Diggers & Mining. Gold. ? Chinese quarter on an Ovens diggings. Slide shows the Chinese quarters which is a different style building to all others. There are also some Chinese caring buckets in the traditional Chinese manner. Markings: 2 994.GOL. Used as a teaching aid.hanimounteducation, tertiary, goldfields

Diggers & Mining. The gold licence. The Government Camp. As well as government escorts, there were a few private gold escort companies operating in the early 1850s. One of them carried gold from the Ovens diggings to Sydney. In 1852, the South Australian government established a gold escort service between Mount Alexander and Adelaide. Why? Markings: 25 994.LIF. 4. Used as a teaching aid.hanimounteducation, tertiary, goldfields

Taken in Beechworth, this photograph depicts the business of Camp Street looking towards the Ovens and Murray Benevolent Asylum. In the foreground of right hand side; there are row of buildings, on the left hand side; there are a two standing figures. The Ovens Benevolent Asylum (or the Ovens and Murray Hospital for the Aged) was constructed in 1862 on an elevated site overlooking the township of Beechworth. This Asylum was built in response to boom in population due to the discovery of Gold in Beechworth in 1852. This period also saw the development of additional administration buildings such as; the Court house, the Town Hall, and offices. The original Benevolent Asylum building was designed in an unusual Flemish Gothic Revival style. The single storey building is of red brick on a dressed granite base, and the main facade is dominated by four curved, Flemish gable ends, those at the extremities being added to the original central section in 1867. This facade incorporates paired windows of pointed Gothic form and dark brick diaperwork patterning. The adjacent J. A. Wallace Wing of 1899 was designed by Donald Fiddes as a separate building. Also constructed of red brick, Fiddes adopted a conservative approach, designing a simple domestic scale building with central projecting gable porch and flanking bull nosed verandahs. The Benevolent Asylum was renamed the Ovens Benevolent Home in 1935 and The Ovens and Murray Home in 1954. Many buildings have been added to this site, particularly since the 1960s, including a poorly sited addition to the front of the original building. Extensive internal renovations have also been made to the original buildings. [https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/118]The Ovens and Murray Hospital for the Aged is of architectural significance as an unusual example of Flemish influenced design from the 1860s. Although the facade has been partly obscured, it remains intact, and, together with the more simply designed Wallace wing, are important examples of early buildings designed for the specific purpose of aged care. The Flemish gables remain as a dominant form of Beechworth's urban landscape. The Ovens and Murray Hospital for the Aged is of historical significance due to its association with the early development of Beechworth and its dominant siting within the town. It is illustrative of the civic development that took place in the town after the peak of the gold rush, when Beechworth was develpoing as the administrative centre of the north east of Victoria. [https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/118]Black and white rectangular photograph. Image is printed on matte photographic paper. Obverse: BOOT SHOE STORE Reverse: 7770.2 / 1997.3099beechworth, burke museum, diggings, camp street, the benevolent asylum, ovens benevolent hom, gold rush

This photograph is a copy displayed in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The original photograph is in the La Trobe Collection in the State Library of Victoria. William Henry Gaunt (1830-1905), judge, was born on 27 July 1830 at Leek, Staffordshire, England, son of John Gaunt, banker, and his wife Mary, née Bakewell. Educated at Leek Grammar School and Whitchurch, Salop, he migrated to Melbourne, and entered the Victorian public service and was rapidly promoted. By March 1854 he was chief clerk at Beechworth, the administrative centre of the Ovens goldfield. In July 1855 the resident warden commended Gaunt as 'a highly valuable public servant' with an intimate knowledge of the district and the 'temper and disposition of the miners'. Appointed sub-warden in the Beechworth district in January 1856 and a Chinese protector in August, he was given control of the extensive Woolshed district. When European miners attacked a party of Chinese at the Buckland River diggings in May 1857 Gaunt was sent to restore order. One of his proclamations, issued in Chinese characters, concluded 'W. H. Gaunt, your protector—tremble and obey!' In June he was appointed a police magistrate and next month was sent to take charge at the Buckland where the Chinese had been expelled from the diggings; the police force assisting him was led by Robert O'Hara Burke. In January 1858 Gaunt was appointed a warden, in November was transferred to Chiltern, north of Beechworth, and in August 1859 was made a commissioner of crown lands. In February 1860 Gaunt was appointed a coroner of Victoria, acting at Indigo, near Chiltern. In April 1865 he was transferred to Beechworth, became visiting justice of the gaol and later moved to Sandhurst. In January 1869 he was appointed returning officer for the mining district of Ballarat and visiting justice of the gaol. He was associated with this area for the rest of his life and won high repute for his integrity. In 1874 he chaired the inaugural meeting of the first Australian competitive swimming club. For years he studied law and was called to the Bar in December 1873. He was one of the many public servants dismissed by Graham Berry on 9 January 1878 (Black Wednesday). After petitioning the Queen in vain over his dismissal he began practice in Ballarat as a barrister. He soon became a leading authority on mining laws; one of the cases in which he was involved was the lengthy inquest on the bodies of the twenty-two miners drowned in the New Australasian mine disaster at Creswick in 1882. He was appointed a temporary judge of the Insolvency Court in 1889 and a County Court judge in 1891. In 1900 he was chairman of the royal commission which considered Metropolitan Board of Works matters, and in 1902 was president of the inquiry into the unification of municipalities in Victoria. In 1860 Gaunt married Elizabeth Mary, the youngest daughter of Frederick Palmer; they had nine children. Of the surviving five sons and two daughters, Ernest Frederick Augustus and Guy Reginald Archer both became admirals and were knighted; Cecil Robert became a lieutenant-colonel, Clive Herbert a government advocate in Rangoon and Mary (Mrs H. L. Miller) one of the first women students to enrol at the University of Melbourne (1881), although she did not complete her degree; she became a successful novelist. Gaunt died on 5 October 1905. An anonymous colleague said: 'I don't think he was ever excelled as a police magistrate, and during the many years he was on the County Court bench he earned the highest regard. His capacities were as unquestioned as his integrity, and more could not be said of any judge'. Select Bibliography Votes and Proceedings (Legislative Assembly, Victoria), 1878, 3, (58) Government Gazette (Victoria), 22 Feb, 15 Aug 1856, 30 June 1857, 5 Jan 1858, 16 Aug 1859, 3 Feb 1860, 7 Mar, 11 Oct 1862, 28 Mar, 4 Apr 1865, 17 May 1867, 9 June 1868, 22, 29 Jan 1869 Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 21 May 1857, 11 Mar 1865 Colonial Secretary's in-letters, goldfields, 25 Mar 1854, 21 July, 18 Nov 1855, 22 Aug 1857 (Public Record Office Victoria) scrapbook and newsclippings (privately held). Related Entries in NCB Sitesview family tree Gaunt, Mary Eliza (daughter)go to ADB entryPhotograph of Judge W. H. Gaunt standing beside chair holding top hat and cane, under glass, in cream frame with cream matte.Printed name underneath: JUDGE W. H. GAUNT

Diggers & Mining. The Digging - The Diggers. Slide depicts: Murrey River, Kiewa River, Ovens River, King River. The Ovens Field consisted of widely separated diggings, discovered and worked at intervals during the gold rush. Markings: 23 994.LIF:6. Used as a teaching aid.hanimounteducation, tertiary, goldfields