Gold Education ~ School Information ~ Australian History

Old Mogo Town, Tourism theme park near Batemans Bay, south coast NSW

Australian Gold Rush History Educational Information

Old Mogo Town Group Camps
and School Excursions

Education Overview
Student Worksheets
Workshops & Facilitators
Risk Assessment & Management

On-site Accommodation
Please enquire for other needs.

Gold Rush History Student Worksheets

Previous page

Next page

Page 2 ~ Old Mogo Town Overview

This Gold Rush Theme Park was developed as a living history museum. The buildings were created, as faithfully as possible, to reflect the mining villages of the period. It allows visitors to see the conditions under which the diggers lived and worked.

The Miners Cottage was made of wattle and daub. They were built out of available materials found near the building site. The unclaimed land the settlers used was sometimes given to the inhabitant as a land grant. The government was keen to encourage settlement of the country. They were styled on European dwellings of the period. They reflected the humbleness of the times and were built for warmth and shelter rather than lifestyle as the modern house is today.

Personal debt was uncommon in those days and the lack of indebtedness allowed people to open up and develop the country. (It took years to create a profitable gold mine, a feat almost impossible in a climate of debt.) That style of building persisted until the mid 1860s when corrugated iron became available, arriving as ballast on returning sailing vessels.

Tents and Bark Gunyahs (a type of temporary shelter used by the Aborigines) were used by the diggers because these people had to always be ready to move on if the prospect that they were working on dried up. The canvas may have been purchased on the gold field from peddlers, as were most of their supplies. People arriving in Sydney Harbour would have found a proliferation of miners supply shops which would have been useful to those who arrived with money.

Paddy O'heir's gunyah typifies the primitive conditions and hard life of the digger. When Paddy first arrived in Mogo to try his luck it was to an area untouched by white settlement and was a lawless, harsh environment. He would have known what it was like to feel cold and hunger. Before he had found gold and could buy supplies from one of the trading wagons, he would have had to rely on billy tea and damper. When one considers the complications and stress of modern life, it is good to reflect on the simplicity of the 1850s. We tend to dwell on the harshness of life then. But when Paddy woke up in the morning it was to the sound of the bush and his first thought would have been of the riffle he had been working on the previous evening and how there would be a great chance of a good find when he started again. He had taken a gamble coming to Australia and for once in his life, the odds would have been on his side.

The Bellette brothers were third generation Australians, their grandfather having arrived on the first fleet.

Doc Ladmore was one of the diggers in Mogo who made the most of his chances. At one stage he presented 8 pounds of gold (just over 3 kg) and when assayed, it came in at 23.68 carats (24 carats being pure gold). It is considered the purest gold ever found. He went on to purchase a stamp battery that was used by all the small mines that could not justify a crusher of their own.

Shanties fulfilled many functions, and Mogo boasted 38 establishments, ranging from shanties to sly grog tents. An example is the reconstructed Majors Creek Hotel, the timber for which was donated by Hugh Mclaren.

Shanties were the centre of social activities during the goldrush, partly as a result of the wealth of the miners and also due to the loneliness of the men (they outnumbered women by about six to one). They completed most of their transactions using mustard gold and the publican would heavily discount the price now that the responsibility of handing over the gold, in accordance with the law, was on his shoulders.

The publicans were not averse to "shaking down" their customers and often placed mats along the front of the bar to pick up any dust inadvertently spilt. The diggers were of the belief that the gold was never going to run out and therefore were quite profligate with their wealth.

The more sophisticated shanties were often the best place to get a bath, which were said to have been refilled after every tenth bather.

Multiple choice menus would have just been a figment of the imagination when one walked into a Mogo tavern in 1855. All that would have been available was a stew, most probably called "Potluck". Stews were standard fare because the expense and shortage of food meant that nothing was wasted. The best way to present food that was well past its use by date was to put it in a large pot along with lots of salt and flavouring and give it a good cooking.

Joss Houses existed wherever the Chinese congregated. Most Joss Houses outside China were built as temples to worship Hon Sing or one of his daughters or generals. Hon Sing was the founder of the powerful and successful Ming dynasty. The expatriate Chinese saw the Ming dynasty as a symbol of strength.

