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Photograph - Photograph - Reproduction, Pennyweight Flat, Unknown

  • A large barren landscape with a wooden building in the middle ground to the left and a much smaller wooden building to the right. Six men stand to the right mid-ground with shovels and pick-axes. Running along the right hand side is the high ground that drops steeply and abruptly into the flat. What appears to be a long water or tail race cuts across the picture diagonally from mid-right to top-left.

    7394 (obverse)

  • Reverse of a photographic reproduction, printed text on the bottom right (see transcript).

    7394 (reverse)

  • A large barren landscape with a wooden building in the middle ground to the left and a much smaller wooden building to the right. Six men stand to the right mid-ground with shovels and pick-axes. Running along the right hand side is the high ground that drops steeply and abruptly into the flat. What appears to be a long water or tail race cuts across the picture diagonally from mid-right to top-left.
  • Reverse of a photographic reproduction, printed text on the bottom right (see transcript).

Historical information

This reproduced photograph is of Pennyweight Flat near Beechworth, a notable area of the 1850's gold rush in Victoria. Donald Fletcher, migrating to Beechworth from Scotland in 1855, had substantial claims at Pennyweight Flat and was amongst the first in the district to utilise hydraulic sluicing and water diverting methods.The flat is said to have seen a flurry of 200 miners to the area around 1857, and by 1861 when work commenced on extending Fletcher's tail race the census recorded 644 people residing there (European males, females and Chinese).

Pennyweight Flat is also significant for the cemetery that resides on the hilltop and which noted approximately 200 burials from the gold rush period 1852-1857, known for a long period as a children's cemetery due to the number of children's graves present.

Significance

This photograph has historic and research potential for study on the gold mining of the Beechworth region, as a record of the topography of the time, and the effect the activity had on the environment and the people. The clarity of the original photo, and the good preserved condition of the reproduction, means it can continue to be used for research into Pennyweight Flat area, Donald Fletcher's water diversion and hydraulic sluicing methods, and the history of gold mining in the area.

Physical description

A black and white rectangular reproduced photograph printed on matte photographic paper.

Inscriptions & markings

Reverse:
Pennyweight Flat /
copied from the collection of /
Robert O'Hara Burke Memorial Museum, Beechworth /
(copyright) /
this photograph may not be resold, copied, displayed or republished in any way without /
the written permission of the Robert O'Hara Burke Memorial Museum, Beechworth /
A few applies for commercial use.

Subjects

References

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