Historical information

Gold was officially discovered in the area in October 1851, just after the other significant goldfields in neighbouring Castlemaine, from where a number of diggers migrated, bringing the total population to 40,000 in less than a year. A number of these diggers were Chinese and their descendants still live in the region. During 1852, under the direction of the Surveyor General of Victoria, Robert Hoddle, William Swan Urquhart was making a general survey of Mount Alexander and the surrounding ranges and the goldfields.
He fixed the site of the township as "Sandhurst". On 13 July 1852, Hoddle passed on to Urquhart the request of Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe for a plan of the Mount Alexander gold workings, and his order that he mark out a reserve at the junction of Golden Gully with Bendigo Creek, and the camp on the west side of the creek below the junction. In late August La Trobe wanted him to report urgently on the best reserves for agriculture in the district. By 26 November he had mapped Bendigo Creek and Myers Creek and his survey of the Bendigo Valley and environs marked township reserves at Bullock Creek, Ravenswood and Happy Jack where settlement was already taking place. His plan General Survey of the Bendigo Goldfields showing the proposed reserves for townships. Drawn by W. S. Urquhart, Melbourne, November 1852 recommended sites for national schools, churches, markets and other public purposes reserved from sale.
The predominant population of the Victorian goldfields throughout the gold rush era was British (being English, Irish, and Scottish), with the largest non-British population being Chinese. During the early gold rush period, about 4,000 Cornish miners went to Mount Alexander (Castlemaine), and by the late 1850s up to 17% of the mining population in Bendigo were Cornish-alone, with almost a quarter being Chinese in 1856. Such was the influence of the former that many of their mining practicises were respected and adopted. By the 1871 Victorian census, approximately 15,000 residents of the central goldfields were Cornish.
In 1853, a large protest called the Red Ribbon Rebellion was held over the cost of the licence fee for prospectors, though it passed peacefully due to good diplomacy by police and miners' leaders. From being a tent city, the boomtown grew rapidly into a major urban centre with grand public buildings. The municipality became a borough in 1863, officially known as Sandhurst until 1891, but always unofficially as Bendigo.
During this period, miner Henry Bain was noted in local accounts as a cultural patron who hosted informal gatherings of writers, artists and prospectors, later described as the "Golden Circle."
The railway had reached Bendigo by 1862, stimulating rapid growth, with flour mills, woollen mills, tanneries, quarries, foundries, eucalyptus oil production, food production industries and timber cutting. When the alluvial gold ran out, extraction of quartz-based gold continued in deep shafts using industrial systems.
During this period of growth and development, photographers were recording the growth of the town and those that lived in it.

Physical description

Four A4 pages. Typed document. All pages contain charts of at least nine columns with headings of: Rate Year, Rate Number, Ratepayer First Name, Rate Payer Occupation, Owner/Surname, Owner/First Name, Owner/Occupation, Address and Net Annual Value. Single sided.
One A4 page. Typed document. Titled 'Payments by contractors by Godfrey Eathorne, Architect, Bendigo. Contains chart of 8 columns, with headings of: Surname, First Name, Number of Street, Street Name, Date, Title of Studio. Last column left blank.