The Perth Mint Starts Making Currency: The gold rush era

GREG COOKE:

Our Western Australian gold rushes really started in about 1885 in Halls Creek with the discovery of gold, which kind of started the first gold rush in Western Australia. Now we've had several gold rushes in the years to follow that, there were gold rushes in the Kimberley, the Yilgarn, the Murchison, Koolargdie and Calgoorlie. Koolargdie is probably the one we know the most about because it really triggered the population explosion in Western Australia. After Bailey and William Ford, two prospectors from the eastern states, they journeyed across and were lucky enough to stumble across a really large nugget. And that started the gold rush. We had about 40,000 people in Western Australia back in 1892, when they found the gold. In a year, the population doubled. Two years later, the population doubled again, all because of that one piece of gold. And that's the reason really that the Perth Mint came into existence, to process all the gold that was coming from the gold fields of Western Australia.

The discovery of gold in Western Australia did bring many thousands of people to this state from the eastern states, and also many of them from overseas. Now, a lot of them landed in Perth, or Fremantle as it was, maybe Albany as well, and then journey to the gold fields. Now there was no rail line, there was no recognised road, so transportation was very difficult. A lot of them built their own wheelbarrows out of wood, even with a wooden wheel and off, they would set, a six week journey into the gold fields. Now, water was in short supply, so they had to pack their own water. They had to pack their shovels, their food, their equipment. And in some cases it weighed more than the men itself. Later on, they took bicycles and then some of them had Cameleers come in and they would take camels to take the freight up into the gold fields area. Now, it's a very, very harsh environment. In fact, I read the other day where water was fetching five shillings a gallon when gold itself was a only three pounds 17 and six an ounce. So you'd be better off to find a well than you would be to find a gold mine. In terms of the prospectors, fewer than 10 per cent had any success.