Wages in New South Wales and Victoria quickly rose. The diggers, as the were called, came from around the world. The diggers formed a tight -knit group separate from the official authority of the British. This resulted in the notion of mateship, a common bond between Australian workers. The salutation "Hey, mate" can be thought of as "Hello, comrade." Miners had to pay for licenses but had little influence over how the were treated on with anything to do with mining rules. As a result, miners were at odds with officials. In 1854 near Bellarat thousands of miners burned their licenses. They built a stockade for their own use and created their own flag. Fights with police and soldiers ended up in the deaths of 22 people. Eventually the governing classes became less adversarial and the miners were granted the right to vote.
The first payable gold was discovered in Ophir in New South Wales and then at Bellarat and Bendigo Creeks in Victoria.
The first "rush" classification occurred near Bathhurst, New South Wales in 1851. The last gold rush was in Kalgoorlie in 1893 (Western Australia). In each of these areas gold was found without much effort in rivers and creeks, what today would be called alluvial or placer gold. A spade and a pan were all that was needed for discovery. Gold prospectors to this day forage for gold the same way in Australia. A modern television series called "Aussie Gold Hunters" (2016 to present) documents gold hunting teams using spade and pan along with modern equipment in Western Australia and Victoria.
Edwin Stockqueler, An Australian Gold Diggings, oil on canvas, ca. 1855, National Gallery of Australia
Fikri's GNU-licensed road maps of Victoria on wikipedia
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