The Gold Rush - a population boom

The Western Australian gold rush was just one of many gold rushes that had sparked excitement around the world. Since the New South Wales and Victorian rushes of the 1850s, during which Melbourne was estimated to be the richest city in the world, there had been gold rushes in San Francisco, the Yukon in Canada, South Africa and Queensland. There were even some people who became global travellers, adventuring from one gold rush to the next in hope of finding their fortune.

The Western Australian colonial government, had seen the dramatic changes caused by gold rushes in other places, and they knew there was a good chance gold could also be found on the western end of the continent; they just had to discover it. From the 1870s, there was a public reward of 5,000 pounds for anyone who could find it. After a few discoveries of gold that fizzled, eventually gold rushes started from the mid-1880s: Halls Creek, Southern Cross, Cue, Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie.

Unlike the eastern gold rushes which had seen immigrants from many parts of the world arrive, particularly from China and British colonies, the WA gold rush brought mainly people from the eastern colonies (“T'othersiders”). The population doubled from 50,000 to 100,000 between 1891 and 1895, and by 1901 it was over 184,000.