Ballarat Goldfields Diary

The State Library of Victoria Foundation has raised $50,000 to purchase an extraordinary diary written in 1855 by a Scottish gold-digger residing in Ballarat.

The diary charts six eventful months in the miner's life, telling of a fire that killed 11 people, the arrival of new prostitutes in town and the escape of a Bengal tiger in Ballarat’s Main Street. It even mentions an episode where the miner almost fell into a dunnikin - the Scots word for an outside toilet, which was later shortened into the Australian 'dunny'.

Written from July 1855 to January 1856, the diary offers valuable insights into the life of an ordinary miner on Victoria's goldfields, as this extract illustrates:

Monday 16 July
Heard today of a butcher being shot by mistake for another person, near the Creek last night. A wife and husband affair. The butcher was shot through the heart in his tent, his shadow being taken for that of the intended person who was in the tent lighting his pipe. The murderer got off. Harry got a nugget today 10 dwts.

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The diary online

Every page of the diary has been digitised and is available online through our catalogue. You can view it from cover to cover and magnify each page to look at the handwriting and paper in great detail.

Access the digitised diary via our catalogue >

Supporters

The Goldfields Diary Appeal was generously supported by Newcrest Mining Limited, Rio Tinto and Lihir Gold Limited.