EUREKA! GOLD DISCOVERED IN WARWICK
On 19 July 1851, this short statement appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald: “It has been reported to the Government that a successful search has been made for gold in the district of Darling Downs and there was no doubt of a gold field being discovered in that locality”.This was only five months after the first discovery of payable gold in Australia near Bathurst, NSW, and was made by Mr A.H. McArthur at Lord John’s Swamp on George Leslie’s station, Canning Downs, just outside Warwick.
Samples of the gold-bearing quartz were sent to the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke, an Anglican clergyman and geologist. White was the principal of the King’s School, Parramatta, but his passion was geology. Following verification of the sample by White, prospectors quickly arrived in Warwick and began work, using the abundant water in the Condamine and its tributaries which formed Lord John’s Swamp.
Community leaders quickly recognised that incentives and support were needed if the district was ultimately the benefit from the population growth and wealth that gold could bring. They therefore responded liberally when Patrick Leslie called a meeting in November that year to establish a fund which would meet the cost of prospectors’ licenses until they could turn a profit and pay for the licenses themselves. There was also a petition sent to the Governor-General, signed by more than 60 landholders, asking that a geologist be sent to the district.
The optimistic view of residents at the time was that Warwick could quickly rival other inland towns in the colony because of its central position, large supply of fresh water, rich alluvial soil and magnificent climate. Their vision was that Warwick was “destined to become the home of hundreds of tradesmen and agriculturists, who will find plenty of employers and consumers among the concourse of gold diggers which such a field as will soon be proved to exist will congregate in this vicinity” (Moreton Bay Courier correspondent in Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 10 December 1861).
Richer alluvial deposits were subsequently discovered on Canal Creek (1863), Talgai (1863-4), Pratten (1864), Lucky Valley (1868), Thane’s Creek (1869), Leyburn (1872), Pikedale (1877) and Palgrave (1877).
Samples of the gold-bearing quartz were sent to the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke, an Anglican clergyman and geologist. White was the principal of the King’s School, Parramatta, but his passion was geology. Following verification of the sample by White, prospectors quickly arrived in Warwick and began work, using the abundant water in the Condamine and its tributaries which formed Lord John’s Swamp.
Rev. W.B. Clarke (photograph State Library of NSW)
Community leaders quickly recognised that incentives and support were needed if the district was ultimately the benefit from the population growth and wealth that gold could bring. They therefore responded liberally when Patrick Leslie called a meeting in November that year to establish a fund which would meet the cost of prospectors’ licenses until they could turn a profit and pay for the licenses themselves. There was also a petition sent to the Governor-General, signed by more than 60 landholders, asking that a geologist be sent to the district.
The optimistic view of residents at the time was that Warwick could quickly rival other inland towns in the colony because of its central position, large supply of fresh water, rich alluvial soil and magnificent climate. Their vision was that Warwick was “destined to become the home of hundreds of tradesmen and agriculturists, who will find plenty of employers and consumers among the concourse of gold diggers which such a field as will soon be proved to exist will congregate in this vicinity” (Moreton Bay Courier correspondent in Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 10 December 1861).
Richer alluvial deposits were subsequently discovered on Canal Creek (1863), Talgai (1863-4), Pratten (1864), Lucky Valley (1868), Thane’s Creek (1869), Leyburn (1872), Pikedale (1877) and Palgrave (1877).
Combined, these finds attracted a significant influx of gold-seekers and by 1865 there were an estimated 600 European and Chinese miners working the Canal Creek diggings alone. Numbers decreased in 1867 due to a lack of water and the discovery of gold at Gympie, with subsequent finds elsewhere in Central and North Queensland . In addition, few of the hopefuls were adequately equipped, despite the assurance given by the anonymous author of ‘Notes by a Gold Seeker’ in the Moreton Bay Courier (22 November 1851) that the labour involved was “nothing that a boy of fifteen may not do”.
Paying gold was discovered the Elbow Valley area in 1868. The area was proclaimed as the Lucky Valley Mining Field in 1869
(photograph Queensland State Archives)
Discoveries attracted diggers within days of news being published. The Lucky Valley find was first reported on Friday, 5 June, 1868. By the following Monday (8 June), large numbers of prospectors had arrived.
Durikai Fossicking Area (photograph ivoradventures)
But the quest for gold goes on today with hopeful prospectors, armed with Fossicker’s Licenses, metal detectors and basic tools, spending weekends in the designated fossicking areas at Thane’s Creek, Talgai State Forest, and Durikai State Forest.
Information, maps, and regulations are available from:
https://www.qld.gov.au/recreation/activities/areas-facilities/fossicking
https://www.qld.gov.au/recreation/activities/areas-facilities/fossicking