Victorian gold rush in the Melbourne "Argus" on 8 September 1851, leading to a rush to the Mount Alexander or Forest Creek diggings, centred on present-day Castlemaine, claimed as the richest shallow alluvial goldfield in the world. These discoveries were soon surpassed by Ballarat and Bendigo. Further discoveries including Beechworth in 1852, Bright, Omeo, Chiltern (1858–59) and Walhalla followed. The population of Melbourne grew swiftly as the gold fever took hold. The total number of people in Victoria also rose. By 1851 it was 75,000 people. Ten years later this rose to over 500,000. Surface alluvial gold was the first to be exploited.
Australian gold rushes dinner, Frencham and his partner Robert Atkinson, with Trooper Synott as an escort, delivered 30 lbs (13.6 Kgs) of gold that they had mined to Assistant Commissioner Charles J.P. Lydiard at Forest Creek (Castlemaine), the first gold received from Bendigo. Gold was found at Omeo in late 1851 and gold mining continued in the area for many years. Due to the inaccessibility of the area there was only a small Omeo gold rush. Woods Almanac, 1857, states that gold was possibly found at Fingal (near Mangana) in 1851 by the "Old Major" who steadily worked at a gully for two