Gold had been discovered in Australia as early as 1823 but had been hushed up, Governor George Gipps was reported to say to a Reverend Clarke who was exhibiting some gold he had found "Put it away, Mr Clarke, or we shall all have our throats cut." It was only after the California Gold rush in 1849 that they realized the potential benefits of a gold rush to attract not just temporary treasure hunters but also industries, investment and settlers.
Under the Southern Cross We Stand
- Thread starter johnboy
- Start date
I'm more interested in what happens during the Eureka Rebellion in this timeline. Since Victoria is more populated in this timeline, I wonder if the rebellion could spread farther than Ballarat.
. The sheer distance from Britain will necessitate an element of local manufacture and repair workshops (which then lays the skills for indigenous manufacture).
I'm a latecomer to the TL, and am enjoying it. I see the start of some serious butterflies in terms of territory and the equivalent of the American slave-holding class but with convicts and grazing rather than intensive plantations and chattel slavery.
However I noticed a lack of reference to Victorian settlement, which ITTL would likely be significantly different. IOTL an attempt was made to set up a colony on present day Sorrento in 1802 but this folded in 1803. IOTL Hume and Hovell explored a route from Canberra/Bathurst area to Geelong (while looking for Westernport) in 1824 some 11 years after Blaxland and co crossed the Blue Mountains. In 1834 the Hentys crossed from Tassie to set up in Portland and Batman did the same in Melbourne in 1835.
ITTL I'd suggest that if the Sorrento colony was founded in 1802 and the Blue Mountains had been crossed 6 years previously something akin to Hume and Hovell would be mounted to find an overland path to Sorrento. This would likely shift Victorian colonisation forward by 30 years.
However I noticed a lack of reference to Victorian settlement, which ITTL would likely be significantly different. IOTL an attempt was made to set up a colony on present day Sorrento in 1802 but this folded in 1803. IOTL Hume and Hovell explored a route from Canberra/Bathurst area to Geelong (while looking for Westernport) in 1824 some 11 years after Blaxland and co crossed the Blue Mountains. In 1834 the Hentys crossed from Tassie to set up in Portland and Batman did the same in Melbourne in 1835.
ITTL I'd suggest that if the Sorrento colony was founded in 1802 and the Blue Mountains had been crossed 6 years previously something akin to Hume and Hovell would be mounted to find an overland path to Sorrento. This would likely shift Victorian colonisation forward by 30 years.
September 1847 - Tensions start to simmer
14th September 1847, Stowe House, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos signed the paperwork forwarded by the brand new Colonial Office, created only the year before. There was little choice in the matter, he was , after all, some 988,000 Pounds in debt, a sum increasing with every day and now almost beyond imagine. Stapleton Cotton had prospered in the Antipodes as Governor, establishing almost a private fiefdom in conjunction with other powerful men in London and there was a chance that he could also make good financially. He also admitted the prospect of putting 10,500 miles between himself and his creditors was also a not unattractive prospect.
For all that, he was under no illusions that things would be easy. There was one problem with the increased need to feed convicts into the system of grazing in Australasia, namely that increasingly the population consisted of an underclass of lower class labourers, many of whom were fractious Irish Catholics. In addition, there were the even more dangerous political exiles, Charterists, Irish Republicans and the like. These numbers had not necessarily been balanced by the passage of free settlers, especially in New South Wales. In addition, there were those who wished to bring and end to transportation, with strong movements for abolition in Van Diemen's Land and what would become the new State of Victoria on 1st January 1848. The Port Phillip District was especially fractious, with strong demonstrations at Melbourne, Portland and Geelong. That was not all, these was also agitation for self Government and a drastic reduction in the power of the Governor.
It was a worrying sign, but then again Cotton had managed so there was no reason why he would not be able to do the same. It looked like it would be just himself and his son, with his daughter now married and his wife estranged, surely a disadvantage.
When he was to eventually set foot in Australasia on 1st April 1848, a delay long enough to oversee the sale of his family seat, he was to have no idea how transformative his tenure was to be, with changes in Australasia being not evolutionary but in fact revolutionary in the period from 1853 to the end of the decade. By 1850, Australasia's population was in excess of 620,000, with fully half those in New South Wales, 100,000 in Victoria, 90,000 in Van Diemen's Land, 35,000 in New Zealand, 75,000 in South Australia, 10,000 in Western Australia and another 5,000 on Pacific islands. This did not include native populations of course.
