Welcome

Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, students and teachers. This is a website created to outline the lifestyles of today and back in 1850's. It is also to give you a brief detail of how did they cope without the materials that we have now.

My research began when Year 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6 (of Vermont Secondary College) went to Narmbool Lodge and Tea Tree Camp for a 3 day camp. There we gathered hints and clues on how the Early pioneers and aborigines lived without any luxury, and for that,even we could not live in luxury for one night (It was very difficult, let me tell you that!). On the last night however, was a relief because we spent the day at Sovereign Hill to shop, look and most importantly, research.

As you might of already guessed, I was researching the differences of our lives today to the early European settlers lives then. Going to Sovereign Hill was a big help to this assignment because it helped me understand what it was like in Ballarat in the 1850's, a place where gold was the talk of the town, where outlaws raided fine restaurants with out a doubt and where men were domain.

As a result of this project, we can safely say that our lives are being improved everyday and if it continues, who knows what it can bring tomorrow.


From Jasmine Frichitthavong, 8.5.

Mining-

Mining equals dirt and work, this is what women sees in mining these days. Men sees labour, risks and, well, dirt. But today it is considered easy to find gold , unfortunately they do not know that back then, that was one of the most common work around. Mining was where ordinary people became non-ordinary millionaires.

In the 1850's people mainly mined for specks or nuggets of gold in the shallow alluvial of Victoria, particularly near Bendigo and Ballarat. The very earliest equipment to find gold used by diggers where cradles and gold pans, these worked by using a rock action to separate the gold from the mixture of dirt and water.

As diggers began to settle in to the gold fields, they started working out other ways in what they could find some gold. Groups of men formed a company to make use of the mining methods such as puddling, quartz reef mining, deep lead mining and many forms of sluicing. You may wonder, how does these methods work? Well, sit back, relax because I will be giving you the answers.

PUDDLING - Basically panning but with horses for more speed and to cover more land. This method did work effectively although it had an enormous impact on the landscape. It choked watercourses and covered roads.
QUARTZ REEF MINING - Quartz reefs were the primary source of gold in most goldfields. They dipped steeply, and were mined in sections leaving large slots in the ground where the reef had been. The reefs were first open-cut to reap the benefit of their surface. Then shafts were sunk, or tunnels were driven into the sides of the hills, to trace the gold concealed at greater depths. Once extracted, the quartz had to be crushed to a fine sand to remove the gold.
DEEP LEAD MINING - Deep Lead Mining was actually underground shafts, which first was 100 feet tall. In 1860's now it was more than 300 feet under ground level. This was another successful method which was used to find the 2nd most largest nugget in the world, the "Welcome Stranger Nugget" which was found in Ballarat.
SLUICING - Sluicing involved the use of running water to break down gold-bearing earth, and a sluice box, which was used to recover the gold.When the earth and gravel was washed through the box, the heavier gold stuck in the matting, or behind the riffles.

Now a days, we use the Deep Lead Mining to search for more than gold although we are still discovering new things.

Medicine and Diseases -

If we were somehow sick, what we would of done was to go to the doctors or tell a person who has the knowledge of First Aid. But in the Gold Rush, this was different, if you had to go into surgery there was a slight chance that you will recover. More people die from their cures than their diseases.

Infections could start just by a cut on the hand or a tooth ache. Being cut with a rust wire could be lethal if it was left alone, which they usually were. Many children did not survive after 3 years old since there was no immunization for many infections we have today such as chicken pox, whooping cough and Hepatitis B. Many people only lived to 55 year, this leaded to young marriages. Many people did rob from other people by selling remedies which are actually just alcohol, this would obviously take away the pain and make them feel better.

There was not many places that you could could of gone if you were diagnosed with a disease. One of the most oldest form of medicine was Homeopathy, this was a reaction to 'heroic' medicine. The foundation included nutrition, exercise, minimum medicine and interestingly, human relationships. What ever the injury was, only one medicine was needed, no one mixed two together since they did not know what they did to the body, unlike now. Diet meant 'a variety of food' and exercise was a movement, walking was encouraged.

