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stirrups which a bushman ordered a goldsmith to make for him about six weeks ago; and for the
costly velvet mantillas and delicate French bonnets which brawny women have clothed
themselves with, over their dirty gowns, that they might tramp up and down the chief street in
heavy walking boots, and attract notice as female representatives of "the new aristocracy."
'You would hardly imagine the social and commercial convulsion which has ensued on this gold
finding. The neighbouring colonies of South Australia and Tasmania have been almost entirely
depopulated as regards the labouring classes. Land and houses in Adelaide have at present only
a nominal value; the colony is on the verge of ruin. Burra Burra shares are fallen from £250 to
£30 in consequence of the miners having let. In Tasmania all the free servants have left their
places. A gentleman there whom I well know, has been deserted by his five menservants. His
eldest daughter is acting as cook, his second as housemaid. In Melbourne matters are as bad.
¦Although a population is pouring in at the rate of 3,000 to 4,000 a week, there is no available
labour, all being at the diggings, where about 20,000 are now congregated. Flour is very cheap,
about £12 to £15 a ton, and yet the quarter loaf is 1s 4d merely from the want of bakers. Sheep
are selling 4s to 6s
each, and yet mutton is retailed at 4d a pound, from the lack of butchers. Milk is selling at 1s a
quart; boots at £3 a pair; water 5s a load; wood £2 the load, instead of 8s 6d; whilst at the
present time they are charging 30s for shoeing a horse. House rents too are rising enormously.
Thus these gold-fields are inflicting great injury on persons of limited income. Many government
clerks and professional men have assured me that they cannot pay their way at the present high
price of neccessaries.
'At this moment there are assembled at the mines a very lawless set of persons, some of whom
have already organized themselves into gangs of banditti and infest the roads leading to the
diggings; and not only that, but I am sorry to find that the new monied class look upon the better
educated people, their late employers, with a certain malignant feeling, which in time to come
may not confine itself to words. I have heard of a labouring man saying to a squatter, the
magistrate of the district, in siang terms; "You have flashed it long enough, it is our turn now!
We'll see if we can't smash you swells before long!" And this feeling is by no means uncommon.'
The Rev JD Mereweather endured in Australia for another year, returning to England in 1853,
after a stint in Sydney. He travelled by way of Java, Singapore, India, Ceylon and Egypt. He
arrived in Southampton early in 1854. Nothing is known of his whereabouts after this except
that he was a chaplain in Venice in 1884, some 40 years ater being ordained as a priest. Not
much of an advancement. But his diaries have preserved his name and provided us with an
invaluable account of the voyage he made to Australia with the Honeycombes, and of the
emergent nation.
When the Rev Mereweather was back in Melbourne in February 1852 and feeling far from
well, it seems likely that William Honeycombe joined the fortune-seekers in the gold-fields.
He may have taken his second wife and four children with him - not unlikely, as his daughter,
Elizabeth, would marry a gold-miner before very long, and his youngest son, John, would be a
gold-miner all his adult life. Perhaps they all decamped from Melbourne to Mt Alexander (which
was the old name for Castlemaine), a very productive gold-field between Bendigo and Ballarat.
We know that Henry Honeycombe was at Mt Alexander for some time in 1852, as in a list of
unclaimed letters for that year, one was addressed in May to Henry at Mt Alexander; another
was addressed to William at Melbourne the month before.
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