By 1850 Australasia would be on a powder keg, with both the newly renamed Tasmania, as well as Victoria, having achieved self government at that time. Both had suspended transportation. The latter in particular was attracting settlers who had started to garner support from the abolitionist bloc, noting similar evils in the New South Wales convict labour system as they did in slavery. By that time there existed an unofficial passage of sorts smuggling convicts into a freer life in the three southern colonies as tensions between New South Wales and it's subordinate colonies of Queensland and also North Australia, and three more liberal Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the sympathetic Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand were well and truly on the rise.
Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos signed the paperwork forwarded by the brand new Colonial Office, created only the year before. There was little choice in the matter, he was , after all, some 988,000 Pounds in debt, a sum increasing with every day and now almost beyond imagine. Stapleton Cotton had prospered in the Antipodes as Governor, establishing almost a private fiefdom in conjunction with other powerful men in London and there was a chance that he could also make good financially. He also admitted the prospect of putting 10,500 miles between himself and his creditors was also a not unattractive prospect.
For all that, he was under no illusions that things would be easy. There was one problem with the increased need to feed convicts into the system of grazing in Australasia, namely that increasingly the population consisted of an underclass of lower class labourers, many of whom were fractious Irish Catholics. In addition, there were the even more dangerous political exiles, Charterists, Irish Republicans and the like. These numbers had not necessarily been balanced by the passage of free settlers, especially in New South Wales. In addition, there were those who wished to bring and end to transportation, with strong movements for abolition in Van Diemen's Land and what would become the new State of Victoria on 1st January 1848. The Port Phillip District was especially fractious, with strong demonstrations at Melbourne, Portland and Geelong. That was not all, these was also agitation for self Government and a drastic reduction in the power of the Governor.
It was a worrying sign, but then again Cotton had managed so there was no reason why he would not be able to do the same. It looked like it would be just himself and his son, with his daughter now married and his wife estranged, surely a disadvantage.
When he was to eventually set foot in Australasia on 1st April 1848, a delay long enough to oversee the sale of his family seat, he was to have no idea how transformative his tenure was to be, with changes in Australasia being not evolutionary but in fact revolutionary in the period from 1853 to the end of the decade. By 1850, Australasia's population was in excess of 620,000, with fully half those in New South Wales, 100,000 in Victoria, 90,000 in Van Diemen's Land, 35,000 in New Zealand, 75,000 in South Australia, 10,000 in Western Australia and another 5,000 on Pacific islands. This did not include native populations of course.
By 1850 Australasia would be on a powder keg, with both the newly renamed Tasmania, as well as Victoria, having achieved self government at that time. Both had suspended transportation. The latter in particular was attracting settlers who had started to garner support from the abolitionist bloc, noting similar evils in the New South Wales convict labour system as they did in slavery. By that time there existed an unofficial passage of sorts smuggling convicts into a freer life in the three southern colonies as tensions between New South Wales and it's subordinate colonies of Queensland and also North Australia, and three more liberal Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the sympathetic Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand were well and truly on the rise.
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THat name was still around in 1848?
Also, 1850 huh! Couple of years before Eureka in OTL.
June 1850 - Moving toward a suspension of transportation
16 June 1850, Toorak House, Melbourne, Victoria
Adye Douglas and Horatio Wills were of the same mind as their New Zealand counterpart. Whilst convicts had continued to pour into New South Wales, South Australia had never been a convict state and Tasmania had suspended the transportation of convicts in 1847 for two years before a resumption.
The resolution of both men was simple enough. From 1.1.1851, they would both ask for suspension of convict transportation to both Victoria, Tasmania and New Zealand and that no further convicts would be accepted after that time, with any future emigrations to either of these states to be only free men.
They were not to know that in fact such a trade would never resume in any of the three states, or of course South Australia and that in fact the age of transportation was coming to an end at the same time the future of Australasia took shape in what would be a very turbulent six year period, driven by competing priorities, an upswell of democratic thought in the Southern colonies, transportation and it’s implacable opponents in the Anti Transportation League. All these were set against the background of the Gold Rush in Victoria and again in Tasmania, a rush that attracted people from all over the World, but, much to the dismay of many, attracted as many as 45,000 Chinese to goldfields town by the mid 1850’s, changing the demographic picture in Victoria in particular in a way not seen or anticipated before and skyrocketing the population of “marvelous Melbourne.”
Of course, this was also to affect Australasia’s most populous colony. A succession of autocratic Governors in New South Wales had severely limited the power of the Legislative Assembly. When gold was discovered, all in the southern colonies, the lure for fleeing convicts improved dramatically and the wool barons faced abandoned flocks as numbers of convicts started to abscond. It placed enormous pressure on the New South Wales Governor from his own political supporters, a pressure that only increased from the start of 1851. It was to reach it’s zenith when Britain’s attention was firmly fixed elsewhere by a combination of the Crimean War, a full on Sepoy Mutiny and a nationalist uprising in Burma.
