In about 1869 Sarah Davenport sat down to record her experiences of immigration\u00a0and life in\u00a0New South Wales and Victoria in the 1840s and fifties. Her laboriously handwritten account was entitled ‘Scech of an emegrants Life in australia from Leiving England in the year of our Lord 1841’. It is held in the collection of the State Library of Victoria. Sarah’s reminiscences are especially significant because they\u00a0record the experiences of an\u00a0ordinary working woman.\u00a0Few such accounts survive.\u00a0Most of the accounts of life on the diggings were written by educated men and women, many of\u00a0them published authors. Sarah’s ‘scech’ \u00a0by contrast is far from a polished narrative.\u00a0 The spelling is erratic, the punctuation\u00a0almost non-existent\u00a0and the narrative bald, but Sarah’s personality shines through the awkward expression, demanding our respect down the years for her determination and her resilience in the face of her many ‘tryals’. We travel with her to rural New South Wales,\u00a0then the rough diggings of gold-rush Victoria, willing her to succeed against the odds. For a brief few years we\u00a0catch a glimpse of\u00a0her everyday life. Then just as abruptly the account ends and we are left wondering about her fate. Did she find the prosperity she sought? There is little in the historical record to\u00a0help us.\u00a0\u00a0But we do know that she lived to the ripe old age of 87 and that she died in 1896 in the Victorian town of Yarroweyah near where her children were farming.<\/p>\n\t
Object 11<\/strong><\/p>\n Gold Rush: 20 Objects, 20 Stories<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Object courtesy State Library Victoria<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <Previous Object<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 Next Object><\/a><\/p>\n\t In the early nineteenth century the decision to emigrate to Australia was not made lightly. The journey was long and dangerous, the outcome uncertain. But like many others at this time, Sarah and her husband Samuel thought they had little chance of advancement at home.\u00a0 They hoped that in coming to Australia they might ‘better’ themselves. Sarah was 31 at this point and the mother of three children – the youngest a baby or a toddler . Samuel was a cabinet maker, a trade that should have provided him with a secure living, but he was often unwell, prone, according to Sarah, to ‘the sick headache almost every week’. As she said: ‘i had to work very hard my self to keep our family and\u00a0i found my strenth getting very low\u00a0i concluded the best to try a new country’.<\/p>\n The beginning was not auspicious. Their ship had barely left Liverpool when it struck a sand bar. They all managed to get off safely, but it was a terrifying experience and they lost almost all of their belongings. Sarah had to go back to her family in Manchester to borrow more money, but was still resolved to leave England. They boarded another ship and set sail, but tragedy\u00a0lurked in the difficult on-board conditions. Her youngest son was badly scalded in an accident involving another passenger and died two weeks later.\u00a0 This would have been an horrific accident for mother and baby, with no effective treatment or pain relief. Sarah was too traumatised to mourn properly. ‘this was a more sever trial than the ship wreck\u00a0i cold not cry one tear\u00a0i was stund’. In her grief she miscarried another baby. ‘i had what was called a purmature [premature] labour and that babe was throne in the sea\u00a0i was almost Dumb with grief\u00a0i thought my tryals was heavy’. Her husband proved no comfort to her and she had to struggle on with the help of other passengers: ‘i had a sore hart but\u00a0i battld hard against brooding over my tryals.’<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sadly for Sarah and Samuel, New South Wales proved little better than England.\u00a0Sarah gave birth to another son, but was ill for many months with a breast abscess and other problems.\u00a0Her husband was loathe to accept any rough carpentering work and they were very poor at times. Sarah was also concerned that she could not provide proper schooling for her children. As she recorded ‘i had taught them to read and spell but\u00a0i could get neither slates nor copy books’. In Melbourne things improved.\u00a0 Her husband found steady work and she took in washing, ‘and soon things got a little comfortable about us’. Another son was born in March 1847. Samuel made her a mangle and she ‘made fair money with it’.<\/p>\n When gold was discovered Samuel and the two eldest boys went to Ballarat to try their luck.\u00a0 They\u00a0had some\u00a0success, but Samuel’s hands blistered and ‘puffed up’ and he asked Sarah to come to help him. She borrowed three pounds from a neighbour and travelled to the diggings by coach. Sarah seems to have left the younger children in Melbourne, probably with her daughter who was then aged in her teens.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Life on the early diggings was rough and could be hazardous for a woman.