How the Australian gold rush changed Australia The gold rushes in the second half of the 19th century would completely change the way Australia would look at its self and how other nations and people would look at it. Before 1851, Australia’s combined recorded white population was approximately 77,000. Most of these where convicts, slaved and war captives who had been inhabiting Australia for the past 70 years.
But the gold rush completely changed the small country Australia the convicts where used to and Edward Hargraves made his discovery in Bathurst, Australia’s population boomed to over 540,000 and 370,00 immigrants arrived in Australia’s ports during the year 1852 alone The first reason why the gold rush changed Australia was the development of democracy. The Eureka Stockade was the 1854 miners’ uprising on the goldfields of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Conditions on the Australian goldfields were harsh. The main source of discontent was the miner’s licence, which cost a monthly fee of 30 shillings and permitted the holder to work a 3. metre square “claim”. Licences had to be paid regardless of whether a digger’s claim resulted in the finding of any gold. Frequent licence hunts, during which the miners were ordered to produce proof of their licences, added to the increasing unrest. Previous delegations for miners’ rights had met with inaction from the Victorian government, so on 29 November 1854, the miners burned their licences in a mass display of resistance against the laws which controlled the miners. Following a massive licence hunt on November 30, Irish immigrant Peter Lalor was elected to lead the rebellion.
The Essay on The Gold Rush San Francisco
The California Gold Rush changed California by creating a larger and more diverse population, establishing San Francisco as one of the premier trade and banking cities in the nation, and the eruption of mining "boom towns." By the winter of 1848, rumors of gold had drifted eastward across the country, but few easterners believed them. The gold discovery needed validation and President James Polk ...
On December 1, the miners began to construct a wooden barricade, a stockade from which they planned to defend themselves against further licence arrests or other incursions by the authorities. At 3:00am on Sunday, 3 December 1854, 276 police and military personnel and several civilians stormed the stockade. It remains unclear which side fired first, but in the ensuing battle, 22 diggers and 5 troopers died. Although the rebellion itself failed in its objective, it gained the attention of the Government. A Commission of Enquiry was conducted and changes were implemented.
These included abolition of monthly gold licences, replaced by an affordable annual miner’s licence. The numbers of troopers were reduced significantly, and Legislative Council was expanded to allow representation to the major goldfields. Peter Lalor and another representative, John Humphrey, were elected for Ballarat. Later, Lalor was elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Victoria. For these reasons, the Eureka Stockade is regarded by many as the birthplace of Australian Democracy. The second way the gold rush One of the ways it shaped Australian history was through immigration.
The gold rush brought a large number of immigrants to Australia, all of whom contributed their own cultural influences. It was the beginning of multiculturalism in Australia. The Chinese in particular converged on Australia, and resentment against the Asian nationalities was a contributing factor to the introduction of the White Australia Policy in the twentieth century. Enormous numbers of immigrants, especially Chinese, brought their unique cultural influences to Australia, and many of the Chinese stayed on to build businesses in the towns once the main gold deposits were mined out.
The third way that the gold rush changed Australia was with transport. For 70 years from the 1850s to the 1920s, Cobb & Co. coaches were a principle means of transport in the colonies of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Settlers moving inland, new immigrants hopeful of success on the gold fields, shearers, agents, squatters, children and their parents—everyone used Cobb & Co. stage coaches to move, as efficiently as was possible, around the colonies. Even larger numbers of people, many of whom lived in remote country towns, stations or settlements, relied on Cobb & Co. ‘s mail delivery services.
The Term Paper on An Overview Of The Gold Rush
An Overview of the Gold Rush California has always been associated with cutting edge development and ideas. For over a century and a half it has been the leader of what the rest of the country follows. No single event has been as groundbreaking (literally and metaphorically) as the Gold Rush of 1849. This historic event single-handedly connected the East to the West in what proved to be the ...
Coaches brought essential supplies, news from home and a sense of connection to others in what was perceived as a distant and inhospitable land. Cobb & Co. routes were seen as a lifeline to isolated communities and a means of taming the vastness of Australia. Coaches would typically wait until they were full (which would sometimes take several hours) and then depart. A team of tired horses pulled an English-built coach which, designed for short trips on cobbled roads, bumped and jolted its way over bush tracks. In bad weather, services stopped altogether because tracks were so overused and boggy they were impassable.
During winter it was not uncommon for horses to stand up to their bellies, or coaches up to their axles, in thick mud. The fourth way the gold rush changed Australia was Due to the numbers of immigrants entering Australia for the gold rush, there were huge increases in the population (as I stated earlier) before the gold rush , Australia’s white population was 77,000 By the end of the gold rush, 1861, Australia’s population had more than doubled and Victoria’s, the site of the main gold rush, had increased seven-fold. With more people came greater numbers of businesses, and business generates economic growth.
After the gold rush, many of the new towns shrank to just a fraction of their former size, resulting in ghost towns in many areas. Thus, various parts of the country experienced economic growth and bust. The wealth of the newly formed state of Victoria caused rivalry with New South Wales. There was a new boom of Victorian architecture in cities such as Melbourne, and the richness of this architecture can still be seen today. Unfortunately, the bust that inevitably follows a boom contributed to the general deflation of prices from 1860-1900, which caused multiple depressions in Australia’s economy.
The Essay on Australia 6
Australia is the sixth largest country in the world. It lies in the Southern Hemisphere between 11^0 and 44^0 south latitude and 113^0 and 154^0 east longitude. The entire area of land is about the same size as the continental United States, or about one and a half times the size of Europe. The mainland of Australia has an area of 2,967,909 square miles. The country is divided into six states: ...