Eureka - The Unfinished Revolution (12 page)

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When Hargraves returns to Guyong a month later, not only is his horse stuffed, but so is he – and he has found no more traces of significant gold. For their part, Tom and Lister have found small traces of gold in several locations, though still nothing truly payable.

It is decided that the best thing now would be to construct a Californian gold cradle, called a ‘rocker’, designed to do the same job as panning, albeit on a much larger scale. With the assistance of Tom’s younger brother, William, a skilled carpenter, the cradle is constructed in the front room of the Tom family residence.

A little like a sturdy version of a baby’s cradle, the Californian cradle is a wooden box, about a yard long, inside of which is a series of ever longer trays. Above the top tray is a hopper, a box with one vertical side composed of bars that allow all but solid pieces to pass through.

By putting, hopefully, ‘paydirt’ into the hopper, pouring water upon it and using a lever to rock the cradle from side to side, the water rushes down and breaks up the dirt before cascading over the lower trays. The muddy paydirt becomes muddy water, becomes a tiny muddy waterfall and, because there is a small rim or ‘riffle’ at the end of each tray, whatever gold is in that muddy waterfall collects at the bottom riffle. Of course, one needs a ready water supply and a lot of labour, but this technique had been proven in California to be the most efficient way of extracting the gold. If the dirt is of the thick clay variety, sometimes it needs to undergo a process of ‘puddling’, whereby it is put into a large tub of water and broken up with a spade, or even the feet of a miner, before being fed into the cradle.

By this time Hargraves is quietly eager to report (and of course claim any reward and receive all accolades) to the New South Wales Government in Sydney unquestionable evidence of the existence of what will be the first payable goldfield in New South Wales. And he certainly feels that
he
personally has found it.

John Lister accompanies him for part of the way, and they stop to prospect on Campbells River and at Mutton Falls, south of Bathurst on the Fish River. When they again meet with no success, the two decide to part company. Before separating, however, they confirm their agreement once more – whoever finds payable gold will write the other, for they are all equal partners.

Lister then returns to Guyong to find that the Tom brothers have taken the cradle out for a trial run, and the machine works! Over three days they have found 17 grains of gold between them. No, it is not necessarily something to write home about, but it is certainly enough to write to Edward Hargraves about, as per their agreement.

20 March – 1 April 1851, a rough-looking character arrives in Macquarie Street, Sydney

Someone to see you, Mr Thomson. An enormous chap by the name of Edward Hargraves. Says he has something of the greatest importance to the colony to show you.

Well, Edward Deas Thomson, the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, is far too busy and important to see him now. Hargraves will just have to wait until he has finished his duties with the Legislative Council of Parliament. And so wait Hargraves does. On the morning of their first of three meetings, a terrible downpour bursts upon Sydney Town in general and Hargraves in particular. No matter, in the vest of his pocket Hargraves has something that helps to keep him warm: a German matchbox containing the specks of gold he has gathered. True, the specks are not so numerous nor so weighty that they couldn’t altogether be held ‘on a threepenny bit’, but it is gold, alright. When at last Hargraves is granted his audience with the Colonial Secretary in his splendid office at Macquarie Place just off Bridge Street – all plush carpets, mahogany furniture, landscape paintings and portraits on the wall staring down on them – this time the discoverer is not told to put his scant gold samples away for fear of having their throats cut.

Rather, Thomson immediately if reluctantly recognises the significance of the find, if indeed that find is verified.

‘If this is gold country, Mr Hargraves,’ says he in tones of one whose utterances are mostly commands but is now moved to a rare moment of reflection, ‘it will stop the Home Government from sending us any more convicts, and prevent emigration to California; but it comes on us like a clap of thunder, and we are scarcely prepared to credit it.’

Once apprised of the news, Governor FitzRoy writes to the Secretary of State in London, Lord Earl Grey, that he suspects the gold sample presented has come from California.

7-14 April 1851, at the junction of Summer Hill and Lewis Pond creeks, 30 miles due north of Guyong, the hand that rocks the cradle

After setting off on this morning of 7 April, John Lister and now William Tom Jnr decide to try their luck once more around Yorkey’s Corner at the junction of the Summer Hill and Lewis Ponds creeks. It takes a day and a half to get to the site, guiding their horses along the bank of the creek bed, and not long after midday they arrive. Just as with Hargraves, they secure the horses and have a quick spot of lunch before beginning their search.

And . . . sure enough, just minutes after beginning their exploration of the creek bed a mile or so below its junction, William Tom suddenly stops and stares.

‘I have found a bit of gold!’ he calls excitedly to his companion.

‘You are only joking . . .’ Lister replies, disbelieving that it could be this easy.

But no – there, indeed, sitting on the creek bed, is a small nugget that weighs 3/5 of an ounce. Success!

The following day they set up their cradle by the creek bed and as one man loads the hopper with what they hope is paydirt, another ladles water upon the top of the soil.

There! And there! And
there
!

Small specks of gold are shining back at them in the dappled light.

On 12 April the two young men set off for the Wellington Inn with no less than four ounces of gold carefully secured – enough to confirm beyond any doubt that, and this is the key, there is ‘payable’ gold here. As per their agreement with Hargraves, John Lister writes to the older man, bearing glad tidings of the success of the cradle and the location where they have found their four ounces of gold. Upon receipt of the letter, Hargraves immediately races back – here is the evidence he has been waiting for!

2 May 1851, Sydney Town stops with a start

Typically, beneath a banner headline,
The Sydney Morning Herald
is the first to confirm the rumours that have been swirling: ‘THE GOLD DISCOVERY. It is no longer any secret that gold has been found in the earth in several places in the western country. The fact was first established on the 12th February, 1851, by Mr. E. H. Hargraves, a resident of Brisbane Water, who returned from California a few months since . . .

