1. The Gold Rush
By Niamh

2. In 1851, Edward Hargraves found the first gold in Australia at Bathurst N.S.W. He found it while searching for it in his home land.

3. The news spread fast and almost everyone knew about the gold, they all wanted a chance to get it. Within a week there were 400 people digging, within a month there were The people named the city Ophir after the city of gold in the bible. In1851, part of N.S.W was made a separate colony, it was named Victoria after the current Queen.

4. So many people went to the goldfield that there was a shortage of people doing other work like farming, building, baking and so on. Governor Fitz Roy was worried that there would be violence at the goldfields, and he ordered that gold diggers must pay for a licence in order to dig for gold.

5. Many Victorians had gone to the goldfield that their population went down rapidly and business men were going to give a prize of 200 guineas to whoever finds a goldfield in Victoria. Towards the end of August, James Reagan and John Dunlop discovered the richest goldfield the world has ever seen in a place the Aborigines called Balla arat, which means 'camping place', now the city of Ballarat. By the end of September 1851, there were about 10,000 people digging for gold near Ballarat.

6. By 1852, the news had spread to England, Europe, China and America, and boatloads of hopeful diggers arrived in Melbourne and headed for the goldfields. Many stayed on in Australia, moving on to other Australian goldfields.

7. This was an important part of Australian history and needs to be remembered because if this did not happen then our country would not be how it is today, we would have less population and I think we might have actually been a very poor country if the these gold rushes did not happen. hi