1851 NSW Gold Rush Letter from Sydney to Yorkshire

The 1851 New South Wales Gold Rush at Bathurst, 27th May 1851 complete original letter from Sydney to Yorkshire, carried on the 'Thomas Arbuthnot', a fast sailing ship, which was also carrying the first shipment of gold from Australia to England. The letter, from Smith Brothers & Co of Sydney to John Buckley & Sons of Saddleworth, Yorkshire [Manufacturers & merchants] states, 'Since we last had this pleasure circumstances have occurred which are destined to change the entire features of our trade. We allude to the recent discovery of extensive Gold Regions about 150 miles west of Sydney. From undoubted sources of information we are led to believe not only is the Gold abundant on the spot but that it is likely to extend over a wide range of country possessing the same natural features. Almost a total displacement of the population of the Australian Colonies will take place immediately all attracted to this Port. In the course of another month we shall feel the full effects of this influx & we doubt not but in twelve months our population will be double its present number. We have posted todays paper by this conveyance to which we refer you for more detailed accounts of the Gold Region & its wonderful productions. The Town of Sydney in the course of a week will be half depopulated. Wages have already risen 50 to 80 Pcent but our working classes are so unable to resist the excitement that no wages will keep them in their employ....', With 'Paid Ship Letter * Sydney * My 31 1851' handstamp on front; 'Manchester Oc 6 1851' arrival backstamp and endorsed 'Rec'd Oct 7th 1851'. A particularly insightful contemporary document. The discovery of gold was literally the discovery that changed a nation. In Early 1851, twenty-eight years after the Fish River discovery, suppressed by the Colonial government to avoid the likely dislocation of the small population, a man named Edward Hargraves discovered a 'grain of gold' in a waterhole near Bathurst. Hargraves had recently returned to New South Wales from the Californian goldfields where he had been unsuccessful. He decided, however, to begin searching for gold in New South Wales. The geological features of the country around Bathurst, with its quartz outcrops and gullies, seemed similar to those of the Californian fields. In February 1851 Hargraves and his guide, John Lister, set out on horseback with a pan and rocking-cradle, to Lewis Ponds Creek, a tributary of the Macquarie River close to Bathurst. On 12 February 1851 they found gold at a place he called Ophir. He said that 'once in the creek bed he somehow felt surrounded by gold'.[7] Initially keeping the find secret, he travelled to Sydney and met the Colonial Secretary in March. Soon the claim was recognised and Hargraves was appointed the 'Commissioner of Lands'. He also received a £10,000 reward from the New South Wales government, as well as a life pension and a £5,000 reward from the Victorian government. Due to a dispute with his partners, however, some of the reward was withheld. The find was proclaimed on 14 May 1851 and within days the first Australian gold rush began with 100 diggers searching for their gold. By June there were over 2000 people digging around Bathurst, and thousands more were on their way. The great western road to Bathurst became choked with men from all walks of life, with all they could carry to live and mine.