The Otago Gold Rush (often called the Central Otago Gold Rush) was a gold rush that occurred during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand. This was the country's biggest gold strike, and led to a rapid influx of foreign miners to the area – many of them veterans of other hunts for the precious metal in California and Victoria, Australia. The number of miners reached its maximum of 18,000 in February 1864.
The rush started at Gabriel's Gully but spread throughout much of Central Otago, leading to the rapid expansion and commercialisation of the new colonial settlement of Dunedin, which quickly grew to be New Zealand's largest city. Only a few years later, most of the smaller new settlements were deserted, and gold extraction became more long-term, industrialised-mechanical process.
Background
Previous gold finds in New Zealand
Previously gold had been found in small quantities in the Coromandel Peninsula (by visiting whalers) and near Nelson in 1842. Commercial interests in Auckland offered a £500 prize for anyone who could find payable quantities of gold anywhere nearby in the 1850s, at a time when some New Zealand settlers were leaving for the California and Australian gold rushes. In September 1852, Charles Ring, a timber merchant, claimed the prize for a find in Coromandel. A brief gold rush ensued around Coromandel township, Cape Colville and Mercury Bay but only £1500 of gold was accessible in river silt, although more was in quartz veins where it was inaccessible to individual prospectors. The rush lasted only about three months.
A find in the Aorere Valley near Collingwood in 1856 proved more successful, with 1500 miners converging on the district and removing about £150,000 of gold over the next decade, after which the gold was exhausted. The presence of gold in Otago and on the West Coast during this time was known, but the geology of the land was different from that of other major gold-bearing areas, and it was assumed the gold would amount to little.
Previous gold finds in Otago Māori had long known of the existence of gold in Central Otago, but had no use for the ore. For a precious material they relied on greenstone for weaponry and tools, and used greenstone, obsidian and bone carving for jewellery.
The first known European Otago gold find was at Goodwood, near Palmerston in October 1851. The find was of a very small amount with no ensuing "rush". Instead, the settlement of Dunedin was just three years old, and more practical matters were of higher importance to the young town.
Other finds around the Mataura River in 1856 and the Dunstan Range in 1858 stirred minimal interest. A find near the Lindis Pass in early 1861 started producing flickers of interest from around the South Island, with reports of large numbers of miners travelling inland from Oamaru to stake their claims. It was two months later that the gold strike was made that would prompt a major influx of prospectors.
Main rush
Gabriel's Gully
Gabriel Read, an Australian prospector who had hunted gold in both California and Victoria, Australia, found gold in a creek bed at Gabriel's Gully, close to the banks of the Tuapeka River near Lawrence on 20 May 1861. "At a place where a kind of road crossed on a shallow bar I shovelled away about two and a half feet of gravel, arrived at a beautiful soft slate and saw the gold shining like the stars in Orion on a dark frosty night".
The public heard about Read's find via a letter published in the Otago Witness on 8 June 1861, documenting a ten-day-long prospecting tour he had made. There was little reaction at first until John Hardy of the Otago Provincial Council stated that he and Read had prospected country "about 31 miles long by five broad, and in every hole they had sunk they had found the precious metal." With this statement, the gold rush began.
Arrival of prospectors
By Christmas, 14,000 prospectors were on the Tuapeka and Waipori fields.McLean & Dalley, p. 156 Within a year, the region's population swelled greatly, growing by 400 per cent between 1861 and 1864, with prospectors swarming from the dwindling Australian goldfields. Gabriel's Gully led to the discovery of further goldfields within Central Otago. A second gold strike in 1862, close to the modern town of Cromwell, did nothing to dissuade new hopefuls, and prospectors and miners staked claims from the Shotover River in the west through to Naseby in the north. In November 1862 Thomas Arthur and Harry Redfern sneaked off from shearing for William Rees at Queenstown and looked for gold on the banks of the Shotover River armed with a butcher's knife and pannikin. The Arthur's Point strike led to the largest rush that occurred in Otago. Historic buildings at Queenstown such as Eichardt's Hotel, the Lake Lodge of Ophir (now Artbay Gallery), the Queenstown Police Station, and stone Courthouse were all begun as a response to the rapid influx. By the end of 1863, the real gold rush was over, but companies continued to mine the alluvial gold. The number of miners reached its maximum of 18,000 in February 1864.
An estimate of 350 Chileans who had previously been active in mining in Australia –and some prior to that also in California– moved to mine placers in New Zealand in the early 1860s.
Life in mining communities
Read's find of gold sparked the interest of people in Dunedin; people travelled long distances in the hope of striking it rich. These goldfields all gave rise to mining towns and communities of temporary shops, hotels and miners' huts made from canvas or calico fabric-covered timber frames. As the scope of the goldfields developed, communities became more permanent with buildings constructed in timber and concrete. Evidence such as material artefacts, foundations of huts and buildings, and photographs from the Central Otago goldfields provide us with information about the labour and social roles of men and women in the 19th century. A restored Chinese Village at Arrowtown is a popular tourist attraction.