Chinese Josh House of the Gold Rush Days

The inner area (heaven) was a sanctuary into which the spirits could safely descend to talk to the mortals. The roof was tilted up at the edge to deflect evil spirits and the mythical creatures were there to frighten the evil spirits away. It is believed about 7000 Chinese worked in the Araluen Goldfields.

The texts in the building read : Welcome all who enter : Temple of Hon Sing : Health, wealth and prosperity. There is a poem about the beauty of the area with a philosophical text on the virtues of doing good and evil. Hon Sing preached the three virtues of Unity, Courage and Honesty.

The Police Station is built from 100 year -old limestone bricks, manufactured locally, using lime made from oysters, scraped from the rocks. Government buildings were often strongly constructed to reflect the power of government and the security for the police, who were usually undermanned. In a relatively lawless society the Police were often powerless and were certainly unpopular in certain areas of the diggings, partly as a result of the unpopular laws they were asked to administer. Many people in the diggings considered themselves Colonials and saw much of the English law as unfair as it often favoured the landed gentry and disadvantaged the diggers. In fact some of the licensing laws were designed to force the diggers back into the paid workforce.

The Post Office in Mogo was one of the first outside the Sydney region. It opened in 1869 with George Veitch as postmaster, followed in tragic circumstances by his widow, then Frederick Ladmore whom she married. They were followed by her son James Veitch, who held the position for many years.

Sending a letter was a big event in 1869. The penny post (approximately $2.20 in our currency today) was still no guarantee of delivery. Horseback mail was carried to Moruya 10 miles away and Bodalla.

The post office at "The Gulph" (Nerrigundah) a tributary stream of the Tuross near Bodalla and 25 miles South of Moruya was set up in 1861, and only delivered horseback mail twice a week to Bodalla.

The bush telegraph was often times more effective than the Morse Code which was used for urgent telegrams.

Receipt of a telegram was of grave concern, since it was usually reserved for bad news.

(At the Post Office if you were to lean across and tap gently three short taps, three long taps, three short taps. It would read SOS. This is the universally recognised emergency signal that, some say, represents "Save Our Souls")

The Barbers Shop, Apothecary and Undertaker were typical of the businesses of many traders in the mining areas. They sprang up to fill a need in wealthy communities. People sold meat, vegetables, water, mining supplies and other commodities out of the back of a wagon. Some very large trading companies (e.g. Myers ) had their origins in the gold rush.

Death mask from the coffin in the barber shop

Barber shops were usually indicated by a barber's pole, often just a verandah support, painted in the traditional colours of red and white spiralling. The colours represented blood and bandages. The barber often filled the role of both doctor and surgeon in areas where a doctor was not available. Sometimes a doctor would only visit on a weekly or a fortnightly basis.

It was quite normal for the barber to dispense drugs as an Apothecary. In this era, laudanum (a mixture of opium and alcohol) was most commonly used as a painkiller. It seems then quite logical, in the natural scheme of things, that the hairdresser should also be the undertaker.

Churches started to spring up in the gold towns as early as the 1860s along with other recreational buildings. This reflected the wealth of the communities and the optimism for the future of their towns. Sadly many such buildings now stand derelict in isolated areas that were once thriving communities.

The Mine has been recreated to allow visitors to view a mineshaft in safety. It also allows visitors to "feel" what it would be like to be underground. Miners spent up to ten long hours working hard on the end of a pick, in such conditions.

Most mines in the Mogo area were shaft and drive mines. The "colour", (gold traces), was followed, usually to the top of a ridge where the top of the gold bearing quartz reef could be found. From there a shaft was sunk. While it was being dug, samples were constantly monitored to assess whether it was worth continuing. Eventually, when the shaft was deep enough, a horizontal drive was brought in to meet it. As the mine was worked, shafts were important for ventilation.

The formwork in this mine is made of ironbark and inside is an array of old mining tools and lamps.

One of the things most difficult to comprehend about the early gold mining period was that the massive amount of hard rock dug by miners, was done using little more than a variety of picks and cold chisels.

Poppet heads sit over shafts and are used to winch ore from below. In less hilly areas, shafts are the only entrances into the mines and therefore the only way to get ore out. Draught horses and steam engines were the most common means of lifting the heavy buckets out of the shafts.

Mogo in the 1880s would have consisted of a series of small settlements wherever the mines were being worked. These small work camps had no luxuries and were much the same as conditions experienced by timber getters.

Previous page

To top

Next page

Australian East Coast Tourism Website