Category Archives: Victorian Gold Rush

The Science of Gold

Posted on March 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

What is gold and why do we like it so much? In response to the many questions we receive like this from visiting students during our education sessions, let’s explore the origins of gold and our fascination with it.

Where does gold come from?

Humans can’t make gold, although many in the past have tried. And the Earth can’t make more of it even if we wait a couple of billion years. Only recently did scientists confirm the long-held theory that gold is created by the universe during supernovae (when neutron [dying] stars explode/collide). These violent astronomical events produce lots of the heavy metals we now use for things like ‘bling-y’ jewellery, as well as microcircuits for electronic devices like smartphones and tablets. Gold can even be used in food like this burger, which costs $AU81! This great video explains the creation of gold really well.

All

People today use gold for all kinds of weird and wonderful things. We hope the 24 karat gold toilet paper isn’t a real thing. Pictured are gold pizza, gold sushi, a gold facial, gold toilet paper, a gold doughnut, a gold cappuccino, gold flies for fly-fishing, a gold turkey, and the $AU81 gold burger!

Neutron stars are the densest objects in the known universe, and when their super-hot collapsing cores explode or smash into one another, they create elements like gold and silver. It is believed that such an event or series of events in the distant past created meteors containing gold and silver which then fell to Earth, delivering the precious heavy metals that adventurous miners sought to dig out of the ground in places like Ballarat and Bendigo during the 19th century. According to some research published in 2011, a meteor shower about 4 billion years ago dumped 20 billion billion (Wow!! That’s a big number!) tons of gold and other precious metals on our planet!

The chemical symbol which you find on the periodic table for gold is Au (from the Latin word aurum meaning ‘shining dawn’). As gold is an element, it can’t be broken down into other substances, which is the reason humans can’t make gold themselves (although with the development of nuclear chemistry, one day we might figure it out).

Why do we like gold so much?

Many cultures around the world for at least the last 8,000 years have used gold for things like decoration/art, religious ceremonies, false teeth, currency, sporting medals, medicine, and more recently in human history, electronics and satellites. It is useful to us because it never goes rusty, it’s soft and easy to shape, it conducts heat really well, and it’s a beautiful colour. In scientific language, we describe gold as being dense (that’s why it’s heavy), malleable (soft and easy to bend) and lustrous (shiny).

While some cultures have used it for thousands of years, others have not. For example, the Aboriginal people of Ballarat – the Wadawurrung people – knew of the gold that could easily be picked up from the ground across Western Victoria, but instead they valued much more practical and sustainable natural resources like brushtail possums, and certain kinds of stones useful for tool making. You can learn about how gold has been used by many cultures here.

One of the main reasons we like gold today is because it’s rare. If all of the gold found on Earth were collected together, it would only fill three Olympic-sized swimming pools! If it were more common and easy to find, it wouldn’t be worth anywhere near as much money as it is today. The price of gold changes day to day, depending on how much is being dug out of the ground, and the number of people keen to buy the gold (the demand for it). The price of gold today (9/2/18) is $54.52 per gram, or to state the value in the unit of measurement more commonly used to weigh gold, it’s currently worth $1,695.97 per ounce (1 ounce = 31.1 grams). You can find the current price of gold here: https://goldprice.org/

Ballarat is an alluvial goldfield, basically meaning that our gold has been brought here and is moved around by water (including underground rivers) and is often on the surface or not far beneath it. For miners in Ballarat at the beginning of the gold rush (from 1851 until about 1853), this meant they didn’t have to dig very deep underground to find big gold nuggets. By the 1860s most of that easy-to-find gold near the surface was gone, meaning miners had to dig much deeper underground to continue finding payable (enough to make a profit) amounts of the precious yellow metal. This is when deep lead and quartz mining really took off in Ballarat.

The gold miners who came to Ballarat largely used gold to buy better lives (better clothes, housing, food, investments etc.) and the majority of the billions of dollars of gold found here was turned into gold sovereigns (English money made of gold, after which our museum – Sovereign Hill – got its name) or gold ingots (gold bars). Some however, was turned into spectacular, flashy pieces of jewellery, and even the beautiful mayoral chains owned by the City of Ballarat!

If you visit a jewellery store, you will notice items made of gold are usually described as ’18 karat gold’ or ’10 karat gold’. A karat is a unit of measurement which explains how much gold was mixed into the alloy (a mixture of metals) that have gone into the making of that piece of jewellery. A carat is used to value gemstones and pearls. 18 karat gold jewellery has a higher amount of gold in it than 10 karat gold jewellery, which is why it is always more expensive. If, say, a ring is made from 24 karat gold, it is pure gold – but of course this would make it an easily bent piece of jewellery!

The Castlemaine Goldfields is the only mining company in Ballarat still successfully finding payable gold underneath the city. There is still a lot of gold in the ground in this part of Victoria, but it’s very difficult and expensive to get out of the ground.

Links and References

TED Ed on the chemistry and origins of gold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf_4z4AKwJg

Sovereign Hill research notes for students about the different kinds of mining common in Ballarat in the 19th century: http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/sovehill-pdf-file/SovHill-mining-notes-ss1.pdf

Some great facts about gold: https://www.livescience.com/39187-facts-about-gold.html

A report on the recent confirmation that gold is produced by supernovae: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-10/uoc–asc101517.php

A fantastic explainer video on the creation of gold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iaviqwMfJ0

How the gold karat system works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fineness

Gold in antiquity: https://www.ancient.eu/gold/

A video explaining why we use gold for currency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18yIHCSemhs

How NASA uses gold for space exploration: https://curiosity.com/topics/nasa-uses-gold-on-its-spacecraft-curiosity/

Should we eat gold?: http://www.foodandwine.com/news/is-gold-safe-to-eat

Gold according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold

What is more valuable than gold?: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-rarer-than-gold-45073180/

 

Leave a comment

Posted in gold, history of victoria, science of gold, STEM in history, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush

Tagged , , ,

The Australian ‘History Wars’ at Sovereign Hill

Posted on October 13, 2017 | 3 comments

Sovereign Hill is an outdoor museum about Victoria’s 19th century history. Specifically, the exhibits and costumed characters who interpret them tell stories about the impacts of the gold rushes and the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in Australia. But how does The Sovereign Hill Museums Association decide what stories to present at the outdoor museum?

In recent years, we have chosen to increase the visibility of Aboriginal stories and perspectives on the gold rushes, because in the past Sovereign Hill was criticised for appearing to leave these stories out of its presentation of Victoria’s history. We now present a more accurate and fair story, and believe we have found a balanced, middle ground viewpoint on the Australian History Wars. What do you think?

What are the Australian ‘History Wars’?

