matter.’ Many women dabbed themselves with perfume, or carried a perfumed handkerchief, not just to project a pleasant scent but to protect them from the unpleasant.

pp.25, 26

Blainey, G. Black Kettle and Full Moon; Daily Life in a Vanished Australia. (Viking, Australia, 2003)

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

The Township

Main Road 1858 – Nathan Spielvogel

“The busiest part of this winding street was the block between Eureka Street and Esmond (now York) Street. The two sides of this block were packed with shops, hotels and theatres. Some of these, like Davy Jones’ Criterion House, were well built premises with large plate glass windows, but the majority were flimsy small stalls built of soft wood and often only of packing cases. Some were so small that only three customers could get inside at the same time.

Nearly every shop had a long pole about, carrying some sign to show what was on sale within. One had a large hat, big enough for a giant to wear, over another flew a large red shirt, over another a large wooden pick axe. At the door of these small shops, the owners stood and bawled at the top of their voices that bargains were to be had inside. They were not above dragging unwilling men into their shops and selling them something they did not want.

In summer, the roadway was a moving mass of gritty dust, and in winter puddles of greasy mud. Pedestrians kept to the footpaths which were made of long slabs of rough timber laid side by side.

The footpaths were usually crowded with hurrying people. Bearded men wore top hats and tailed coats, some with knee-high boots and others with elastic sided footwear. ….

The women pushed their way along to do their shopping. They wore spread-out crinolines and bonnets shaped like inverted coal shuttles.

…What a lot of hotels there were … in the Main Road there were 94, chief of which were The Duchess of Kent, John O’ Groat, United States, Rising Sun, Star Royal Mail.

… The Gold Escort came along. In front rode two bearded troopers, well armed. Then the small wagon holding thousands of ounces of gold. On each side rode a trooper. And following the wagon were two more troopers with their loaded carbines, ready for any ambush along the road to Melbourne.

… About 5.00 o’clock the trumpet sounded. Along came the Mail coach from Geelong. High in the front seat sat the driver, Ned Divine, better known as Cagbbage Tree Ned, handling the ribbons of his six or eight sturdy horses. At the back of the coach sat the guard who blew his trumpet when the coach passed through a township to warn all and sundry to get out of the way, for the Queen’s mails could not wait for anyone. By his side sat a loaded gun…

Soon after the arrival there was a wild scramble to get letters for there was no delivery of letters. Everybody had to collect his letters from the Post Office.

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

In the “Times” there was a list of names for whom letters were waiting at the Post Office. In one issue were the names of 1,400 men.

The Ballarat “Times” was the principal newspaper, though the “Star” was a strong rival. A glance through the columns is interesting

Here are a few cuttings

Fifty four men fined 5/- or seven days for being drunk and disorderly. A man fined £ 10 for keeping a fierce dog tied to his front door and the informer got half the fine. A man sent to gaol for a month for stealing sand from the road. This was a common offence. The sand was collected from the roadway and panned off for gold.

The Spielvogel papers were originally talks given by Nathan Spielvogel on radio 3BA in the 1930s. The papers are now part of the Gold Museum Collection. 2010.1351

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

The Township

Smells - Geoffrey Blainey

… the hot days fostered diseases and odours. The garbage in backyards stank; the waste at the back of the butchers’ and fishmongers’ shops stank; the fat that was the main ingredient used at soap and candle factories stank; and those who walked along the city lanes could smell sewerage here and there.

To stifle the more offensive odours, charcoal was sometimes used. As James Johnston wrote in 1855, in praise of charcoal; ‘Mixed with fermenting night-soil or with the contents of our common sewers, it sweetens them almost immediately, and it produces a like effect upon almost every variety of decaying animal and vegetable matter.’ Many women dabbed themselves with perfume, or carried a perfumed handkerchief, not just to project a pleasant scent but to protect them from the unpleasant.

pp.25, 26

Blainey, G. Black Kettle and Full Moon; Daily Life in a Vanished Australia. (Viking, Australia, 2003)

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Believe it or Not Accounts of Goldfields Life

The Township

Main Road 1858 – Nathan Spielvogel

The busiest part of this winding street was the block between Eureka Street and Esmond (now York) Street. The two sides of this block were packed with shops, hotels and theatres. Some of these, like Davy Jones’ Criterion House, were well built premises with large plate glass windows, but the majority were flimsy small stalls built of soft wood and often only of packing cases. Some were so small that only three customers could get inside at the same time.

Nearly every shop had a long pole about, carrying some sign to show what was on sale within. One had a large hat, big enough for a giant to wear, over another flew a large red shirt, over another a large wooden pick axe. At the door of these small shops, the owners stood and bawled at the top of their voices that bargains were to be had inside. They were not above dragging unwilling men into their shops and selling them something they did not want.

In summer, the roadway was a moving mass of gritty dust, and in winter puddles of greasy mud. Pedestrians kept to the footpaths which were made of long slabs of rough timber laid side by side.

The footpaths were usually crowded with hurrying people. Bearded men wore top hats and tailed coats, some with knee-high boots and others with elastic sided footwear. ….

The women pushed their way along to do their shopping. They wore spread-out crinolines and bonnets shaped like inverted coal shuttles.

…What a lot of hotels there were … in the Main Road there were 94, chief of which were The Duchess of Kent, John O’ Groat, United States, Rising Sun, Star Royal Mail.

The Spielvogel papers were originally talks given by Nathan Spielvogel on radio 3BA in the 1930s.

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