Cultural Transformation in Victoria's Gold Rush Era

1. Gold: Future Visions for Victoria Victoria population explosion also resulted in a multicultural mix of people yet it still remained largely British (English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh). Many of these different cultural groupings formed their own clubs, social groups, ‘watering holes’ and some lived in specific areas. Serle: Swiss and Italians in Daylesford, Scandinavians in Ballarat and Castlemaine Broome: By the end of the 1850s 7 of 10 Victorian colonialists born overseas.

2. Gold: Future Visions for Victoria

3. Fear and Hostility Towards the Chinese Mid 1850s saw an influx of Chinese immigration They appeared quite different/alien to their European counterparts ‘They presented a curious appearance to European eyes’ quoted in Searle Formed their own camps and established a reputation for hard-work. Mostly re-worked abandoned mullock heaps, shafts and creek beds overlooked by previous European miners. Groups of 100 or so men worked together meticulously working to find gold.

4. Fear and Hostility Towards the Chinese Their moderate success, self-imposed isolation, apparent exotic customs like opium-smoking, general disinterest in learning English, non-Christianity and that they sent most of their gold back to China created widespread hostility from other miners. Geelong Advertiser: ‘mere purveyors of our golden wealth to Chinese shores’ Anti-Chinese Laws: £10 landing tax and the number of Chinese per ship could not exceed one for every 10 tons.

5. Fear and Hostility Towards the Chinese A select committee formed by John Fawkner in the Legislative Council to “control the flood of Chinese immigration… [and prevent] the Goldfields of Australia Felix from becoming the property of the Emperor of China…” Charles Thatcher (goldfields entertainer): ‘…an Emperor with a long pigtail, Will sit upon the throne.’ Not all saw Chinese immigration as a threat: storekeepers, the Chamber of Commerce and others saw the potential of the Chinese labour force. Some police saw the Chinese as a “remarkably quiet people”

6. Fear and Hostility Towards the Chinese 1857: Select Committee introduces a £6 annual residence–tax. Most refused to pay. Reduced to £4 the following year with more rigid enforcements. Thousands of Chinese petitioned against the tax and boycotted all business with Europeans. 1860: 4,000 Chinese fined for non-payment and 2,000 imprisoned. Same year 10,000 moved to NSW and another 10,000 returned to China. By 1861 less than 25,000 (peak of 40,000) remained in Victoria. 20 years later half of that.

7. Social Change and Gold Rush The gold rushes caused Melbourne’s identity/character to change/evolve into one of profligate (wasteful/excessive) extravagance. Lord Robert Cecil noted in his diary: ‘generally illiterate [miners]…hurrying to exchange their gold nuggets for velvet gowns for their wives and unlimited whisky for themselves.’ More confronting and offensive to many conservatives was the loss of deference (respect for class structure/ hierarchy) to themselves by the newly wealthy miners.

8. Social Change and the Gold Rush Rev JD Merewether dubbed this , ‘a French Revolution without the guillotine.’ Former servants offered to buy their former master’s property John Sherer (contemporary observer): ‘[Birthright] goes for nothing in this equalising colony of gold and beef and mutton. Work is the word: and if you cannot do this, you are no use there.’ Mockingly many men would wear top hats whilst keeping on their work clothes.

9. Social Change and the Gold Rush Chief Justice of Victoria William a’Beckett was disgusted and horrified by these social changes. Historian Manning Clark describes a’Beckett’s views thus: “Gold had seduced weak men…to dispense with the divine command to servants to obey their masters…encouraged the moneyed libertine to gratify his passions…depraving the wool-men of their labour and so destroying …[the] preserved rank and social distinction…” A’Beckett’s views are informed by his Christian values, conservative politics and his sense of entitlement based on his social class.

10. Prudent Miners and Marvellous Melbourne However there is evidence of other diggers that did not behave in such a wild manner. Many diggers married through conventional customs Much evidence of a number of diggers saving their findings. Bank deposits tripled. By 1854 Melbourne had evolved into a wealthy and well-serviced city earning the title of Marvellous Melbourne. William Howitt: ‘you are met by the same evidence of rapid and unparalleled growth.’

11. Cultural and Education Institutions Considered an antidote to the ‘gold disease’ 1854: University of Melbourne, Free Public Library of Melbourne, Melbourne’s exhibition building 1856: Museum of Natural History 1857:First government funded state art collection Sir Redmond Barry pivotal in the development of the cultural institutions especially Melbourne University and Library.