When you read history books (or even school textbooks), it’s easy to think that the facts of history are unchangeable. The First Fleet arrived in Australia on 26 January, 1788. Albert Einstein invented the famous scientific formula E = mc2.  Edward Hargraves was the first European to find gold in Australia in 1851 … However, sometimes the facts aren’t very clear, and historians argue over which facts are true, or even truest. Causes of such arguments can be the result of:

  • new historical evidence coming to light (for example, if we were to find a diary written by Marco Polo in which he says he never travelled to China, but instead made the whole story up, that would change history);
  • a new way of looking at old evidence (for example, if we use new medical technology to DNA test Ancient Egyptian mummies, we might discover new information about their lives); or
  • the decision to include new ‘voices’ in the story, or to emphasise the role played by a group of participants who have been left out of the story until now (for example, Claire Wright wrote a history book about the women involved in the Eureka Rebellion in 2013).

In the case of the History Wars in Australia, historians (and politicians) have been arguing about the colonisation of Australia for a long time, and whether or not it was a peaceful process, a blood-stained invasion or something in between. The History Wars see people arguing about the historical facts – new evidence is being unearthed regularly, new ways of interpreting old evidence are being explored, and new voices in history are becoming louder.

Capture

These four prints by goldrush artist S. T. Gill highlight some of the relationships that existed between Aboriginal people and European colonisers in the 19th century. They capture the complicated nature of Australian history, and the difficulty historians have when trying to give a true and fair account of our story. From top left: S. T. Gill, Cattle Branding, 1869, Attack on Store Dray, 1865, Kangaroo Stalking, 1865, Native Police, 1864. All reproduced with permission of the Gold Museum, Ballarat.

While the old saying that ‘History is written by the victors’ is no longer true, the Australian History Wars demonstrate how difficult it can be for historians to get the details of the story right, especially when it comes to the impact Australia’s recent history has had on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But is there ever going to be a ‘right’ way to understand our history? Probably not (these kinds of questions are studied in historiography, which you can learn more about here). Let’s try to better understand the two sides of the Australian History Wars.

The ‘Three Cheers View’ of Australian history (also known as the ‘White Blindfold View’)

Some historians believe the historical evidence we have about the creation of modern Australia tells the story of brave, adventurous Europeans who came to this continent and tamed the ‘wild’ landscape to produce food (through European-style farming) and useful minerals (through mining). The historical evidence used to tell this story mainly uses written accounts like diaries, official government records and newspaper articles from the time etc. This version of our history celebrates the achievements of Europeans and the British Empire in Australia, and focuses on the stories of the pioneers who came here after the convict period to create what is one of the richest countries in the world today.

While historians who support this interpretation of the facts might admit that some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were killed in the process of making modern Australia, or at least had their traditional lifestyles brought to an end by European colonisers, they argue that these were rare events or accidents, and shouldn’t be the main part of the story of Australia. At best, it presents a history of Australia that is heroic and inspirational, at worst it presents a history that is Eurocentric and nationalistic. Many supporters of this view want Australia Day to continue to be celebrated on 26 January, the day the Union Jack flag was first placed in the ground of Sydney Cove by Governor Arthur Phillip, leader of the First Fleet.

The ‘Black Armband View’ of Australian history

Some historians believe that the Australian story is an ancient one, and begins more than 65,000 years ago. This version of our history views the arrival of Europeans after 1788 as a time of abrupt, and often violent cultural, economic and environmental change, resulting in the British Empire’s colonisation of the entire continent regardless of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s claims to sovereignty (meaning ownership of land). The historical evidence used to tell this story includes both written accounts and oral history accounts. While the Black Armband View acknowledges the decisions made (mostly by Europeans or people of European ancestry) which have turned Australia into the rich country it is today, it places the impacts of these huge changes on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples at the centre of the story.

While historians who support this interpretation of the facts might admit that European colonisers in Australia didn’t always deliberately act in damaging and hurtful ways towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, they argue that massacres and murders of Australia’s first peoples were common, even if they weren’t always written down/recorded. They sometimes call this time of regular conflict between European colonisers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (from 1788-1934) the ‘Australian Frontier Wars’. At best, this view presents a history of Australia that is inclusive and fair, and at worst it presents a history that is shame-promoting, particularly in the eyes of many non-Aboriginal Australians. Most supporters of this view want the date of Australia Day – which some call ‘Survival Day’ or ‘Invasion Day’ – to be changed from 26 January to a ‘less hurtful’ date.

Why do the Australian History Wars exist?

There are many reasons the History Wars exist in Australia:

The way we understand our national story impacts upon the way we see ourselves as 21st century Australians. The kinds of historical research methods we use to write history are never going to be perfect, as historiography tells us … And this debate even affects how we understand the origins of Australian Rules Football! The History Wars are fascinating, but it’s important to remember that in debating this topic, we’re not just throwing ideas and opinions around to promote thinking; we’re talking about real people from the past, who are dearly remembered by their living family members today. So, be mindful of this if you get into a public/classroom debate about the History Wars.

Links and References

A link to the Sovereign Hill Education Teaching Kit for Level 9 & 10 History ‘Australia and Asia’:  http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/AustraliaandAsiaActivitiesandResources4.pdf

Wikipedia on the ‘history wars’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_wars

Keith Windshuttle and Henry Reynolds debating on ABC’s Lateline about the ‘history wars’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClS2gzn3QTg

The Conversation on the ‘history wars’: https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2009/november/1270703045/robert-manne/comment

The History/Culture Wars in 2017: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/rewriting-our-history-is-not-the-way-to-go-20170831-gy7q8u.html

Should we use the word ‘settled’, ‘colonised’ or ‘invaded’ when it comes to Australia’s recent history? https://theconversation.com/australias-history-wars-reignite-57065

Wikipedia article on the contentious origins of Australian Rules Football: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Australian_rules_football#Various_theories

Is it ever OK to corrupt history for a good cause? http://www.convictcreations.com/history/historywars.html

The tension between getting the historical facts right and being patriotic: http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/pdfs/198.pdf

3 Comments

Posted in 19th century, history of victoria, History Teaching, history wars, Indigenous, Museum, S T Gill, Sovereign Hill, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush

Tagged , , ,

What’s it like to work in a museum?

Posted on August 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

 

170301_THESTORYLIVESON_SOVEREIGNHILL_0755

We have lots of lolly-makers on staff!

Many students who visit Sovereign Hill tell us they would love to work in a museum when they grow up. What kinds of jobs can you do in a museum and how do you get one?

All museums in Australia employ people to do lots of different kinds of jobs, from curators who create beautiful exhibitions of artefacts (rooms creatively filled with artefacts that tell fascinating stories), to marketing managers, educators, cleaners, historians, volunteer coordinators and much more!

IMG_0529[1]

One of our many musicians who play music in the street.

However, Sovereign Hill is a bit different to most museums in Australia because it’s a living, or outdoor museum. This means it doesn’t really tell stories using artefacts behind glass cases. Instead, at Sovereign Hill we use costumed characters, homes and shops you can visit, and hands-on activities like gold panning to teach people about Australia’s gold rush history. This means Sovereign Hill employs a small village-worth of people with many different skills – and that’s because we practically are a small village! We have about 300 staff members and as many volunteers, some of whom you see dressed in 1850s fashion in the streets or in the shops, while others are hidden ‘behind-the-scenes’, working on things like museum management, visitor safety, advertising, website design and creating education resources.

