And what of the original stampeders? Few of the world’s adventurers
have been more suitably rewarded than was Edward Hammond Hargraves,
officially recognized as the discoverer of gold in Australia. He
gained wealth, a good position and a title, wore showy uniforms and
became a public functionary, surrounded by an army of satellites. He
received the appointment of Commissioner of Crown Lands. The British
Government bestowed upon him a gift of fifty thousand dollars. The
Government of Victoria a gift of twenty-five thousand dollars. New
South Wales gave him a life pension of two thousand five hundred
dollars per annum. Hargraves became a great man.
Of the others, Thomas Hiscock, who discovered Ballarat, died before
he enjoyed much material reward. Harry Frenchman, discoverer of
Golden Gully at Bendigo, became a wealthy woolman. Fortescue, the
brilliant emancipist attorney, tossed away a fortune in the cause of
his oppressed brethren in Ireland, but died poor. Marshal owned
race-horses, envied alike by English peers and South African
magnates. Nat Bayley and Charles Ford, the pair who later found gold
in Western Australia, retired with great wealth.
The Australian gold rush must be reckoned among the world’s great
stampedes, one which yielded huge prizes to the few and good prizes
for nearly all who had the high courage and cool foresight to take a
chance.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the June 5, 1921 issue
of The Frontier magazine.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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