Men in mining communities
The news of gold at Gabriel's Gully reached the inhabitants of Dunedin and the rest of the world, prospectors immediately left their homes in search of gold. The majority of these perspective prospectors were labourers and tradesmen, in their late teens and twenties. The incoming population included entrepreneurial, skilled and technical people that established services for the miners, such as shops, post offices, banks, pubs, hotels and hardware stores. The owners of these businesses could make more money than the miners.
Evidence Historical evidence of male miners or businessmen in the 19th-century Central Otago goldfields is readily available in literature by and about the experiences of inhabitants at the various gold strikes. Census statistics and photographs are also available, all of which provide inferential evidence about the labour roles in these communities. This in turn provides information about labour and social roles within the community. Such information includes that of the ownership and management of stores and hotels, such as the bank and gold office at Maori Point (Bank of New Zealand) in the 1860s, managed by G. M. Ross.
Archaeological evidence is also readily available. Excavations at various sites throughout Otago show evidence of an array of mining techniques, including ground sluicing, hydraulic sluicing and hydraulic elevating. Tailings (the materials left over after the removal of the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of the ore) also provide some of the archaeological evidence from Otago gold mine sites. Midden analysis from camp and settlement sites provides information about diet, with evidence of a preference for beef and lamb in the European camps, and a preference for pork within the Chinese camps.
Artefactual evidence found during excavations includes blue and white ceramics, cooking and eating utensils, metal objects, such as buttons, nails and tin boxes (flint boxes, tobacco boxes) and an exceedingly high number of alcohol glass bottles. It is possible these glass bottles were recycled, so archaeologists cannot draw definite conclusions as to alcohol consumption. Within the Chinese camps (such as the Lawrence Chinese camp) artefacts include gambling tokens and Chinese coins as well as celadon earthwares.
Although diaries and memoirs about the lives of males in the mining communities exist, little mention or information is known about the significance of female labour and social roles. Archaeological evidence, however, suggests that many females in the goldfields took significant roles in mining and the general community.
Women in mining communities In the 19th-century goldfields, women played significant familial, labour and entrepreneurial roles, such as wives, mothers, prostitutes, business owners and service providers and 'Colonial Helpmeets' (wives who worked alongside their husbands). Women within these communities were young and single, or married with a family, although the community was predominantly male, female family never having intended to move to the goldfields until towns developed with hotels, stores and schools. Yet, there was a female presence in this environment from the start of the gold find in 1861, at Gabriel's Gully. An example is Janet Robertson, who lived with her husband in a small cottage in Tuapeka. It was here in her cottage, where Gabriel Read wrote his "discovery" letter of gold to the Otago Provincial Council. As the news of this goldfield in Gabriel's Gully spread, prospectors engaged in the area, and Janet opened up her home, cooked meals and tended to the miners, as they passed through.
Another significant woman present on the 19th-century Central Otago goldfields was Susan Nugent-Wood, a well-known writer in the 1860s and 1870s. Nugent-Wood, her husband John, and their children moved to Otago in 1861, as prospectors of gold. Nugent-Wood worked on the goldfields of Central Otago in several official positions. She wrote stories based on her life and roles on the Central Otago goldfields, which provide accounts of labour and social aspects of mining and gender in the 19th century.
Harriet Heron also lived on the goldfields, most notably at Fourteen-Mile Beach where she and her husband Henry lived in a tent for three years – Heron was the only woman in the mining camp at the time. They later built a cottage in the area, which is known today as "Mrs Heron's Cottage" and maintained by Heritage New Zealand.
As the majority of women within these mining communities were married, many became widows, as their husbands died during mining related activities or diseases. These women, whose husbands owned stores or hotels, adopted ownership rights. Many became well known throughout the communities, amongst visitors, passing miners and local citizens. Archaeological evidence of a widow who took over ownership rights following her husbands' death, was Elizabeth Potts. Potts was given a licence for the Victoria Hotel in Lawrence in 1869. This was recorded and published in the Tuapeka Times, 11 December 1869. This archaeological evidence provides information which suggests that women played significant labour and social roles within mining communities.
Excavation evidence
An excavation report from the Golden Bar Mine between the Macraes Flat and Palmeston, Otago, shows that located in front of the main mine workings of ca.1897, archaeological material was found. This material was a small heart-shaped brooch with 13 glass (paste) diamonds. This archaeological evidence suggests that women were present at this site, and within the Golden Bar goldfield. The exact occupation of women from this evidence is unknown, but indicates that women were present on the goldfields during the 19th-century gold rush in Otago.