Australian gold rushes a £1,000 reward as "the first actual producer of alluvial gold for the market". The following goldfields were discovered in New South Wales during July 1851: On 20 July 1851 gold was found near present-day Castlemaine, Victoria (Mt Alexander Goldfields) at Specimen Gully in today's Castlemaine suburb of Barkers Creek. The gold was first found by Christopher Thomas Peters, a shepherd and hut-keeper on the Barker's Creek, in the service of William Barker. When the gold was shown in the men's quarters Peters was ridiculed for finding fool's gold, and the gold was thrown away. Barker did not want his
Women in the California Gold Rush Women in the California Gold Rush Women in the California Gold Rush, which began in Northern California in 1848, initially included Spanish descendants, or Californios, who already lived in California, Native American women, and rapidly arriving immigrant women from all over the world. At first, the numbers of immigrant women were scarce, but they contributed to their community nonetheless. Some of the first people in the mining fields were wives and families who were already in California. A few settler women and kids and the few men who didn't leave their family worked right alongside the men but most men