New South Wales gold rush

New South Wales experienced the first gold rush in Australia, a period generally accepted to lie between 1851 and 1880. This period in the history of New South Wales resulted in a rapid growth in the population and significant boost to the economy of the colony of New South Wales. The California Gold Rush three years prior signaled the impacts on society that gold fever would produce, both positive and negative. The New South Wales colonial government concealed the early discoveries, but various factors changed the policy.

Gold was first officially discovered in Australia on 15 February 1823, by assistant surveyor James McBrien, at Fish River, between Rydal and Bathurst (in New South Wales). McBrien noted in his field survey book "At E. (End of the survey line) 1 chain 50 links to river and marked a gum tree. At this place I found numerous particles of gold convenient to river". Then in 1839, Paweł Edmund Strzelecki geologist and explorer, discovered small amounts of gold in silicate at the Vale of Clwyd near Hartley, and in 1841 Reverend W. B. Clarke found gold on the Coxs River, both locations on the road to Bathurst.

The finds were suppressed by the colonial government to avoid a likely dislocation of the relatively small community. It was feared that convicts and free settlers would leave their assigned work locations to rush to the new find to seek their fortunes, in particular damaging the new pastoral industry. Reportedly Governor George Gipps said to Clarke when he exhibited his gold; "Put it away, Mr Clarke, or we shall all have our throats cut." Recent evidence shows another find by William Tipple Smith near Ophir in 1848 was also kept quiet until the government was ready to exploit the resource.

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