Victoria Gold Rush Australia HELP (:?

Question

what the initial impact of the discovery of gold was on the people who lived in Victoria and on the city of Melbourne

thank you ::):):)

Answer 1

The discovery that changed a nation -

In 1851, Edward Hargraves discovered a 'grain of gold' in a waterhole near Bathurst.

Gold frenzy -

The Victorian authorities, eager to prevent its population from joining the gold frenzy in NSW, offered a reward of £200 for any gold found within 200 miles of Melbourne. In 1851, six months after the New South Wales find, gold was discovered at Ballarat, and a short time later at Bendigo Creek.

Gold fever hit Victoria following the early gold discoveries in and around Clunes, Warrandyte and Ballarat.

An eager digging population was attracted from Melbourne and the neighbouring colonies of NSW, South Australia and Tasmania.

Population boom -

By the end of 1852, there were 90,000 newcomers who had flocked to Victoria in search of gold. Within a decade the population of Australia had trebled, and from the 1850s to the 1880s the bulk of Victoria’s swelling population resided in the interior of the colony where most mining activity took place, rather than in Melbourne or on the coast. Provincial cities like Ballarat and Bendigo grew and large-scale and sophisticated inland infrastructure was developed – railways, roads and active government outposts, as well as libraries, theatres, art galleries, and stock exchanges.

'Marvellous Melbourne' is born -

A building boom soon followed the rush of riches, and lavish houses began appearing on the streets of hitherto quiet pastoral towns. In the 1850s the heaviest traffic in Australia was on the road from Melbourne to Bendigo, and by the 1880s, Melbourne was christened ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ – one of the world’s biggest, booming, and cosmopolitan cities of the era.