One Immense Gold Field!' British imaginings of the Australian gold rushes, 1851-59

Bibliographic Data

ID11167883
AuthorsKeith D Lilley, Keith Lilley (0000-0002-9513-6423, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume27
Issue1
Pages67-80
Publication date2002-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLandscape Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0142-6397 • E-ISSN: 1469-9710
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01426390220110775
OpenAlexW2060422483
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited10

The gold rushes of the 19th century opened up a range of new vistas and landscapes to the British public, widening popular awareness and knowledge of distant places. Between 1851 and 1859, the gold rushes in south-eastern Australia, in New South Wales and Victoria, stimulated the publication, in Britain, of written accounts of life on the gold fields. Here it is argued that these accounts were important in shaping popular perceptions of colonial Australia in imperial Britain, and creating an image of the 'ideal' emigrant. The literature stimulated by gold discoveries in Australia thus prompted yet further imperial exploitation and emigration, and was a form of popular geographical knowledge which today reveals much about colonial and metropolitan imaginings of Australia in the mid 19th century

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Economic history · Emigration · Ethnology · Geography · Gold coast · Gold rush · Late 19th century · Metropolitan area · Period (music) · Australian History and Society · History

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