Gold-rush Melbourne—gateway to the diggings—was a city reeling. In 1852, the year following the first gold discoveries, the city was like a ghost town.
Crews (and even captains) abandoned their ships in the harbour, leaving nothing more than a forest of masts, as Alexander Dick described the port of Melbourne. Construction sites were frozen in time: buildings had been started but there were no workers to finish them.
The police force was gutted, schools closed, the public service staggered along on a skeleton staff. And husbands (notoriously) deserted their wives. Some women expected their men to reappear with a pocketful of gold; others knew they were gone for good.
A year later, however, many of the original fugitives had returned. Some had made their pile; some had realised they could make a fortune a lot more easily selling goods and services to gold diggers than digging for gold themselves.
Carpenters, stonemasons and other artisans found their skills were suddenly in demand. Shady lawyers and dubious doctors, who had come to Australia to dig for wealth, discovered that their professions paid better—regardless of whether they really were qualified. A publican’s licence was a sure route to prosperity—liquid gold. You just had to be adaptable.
And no one knew the value of adaptability better than women. As Elizabeth Ramsay-Laye wrote in her advice manual for prospective female immigrants, what was needed in Victoria, far more than fine garments, letters of introduction and impeccable manners, was a smiling face, and a firm determination never to look on the shady side of the picture but to make the very best of every cross, accident or discomfort. Melbourne was a can-do sort of a place—and it was growing at a ferocious rate.
Victoria and the goldfields