‘Mr. Stutchbury, the Government Geologist, is now in the district, and Mr. Hargraves has proceeded there to communicate with him, and in a few weeks we may expect definite information. At present all that is known is that there is gold over a considerable district; whether it is in sufficient quantities to pay for the trouble of obtaining it remains to be ascertained. Should it be found in large quantities a strict system of licensing diggers will be immediately necessary.’

5-6 May 1851, ‘Springfield’, a deal is done in the home of the Toms

In the scheme of things, it is an extremely important meeting. After arriving breathless back in Guyong, Edward Hargraves meets his partners in the home of the family Tom. By the end of the meeting Hargraves has bought all of the gold the other men have. He does so with a gleam in his eye, for with the gold in
his
possession
he
can be the one who presents the proof that the government seeks – that a serious find has been made.

8 May 1851, Bathurst, Hargraves holds court, and most of the cards

Tonight is a long way out of the usual for the sleepy town of Bathurst. On this evening, if you haven’t heard, Edward Hammond Hargraves himself has come to speak with select gentlemen at the Carriers Arms Inn on a subject he knows will interest them all: gold.

It is to be found in their region! ‘From the foot of the Big Hill to a considerable distance below Wellington, on the Macquarie,’ he says, ‘
is
one vast gold field
.’

There is one particular place where the gold is so plentiful that he has already established a company of nine miners who, right now, are digging at a ‘point of the Summer Hill Creek near its junction with the Macquarie, about 50 miles from here, and 30 from Guyong. Ophir, from the “city of gold” in the Bible, is the name given to these diggings.’

Upon the revelation of the gold’s location, there is a stirring through the small assembly, like a strong gust of wind passing over a field of wheat. They shift, they sway, they lean in closer, hanging on his every word.

From the character of some of the country explored, Hargraves concludes, ‘gold will be found in mass’ and he ‘would not be surprised if pieces of 30 or 40 lbs. should be discovered’.

While Bathurst had been a sleepy town, it is now wide awake. Soon after the meeting breaks up late that night, all of the township is abuzz. In the wee hours, as the light of the lantern matches the strangely feverish gleam in their eyes, men closely scan local maps to work out that ‘point of the Summer Hill Creek, near its junction with the Macquarie’, where the gold apparently lies. The first of the rush begins the following day, as Bathurst begins to empty . . .

Even before the Bathurstians arrive, however, the diggings have received an interesting visitor in the form of the local Commissioner of Crown Lands, Charles Green. Having heard of Hargraves’s boasts, he has realised that unlawful activity is taking place. And, sure enough, when he arrives at Ophir, there they are – eight men digging for gold! Alas, when he orders them off for trespassing, they barely look up.

Morning of 14 May 1851, the Ophir Diggings are rushed

Moses would have been no less pleased to show his people the Promised Land.

On this sparkling morning, a supremely proud Edward Hargraves leads no fewer than 37 horsemen – including the government geologist, Samuel Stutchbury – through the bush, around the hills and down into the gully to his now not-so-lost El Dorado. There they find William and James Tom as two relatively anonymous men – bar the fact that they are the only ones so furious they can barely raise spit – amongst
hundreds
of men similarly trying their luck. These include, as the
Bathurst Free Press
notes, so many men from so many walks of life, ‘including magistrates plying their picks and cradles most laboriously’ that ‘there appears every probability of a complete social revolution in the course of time’.

But not to worry about all that for now. This is Hargraves’s big moment, and he turns in a bravura performance. Oh, people, surely Beethoven never played the piano, nor Stradivarius presented a newly made violin, nor Shakespeare taken up a quill with more pride than Hargraves now flourishing his pan as he sets to work on some soil by the creek to instantly produce,
voila,
‘21 grains of fine gold’!

On the spot, the impressed Samuel Stutchbury issues Hargraves a certificate to the effect that payable gold has been found, which will be forwarded to the Colonial Secretary.

Yet, even before the Colonial Secretary receives that report, the
Bathurst Free Press
has no hesitation in reporting on the matter of Stutchbury’s visit: ‘The fact of the existence of gold is therefore clearly established, and whatever credit or emolument may arise therefrom, Mr Hargraves is certainly the individual to whom it properly belongs.’

Needless to say, John Lister and the Tom brothers are not equally convinced of their partner’s greatness and, in fact, are seething. After all, they had an
agreement
with Hargraves to keep it all secret for the moment and he has
broken
it, all so he can claim to be the discoverer of the gold and get the reward.

15 May 1851, Sydney seethes with excitement

It is like a stone thrown into a pond where instead of the ripples getting smaller the wider they travel, they actually get larger. For on this clear, crisp, late autumnal dawn in Sydney Town, the stone comes in the form of the first edition of
The Sydney Morning Herald
thudding down on doorsteps in the city and handed by newsboys to the first of the city workers.

There! Have you seen it?
There
!

The magic headline comes on the top of page three:

DISCOVERY OF AN EXTENSIVE GOLDFIELD

(FROM THE BATHURST FREE PRESS)

The existence of gold in the Wellington district has for a long time been an ascertained fact, but public attention has never until now been seriously drawn to the circumstance.

The story goes on to detail the information released by Hargraves, including his magic phrase that the area around Bathurst is one vast goldfield’, and, for the first time, the exact location of where the gold is to be found!

But, careful, everyone – the paper also gives a small word of warning:

In the statements made we do not intend to incur any responsibility. We tell the story as ‘twas told to us. The suddenness with which the announcement of a discovery of such magnitude has come upon us – a discovery which must, if true, be productive of such gigantic results not only to the inhabitants of these districts but to the whole colony, affects the mind with astonishment and wonder in such a manner as almost to unfit it for the deductions of plain truth, sober reason, and common sense.