The discovery of gold in 1851 marked the beginning of Australia’s gold rushes. Migrants from all over the world brought new skills and professions, changing convict colonies into progressive cities.

Within a year more than 8,000 miners arrived at the goldfields in Beechworth, including people from the Sze Yap, Sam Yap and Chungshan regions in southern China. Many were employed by sluicing companies while others worked their own small claims.

The gold rushes brought more than 600,000 immigrants to Australia between 1851 and 1860. Immigration increased because of a thriving economy. However, not everyone who migrated to Australia came for the search of gold. European explorers made their way across the continent in the 1860s, opening up land for pastoral and agricultural industries. However, in doing so, they hastened Indigenous dispossession and environmental change.

Cameleers

This image of camel drivers comes from the Library’s collection of John Flynn OBE. From the mid-1800s until the late 1920s teams of Muslim and Sikh cameleers from the arid hills and plains of Afghanistan and British India were brought to Australia. They were thought to be the most reliable method of transporting goods through the arid regions of outback Australia.