The Geelong Advertiser announces Esmond's discovery.
Charles LaTrobe
The protest against the cost of a gold licence on 15 December, 1851, at Forest Creek.
All these ships are lying "idle" in Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne, because their crews have all skived off to the goldfields. The same was true of workers on the huge squatters' stations, and any businesses anywhere. Employers treated their employees so poorly and paid them so little, that at an opportunity to gamble on finding gold they buggered off. The employers were very unhappy little chappies, and tried to get the government to adopt policies that would keep their workers on site. It was a long time before they learned they had to treat their workers better if they wanted to keep them, and Victoria became the first place to have the 8 hour working day in the world. But, of course, at the first opportunity the employers made every effort to take back what they had been forced to give. Which is why the workers formed into unions and created the Australian Labor Party.
The crowds off to the diggings, courtesy of the wonderful S T Gill
Major gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851, about the time the colony was separated from New South Wales. The discovery, by a bloke called Esmond, was announced in Geelong on 12 August, 1851. Within a stunningly short time, Victoria was awash with gold diggers from just about everywhere. The gold madness was incredible, and for most people quite disastrous.
And things didn't improve when the government announced on 16 August, 1851, that it would be taking its share of the bonanza. After all, the government, under Lieutenant-Governor LaTrobe, and representing Queen Victoria, "owned" the gold. LaTrobe published a declaration making the government's ownership quite clear, and stated that a licence (or "license", officially known as a "miner's right") fee of 30 shillings per month would be required for the right to collect the government's gold and treat it as your own would. The licensing system would start on 1 September, 1851.
The first protest took place just 10 days later, when some 40-50 miners demanded:
The cancellation of the licence.
The right to vote for the Legislative Council - voting rights to this sole form of parliament in Victoria were limited to white men who owned land or other goods to a set value.
The right to buy land, which was on the whole quite restricted.
This interesting combination of causes was continued throughout the build-up to Eureka.
Then, a couple of months later, in December 1851, the government announced it was considering increasing the licence fee to £3 - remember, that's an increase of 200%, for every month, from people who had mostly not yet found any gold. They were not happy.
The unhappy people held a huge meeting of some 12,000-20,000 miners, and in Ballarat miners started stockpiling weapons. The government quickly backed off its plans. At this stage, the government didn't have the staff to enforce the license fee, and it's calculated that less than 50% of miners paid it.
On the surface, the government's expectation that the public purse should gain something in return for allowing people to mine and market the government's gold was perfectly reasonable. Perhaps it's a shame this principle has never been strongly implemented in Australia with regard to all mining projects.
But at this stage, these were not large, wealthy, multinational mining companies which, along with their major owners, dodge their taxes at every opportunity. The diggers were sole operators, small businesspeople, mostly of poor or relatively poor background, simply looking for a chance to make a better world for themselves and, if they had them, their families. And 30 shillings a month was a large impost for all those who hadn't found gold yet, and the very many who would never find it.
Comparisons of values of cash are extremely difficult over time, and there are numerous methods of doing it. For example, the 2016 value of 30 shillings in 1851 ranges from around $167.50 to $24,940, but as it seems unlikely that even this colonial government really intended to bankrupt anyone, stupid and rock headed as it was, the figure of relevance is probably significantly closer to the lower figure than the upper.
One of the government's aims was to stop people heading for the goldfields if they didn't have sufficient funds to look after themselves. But, the principal intention was to keep workers at home altogether, so they would continue to keep the squatting runs, manufactories, public services, and ships operating. Self-serving nobs. What a surprise.