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When a few small nuggets of gold were found in New South Wales in 1851 it started a massive gold rush that would change Australia forever.
Gold hunters poured into New South Wales and Victoria to dig for gold and try to make their fortunes. Hundreds of thousands of men came from around the world, lured by the prospect of striking it rich in the Australian gold fields.
Among the men that abandoned their former lives to search for gold was a young baker from Fife named William Arnott.
William left Scotland in October 1847. He arrived in Sydney 135 days later on 17 February 1848. William spent the next three years working as a baker and confectioner with his younger brother David. In 1851 William decided to leave the bakery and travel to the Turon River diggings to hunt for gold.
William Arnott was an excellent baker but he wasn’t a very good gold hunter. He didn’t find any gold but he did make a living making pies and bread for the gold miners.
The gold diggers worked long hard days in dangerous conditions. They often dug for hours in deep dark waterlogged pits.
Two years later William gave up the gold fields and returned to life as a baker. In 1865 he set up a small bakery in Newcastle, New South Wales. By 1882 Arnott’s biscuits were being shipped to Sydney. In 1894 William Arnott bought a factory in Sydney, employing hundreds of workers.
When the gold rush began in 1851 the population of Victoria numbered around 80,000. Ten years later it had grown to more than 500,000. More people meant more homes and more shops. The miners’ tent cities became proper towns. They needed better roads and sewers, schools, doctors and churches.
Tens of thousands of gold hunters settled in Australia and raised families. The convict colony was transformed as gold mining towns like Ballarat, Bathurst and Bendigo prospered and cities like Melbourne and Sydney grew wealthy.
William Arnott’s biscuit factories became hugely successful. Today Arnott’s is an iconic Australian brand. Millions of Australians grow up with Arnott’s Tim Tam biscuits and Tiny Teddies, and Arnott’s products are exported around the world.
This interactive game for 8-12-year-olds lets you face the challenges of gold mining in the 1860s. Using limited financial resources, players try to select and buy the best food, shelter and equipment to carry out a successful gold mining expedition.
An online video resource from Screen Australia, the Australian Government's film and TV arm, on the gold rush in Western Australia in the 1890s.
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