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Henry may not have been gold-mining at Mt Alexander - his skills as a stonemason could have
been employed in the construction of the new town. But seemingly he and his father were away
from Melbourne for several weeks, if not months. Both letters were in due course collected, for
they do not appear again in the list.
Were they sent by Jane and Richard? Were they written at Christmas 1851 in response to
William's announcement of his second marriage? Was Richard's full of questions about gold and
job opportunities? One would dearly like to know. Any nugget of family news would be
invaluable now, and any letter a golden mine of information and fact.
Life on these gold-fields was a basic round of hard labour, simple meals and sweaty sleep,
mosquitoes, flies, short tempers, thirst and shortages, burning sun or drenching rain. The men
worked six full days every week from dawn to dusk, with a rest on Sunday. But, as Geoffrey
Blainey writes in The Blainey View: 'Every digger had a chance. Here, far more than in
California, the gold-fields were sub-divided into tiny claims or lots, and on some fields
thousands of diggers shared the shallow gold. The simplest equipment was needed to dig the
holes and extract the gold... A rich natural resource was made available to everybody - old
colonist or new chum, labourer or gentleman, scholar or illiterate.'
Manning Clark, in A Short History of Australia says: 'Those who were well-equipped, who
worked hard for three or four months and who put up with the hardships were often very
successful. The men of brawn and muscle succeeded, while the educated and refined
succumbed before the ordeal... By December (1851) large numbers had discovered the life of
the digger was not for them and had drifted back to their positions... More and more the
diggings attracted the adventurers... By January of 1852 enough men had returned to
accomplish the season's shearing and by March there were enough men to bring in the harvest'
Thousands still came and went, however, on the gold-fields, their numbers swelled by fortune-
hunters arriving in Melbourne from around the world, including the first of many from China. In
1852, 42 ships arrived in Victoria with some 15,500 people on board, 5,000 of whom were
children.
On one, the Kent, was William Howitt, who described how the pilot was mobbed when he
came on board. 'A hundred questions are put to him at once. "What of the diggings? Do they
keep up? Is there plenty of gold? Are they likely to last? Do people really make fortunes in a
few weeks? How are the holes? Can we get easily up the country?" etc, etc... The news oozed
out rapidly... Abundance of gold - new diggings discovered - High market price of gold -
Wonderful instances of good luckl Hurrah followed upon hurrah. Then came inquiries about the
price of provisions; of freight; of carriage; of horses and bullocks.'
These prices were a shock. Horses, costing £10 to £15 before the immigrants left England,
were now selling at £70 to £100. Pairs of bullocks, once £5, now sold at £40. The carrying of
freight from ship to shore now cost £3 a ton, and the price of lodgings had soared. Some
passengers had hardly enough money to get themselves, their families and luggage taken ashore,
and a shanty town of tents and shelters multiplied by the beach.
The new Governor of Victoria, Charles La Trobe, remarked in October 'It is evident that
amongst the newcomers not one in ten is prepared to encounter the crush and labour of the gold
fields, and that the great majority are probably totally unfitted and unsuited by previous habits,
occupation or temperament to surmount the difficulties which must beset them.'
William Honeycombe was not like them. He had been in Melbourne for over a year. He had
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