Many people want a job in a museum because they’re such interesting places to work. This means each advertised museum job usually has lots of applicants, making it a very competitive industry. So, if you want to work in a museum, you need to dream big! There are members of staff at Sovereign Hill who began their museum careers as volunteers or work-experience students, and are now working as part of the professional museum team. So achieving your goal of working in a museum is definitely achievable.

GB

Our Collections Manager taking students for a back-of-house tour at the Gold Museum.

If you would like to become a museum curator and manage/create museum exhibitions (like Bunjilaka at Melbourne Museum, for example), you need to be an organised and creative person. You should go to university to study ‘Museum Studies’ or ‘Cultural Heritage’, to a postgraduate or masters level (this means you will spend at least 4 years at university). Any of these qualifications may help you get a job in a museum as a curator.

If you would like to become a collections manager, which means you take care of the artefacts a museum has to look after (a little bit like a librarian), you need to be systematic and good at problem solving. You should get a similar qualification to a curator.

potty

One of our education officers teaching students about chamber pots.

If you would like to become a museum educator, which means you create and teach lessons to school students visiting the museum, you need to be good at public speaking and time management. Most museum educators are qualified teachers, which, in Australia, means that you have been to university for at least 4 years. The Sovereign Hill Museums Association’s 11 educators (working across the Sovereign Hill Outdoor Museum and Narmbool) studied many different subjects at university; some are History teachers, while others are Science, Literature or P.E. teachers, which means they all bring different skills to the job.

170302_THESTORYLIVESON_SOVEREIGNHILL_1541

Some interpreters dressed as Redcoat Soldiers.

Sovereign Hill also has a large number of talented interpreters who perform in the streets and in the Victoria Theatre. Many of these staff members are currently studying or have already completed a university degree in Drama, also known as Performing Arts. Sometimes it can be difficult for actors to find work, but if you get a job at an outdoor museum like Sovereign Hill, you could be interpreting history in costume every day – in the street, in pantomimes, and in conversations with visitors during which you have to stay in 1850s character (so, no talk of Minecraft, cars or telephones!). Some of our wonderful interpreters have been working here for more than 20 years, which means it’s probably safe to say that they really enjoy their jobs!

170301_THESTORYLIVESON_SOVEREIGNHILL_1144

Blacksmithing is a rare trade in the 21st century.

Some other jobs that you won’t find in too many other museums are the jobs of Sovereign Hill’s rare tradespeople. The living museum features technology from the 19th century, like boilers and steam engines, and therefore jobs that don’t exist in too many other places in 21st century Australia. If you want to be a blacksmith, 19th century steam engine mechanic, or driver of a horse-drawn coach, Sovereign Hill is the workplace for you! Most of these professionals were given on-the-job training here at Sovereign Hill, because it’s hard to learn these skills anywhere else. Similarly, we have a highly-skilled Costume Department, the members of which have university qualifications in Fashion or Textile Design, but they also learn a lot on-the-job because there aren’t too many places making Redcoat Soldier outfits, or 1850s bonnets these days.

170228_THESTORYLIVESON_SOVEREIGNHILL_0460

Our photographer hard at work.

Additionally, Sovereign Hill is lucky to have a team of very skilled builders and (modern) tradespeople, to keep our museum looking just like Ballarat did in the 1850s. We also have a large staff of hospitality workers and cleaners, receptionists and salespeople. Our Design Department makes all of our 19th and 21st century signs and advertising, and the Marketing Department manages visitors from all over the world and runs special events like ‘Winter Wonderlights’. We have people who design and care for our beautiful gardens, photographers who take your stylish 1850s photo, food technologists who create new lolly flavours, administrators, volunteer coordinators, bookings officers, historians, animal handlers, hotel managers, IT magicians, and horse-pooper-scoopers.

557473_503151259710637_129140790_n[1]

Our wheelwrights ‘hot tyring’ a coach wheel.

There really is a job for everyone at Sovereign Hill!

If there’s a Sovereign Hill, Gold Museum or Narmbool job that you would like to know more about, let us know in the comments below.

Links and References

The Sovereign Hill Careers webpage: http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/sovereign-hill/careers-at-sovereign-hill/

A good, general overview of how to get a museum job: https://www.museumsassociation.org/careers/getting-a-first-job

Tips on securing that dream museum job: https://www.thoughtco.com/getting-a-job-in-the-museum-world-182416

Deakin University’s popular master’s degree in Cultural Heritage: http://www.deakin.edu.au/course/master-cultural-heritage

Keep an eye on advertised jobs in museums, galleries etc. here: https://www.museumsaustralia.org.au/positions-vacant

Information from Museums Victoria about getting a job at the Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum, Bunjilaka, Science Works or the Royal Exhibition Building: https://museumvictoria.com.au/about/work-opportunities/employment/

Information about jobs at the Australian Museum in Sydney: https://australianmuseum.net.au/working-at-the-australian-museum

Job opportunities webpage at Ballarat’s MADE (Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka): http://made.org/about/careers/

The National Museum of Australia (Canberra) employment webpage: http://www.nma.gov.au/about_us/employment

The MASS (Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences in Sydney – which oversees the management of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Observatory and the Museums Discovery Centre) employment webpage: https://maas.museum/careers/

The Australian National Maritime Museum (Sydney) employment webpage: http://www.anmm.gov.au/about-us/who-we-are/work-with-us

The Australian War Memorial (Canberra) employment webpage: https://www.awm.gov.au/get-involved/work-or-volunteer/employment

A thorough ‘How To’ for museum job applications: http://advisor.museumsandheritage.com/industry/museum-careers-advice-apply-jobs/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a comment

Posted in 19th century, 19th century technology, careers in museums, history of victoria, Museum, museum education, museum jobs, Sovereign Hill, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush, victorian history

Tagged , , ,

Who was Lola Montez?

Posted on July 19, 2017 | Leave a comment
lola

Lola Montez, painted by Joseph Stieler for Ludwig I of Bavaria, 1847. Reproduced from Wikipedia Commons.

Most afternoons at 2.30 pm in Sovereign Hill’s Main Street, an actor playing Lola Montez bursts onto the balcony of the Victoria Theatre, fuming loudly about a bad newspaper review of her ‘Spider Dance’. Let’s find out more about this extraordinary woman.

Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert (c.1818-1861), better known by her stage name Lola Montez (or Montes), was a well-known 19th century celebrity and beauty before she arrived here in Ballarat in 1856.  Although she was born in Ireland, she became a ‘Spanish dancer’ and was particularly famed for her Spider Dance, during which she flashed her underpants (called pantelletes), and maybe even the body parts beneath them … For men living on a goldfield where there were very few women, the naughty Lola was a subject of great interest.

