Media: BOOK - paperback, 292 pages
Author: C. Fahey & A. Mayne
Year: 2010
ISBN: 9781921509643
Other: b&w photos, index
Publisher: Australian Scholarly Publishing

The central Victoria goldfields region has left us a rich material legacy. The modern visitor can wander through historic streetscapes whose elements range from the grand and formal to tiny cottage sites and domestic gardens.

On the bushland fringes of the communities and in reclaimed farmlands, visitors can see the detritus of mining - mullock heaps and abandoned engine houses and machine begs. Instinctively the visitor emphasizes with these tangible links with the past. Yet the physical traces cannot be easily read or grouped into coherent histories.

'Gold Tailings' explores the private and often forgotten lives of the gold settlers who built these communities. It moves beyond the stereotypes of rootless single male diggers and analyses how enduring communities were formed when male gold diggers - who often travelled with mates and kin - were joined by women, and together they formed families and networks of common interest and mutual support.

Contents:
List of Illustrations, Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgemnts
1. 'All that Glitters ...': The Hidden History of Victoria's Central Goldfields Region
2. From Kent to New Chum: The Families of Isaac Edward Dyason and George Lansell, 1871-1915
3. Falling Leaves: Chinese Family and Community in Nineteenth Century Bendigo
4. 'To grab the world by the tail': Migration and Home in Castlemaine
5. Celtic Crosses and Empire: Irish Families and Copmmunity in Stawell
6. 'A poor man doies not improve his position much by emigrating to this country': The Cornish on the Victorian Goldfields, 1861-1901
7. Echoes on a Cultural Landscape: Glimpses of Chinese Community Life in Castlemaine
8. Staking a Claim: Using Oral and Material Sources in Goldfields History
9. Function to Form: A History of the Northern Market Building in Castlemaine
10. Family and Community on the Central Victorian Goldfields
Notes
Index