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
Klondike Gold Rush Wild", a novel about a sled dog. His colleague, poet Robert W. Service, did not join the rush himself, although he made his home in Dawson City in 1908. Service created well-known poems about the gold rush, among them "Songs of a Sourdough", one of the bestselling books of poetry in the first decade of the 20th century, along with his novel, "The Trail of '98", which was written by hand on wallpaper in one of Dawson's log cabins. The Canadian historian Pierre Berton grew up in Dawson where his father had been a prospector, and wrote several historical books