Around the age of 22, Lola began her career as a dancer in Europe. This was also the time people began calling her a courtesan, a old-fashioned name given to a woman who was a close friend, confidante and sexual companion to rich and powerful men. Many of her famous male friends were artists, writers, journalists, and army lieutenants. She was even the ‘favourite’ of King Ludwig I of Bavaria (now part of Germany).

Ludwig_I_of_Bavaria (2)

Portrait of Ludwig I of Bavaria, by Joseph Stieler, 1825. Reproduced from Wikipedia Commons.

Such relationships gave her money and power, which meant independence (uncommon for a 19th century woman). After a revolution in 1848, during which King Ludwig I gave up his crown, she left for England and later moved to the United States of America, in 1851. There, she performed as a dancer and actor for the gold miners of San Francisco. Then, in 1855-6, she toured Australia and danced for the miners in Ballarat and Castlemaine, among other places.Beyond Lola’s career as a performer, she part-owned a French newspaper, published a book called ‘The Arts of Beauty; Or, Secrets of a Lady’s Toilette. With Hints to Gentlemen on the Art of Fascinating’ (1858), and gave ‘moral lectures’ just before she died in 1861. In California there is a mountain named in her honour, along with two lakes, and numerous books and movies are about her or feature characters based on her life. Many historians think she was a woman ‘before her time’ as she ignored pressure to be a quiet and obedient woman at a time when that was expected. She broke the rules, and lived as she pleased.

lola2

Lola c.1851. She was the first woman to be photographed smoking a cigarette. Reproduced from Wikipedia Commons.

As a famous beauty, and a woman who was probably keener than most to retain a youthful complexion (face), Lola published lots of recipes and ‘how to …’ guidelines in her book ‘The Arts of Beauty’. The wealthy could afford to buy luxury items like pimple cream and anti-baldness wash from the Apothecaries’ Hall; however, average people might have tried Lola’s suggestions to save money and look beautiful. Here are some of Lola’s stranger recommendations from ‘The Arts of Beauty’:

For a lady’s face

The following is a recipe for making another wash for the face, which is a favourite with the ladies of France.

Take equal parts of the seeds of the melon pumpkin, gourd and cucumber, pounded till they are reduced to a powder; add to it sufficient fresh cream to dilute the flour [powder], then add milk enough to reduce the whole to a thin paste. Add a grain of musk [taken from the body of animals like the musk deer], and a few drops of the oil of lemon. Anoint the face with this, leave it on twenty or thirty minutes, or overnight if convenient, and wash off with warm water. It gives a remarkable purity and brightness to the complexion. (p.45)

To cure baldness in men (apparently …)

6oz. boxwood shavings

12oz. proof spirit [pure alcohol]

2oz. spirits of rosemary

1/2oz spirits of nutmeg

The boxwood shaving should be left to steep [soak] in the spirits, at a temperature of 60 degrees, for fourteen days, and then the liquid should be strained off, and the other ingredients mixed. The scalp to be thoroughly washed, or rubbed with this every night and morning. (p.86)

To get rid of grey hairs

4drs. oxide of bismuth [a heavy metal …]

4drs. spermaceti [the oil surrounding the brains of sperm whales]

4oz. pure hog’s lard [pig fat]

The lard and spermaceti should be melted together, and when they begin to cool stir in the bismuth. It may be perfumed to your liking [then used on your head every day]. (p.88)

A face wash used to remove tan (only peasants had tans in the 19th century British Empire … a white complexion communicated to others that you spent your life indoors, which was the desired ‘look’ for European ladies)

1/2pint new milk

1/4oz. lemon juice

1/2oz. white brandy

Boil the whole, and skim it clear from all scum. Use it night and morning. (p.98)

VictorianCollections-large

Posters to advertise events at Ballarat’s Victoria Theatre, featuring Lola ‘Montes’, 1856. Reproduced with permission from the Gold Museum, Ballarat.

Lola married at least three times during her life; however, her romances never seemed to last very long. Some of these relationships ended in divorce, others in death; even her manager met a grisly end – he fell off a ship and disappeared in the Pacific Ocean. In 1861, Lola died of syphilis (an STI – sexually transmitted infection), alone, at the age of about 39 in New York City.

The performance about Lola’s life, which you might be lucky enough to see at Sovereign Hill, details the story of her reaction to a bad review … A man named Henry Seekamp who was the editor of The Ballarat Times, the city’s first newspaper, famously criticised Lola for her spicy performances through a review in his newspaper. When Lola read this review about how ‘immoral’ her dancing was, she confronted Seekamp in the street and beat him with a horse whip. This event only made Lola more famous (or infamous) as it was reported in newspapers all over the world.

Links and References

The Australian Dictionary of Biography on Lola: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/montez-lola-4226

Wikipedia on Lola: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_Montez

Culture Victoria website about Lola: http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/a-diverse-state/goldfields-stories-lola-montez-star-attraction/lola-montez-19th-century-radical/

An old Sovereign Hill Education Blog on Lola: https://sovereignhilledblog.com/2011/08/10/lola-montez-the-lady-gaga-of-her-day/

The British Library historian on the expectations on 19th century women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkJJFX8Qn90 

Read ‘The Arts of Beauty’ online: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=1DQEAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

SBS Gold on Lola: http://www.sbs.com.au/gold/story.php?storyid=107

The Age on Lola: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/08/1025667114383.html

Lola’s Obituary in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/1861/01/21/news/obituary-death-of-lola-montez.html?pagewanted=all

mg_6170

Two of Sovereign Hill’s actors re-creating the famous incident between Lola Montez and Henry Seekamp, involving her horse whip.

Leave a comment

Posted in 19th century, history of victoria, History Teaching, Lola Montez, Sovereign Hill, Victorian Gold Rush, women

Tagged

The History of Victoria

Posted on May 18, 2017 | Leave a comment

How does the Ballarat gold rush fit into the story of the State of Victoria? Let’s take a look at the bigger picture.

Wadamap

The Wadawurrung people have lived in the Ballarat region for tens of thousands of years. This map, produced by Sovereign Hill for its annual Aboriginal history and living culture celebration – The Gnarrwirring Ngitj Festival – shows the borders of the five Kulin nations.

Aboriginal people began living in what is now called Victoria at least 60,000+ years ago. According to their beliefs, creator-spirits like Bunjil the wedge-tailed eagle made the land and its people, and stories about him have been passed down (without writing) for at least 2,000 generations amongst the people of the Kulin nations (the Wadawurrung, Woiwurrung [Wurundjeri], Bunurong, Taungurong, and Dja Dja Wurrung). When Europeans arrived in Victoria in the 1800s, they found the Aboriginal people of this land had formed approximately 38 nations, all with different languages and cultures. Each nation owned and cared for their Country. The boundaries of each of these nations were carefully protected; however, goods like greenstone axes and brush-tail possum pelts used for making cloaks were traded over them. While some of these Aboriginal nations are traditionally enemies, others continue practising important ceremonies together (like the Kulin nations’ Tanderrum ceremony) to this day.