\u00a0 Sarah writes frankly that ‘thair was a great deal of ruffians thair …and they dank [drank] and fought each other but we ware not molested tho surrounded by them’. She describes the rush that followed the announcement of a new find at Mount Alexander: ‘word came one day that mount Alexander was the place such a rush took place many a time in my quietate momeyts I think of that day when the word cam such packing up all was bussel’. She and her husband joined with some ‘rowdies’ to buy a horse and cart to move to the new area, but the ruffians tried to cheat them – refusing to put their things on the cart. They reckoned without Sarah! Although Samuel was, according to Sarah, ‘quite nervous’, she stood up to the men: ‘now’\u00a0i said ‘i bought the hors and if you do not tak my things\u00a0i will just brake one of his legs\u00a0i am a woman of my word you cannot hurt me I bought it’. She prevailed. We can imagine the tension of the moment and the feisty woman standing up to the group of ruffians. Reflecting about this incident later\u00a0Sarah seems to have thought that this behaviour required some explanation. Perhaps she thought that it was not consistent with proper womanly behaviour. ‘i should not have been perseveary {persevering?]’, she writes, ‘but my husband seemed so exciteted and\u00a0i did not wish him to be disapointid’. \u00a0Of course she didn’t!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The paths to the diggings were rough and difficult.\u00a0 They could also be dangerous.\u00a0 There were plenty of shady characters about ready to prey on the unwary, or the careless.\u00a0 Sarah’s reminiscences\u00a0of\u00a0the journey to Mount Alexander suggest that travellers had to be vigilant at all times:<\/p>\n we was four days traviling to Mount alexander at nights when we camped one of us had to watch the hors all night for thair was plenty of hors stealing as some of the partis that got drunk and neglected to take that precaution found to thair loss we arrived on November 5 we looked for a quiet place to camp and put up our tents and got ready to dig for goold.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Once at Mount Alexander the family found a quiet spot and settled down to dig. The ‘goold’ was ‘plentiful’ and they\u00a0were finding\u00a0about one ounce per day. She and ‘another wife’ decided to try some fossicking of their own.<\/p>\n we had not been thair maney days when me and another wife whent a looking around the hills we had each a knife and a tin plate to get goold in if we shold find anny …i soon picked up a piece about a quarter of an ounce my youngest son came for the dinner and said they wold make two ounces or more ‘tell father I will make three’ for we had found a patch of surface we got a tub and pick and spade and washed one tub full we carried down to the creek to wash in a buket and washed it and finished in a tin dish [the] first tubful yealded about a 3 ounces the next 4 we was in high glee when both her husbands party and my husband and sons came and to work they went and so we had to give in but we had made 7 ounces it was fryday’. <\/em><\/p>\n This was triumph indeed, even if the women did have to yield their find to the men in the end. Sarah continued to work alongside her husband and sons, washing gold as she had earlier washed clothes: ‘my sons was yong and my husband was but weak so to encourage them\u00a0i helped to wash the stuff for gold’.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All miners on the gold fields were required to have a licence to dig. Licences were expensive – initially one pound for a month’s licence. For comparison a good carpenter at this time might earn 10 shillings per day, but many earned far less than this. Those digging for gold took their chances.\u00a0 Many found nothing, but they still had to buy a licence or face arrest by the troopers.\u00a0 One day Sarah was washing gold when troopers came along and demanded to see her licence. She did not have one, but her husband did.\u00a0 Sarah was\u00a0a quick-witted woman and not easily intimidated by the troopers. In the mid-nineteenth century a married woman had no separate legal status from her husband and Sarah was obviously well aware of this. ‘i said “my husband has got a licence and the Parson made us one he will be hear soon” “you must have one”\u00a0i said “the Parson made us one are you goin to devid [divide] us?” Mr Street was one of them he rode off laughing and the troopers followed him’. Once again Sarah stood up for herself and prevailed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shortly after this incident Samuel decided to quit the diggings.\u00a0 They had found 70 ounces in all – worth, according to Sarah, nearly 200 pounds.\u00a0 Sarah would have preferred to stay longer, ‘but was forced to comply’. It is not quite clear what happened next. Her husband apparently tried to buy both a horse and a block of land on Collingwood Flat, (against her advice) but may have been cheated. He then went off to Bendigo with their sons, leaving her to the mercy of several ‘rowdies’ in a neighbouring tent, who tried to bully her into storing grog for them: ‘they bosted what injury they wold do if I wold not\u00a0i wold not nor\u00a0i did not’, she wrote stoutly. Shortly afterwards her husband returned with a horse and cart and they returned to Melbourne, to vanish, effectively, from the historical record. When next we hear of Sarah she was living in Yarrowyah, where she died at the age of 87 in 1896, but her reminiscences leave an indelible impression of a strong, determined woman, prepared to\u00a0meet life’s challenges with courage and persistence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n‘we was all in good hopes that we was coming to better ourselves’<\/h3>\n
To the diggings<\/h3>\n
A feisty woman\u00a0prevails over ruffians and rowdies<\/h3>\n
Perils of the roads to the diggings<\/h3>\n
Sarah finds gold!<\/h3>\n
The troopers and the matter of a gold licence<\/h3>\n
Back to Melbourne and …?<\/h3>\n