Alluvial Tensions

Article | Updated 7 years ago

Courtesy State Library of Western Australia, 019032PD
Alluvial diggers fill the grandstand o capacity, 1898-1899.

Alluvial rights and alluvial gold for the alluvial man!

Banner at alluvial miner’s rollup, 1 December 1899

In the late nineteenth century there was a growing gulf between the mining community and the government as miners faced hard times with the decline of easily obtainable alluvial gold. The discovery of deep alluvial, or ‘deep leads,’ at several locations on the eastern goldfields was greeted with relief by the government. However, it soon highlighted the simmering tensions between mine owners and alluvial diggers.

Mounted police observe meeting of 10,000 alluvial miners, 1899.

Mounted police observe meeting of alluvial miners, 1899. Ten thousand assembled to hear speeches.
Image courtesy State Library of Western Australia, 010227PD

The Goldfields Act 1895 had introduced a system of ‘dual title’ that enabled a digger with his Miner’s Right to remove gold more than 50 feet (15 metres) from a leaseholder’s reef. The sinking of shafts to obtain gold, however, led to conflict.  The Ivanhoe Venture dispute in 1898 saw alluvialists challenging mine owners.

The government supported the owners and introduced the ‘Ten Foot Regulation,’ which restricted miners in their search for alluvial gold to a depth of ten feet (three metres). Alluvial miners defied the regulation. Some miners were gaoled, Mining Minister Edward Wittenoom’s effigy was paraded, and in March 1898 Premier Forrest was mobbed by several thousand angry diggers in Kalgoorlie. The Ten Foot Regulation was rapidly rescinded.

Alluvial diggers fill the grandstand to capacity, 1898-1899.
Alluvial diggers fill the grandstand to capacity, 1898-1899.
Image courtesy State Library of Western Australia, 019032PD