Captainjamescookportrait

Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Official portrait of Captain James Cook, 1775-6, from the National Maritime Museum, United Kingdom. Reproduced with permission from Wikipedia Commons.

When Captain Cook claimed possession of what he called ‘New South Wales’ in England’s name in August 1770, he hadn’t set foot on the coast of what is now called Victoria. After England lost its northern hemisphere penal colonies (a place to send convicts) in the American War of Independence in 1783, it was decided that New South Wales, in Australia, was the next best place to send England’s criminals. England wanted to colonise (take over ownership of) the ‘great southern continent’ before the French. So, in 1787 King George II sent Captain Arthur Phillip to New South Wales with what came to be known as the ‘First Fleet’. Phillip’s ships arrived in Botany Bay in early 1788, but decided this was an unsuitable place for a settlement, so they sailed to Sydney Cove, in Port Jackson, and sent the convicts to shore on 26 January. This fleet of English ships only beat the French ships by a few days.

Before any Europeans arrived in Victoria, their contagious diseases spread out from Sydney to kill countless thousands of Aboriginal people across all of Eastern Australia. European diseases like chicken pox, small pox and even the common cold caused large numbers of Aboriginal people to die during this time in history, as their bodies had never been exposed to these germs before. Sadly, we will never know how many Aboriginal people were in Australia before Europeans arrived, and we will never know how many died from these diseases they brought.

smallpox

Young Bangladeshi girl suffering a smallpox infection, 1973. Reproduced with permission from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public Health Image Library.

Europeans explored the Victorian coast in the hope of developing a second Australian penal settlement and decided to send a small group of soldiers, settlers and convicts from England to set up a camp in Port Phillip Bay (of what later became Melbourne) in 1803. Again, this was an attempt to beat the French in taking over the lands of Australia. During their stay of less than 2 months, they clashed with local Aboriginal people, killing a Wadawurrung leader in Corio Bay in the process, making him the first Victorian Aboriginal person to die at the hands of the European colonisers. The camp failed as they ran out of fresh water, and a number of the convicts escaped before their ships left for Van Diemen’s Land (now called Tasmania – it changed its name in 1856) to establish the second penal settlement there. One of those convicts – William Buckley – lived with the Wadawurrung people for the next 32 years.

TheLangingoftheConvictsatBotanyBay Watkin Tench 1789

Watkin Tench, The Landing of the Convicts at Botany Bay, from his book ‘A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay’. First published in 1789. Reproduced with permission from Wikipedia Commons.

The first European sent by the government from Sydney to explore (what came to be) Victoria was Major Thomas Mitchell. He met many Aboriginal people on his journey, but it would appear that, like many European people at the time, he didn’t view them as ‘inhabitants’. He described the view of Victoria from Pyramid Hill (near Echuca) in his diary in June 1836:

… the view was exceedingly beautiful over the surrounding plains. A land so inviting and still without inhabitants! As I stood, the first European intruder on the sublime solitude of these verdant plains, as yet untouched by flocks or herds I felt conscious of being the harbinger of mighty changes; and that our steps would soon be followed by the men and animals for which it seemed to have been prepared. See more Major Mitchell quotes here.

When he explored as far as Portland on the same expedition, he was surprised to discover European whaling ships there, and even a farm owned by the Henty brothers. When he returned to Sydney, he also discovered that John Batman, a Sydney-born free settler (with a reputation in Van Diemen’s Land for hunting and killing Aboriginal people), had claimed to have signed a treaty with the Aboriginal people of Port Phillip Bay – the Wurundjeri people – in 1835. As a result, the European colonisation of Victoria had already begun; however, it is thought that Major Mitchell’s findings rapidly sped-up the process. You can read more about the infamous ‘Treaty’ of Batman here.

batmantreaty

An artist’s impression of Batman’s Treaty with the Wurundjeri people in 1835 for the purchase of 600,000 acres of land. From Picturesque Atlas of Australasia, 2 vols, Picturesque Atlas Publishing Company, Sydney, 1886. (Vol 1, p161). Reproduced with permission from Wikipedia Commons.

After 1835 and the arrival of thousands of European people, millions of sheep, instead of kangaroos, now fed on the grassy plains of Victoria. This new industry put Melbourne on the map as huge amounts of money were made by selling wool to the new factories in England. These sheep caused one of the most important foods for Victoria’s Aboriginal people – the murnong daisy – to nearly become extinct, and the European fences and guns caused a sudden end to the traditional way of life for the first people of this land. At least 68 massacres of Aboriginal people took place in the first 18 years of Victoria’s colonisation.

The arrival of these European sheep farmers – called squatters – caused a sudden change to Victoria, but that change was nothing in comparison to that brought about by the Victorian gold rushes.

The year 1851 is very significant in Victoria’s history. The Port Phillip District of New South Wales (Victoria’s colonial name before 1851) experienced a devastating series of fires in February called Black Thursday, thought by many to be the largest in known history. These fires killed 12 European people, 1 million sheep and countless native animals. In July, 1851, the Colony of Victoria was first established, named after the queen of the British Empire at this time – Queen Victoria. By August, gold had been found by European people, and newspapers all over the world spread the news – one of the world’s richest surface alluvial goldfields had been discovered in Ballarat (funnily enough at a place called Poverty Point, near to Sovereign Hill today). This new state, or ‘colony’ as it was known until Federation in 1901, would soon become the richest place in the world thanks to a few tonnes of shiny golden rock. That sudden wealth attracted another 500,000 people to the Colony of Victoria in just the first 10 years of the gold rushes (1851-61), which resulted in the speedy development of towns and trade.

The 19th century Victorian gold rushes changed this part of the world in dramatic ways and, to this day, Victoria is still benefitting from its rich gold rush history (and, of course, the echoes of the Eureka Rebellion). Once all of the easy-to-collect surface gold had been taken, mines were dug deep underground. And when they stopped producing ‘payable’ gold, towns and cities created by the Victorian gold rushes either turned their wealth to manufacturing or disappeared.

Today, Victoria has a population of a little over 6 million people (and more than 30,000 of these people identify as being of Aboriginal descent). While it is no longer the richest place in the world, it is still very wealthy, comfortable and safe because of its goldrush history. In the 21st century, Victoria’s most important industries are manufacturing, education, hospitality, tourism and construction, among others. Gold mining continues in Ballarat, although only one gold mine still operates.

Links and References

The European exploration of Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_exploration_of_Australia

The adventures of Major Thomas Mitchell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mitchell_(explorer)

Victorian Aboriginal massacre map: http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/aboriginal-culture/indigenous-stories-about-war-and-invasion/massacre-map/

The history of Ballarat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballarat

The history of Victoria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Victoria

A history of Victoria (1700s-1851) timeline: http://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/Victoriasearlyhistory/timeline

The history of Melbourne: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne

The history of Tasmania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tasmania

A video explaining the territorial history of post-colonial Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pjB8UrHwO4

A video on William Strutt’s famous painting Black Thursday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKaOtzFBR3Y

Leave a comment

Posted in 19th century, Books for Teaching History, fire stick farming, history of victoria, History Teaching, Immigration, Indigenous, Sovereign Hill, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush, victorian history

Tagged , , , , ,

Life before plastic

Posted on April 26, 2017 | 2 comments
parkesine

An example of 19th century nitrocellulose jewellery – if you rubbed it, it could explode! From Wikipedia Commons.

