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Events/Record · 1858

Welcome Nugget found at Ballarat

Record, 1858-06-09, Australia.

What happened

Twenty-two Cornish miners of the Red Hill Mining Company found the 68.98 kg Welcome Nugget at Bakery Hill, Ballarat, about 55 metres underground. Geoscience Australia calls it the second largest gold nugget ever found.1,2

Why it matters

It shows how rich the Victorian deep leads were.1,2

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Paddy Hannan born

    Paddy Hannan born (date from Wikidata).3

  2. Victorian gold rush begins

    Victorian gold rush begins.4

  3. Steamer Winfield Scott leaves San Francisco with US$1 million in gold

    The Pacific Mail steamer sank off Anacapa Island the next night.5

  4. Welcome Nugget found at Ballarat

    It shows how rich the Victorian deep leads were.1,2

  5. San Francisco ships US$724 million of treasure in 16 years

    Eastern ports took US$462 million, England US$168 million and China US$68 million.6,7

  6. Alluvial gold found at Pilgrim's Rest

    It began the gold rush in the eastern Transvaal.8,9

  7. Ernest Oppenheimer born

    Ernest Oppenheimer born (date from Wikidata).10

  8. Gold found on the Witwatersrand

    It created the largest gold field known and Johannesburg.11,12

Open the full timeline

Where next

Mines

Located inBallarat goldfieldSee the mine at the heart of this story: Ballarat goldfield.1

Events

Led toWelcome Stranger nugget foundThe Welcome Nugget is the second largest on record. The largest was found in 1869.1Came out ofVictorian gold rushTwenty-two Cornish miners found the 68.98 kg Welcome Nugget about 55 metres down.1

Places

Located inBallaratSee the place where this happened: Ballarat.1

Sources

  1. Australian Mineral Facts: Gold Geoscience Australia
  2. Ballarat (item Q17856), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  3. Wikidata item Q2057649 (Paddy Hannan)
  4. Wikidata item Q2096366 (Victorian gold rush begins)
  5. Shipwrecks: The Winfield Scott US National Park Service, Channel Islands
  6. Peabody A., Early voyages to California (treasure shipped from San Francisco 1854-1869) Library of Congress (Essex Institute Historical Collections)
  7. Wikidata item Q62 (San Francisco)
  8. Mpumalanga South African History Online
  9. Pilgrim's Rest (item Q2992348), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  10. Wikidata item Q819374 (Ernest Oppenheimer)
  11. Discovery of the Gold in 1884 South African History Online
  12. Johannesburg (item Q34647), coordinate location P625 Wikidata

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0.