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Events/Rush · 1861

Otago gold rush

Rush, from May 1861, New Zealand.

What happened

Gabriel Read found gold in Gabriels Gully on 25 May 1861. The Department of Conservation calls it New Zealand's first major gold rush. Dunedin's population jumped and Otago became the wealthiest province.1,2

Why it matters

It financed the early growth of Dunedin and the colony.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.6,7

  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.8,9

  6. Alluvial gold found at Pilgrim's Rest

    It began the gold rush in the eastern Transvaal.10,11

  7. Ernest Oppenheimer born

    Ernest Oppenheimer born (date from Wikidata).12

  8. Gold found on the Witwatersrand

    It created the largest gold field known and Johannesburg.13,14

Open the full timeline

Where next

People

Discovered byGabriel ReadA prospector and farmer whose find emptied Victoria's diggings.15

Mines

Located inGabriel's GullyGabriel Read found gold in Gabriels Gully on 25 May 1861.1

Places

Came out ofArrowtownArrowtown sits in Otago, where Gabriel Read's find began a rush in 1861.1

Sources

  1. History of Gabriels Gully NZ Department of Conservation
  2. Gabriel's Gully (item Q5515501), 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. Australian Mineral Facts: Gold Geoscience Australia
  7. Ballarat (item Q17856), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  8. Peabody A., Early voyages to California (treasure shipped from San Francisco 1854-1869) Library of Congress (Essex Institute Historical Collections)
  9. Wikidata item Q62 (San Francisco)
  10. Mpumalanga South African History Online
  11. Pilgrim's Rest (item Q2992348), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  12. Wikidata item Q819374 (Ernest Oppenheimer)
  13. Discovery of the Gold in 1884 South African History Online
  14. Johannesburg (item Q34647), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  15. Wikidata item Q2424105

Pictures on this page: Thomas Gabriel Read.jpg, not known, image edited (Public domain).

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. Pictures: Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Mijnramp Bois du Caizier, Marcinelle, België. Schacht, Rossem, Wim van / Anefo / Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).