Kiandra - Geoff Svenson - historical archaeology

Published 31 December 2020
Revised 15 October 2024

According to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), “Kiandra was home to one of the shortest gold rushes in Australian history, from November 1859 to March 1861. At its peak in April 1860, up to 8,000 people were staking their hopes on the Kiandra diggings” [https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au – extracted 30 December 2020].

A hundred years later Kiandra was still called home by a few families who could trace their origins back to the early days of that “shortest gold rush in Australian history”… And, Kiandra was the site of alluvial (‘placer’) mining, gold dredging and sluicing activities for quite a while after March 1861 – at least 47 years to put a number to it – and at least as long as quite a few other mining ventures that have existed in Australia.

Just to prove the point in regard to Kiandra, the slider at the foot of this page gives access to a few photographs that can be dated.

Of course, the NPWS were the ideological crusaders who forced the last residents of Kiandra out in the 1970s and 80s, by which time mining had been abandoned for many years and it probably suits the narrative to state that the ‘rush’ to Kiandra was one of the shortest in Australian history. However, we should perhaps examine the story a little rather than be misled by a carefully crafted version of history…

By way of introduction Wikipedia ¹ puts forward a discussion of Gold Rushes that is worthy of attention – noting particularly the suggestion that within each mining rush there is typically a transition through progressively higher capital expenditures, larger organizations, and more specialized knowledge.

That is exactly what happened at Kiandra, and to suggest that a period of 47 years from 1859 to around 1906 is one of the shortest gold rushes in Australian history is quite misleading… The initial flush of excitement may have fallen away in 1862 but, in all, Kiandra produced 48,676 kilograms of gold. The official record certainly does not support any proposal that 48 tonnes of gold were recovered in just 17 months. Mining activity at Kiandra may not have been the most frenzied after that first 17 months, but the rush had a very long tail…during which the vast majority of recorded gold production took place.

Now that we’ve studies the official opinion of this historic site’s custodians let’s look at a few features – the scarring where hydraulic mining (“sluicing”) took place on New Chum Hill and at the Seven Mile; – other scarring from “placer” mining at the Seven Mile with massive dykes of rocks attributable to the grinding work involved, where the rocks were manually lifted aside to reach the gold-bearing gravels and clay that lay beneath; more scarring on the river flats at Kiandra itself due to alluvial mining using a gold dredge.

Meanwhile, the ruin of the Yan family’s General Store was still standing in 1974 – somewhat dilapidated and in urgent need of repair. Black and white images of the store captured by staff of the NSW Department of Mines that year are included in the slider below. Sometime later the store met with a nasty accident, like so many other historic buildings in Australia’s national parks and elsewhere.

I have hazy memories of a 1961 trip through the Snowy Mountains and a gold dredge. Perhaps an image of that dredge will be found somewhere in the Department of Mines treasure trove, but I now suspect it was at Araluen, another place visited that year. Meanwhile the slider below includes a few other images of Kiandra taken at various times, showing the extent and nature of the settlement. Many many other images survive in various collections.

There is no question that significant environmental damage, landscape change, and perhaps serious pollution, resulted from placer and hydraulic mining, and gold dredging, wherever it took place. Certainly the landscape and aspects of the environment suffered at Kiandra. But surely there is more to gain from publicising the actual history of the activity and the time-frame involved than from manipulating that history to suit the mantra?

Environmental damage is still with us when one looks at the sources and results of Australia’s prosperity and the conflicts of interest involved. It seems that is just what human activity and especially population growth tends to do, but to downplay and misrepresent things does not help anyone. Nor does it help to remove, disguise or misrepresent the evidence in National Parks and other places intended to preserve the heritage.

The controversy that surrounds Kiandra will probably fade away along with the last of the dispossessed but let’s not downplay its place in history and the lessons that can be learned.