Life on the Gold Fields

By Michael McGhie and Caitlin Ladic

Contents

Their housingDifferent work done by men, women and

childrenDress TransportFood and WaterLeisure activities Education

The Houses they Lived in

• Most people at the Australian Gold Fields lived in tents at first after that they started to live in huts made from canvas wood and bark were built.

• Hotels and boarding houses were established, built from wood. Government houses where built and they were made of wood like most accommodations.

Different work done by men, women, Children

• Men abounded there families to travel to the diggings to strike it rich. This meant that women had to shoulder a lot more responsibility, including farm labour, and children took on more responsibilities.

Dressing

• Getting dressed was simple for children. They would normally wear their nightshirt or underwear for their bed. Most children only had two or three pairs of clothing. A young girl would normally wear silk dresses in the 1850’s. The boys would normally wear similar clothes to their fathers. They would wear long pants held up by a belt. Striped shirts, a short jacket and a hat.

Dressing

• Men normally wore boots, trousers made from cloth, often referred to as moleskin and coloured or checked woolen shirts.

• Women that had fashion sense wore hats with veils attached, billowing dresses and cloaks. Some of the formal gowns they wore reached to the ground.

Transport

• Most people would walk but some people decided to go by carriage. Paddleboats would carry wheat and wool to the lower Murray ports from where such produce was transported overland to Adelaide. About around in 1854 railway tracks were built to carry Goods and sometimes people.

Food and Water

• Meat, bread and potatoes were normal foods on the gold field. Eggs, butter, fruit and vegetables became to expensive and unaffordable. On the gold fields the water had to be boiled because of the the microscopic bugs in the water therefore most people drank tea.

Leisure Activities

• At the goldfields there were singers and actors that would tour the different goldfields. For leisure cricket was the most popular sport although football began to be played during the Gold Rush. Children would normally play marbles for entertainment.

Education

• Most children on the goldfields attended Primary School. Most families couldn’t afford to send their children to secondary school.

Chinese People

• Many Chinese people came to the goldfields because there had been famine and war in China they came to make money.

• Most people at the goldfields didn’t like the Chinese because they worked on Sundays which is the Lords day.

• At the end of the gold rush most of the Chinese stayed in Australia.

Bibliography

• How they lived the goldfield era By Michael Dugan

• Growing up on the Goldfields By Kimbley Webber

• Dictionary- Australia’s National Dictionary

See YA

• Thank you for watching Caitlin’s and Michael’s Power point.