Another form of medicine was Herbalism, it is a traditional way of using food to heal a person, this was as natural as breathing. Even method from the 1850's are still used today, when we get a cold or a flu, we make a bowl of chicken corn soup. Mixing 'pharmaceuticals' are already known as dangerous. But herbalist was known to mix a number of herbs together for herbal medicine did not interfere with other herbs but work in harmony.

Females of the 1850's had a very hard time while medicine was around for hospitals were only for men and women were not allowed to go. During child birth, most women bled to unconsciousness mainly to relieve their own pain.

Since then, medicine have gradually became better and for once, worked. Don't get me wrong, some medicine did work such as the use of opium.

Fashion -

Now a days fashions senses have included mini skirts, baggy t-shirts, black leggings, bright coloured belts and the most insulting clothing for a woman to wear in the 1850's, pants. Where has all the maturity gone?

Today, black skinny leg jeans, eye popping fluorescent T-shirts and Bonds Hoodies are considered 'A trend' and ' So hot right now' but what we really need is to bring back the clothes that our great-great-grandmother and our great-great-grandfather kept locked away in a closet.

In Ballarat 1850's women were to wear tent like petticoats which was made to make their waist look smaller. They would of worn corsets which was to shape their upper half, if you were seen out in the public without a corset on it would be an insulting. A bright summer dress was worn over the corset and petticoat, it was accompanied with a hat and a leather belt. Back then, small waists were considered fashionable and the averaged sized waist was only 42 centimetres. This caused great difficulty to pregnant women because there was no room for the baby to grow which leads to deformed babies or miscarriages. But they had no choice but to wear the corset because they would of have to be kept inside for the rest of the pregnancy.

In you were a wealthy man in Ballarat, you would of worn a clean white buttoned down shirt, a vest, long black pants, a silk tie, a coat and a top hat. Wealthy men would of bought the silk ties from China and was shipped all the way to Australia. But if you were a young miner in the Gold Rush, you would have worn silk ties because you didn't have enough money. All that you could afford was a plain buttoned down shirt with a brown vest and pants. Usually they had a hat to protect the suns rays from hitting them.

There was not many women in the mining industry yet there was many brothels where women called 'The Night Ladies' would entertain the men. They wore bright showy dresses which only went down to their knees and on their dress was lace around the neck. They would of wore stockings and black heels.

Back then, fashion was about waist sizes and what you could afford. Now it is all over rated and colourful. Which century would you prefer? I know what I would choose.

Crimes and punishment -

Imagine you walking to the shops and finding policemen armed with rifles and wooden bats everywhere around you, I am guessing you would feel frightened by these powerful people who has the rights to do anything with you. This was normal in Ballarat because most gold miners did not have a license to pan for gold.

Police these days are armed with many advanced technology such as pepper spray, metal bats, head gear, Handcuffs, bulletproof vest and hand guns. Back then, they had hand cuffs made for children, women and men.Although if the policeman did not have all three sizes, he would use a wooden bat to smash all the bones in your wrist to make your hand swollen and fit into the cuffs.The 1850's policemen also carried rifles whose bullets was designed to go through anything although its accuracy was very poor. If a policeman was to shoot a target 8 metres away from him, it would be very unlikely that he would hit it.

Many crimes were made including murders, robberies, rapes, feuds and so on. The way laws punished these crimes were jail, hangings and transportation to another place.

On of a famous crime that happened was about a gold buyer called Edward Ritter and his brother-in-law Samuel Maxwell Alexander were riding in their chaise-cart from St. Kilda to Melbourne when they came across a gang of 8 men who attempted to hold them up near Canvas Town, but Ritter managed to pull away from the robbers. Many shots fired of which 3 hit Ritter in the leg but there was no major injuries.Ritter and Alexander managed to remember a good descriptions of their robbers, two of whom had been amongst a similar group who had tried to rob Ritter about three weeks earlier. The Government offered a reward of £1600, calculated at £200 per head, for their arrests leading to conviction, and the Melbourne police began to round up likely suspects.One of these men, James Grimes, had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in the Nelson Robbery in 1852, but there had been insufficient evidence to convict him.

Now today, crimes includes murder, rape, feuds, robberies, pedafiles and sexual/ verbal abuse. All of these above would be put in jail for a series of time or be sent off over seas to be executed. Most people says that today's punishments are too weak.