Australian gold rushes The specimens have been subjected to the most rigid test by Mr Patterson, in the presence of other competent parties, and he pronounced them to be beyond any possibility of doubt pure gold...The particulars of the precise location, with Esmond's consent, was published in the "Geelong Advertiser" on 22 July 1851. Publication of Esmond's find started the first official gold rush in Victoria in that same month. By 1 August between 300 and 400 diggers were encamped on the Clunes Goldfield, but soon moved to other fields as news of other gold discoveries spread. Esmond was in 1854 to receive
Queen Charlottes Gold Rush Office, which in 1853 appointed Vancouver Island Governor James Douglas as governor of a new Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Colonial status arrived, however, long after the rush was over. The Queen Charlotte Colony, which effectively existed on paper only since the governor's power was barely exercised in the archipelago, was quietly absorbed into the Colony of British Columbia in 1863. Queen Charlottes Gold Rush The Queen Charlottes Gold Rush was a gold rush in the southern Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) of what is now the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, in 1851. The rush was touched