Many visiting students are shocked to learn that plastic didn’t exist in 19th century Australia. The Industrial Revolution, which began in England around 1750, encouraged the creation of many products which could be mass-produced in the newly-invented factories. Some plastic-like products – like fake ivory jewellery – were being produced as early as the 1860s, but the nitrocellulose from which they were made was extremely dangerous. Wikipedia says ‘When dry, nitrocellulose is explosive and can be ignited with heat, spark, or friction’! Therefore, the development of modern plastics (largely made from the fossil fuel crude oil) is a 20th century story. So how did people survive without plastic in the 1800s?

At Sovereign Hill, we have numerous garbage and recycling bins so our visitors can dispose of their rubbish responsibly, but these didn’t really exist in 19th century Ballarat. Before cheap plastics and paper (paper was expensive before we began making it entirely from wood pulp in factories), people rarely produced household waste. Items were reused and often re-purposed, and when they eventually fell apart, they would be disposed of in the fireplace or in the garden where most would biodegrade. Let’s describe a typical (European) family home’s production of waste over a normal goldrush day here in Ballarat to compare and contrast it to a family’s waste output today.

The family wakes at dawn (clocks were made of metal and were therefore expensive, so most people were woken by the sun). Their bedsheets were mass-produced in Manchester, England, from cotton shipped from the United States of America, and their woollen blankets were made in Bradford, England, from wool shipped from Victoria. If they were wealthy, they might also own a hand-made possum-skin rug, bought from the Wadawurrung people – these were sold on the Ballarat diggings for the equivalent of $4000-$5000 in today’s money! All of these items were made to last, and once they had reached the end of lives as sheets and blankets, they would be made into clothes or nappies (most 21st century nappies are made of plastic), used to stuff pillows, or as cleaning rags.

manchester from kersal moor by edward goodall c.1850

An industrial city indeed, full of cotton-spinning factories. Manchester from Kersal Moor, by Edward Goodall, c.1850. From Wikipedia Commons.

The house would be warmed by lighting a fire in the fireplace. This is also where the family meal would be prepared. Today, our energy is produced hundreds of kilometres away, by burning fossil fuels like coal or harnessing the energy of wind through turbines. Their fire fuel – wood – would be cut down from a nearby forest. Even the ash from the fire found other uses in 19th century Australia; ash could be used to make soap, polish metals, keep snails off the lettuce, fertilise the garden, or be used in the outhouse (also known as a ‘dunny’)!

clarke bros

Clarke Bros. Grocers at Sovereign Hill – sometimes we have to wrap food in plastic for safety reasons, even though it isn’t historically accurate.

A breakfast would be prepared using food grown in the garden, or bought at the local grocer’s (the supermarket wasn’t invented for another 70 years!). Most store-bought food would be sold wrapped in paper (often wax paper), or perhaps even weighed and placed immediately into the family’s cooking pot (made of local iron from Lal Lal) or bucket (often made of cheap leather at this time). Only (relatively expensive) preserves like jam or mustard would be sold in glass jars or ceramic (clay) pots. After the meal, food scraps would be used again in cooking (bones for making broth/soup) or fed to the family chickens/pigs/goats/dog. The wax paper would be reused to wrap other foods until it disintegrated (the invention of Tuppaware was nearly 100 years off) and it would then be thrown in the fire. Jars or ceramic pots would be saved for another household purpose. The plates used to eat such a meal would have most likely been made in Staffordshire, England from nearby natural clays, and then shipped (by wind/steam power) to Australia. Drinking water was collected from local rivers and groundwater pumps.

If children were lucky enough to be sent to school, there they would learn the ‘3 R’s’ (reading, writing, and arithmetic) using slate boards and graphite pencils (which would last many generations of students) in the younger years, and after Grade 4 would begin using paper, ink, and dip pens (but only if they passed the Grade 3 writing test – paper was too expensive to make inky mistakes on!). For most children except the very wealthy, 19th century toys were typically handmade from wood or animal bones (which are all biodegradable materials, unlike plastic). As school uniforms were yet to be invented, children simply wore their normal clothes to school.

howmuchclothingwasted

Clothes waste in the 21st century – a big problem because much of it will never biodegrade. From Wikipedia Commons.

While cloth for making things like sheets and clothing was getting cheaper in price thanks to the Industrial Revolution, most people – including children – merely owned two to three outfits at any one time. The wardrobe only became common in houses in the 20th century when ready-to-wear clothing became fashionable and was being produced very cheaply. Therefore, in the 19th century your clothing was cared for, and carefully patched and refitted, until the fabric disintegrated. Clothing was most commonly made of cotton (or sometimes other biodegradable natural fibres like wool or silk), whereas today lots of the clothing in your wardrobe is made of plastic.

While the children were at school, and wives/mothers busied themselves with 19th century housewifery, men would be at work. Most men in Ballarat worked in the goldmining industry, or in another industry that supported mining, such as a candleworks or foundry. These types of workplaces produced some waste (but nothing in comparison to most industries today!), and while some was biodegradable, some industrial waste from the 19th century is still causing pollution to Ballarat’s soil and waterways today (like arsenic from mining). The safety clothes men wore (if any!) were made from thick leather and would often last their entire working lives.

At lunch time, family members would return home for a hot meal prepared by the woman of the house. If the wife/mother had found the time to visit the grocer, baker, or butcher (all selling food produced locally – refrigeration wasn’t invented yet, so only dry food like flour, lentils and herbs could travel vast distances), she may have fresh food to serve the family. Otherwise, people ate preserved foods like salted meat, stewed fruits or re-hydrated beans. Fizzy drinks were invented in the 1700s, but it wasn’t until the late 1800s that mass-produced glass and good sealing techniques made these beverages widely available. Dinner would be similar to lunch, and any leftovers would be saved for the next meal.

At night, candles made from animal fat (called tallow) would be lit if the family could afford it. Soap was also made from animal fat at this time. Again, today your candles and soaps are most commonly made of petrochemicals (taken from crude oil, the same as plastic).

PreCutProduce

A typical sight at the supermarket today – food wrapped in plastic. From Wikipedia Commons.

So, no plastic for covering or storing food, no plastic for toys, no clothes made from plastic, and no plastic safety wear at work. No drinks in plastic bottles, no plastic bags to carry the groceries, and no plastic pens and rulers etc. for school. This meant there was no need for weekly bin collections – because there were no bins! Life certainly was different in the 1850s.

