Gold Licenses were one of the earliest forms of taxation within the Australian colonies. Unlike early Californian settlers, Australian diggers were able to ‘stake a claim’ working to prevent outbreaks of violence on the diggings.
MINERS RIGHT LICENSE NSW GOLD FIELDS
(Miner's Right, license for George Johnson, 1814-1917, 1863)
Given that a fledging colony has virtually no infrastructure to speak of, colony administrators raised funds by imposing hefty license fees on the diggers to publicly fund police forces, hospitals, and roads. The high license fees were also a deterrent, acting as a ‘barrier to entry’ for many of the populace whom were desperately needed to fill jobs in the towns and cities.
None the less, countless workers from farms, ports, hotels and shops downed their tools and abandoned their uniforms, making a b-line straight to the diggings as news of the ‘rush’ spread.
Though the hefty license fees contributed to a more bureaucratic organisation on the Victorian gold fields than which had occurred in California, their high price was one of the catalysts for the Eureka Rebellion, which would claim the lives of more than 30 people.
Investing the wealth brought on the gold rush Victoria’s government spent up on new technologies and institutions and by the mid-1850s, Melbourne had become one of the richest cities in the world.
Former Bendigo Post Office Built 1883
In preparation for the end of the gold rush communities across Victoria built large, beautiful, neoclassical stone buildings, bringing about a sense of permanence for the settlements around which communities grew and flourished.
(The Gold Rushes of Victoria and California Compared, n.d.)
BENDIGO TOWN HALL
@kieran.wicks #Wealth #Infrastructureplan #Taxes #SocialEngineering #Eureka #Rebellion #Melbourne #Ballarat #Bendigo #Victoria #GoldRushStories #AustralianHistory ♬ original sound - Kieran.Wicks
Road making and ditch digging outside Monie's Hill End Hotel, Henry Harris' Duke of Cornwall Hotel and J. Curtain's barber shop left, with horse drawn cart right foreground, Tambaroora Road, Hill End, New South Wales, ca.1872 https://nla.gov.au:443/tarkine/nla.obj-148071463
18K GOLD LOVE HEART BRACELET - RAINBOW AURA
Miner's Right, license for George Johnson, 1814-1917. (1863).
https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/collection-items/miners-right-license-george-johnson-1814-1917
Goldmine, Bendigo - The Holterman Collection . (c1870-1875) http://digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?embedded=true&toolbar=false&dps_pid=IE1254012&_ga=2.130835015.95034651.1620013756-99728518.1616049004
Panorama of gold mines on central Hawkins Hill, looking east across Nuggety Gully, Hill End, New South Wales, ca.1872
https://nla.gov.au:443/tarkine/nla.obj-148020840
Gold mines on hillside, with man in lower right foreground, Hill End, New South Wales, ca.1872
https://nla.gov.au:443/tarkine/nla.obj-148022640
Gold mines on Central Hawkins Hill, Hill End, New South Wales, ca. 1872
https://nla.gov.au:443/tarkine/nla.obj-147998081
Horses and cart in foreground, looking south-west across Pullen's Dam, to the early workings of the Scandinavian mine, Hill End, New South Wales, ca.1872
https://nla.gov.au:443/tarkine/nla.obj-148049615
Road making and ditch digging outside Monie's Hill End Hotel, Henry Harris' Duke of Cornwall Hotel and J. Curtain's barber shop left, with horse drawn cart right foreground, Tambaroora Road, Hill End, New South Wales, ca.1872
https://nla.gov.au:443/tarkine/nla.obj-148071463
