Edmund Hargraves

For a few short years at the beginning of the 1850s hundreds of thousands of people flocked to south-eastern Australia. The ships that brought them often swung (качались) empty at their moorings (причал) as crews and passengers swarmed (лезть, карабкаться) inland towards rough-and-ready (сделанный на скорую руку) encampments in the bush. The lure (приманка) was gold!

People seemed to lose their senses. Thousands dropped whatever they were doing and trudged off (пешком отправлялись) to the diggings (прииски) to get rich. In the towns, men abandoned their jobs and businesses - and often wives and children. Sailors deserted their ships. On the sheep runs, shepherds and stockmen (ковбой) deserted their masters.

A few months after the New South Wales rush began, gold was discovered in Victoria.

Appalled, the governor of Victoria wrote off to London about what had happened in the new colony. " Within the last three weeks the towns of Melbourne and Geelong... have been in appearance almost emptied of their male inhabitants... Cottages are deserted, houses to let, business is at a standstill, and even schools are closed."

By early 1852 it seemed as though central Victoria was one vast, immensely rich goldfield. It also appeared that almost the entire population of the colony was heading for the diggings. Inland towns, and even Melbourne itself, were almost deserted. The government struggled to cope as most of its employees left their posts; eighty per cent of the police force resigned to go gold digging!

Even before the first gold discoveries in New South Wales, the world was already gripped (охвачен) by gold fever. The discovery of gold in California in January 1848 had triggered off (дало начало) the first great gold rush. The American discoveries excited considerable interest in Britain, but although many people were tempted, most prospective (потенциальные) diggers held back (удерживаться). The Californian diggings were widely portrayed as dangerous hellholes («дыра»), where life was the only thing that was cheap, and where lynch law alone reigned (правил закон Линча).

The discovery of gold in the Australian colonies was a different matter. Here, few of the deterrents (сдерживающее средство) to Californian migration applied. British law was well established and early reports described the diggings as peaceful and orderly.

The first discoveries made in other states were: Western Australia in the early 1850s; Queensland in 1853; the Northern Territory in 1865; and Tasmania in 1877. Only South Australia failed to produce gold deposits of any significance.

The gold rushes and the wealth they generated changed the course of Australian history. They ushered in (дали начало) a long period of prosperity and underpinned (способствовали) the development of a modern industrial base in the eastern colonies. The gold seekers brought to Australia a range of new skills and professions. Their sheer numbers created markets of a size few in Australia had dreamed of before gold. Moreover, these immigrants were often young, educated and energetic. With these qualities they transformed the political and cultural landscape of Australia, just as the wealth they dug from the earth transformed the economy.

Immigrants almost quadrupled the country's population in the 20 years between 1851 and 1871, from 437 000 to 1.7 million. In 1851-1861, Australia exported more than 124 million pounds worth of gold alone.

People and organizations that had been trying to encourage emigration from Britain to Australia for some years saw the excitement created by gold as a heaven-sent opportunity to achieve their aims. Throughout 1851 and 1852 Charles Dickens, for example, published in his periodical Household Words a constant stream of useful information about the goldfields and the favorable prospects for active young Britons in Australia.

The Eureka stockade (укрепление, форт)

During the first few years of the gold rush, digger had to pay a license fee of thirty shillings a month. This was more than many diggers would earn in a month. The government hoped that a large fee would encourage people to stay in their jobs.

But people went to the fields just the same. Thousands more arrived every month from overseas. Those diggers who found a lot of gold did not mind the fee too much. But others objected to the monthly visits of soldiers and mounted police who collected the money.

The miners came to hate the license hunters who were known as ' Traps '. Word that they were coming was passed through the fields. When miners without licenses heard the cry 'Trap! ' they hid themselves. But it was not easy to escape the license hunts. In Victoria in 1854 the governor had more than one thousand troops visiting the fields twice a week.

There were ten thousand men digging at Ballarat in 1854. Gold was becoming harder to find. Many of the diggers were desperately poor. There were men at Ballarat who said that they had come to Australia because they thought they would find more freedom here than in their own countries. Instead, they said, the colony was run by tyrants. Why should they pay a license fee when they had no say in the government? Some of the miners spoke of having a revolution like America had had.

Meetings of thousands of diggers were organized. There were people from Ireland, England, Germany, Italy and America. The diggers declared that they wanted the license fee abolished and the right to vote at elections. They wanted democracy. At a meeting on Bakery Hill near Ballarat in 1854, ten thousand miners met under a new flag.

The men who raised it believed that it should be Australia's flag. 'There is no flag in Europe, or in the civilized world half so beautiful, ' one said.