12. Redmond Barry Barry was an Irish barrister who arrived in 1839. He also contributed to the formation of the Philosophical Institution, Horticultural Society and the Melbourne Hospital. Marxist historians, Jeff and Jill Sparrow argue that Barry was an elitist whose public works were devoted to improving the lot of the middle-classes while excluding working people. The library was intended to ‘civilise’ the working man. Displays chosen from the classical and Renaissance history books from London, Brussels, Paris and Vienna. Quality authors and specialist texts. Free membership. University would be similar/in the same vein as Oxford or Cambridge. However would be secular.

13. Political Reforms The Age: ‘We have the ballot, we have manhood suffrage; we have abolished the property qualification for the Assembly…we may safely say that the social tyranny of sectarianism is non-existent…’ W.Howitt: ‘The gold rush injected remarkable new vitality’ To some degree there was a ‘levelling effect’ that diggers broke down class distinctions of the old world. Many miners became the newly wealthy whilst many wealthy men became quite broke on the goldfields.

14. Squattocracy The dominance of the ‘squattocracy’ had been challenged and modified by the gold rush their influence in relation to concentrations of wealth and political power. The Legislative Council continued to be the most influential political body in Victoria. It largely represented conservative pastoral interests. The 16 electorates of Victoria were gerrymandered (creating electoral seat population numbers in favour or one socio-cultural economic group over another) in favour of pastoralists.

15. Secret Ballot Before manhood suffrage only those with property worth £25 annual rent were eligible to vote. Before the secret ballot the ‘open’ method prevailled. At an election the candidate was decorated with ribbons or a scarf of a particular colour. Voters would then wear a ribbon of the same colour of the candidate that they were voting for. Each vote was publicly announced in front of crowd of spectators would either encourage or harass upcoming voters. If a candidate gained an early lead his supporters would intimidate and antagonise later opposition voters.

16. Secret Ballot Secret ballot was conceived by Henry Chapman (a lawyer who defended some of the Eureka rebels) and backed by William Nicholson, a democratically inclined member of the Legislative Council. It was the first in the world and globally it became known as the ‘Victorian’ or ‘Australian ballot’ 1856: Legislative Council still heavily populated by wealthy pastoralists and conservative capitalists while the Assembly was largely made up largely miners and small landowners.

17. First Bills Passed by New Parliament Nov 1856: New parliament housed designed and built to resemble the British House of Commons (parliament). Aug 1857: Abolished property qualifications - any British male candidate over 30 could stand for the Lower House. Nov 1857Universal Manhood Suffrage Act - all adult males could vote in Assembly elections Jan 1858: Parliamentary terms reduced from five to three years.

18. ‘Unlock the land’ Squatters controlled 30 million acres of land. More than half of the total area of Victoria. Only 300,000 acres was under cultivation (1%). Thousands of miners wanted to set-up small farms to make an independent living. July 1857 a Land Convention was formed with the express purpose of people gaining greater access to land. According to the Convention, ‘a land system constructed to create a country of masters and servants…can have no place in a system created for a free people’. Peter Papineau (pseudonym) a political reformer wrote in favour of land ownership and argued that it was only blocked because of the ‘land owning and monied interest’ whose express purpose is ‘preventing us rising above the condition of labourers’. Victorian parliament passed legislation in 1860 to divide up some pastoral land for farming.

19. Unionism Craft trade unions like the stone masons were quite influential in Victoria. In 1856 the building trade unionists were able to achieve an eight-hour working day through both negotiation and direct-action protests. Many other workers as well as women and children did not earn the eight hour work day immediately. Victorian Trades Hall was built in 1859 with the express purpose of being a locale for the labour movement to advance its agenda politically, legally and socially.

20. Victoria- a New Home Of the 300,000 that migrated to Victoria (1851-1861) only 45,000 returned to their homelands. The mass influx of migration fundamentally changed domestic economics. Agricultural farming advanced significantly. Many wool producers became meat suppliers. Building and construction industry expanded Tanning, flour making and saw milling become other important industries. By 1861 Victoria had about 400 factories. Banks increased Victorian and the Australian economy diversified.

21. Victoria – A New Home Serle: ‘In the end the major significance [of gold] was that it remade Victoria and peopled it…with men of more diverse talents, skills and backgrounds, and perhaps more vigour…gold built a bridge from Europe to Australia.’