Gold Attracts Immigrants Worldwide

The discovery of extensive gold deposits in New South Wales and Victoria in 1851 and 1852 opened the second major phase of European migration to Australia. As news of the discoveries spread round the world, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the Australian colonies in the hope of becoming rich. Excluding Aborigines, the population of New South Wales almost doubled between 1851 and 1860, increasing from just under 200,000 to 350,000, while that of Victoria increased sixfold from 77,345 to 541,000. The total population of the Australian colonies rose from 437,665 in 1851 to 1,168,149 10 years later.

This period saw the beginning of the multicultural nature of Australian society. There were many representatives of the European nations, and Americans as well. Some of these people were simply fortune hunters; others brought their families. Some were middle-class people looking for a more comfortable life than at home; others were political refugees from the failed democratic revolutions in Europe in the 1840s; and others were Irish fleeing the terrible potato famine in their homeland.

Particularly in Victoria and New South Wales, the arrival of these people led to much social and political change. The growth of centres of population inland (Bathurst, Ballarat, Bendigo) gave pastoralists and agriculturalists new markets for their animals and produce. These centres required goods and services, so that new roads were built between the metropolis ports (Sydney, Melbourne) and the interior. To facilitate the movement of people and goods, regular coaching, dray and postal services were instituted. As, for example in Ballarat and Bendigo, the alluvial deposits of gold were worked out, and deep-shaft mining developed, there arose a sharp division between capitalists and workers; heavy manufacturing grew, to produce the machinery needed to drive thousands of metres into the earth; and settled populations developed. With the growth in the number of women and children, these populations needed schools, churches, hospitals, police, and government services.

The democratic spirit of many of the diggers led to calls for political reform and for a more popular franchise. The conflict between the older, autocratic form of governance and the newer mood came to a head in the Eureka uprising of Ballarat in December 1854, when miners rebelled against the hated licence fee (30 shillings per month) and demanded political rights and access to land.