+ All Categories
Transcript
Page 1: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

THE GOLD RUSHES

IN NEW ZEALANDA HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVE

Page 2: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

1640 – Maori may have discovered gold on the West Coast while seeking greenstone1642 – Able Tasman visits New Zealand seeking gold and spices but does not land1840 – Treaty of Waitangi signed. New Zealand Company settlers arrive at Wellington1842 – Gold is discovered by whalers at Coromandel and surveyors are at Nelson

GOLD TIMECHART IN NEW ZEALAND

Page 3: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

1852 – Charles Rings discovers gold deposits on

Coromandel Peninsula1856 – Gold fields found

near Collingwood in Nelson Province

1861 – Gabriel Read strikes gold at Tuapeka in

Central Otago1862 – Hartley and Reilly discover gold at Dunstan

GOLD TIMECHART IN NEW ZEALAND

Page 4: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

1863 – Fox and others find gold in Arrow and Shotover Rivers and at Nasby1865 – Gold discovered on West Coast1870 - Nelson, Otago and West Coast fields almost exhausted1875 – Over 100 mining companies still operating on Coromandel Peninsula

GOLD TIMECHART IN NEW ZEALAND

Page 5: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

1899 – Martha Mine at Waihi opens up

1900 – Most Coromandel mines

closed down1952 – Martha

closes down1980 – Kaniere Gold

still operating in rivers in Nelson

region.

GOLD TIMECHART IN NEW ZEALAND

Page 6: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes
Page 7: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes
Page 8: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• The miners carried their gear (clothes, pick, shovel, and tin pan) in a swag (rolled-up blanket).• They wore nugget boots, moleskin

trousers, flannel shirts and floppy hats.• They ate mutton and damper (a

mixture of flour and water), and drank strong tea, boiled in a billy.• They also hunted for birds and pigs.

MINERS’ EQUIPMENT

Page 9: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• Gold mining was hard, dangerous work. Blizzards, floods and landslides killed many miners.• Thick mud, narrow tracks and

crumbling cliffs made the roads to the goldfields dangerous.• Women were in great demand in the

tent towns. Any single women who came to the fields was usually married within a week.• The towns often got their water from

the same place that rubbish was thrown, so typhoid was a common disease.• Because rats infested the fields, a cat

was a treasure. For entertainment, the men went to the pub and gambled. They bet on rat fights.

LIFE AS A MINER

Page 10: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• Between 1874 and 1881 there were about 5000 Chinese working the New Zealand minefields. Half of these were in Otago.• These miners wore their hair in

pigtails, wore bamboo hats and carried their gear in basket hung on the end of bamboo poles.• The Chinese were hard workers and

found plenty of gold in abandoned digging. They were also clever miners who helped improve gold-dredging systems. • Many returned to their families in

China after they had saved about 100 pounds ($200).

CHINESE MINERS

Page 11: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• In 1842 Captain Arthur Wakefield purchased land in the Aorere River Valley from the Maori

owners who lived in a small village near the present day site of Collingwood.

• Traces of gold were found in the Aorere Valley but the finds were not taken very seriously

until 1856, when a group of Nelson merchants offered a reward of 500 pounds for anyone

who made a significant gold strike in the area.• After a good report from a government agent,

GW Lightband struck it rich and other 1000 prospectors had arrived at Gibbstown.

NELSON

Page 12: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes
Page 13: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• The Nelson goldfield reached its peak in 1858 when there was over 4000 diggers working on the field and over 13,000 ounces of gold, worth approximately 50,000 pounds were produced.• By the end of 1859 the quantity of

gold produced had halved and there were only about 200 miners still in the area.• Gold mining continued in the Nelson

area until into the last century.

NELSON

Page 14: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes
Page 15: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• A group of Auckland businessmen offered a reward of 500 pounds to

anyone who found gold in the Auckland region.

• In 1852 Charles Ring, who had worked in the Californian goldfields discovered

gold on the banks of a stream which was later called Driving Creek.

• Within a month 300 prospectors had arrived in the area.

• Most of the gold was in quartz reefs under the ground, no accessible.

Many prospectors gave up after a month.

