1851 in Australia 1851 in Australia 1851 in Australia was a watershed year. It saw the start of the Australian gold rushes with significant gold discoveries in both New South Wales (near Bathurst) in February and Victoria in July. As a result of the Gold Rushes, the European population of Victoria increased from 97,489 in 1851 to 538,628 in 1861 and the population of NSW increased from 197,265 in 1851 to 350,860 in 1861. Victoria became a self-governing colony. Sentiment in the eastern Australian colonies moved decisively against penal transportation leading to the end of transportation to Tasmania in 1853. Melbourne's major suburb/satellite
Gold rush of extremely liberal land laws to take up farming. Gold rushes happened at or around: In New Zealand the Central Otago Gold Rush from 1861 attracted prospectors from the California Gold Rush and the Victorian Gold Rush and many moved on to the West Coast Gold Rush from 1864. The first significant gold rush in the United States was in Cabarrus County, North Carolina (east of Charlotte), in 1799 at today's Reed's Gold Mine. Thirty years later, in 1829, the Georgia Gold Rush in the southern Appalachians occurred. It was followed by the California Gold Rush of 1848–55 in the