Links and References

What is plastic?: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic

The history of waste management: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_waste_management

An ABC Catalyst episode on the arsenic in Ballarat’s soil: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2843289.htm

A 4-part vlog on life as an 1850s woman produced by Sovereign Hill: http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/students/video/woman-of-the-hill/

A great documentary series about the history of the rooms of our houses (and many of the items you can find in them): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrn42rvTlpk

2 Comments

Posted in 19th century, 19th century technology, Environment, goldrush food, history of plastic, Sovereign Hill, then and now, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush, women

Tagged , , , , ,

1850s Hair Dos and Don’ts

Posted on February 28, 2017 | 2 comments

While you may think that hairdos in history aren’t really worth studying, they can actually tell us a lot about what life was like in the past. A hairdo can tell us about technology, through the kinds of products historical ‘dos’ required, or about fashion and making a statement, or about social class (whether you were rich or poor, powerful or powerless … ), and it can even be handy for dating historical paintings and photographs!

hair

A collection of unknown Ballarat women from the Gold Museum collection sporting a range of 19th century hairdos. Reproduced with permission from the Gold Museum.

For thousands of years, people have enjoyed using hair from their heads to decorate their bodies. Hair can be a very important part of someone’s identity; it can relate to religion, law (yes, there have been laws in history that have controlled hairdos!) or simply fashion, and, of course, hairdos are closely linked with humanity’s various and ever-changing ideas around beauty.

vic2

Self-portrait of Queen Victoria, 1835. An image from Wikipedia Commons.

In the 19th century, hairdos for women in the British Empire (which included Australia) tended to follow the style of Queen Victoria, who reigned for 63 years. This powerful woman had a huge influence over all things fashion, and is even thought to be the bride who popularised the white wedding dress, which many women still wear today. Before her time, British women simply wore their best dress on their wedding day, whatever the colour. Fashions in both hair and clothes changed a great deal during her time as queen, as you can see here.

vic1

The first known photograph of Queen Victoria, pictured here with her eldest daughter, c.1845. An image from Wikipedia Commons.

By the 1850s, Queen Victoria tended to wear her hair parted in the middle. It was either pulled back behind the ears (which would then be covered by a day cap/bonnet), or would be used to cover the ears when a head covering wasn’t necessary (at a ball, for example). Otherwise, she, like the millions of women in her empire during this time in history, covered their heads out of Christian politeness, and always when outside (providing they could afford it!). Not only did wearing head coverings out of doors keep your hair clean before the invention of the shower and hair dryer, they tended to protect you from sunburn. And back then, fancy ladies wanted the whitest skin possible – ‘Only peasants and natives have tans!’. Beauty ideals like these demonstrate how acceptable racism (and classism) was in the 19th century.

For men, the beginning of the 1800s saw the end of elaborate powdered wigs and a return to natural hairstyles and colours. A few decades later and beards and moustaches also came into fashion. A male fashionista of the time, Beau Brummell, led the way with these new, relaxed, natural hairdos, which got shorter and more controlled as the century rolled on. Hair styling products such as hair oil became popular with men during this time; however, they didn’t have the means to wash it out like we do today (with shampoo) until the 1890s. The first shampoos were powders, and it wasn’t until the 20th century that we saw the invention of liquid shampoos.

Most people’s washing habits in 1850s Ballarat mirrored those practiced in England; however, clean water (that which wasn’t polluted by goldmining or human waste near it … ) on the diggings was often hard to come by. Miners and their wives would pay a lot of money – particularly during dry summers – for buckets of fresh water taken from what was then called Yuille’s Swamp (now Ballarat’s Lake Wendouree). Bathing usually only happened once a week (typically on Saturday nights so the family was clean for church on Sunday), but that bath wasn’t for washing hair, and besides, you had to share the water with your entire family because it was so scarce!

chinese-grant-070-80-2

Photograph of an unknown man dubbed the “Chinese Giant”, 1870. Notice his long queue. Reproduced with permission from the Gold Museum. 

Of course there were many nationalities present on the Ballarat goldfields, which meant yet more hair styles could be seen around 1850s Ballarat. One of the most striking hairstyles common during this era was the ‘queue’ worn by Ballarat’s many Chinese miners. Back in China, it was compulsory for men to sport this ‘do’, which involved shaving the front of the head, and growing the back very long and wearing it in a plait. The Aboriginal people of this region – the Wadawurrung people – may have worn their hair differently to the Europeans and the Chinese; however, from the limited photographic evidence we have, many appear to have adopted European hairstyles by this time.

hair4

Marcel curlers, also known as hot curling irons or hot curling tongs. 

An exploration of 19th century hair in Australia wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the fashion for hair artworks and even hair jewellery, which was commonly something a lady would give to her lover, or someone would make from the hair of a recently deceased loved one. You can see lots of examples of this curious practice here. Another weird habit of European women in the 1800s was the collecting of hair from a hairbrush to use as padding to create certain hairdos. Hair was collected in a ‘hair receiver’ and then moulded as required into a ‘rat’ to place inside a bun or to give hair volume. Lastly, the rather terrifying ‘Marcel Wave’ hair curler became popular towards the end of the century, even though it was very easy to burn your hair off while using it – it was heated in the fire before being applied to hair!

Links and References

A pictorial overview of Victorian hair styles: http://www.whizzpast.com/victorian-hairstyles-a-short-history-in-photos/

A series of videos on this history of women’s hairdos (Eurocentric): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpGc2ylEgfQ&list=PLWpk-1VZu_yM5ms7Mm1wBirhm5G1UPOwZ

A brief visual history of men and women’s hairdos through history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVr8W6HME4A

A video on the history of shampoo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEjeTYzZjzg

Horrible Histories on Incan shampoo…: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqWoWscljQs

A great history of hair from the Chertsey Museum: http://chertseymuseum.org/hair

A great BBC article on the history of the wedding dress: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140503-how-wedding-dresses-evolved

A woman’s life on the Ballarat goldfield: http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/SovHill-women-notes-ss1.pdf

2 Comments

Posted in 19th century, 19th century technology, chinese miners, chinese on the diggings, Indigenous, Queen Victoria, Sovereign Hill, then and now, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush, victorian goldrush chinese, women

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

What was the Anti-Chinese League?

Posted on January 30, 2017 | 3 comments

Most days at 12noon in Sovereign Hill’s Victoria Theatre, a group of the Outdoor Museum’s wonderful performers present a pretend community meeting called the ‘Anti-Chinese League’. What is it about?

The experiences of Chinese miners on the Victorian goldfields

chineseblog

19th century Chinese gold miners. Artist and date unknown.

Most Chinese miners arrived in Ballarat in the late 1850s (their population peaked in 1857 at approximately 7,542, or a fifth of Ballarat’s population). These Chinese people were the only cultural group on the Victorian goldfields to be forced to live in segregated camps. At most, there were 6 Chinese camps in Ballarat during this time in history. These camps were often deliberately built (on guidelines from the British Government of Victoria, called the ‘Colony of Victoria’) in the worst parts of the settlement, usually at the bottom of a hill where all of the nearby human/animal waste would flow when it rained. This was one strategy the government used to try to discourage more Chinese from coming to Australia. The Chinese were quite determined to be successful in Australia however. So, many used this free ‘fertiliser’ to grow productive vegetable gardens.