COROMANDEL

Page 16: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• On July 30, 1867 another field was opened up near the town of Thames and it was to prove even more successful and long lasting. • By 1868 there were 27 batteries

operating and gold exports increased in value from 18,000 pounds in 1867 to 150,000 in 1868.• By 1870 there were 239 companies

working on the field. At the height of the rush the town of Thames had a population of 15,000 people.• Between 1867 and 1924 the Thames

field produced gold worth a total of 7 million pounds.

COROMANDEL

Page 17: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• During 1857 the Otago Provincial Council offered a reward of 500 pounds to anyone who made a worthwhile gold strike in the

Otago Province.• Gabriel Read (1824-1894) won the prize in May 1861 when he found gold on the banks

of the Tuapeka stream (Gabriel’s Gully).• He was able to pan 200 grams of gold in

less than 2 hours and the rush was on. • By July 1861 there were more than 11,000 people living in the area, with some coming

from Australia, Scotland and the US.

THE OTAGO GOLDFIELDSThomas Gabriel Read

Gabriel’s Gully now Tuapeka

Stream, Otago, New Zealand

Page 18: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• On August 21, 1861 over 160 kilos of gold were taken from the field to the banks in Dunedin, carefully escorted by the army. • By that time, the population

of Otago had increased from 13,000 to 30,000.• The richest strike on the Otago

goldfields was on the banks of the Arrow River.• Some miners manage to

gather 16 kilos of gold per day.

THE OTAGO GOLDFIELDS

Luck at last! A painting by L.J. Steele 1897

Page 19: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• The few settlers who had visited the region described it as remote, covered with dense bush, subject

to heavy rain and unsuitable for settlement.

• A 1000 pounds reward was offered by the Canterbury Provincial

Government to anyone making a gold strike on the West Coast.

• A rough settlement developed at Hokitika and by the end of 1864

more than 1000 prospectors had spread out along the coast.

THE WEST COAST

Hokitika, around 1869

Page 20: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• From the beginning of 1865 to the end of 1867, approximately 1,300,000 ounces of gold were extracted. Total value: over 5,200,000 pounds were exported from the West Coast. • In 1866 and 1867, Hokitika was

the highest export earnings of any New Zealand port.• By the end of 1866 the West

Coast had separated from the Canterbury Province.

THE WEST COAST

Page 21: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• The people who searched for gold came from many different nations.• They ranged from experienced

miners and prospectors who had worked on the goldfields of

Australia and California.• They included Chinese prospectors

who later formed New Zealand’s first Chinese community.

• There were few women on the goldfields or even in the towns.

THE GOLD SEEKERSChinese miner with cradle, Clutha, 1900

Page 22: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• After 1863, gold in Otago fields ran out. Miners moved up the west coast to Hokitika but the thick bush, heavy rain sand-flies and mosquitoes made mining even tougher.• In 1867 gold was found deep in the

Coromandel coast. Ordinary miners couldn’t afford the expensive machinery needed to work the quartz reefs. Gold mining continued in Otago, Reefton and Waihi but the gold rush was over.

END OF THE BOOM

Page 23: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• Firewood was scarce on the goldfields. Some miners had to walk 20 km to get enough wood to boil

the billy.• Often on winter mornings, the miners’ boots were frozen solid.• Sometimes hungry miners stole

sheep from the large unguarded flocks.

• The miners worked for six days a week. On Sundays they washed

their clothes, darned their socks and sat around smoking pipes or

went hunting.

DID YOU KNOW

Page 24: HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND - The Gold Rushes

• Alluvial – form of silt deposited by rivers which sometimes contains gold.• Amalgamate – combine mercury with gold or other metals to form amalgam.• Battery – stampers, electric cells, guns which operates together.• Cradle – a kind of box used for shaking and washing silt to extract gold.• Digger – a name for gold miners.• Dredges – large vessels or machines used for digging gravel from riverbeds.• Nuggets – lumps of gold and other substances found in natural state.• Goldfields – areas where gold is found and mined.• Gold rush – the movement of a large number of people to a gold rich area.• Ingots – pieces of metal which have been cast in a mould to form a brick.

GLOSSARY


Top Related