Housing the Diggers

Home and Housing on the Goldfields, 1857- 1915

By Dr Charles Fahey. La Trobe University

The discovery of gold in Victoria created instant cities as thousands of migrants moved to inland gold discoveries. During the alluvial phase of mining most diggers lived in tents and rough bush houses. Company mining encouraged more lasting housing and the solution was the construction of cheap weatherboard housing on Crown land – the miner’s residence area. The successful gold reefers and local businessmen also built more substantial housing. This talk will examine the way the gold cities housed their residents in the years of company mining looking at both the grand villa and the humble miner’s cottage.

Dr Charles Fahey is Emeritus Associate Professor in History at La Trobe University. He recently published (with Richard Broome, Andrea Gaynor and Katie Holmes) Mallee Country: Land, People, History (Monash Publications, 2020). In 2019 the Victorian Historical Journal published his micro-history of the Victoria Hill district. With Amanda Jean, Charles has been researching housing in nineteenth century Bendigo.

ZOOM:  https://latrobe.zoom.us/j/ 92995205851

La Trobe University event with Bendigo Regional Archives Centre and Goldfields Library