The Chinese were also forced to pay a Residence Tax and Protection Fee to the government once they arrived on the goldfields, which at times was as high as $1,000 per month in today’s money! Again, they were the only cultural group in Victoria to be treated like this.

But worst of all, the government imposed an Arrival Tax that only applied to the Chinese. This tax of £10 would be equal to almost $10,000 today!! This huge amount of money was to be paid by every Chinese person who arrived by ship in Victoria. To avoid this tax, many Chinese miners arrived in Robe, South Australia, and walked from there to Ballarat – a distance of 400kms!

Why were the Chinese discriminated against?

dsc_0005

Typical living conditions for Chinese miners on the Victorian goldfields (visit Sovereign Hill’s Chinese Camp to see more examples like this).

Today, Ballarat is proud of its multicultural community, but during the 1850s gold rushes there were many European miners on the diggings who wanted to keep Chinese people out of Australia. And, unfortunately for the Chinese, many members of the British Government of Victoria at this time also wanted them gone. By today’s standards, it could be said that many of these Europeans both in Ballarat and in the British Government of Victoria were quite racist towards the Chinese, and caused them to suffer both on the journey to Ballarat, and while they were searching for gold like the thousands of others on the Victorian diggings.

(A 21st century) Definition of racism

  • The belief that human races have distinctive characteristics which determine their respective cultures, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule or dominate others.
  • Offensive or aggressive behaviour to members of another race stemming from such a belief.
  • A policy or system of government based on it.

(http://www.racismnoway.com.au/teaching-resources/factsheets/9.html)

Why does racism exist?

There were many cultural differences between Chinese and European people on the diggings. A fear of difference is often the cause of racism, and sadly this is true in Australia even today. People who look different to you, or practise a different culture or religion etc. are no better than you, no worse. They are just different. If everyone on Earth was the same, what a boring planet this would be!

chtemple_1

Students learning about Chinese religion on the goldfields at Sovereign Hill’s Joss House, located in the Chinese Camp.

Here’s a table demonstrating some key cultural differences between most Europeans and most Chinese in Ballarat in the 19th century. You can imagine that a 19th century European might have been shocked to meet a Chinese person for the first time, and visa-versa because of such cultural differences. This experience is called ‘first contact’.

Chinese miners

European miners
Chinese men wore their hair in long plaits called queues – Chinese law said they had to wear their hair like this. Most European men wore their hair neat and short unless they were really scruffy miners. Hair styles could depend on one’s social class.
The most popular religions in China during the gold rushes were Taoism, Chinese folk religion (ancestral worship), Chinese Buddhism, and Confucianism. Most Europeans were a kind of Christian: Anglican, Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, Presbyterian etc.
Chinese miners typically wore silk or cotton outfits called tangzhuang or changshun and often wore no shoes or hats. European miners typically wore shirts, jackets, waistcoats and trousers made of cotton or wool, along with thick leather boots. They always wore hats when they were outside.
Most of the 1850-60s Chinese miners had a farming background and had lived in the countryside. Most of the Europeans had an industrial background and had lived in big cities.
Most of the Chinese here in Ballarat during the gold rushes spoke Cantonese. Most Europeans spoke English.

The British Government of 19th century Victoria was motivated to keep the Chinese out of Australia because Britain was at war with China over the sale of opium, a dangerous and addictive drug. The British wanted to sell (Indian) opium to the people of China in return for tea (the favourite drink of the British Empire) and silk, but the Chinese Emperor was worried about the high numbers of his people whose lives were being ruined by this drug. As a result, China and Britain (with the help of France the second time) fought two ‘Opium Wars’, the first from 1839-42, and the second from 1856-60.

1

Sovereign Hill celebrates Chinese New Year every year to acknowledge the Chinese community’s contribution to 19th century Victoria.

The main reason the government ultimately chose to make life difficult for the Chinese in Australia was due to loud, but small groups of Europeans on the various Victorian diggings who often called themselves an ‘Anti-Chinese League’. They complained about the Chinese so much that the government felt it had to do something. Here are some of the main arguments used by racist European miners etc. which encouraged the government to create policies like the Arrival Tax and the Residence Tax (apart from using it as a general way to make money through taxes, like a Gold Licence [before 1854], for example).

The text in italics represents the kinds of opinions held by members of the Anti-Chinese League.

More detail on these complaints from Europeans can be found here.

Sadly, many Chinese miners on the Australian goldfields experienced violence at the hands of Europeans who held these racist views. Some even had their queues (long hair braids) cut off, and occasionally they were even scalped!

The Anti-Chinese League (pretend) meeting at Sovereign Hill

antichinese-league

Sovereign Hill’s performers hard at work.

Sovereign Hill’s talented performers act-out this pretend Anti-Chinese League meeting and talk to the audience afterwards to explore this dark, racist part of Victoria’s history. Many audience members are shocked by what they hear our perfomers say during this performance, but ultimately it gives people the opportunity to think about and discuss the dangerous impact that racism can have on Australia.

Next time you visit Sovereign Hill, come along and see this provocative performance for yourself!

Links & References

A great video about the common experiences of Chinese people on the goldfields: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEbNtTf4l4

Anti-Chinese League Meeting at Sovereign Hill Debriefing Notes and Questions for Teachers: http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/Anti-Chinese-League-Meeting-atSovereign-Hill.pdf

Research notes for primary students made by Sovereign Hill Education: http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/SovHill-Chinese-notes-ps1.pdf

For secondary students: http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/SovHill-chinesesballarat-notes-ss1.pdf

Sovereign Hill Education’s free ‘Chinese on the Goldfields’ teaching kit: https://www.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/New-Gold-Mountain.pdf

The State Library of Victoria study notes on Victoria’s 19th century Chinese community: http://ergo.slv.vic.gov.au/explore-history/golden-victoria/life-fields/chinese

A summary of the Australian gold rushes, with detail on the racism experienced by the Chinese: http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-gold-rush

SBS Gold on the experiences of the Chinese: http://www.sbs.com.au/gold/story.php?storyid=46

A newspaper article which provides a fascinating insight into 19th century racism in Australia towards Chinese people: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4090625

Sovereign Hill Education notes for students on some of the most interesting goldrush characters from Ballarat, including John Alloo (successful restaurant owner, and Ah Koon (Chinese Camp Headman and interpreter): http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/Characters_of_the_Goldfields.pdf

Details on the violent riots against the Chinese that happened across Australia in the mid-19th century: http://www.sbs.com.au/gold/story.php?storyid=56

A video on the Chinese history of Bendigo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO2JUIoC82E

The history of Chinese Australians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Australians

3 Comments

Posted in 19th century, Books for Teaching History, chinese miners, chinese on the diggings, History Teaching, Immigration, Sovereign Hill, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush, victorian goldrush chinese

Tagged , , , ,