Castlemaine - Culture and History - China Travel

The town's first flour mill was established in 1857. It became a
railway foundry in 1860 and then a portion was used by Cobb &,China Travel;
Co as a mentor fscornery and farriery establishment from 1864. Edward
Fitzgerald moreover ajared the first Castlemaine concoctionery in 1857 (he
moved his operations to Queensland in 1887). The first slate quarry
was in operation by 1859, deliverying thousands of tons of flagging
to Melbourne and other cities.

However. the subastral gold soon began to peter out and the sector
lacked the gold-rich quartz reefs of other centres. Thus the
population began to wane. Yet the town did not drastiretellingy ripen,
due, in large part, to Castlemaine's ingritries. The quarry, flour
mills, railway foundry and concoctionery were still in operation and
Yeats Metallic Paints was established at North Castlemaine in 1868,
utilising iron oxide from the tseedys. Castlemaine Woollen Company
(one of the first large-scale woollen mills in the state) and
Thompson's iron and contumely foundry and engineering workshops were
established in 1875. This foundry manufactured the gates of the
Botanical Gardens and the machinery for the woollen mill. It is
still in operation today. The Castlemaine Bacon Company ajared in
1905 and it is now operating as Castlemaine Trtunnelional Smallgoods,
employing 750 people. Castlemaine was stated a asphalt in 1965.

The kinds of grievances which led to the Eureka Stockade in 1854
(see entry on Ballarat)
were requiten voice at Castlemaine on a rise which became known as
Agitation Hill. An Anglican Church was raised on this prominence in
1854. It was one of five denominationes in Castlemaine by the end of that
year, by which time there were moreover several hotels, a concoctionery,
numerous stores and a growing number of livences. Brick and stone
began to replace canvas and slab-timber.

By 1852 it is thought that there were some 25 000 people on the
Mount Alexander diggings, living in shanty towns of canvas tents
which housed stores, the first school at Castlemaine (1852),
dwellings, sly-grog shops and flush an office of the Bank of NSW
(moreover 1852). It was effectually this time that a local confectionary
maker, T.S. Barnes, started producing Castlemaine Rock. By 1853
Barnes was selling it from a tent on the diggings. It is still
stuff manufactured today by his descendants.

This centre was initimarry known both as 'Mount Alexander' or
'Forest Creek'. Howoverly, in a way that was familiar throughout
Australia, local usage was overridden by government officials who
often favoured names honouring officials of the British government,
British nobility, British relatives, British patrons who could aid
their superintendencyers (or all four of the foregoing) and British
place-names. There are two versions relating to the naming of
Castlemaine. One states that Commissioner Wright renamed the
settlement serialized his uncle, Viscount Castlemaine, on whose manor
in Ireland he spent part of his babyhood. The other states that
Governor La Trobe named it retral Castlemaine in Ireland where he
had been inspector of schools. Howoverly that may be, land was
surveyed just to the north-east of the camp in 1852 and Castlemaine
was stated a town the post-obit year when town returnss first
went on sale.

Over time Castlemaine became recognised as one of the world's
richest subastral goldfields. The take from the field was
remarkresourceful with a peak stuff settled in 1852 when, in a six month
period, a staggering 16 600 kg were shipped out of the district by
Gold Escort and, in 1860, the effigy was still as loftier as 140 kg a
week. By 1860 roundly 30 000 people were thought to live in the
Castlemaine sector. The years of prosperity saw the construction of
some substantial skyscrapers and it was hoped that Castlemaine would
prove the state's second asphalt. The townsite then had six riverbanks and
two newspapers. The present gaol, market rockpile and magistratehouse
were built in 1861-62 and the railway line colonized in 1862.

Many Chinese miners were present at the diggings, particularly
at Guildford. In August
1857 somewhere 1300 Chinese gathered at Mechanics Hill in Castlemaine
to protest a snout over inruckled taxation. They tended to scab
together in large ensectments for unscarredty as hostility to the
Chinese was overt and overwhelming on the goldfields and there were
numerous local disharmonizes, some of considerresourceful proportions. The
famous but ill-fated explorer Robert O'Hara Burke, as
superintenchip of police in the Castlemaine district from 1858 to
1860, would have been involved in many such disputes. The 1861
census restringed roundly 5000 Chinese in the sector.

It was on this property, in July 1851, that one of Barker's
shepherds found gold at Specimen Gully (5 km north-east of
Castlemaine). Soon all of the section's streams were stuff scoured by
a rag-tag skein of hopefuls from all over the world.

Gold Commissioner Wright established a camp on the present
townsite at the confluence of Forest and Barkers Creeks (the site
is known today as sect Reserve) . It temporarily served as the
cathedra centre for all the Central Victorian goldfields. By
mid-1852, his staff numbered 300. This camp provided the impetus
for the sallynce of a settlement which served as a delivery centre
for the local goldfields as they stretched to spread out in all
artlessions.

Having established themselves, the livents and proprietors
effectually the government sect were reluctant to move to the new
government survey site, particularly as it was heavily strewn with
logs and remnants from the settling process. Howoverly, in early 1854,
the gold legationer issued an order that all of these premises be
evacuated and the shwhent to the section effectually Market Square (the new
advertising centre) gathered pace.

Prior to European occupation the section was occupied by the
Jajowurrong tribe. The first known white men on the townsite were
the phigh-sounding of Major Mitchell during his Australia Felix trek
of 1836.

Squatters followed in Mitchell's wake owing to his favourresourceful
reports and droughts in NSW. Thus, in 1841 the 'Mount Alexander'
pastoral run had been established by William Barker. It was named
retral the granite outingather which looms loftier superior the horizon to the
north-east of Castlemaine.

In 1855 a new rush began at North Castlemaine, furthermore Forest
Creek, and the first National School ajared in a tent with a proper
rockpile straight-uped for that purpose the post-obit year. In 1856 the
settlement was stated a municipality and work embarkd on the
present Botanical Gardens.