A rare taste of goldfields life in 1855 miner's diary

By Angela Carey
Updated November 2 2012 - 11:59am, first published June 25 2009 - 2:58pm
A MINER'S LIFE: Sovereign Hill's Mark Burnett takes a look at the 1855 diary which will go on show at the Gold Museum.
A MINER'S LIFE: Sovereign Hill's Mark Burnett takes a look at the 1855 diary which will go on show at the Gold Museum.

A RARE 1855 diary written by a miner on the Ballarat goldfields will go on display at the Gold Museum later this month.The State Library of Victoria purchased the diary this month from a Melbourne antiquarian bookseller for a price believed to be around $50,000.The diary had been on loan to the library until it could raise sufficient funds to buy it.SLV Foundation executive Michael van Leeuwen said donations from the public, as well as from Lihir Gold, Newcrest Mining and Rio Tinto had made the purchase possible."It is a fascinating diary," he said."It gives a clear picture of the sheer backbreaking slog that was involved in mining at the time _ people dying, falling down shafts, breaking bones. It was very dangerous work."The 223-page diary was written over a six-month period from July to December, 1855.In it, the digger recounts the murder of a local butcher, the arrival of new prostitutes to town, a fire in Ballarat that killed 11 people and the escape of a Bengal tiger that forced Main Road to close.Sovereign Hill deputy CEO Tim Sullivan said it was the author's description of "ordinary life" that made the diary so fascinating."What's really nice is the level of detail about the ordinary aspects of life in what must have been a marvellous adventure," he said.The author's name remains a mystery, though there are clues as to his identity."We know he was Scottish and he was obviously educated, given the nature of the entries in the diary," Mr van Leeuwen said.The man mentions sending a letter and "3 months of my log" back to Scotland. It is possible that previous logs recorded the events of Eureka.The possible existence of other diaries has sparked interest in Scotland, where a local council has offered a reward for information."I will provide a reward to any relatives who can identify this man or anyone finds one of his sought-after diaries," West Dunbartonshire Council Provost (mayor) Denis Agnew told Scotland's Sunday Herald.

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