Adye Douglas and Horatio Wills were of the same mind as their New Zealand counterpart. Whilst convicts had continued to pour into New South Wales, South Australia had never been a convict state and Tasmania had suspended the transportation of convicts in 1847 for two years before a resumption.
The resolution of both men was simple enough. From 1.1.1851, they would both ask for suspension of convict transportation to both Victoria, Tasmania and New Zealand and that no further convicts would be accepted after that time, with any future emigrations to either of these states to be only free men.
They were not to know that in fact such a trade would never resume in any of the three states, or of course South Australia and that in fact the age of transportation was coming to an end at the same time the future of Australasia took shape in what would be a very turbulent six year period, driven by competing priorities, an upswell of democratic thought in the Southern colonies, transportation and it’s implacable opponents in the Anti Transportation League. All these were set against the background of the Gold Rush in Victoria and again in Tasmania, a rush that attracted people from all over the World, but, much to the dismay of many, attracted as many as 45,000 Chinese to goldfields town by the mid 1850’s, changing the demographic picture in Victoria in particular in a way not seen or anticipated before and skyrocketing the population of “marvelous Melbourne.”
Of course, this was also to affect Australasia’s most populous colony. A succession of autocratic Governors in New South Wales had severely limited the power of the Legislative Assembly. When gold was discovered, all in the southern colonies, the lure for fleeing convicts improved dramatically and the wool barons faced abandoned flocks as numbers of convicts started to abscond. It placed enormous pressure on the New South Wales Governor from his own political supporters, a pressure that only increased from the start of 1851. It was to reach it’s zenith when Britain’s attention was firmly fixed elsewhere by a combination of the Crimean War, a full on Sepoy Mutiny and a nationalist uprising in Burma.
Sadly I think that is a given, although with New Zealand part of that there are two way things can go I suppose, worse for the Maori population or OTL for the Maoris and better for the Aboriginal population.
I don't think that I am giving too much away by saying that things may spread further if thing happened like OTL, but in fact they will shortly(1854) go in a very different direction, the build up to which starts in late 1851.
In the 1830's there were four separate settlements in Victoria, but by 1840 Melbourne had emerged as the largest by a big margin. Victoria's population is well up from OTL, but it's about to expand exponentially...
How is free immigration? MAybe some of these wool barons might get cheap workers from Ireland.
June 1851 - Convicts on the run to gold
12 June 1851, near Tarranganda, New South Wales
For Aubrey McWilliam, a man convicted and transported some four years before, all that now remained was a crossing of the Bega River. Once he crossed the river, he would be relatively safe in Victoria. Victoria had declared itself “free” of convicts and during the last 6 months had not sent any impressed convicts that had crossed into the state back to New South Wales.
His own case was typical of many over the last three months in particular. He had simply walked off the property of the man to whom he had been assigned, heading first East and then South as he moved day by day ever closer to Victoria. He had duly avoided police pursuit and was to cross the Bega River that night. Two days later he was able to exchange a week’s labour for a new set of clothes and a week’s worth of meals and he was then to continue his journey on to Clunes, where there were excited reports realised of the discovery of gold in significant quantity released to the newspapers on the 18th June. The Victorian Gold Rush was about to commence.
Contemporary Australia Map 1851
For Aubrey McWilliam, a man convicted and transported some four years before, all that now remained was a crossing of the Bega River. Once he crossed the river, he would be relatively safe in Victoria. Victoria had declared itself “free” of convicts and during the last 6 months had not sent any impressed convicts that had crossed into the state back to New South Wales.
His own case was typical of many over the last three months in particular. He had simply walked off the property of the man to whom he had been assigned, heading first East and then South as he moved day by day ever closer to Victoria. He had duly avoided police pursuit and was to cross the Bega River that night. Two days later he was able to exchange a week’s labour for a new set of clothes and a week’s worth of meals and he was then to continue his journey on to Clunes, where there were excited reports realised of the discovery of gold in significant quantity released to the newspapers on the 18th June. The Victorian Gold Rush was about to commence.
Contemporary Australia Map 1851
How did Chinese get there? I know that in California they were brought in as cheap laborers but I don't see that being the case in gold rush/mining. Also are they mostly males or families?
It is altered. Northern Australia is a massive creation of New South Wales directly under the control of the NSW Governor. Victoria is slightly larger, going almost due east from the headwaters of the Murray.
One of the biggest issues was the fact that virtually all immigration was Chinese males which fed the existing xenophobia even more than usual.
Victoria had a tax on Chinese immigration during the gold rush, so the Chinese were disembarked at Robe SA and walked 400km to Ballarat. The Chinese were tough as nails!