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15th December 1851: The Forest Creek Monster Meeting of Australian gold miners protests taxes

1,106 views · Published 15 December 2018 · 2:40 · Indexed 27 October 2026

Channel: HistoryPod · 2018 · Education

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Gold had been discovered by shepherds near the modern town of Castlemaine in July 1851. However, it wasn’t until a letter from John Worley, one of the men who had found the precious metal, was published in a Melbourne newspaper at the start of September that ‘Yellow Fever’ on an unprecedented scale seized the people of Victoria.

By December an estimated 25,000 people had arrived in the area to work the river beds and the creeks in the hope of finding gold. The scale of the gold rush had a dramatic effect on society as people left their homes and jobs and headed to Forest Creek in the hope of making their fortune.

To slow the rush, Victoria Governor Charles La Trobe had introduced a thirty shillings Gold License that was payable each month by every digger, irrespective of whether gold was found. However, with the area’s infrastructure at breaking point due to the continued influx of gold-seekers and their tents, in December he announced his intention to double the fee to sixty shillings from the start of the following month.

Angered by this tax rise, more than 14,000 diggers came together at a rally to oppose what they perceived as an unjust financial burden. Gathering under a new flag, the diggers heard speeches from the demonstration’s organisers who addressed the crowd from an improvised stage on the back of a wagon.

On 24 December the Government Gazette confirmed that Governor La Trobe had reversed the tax increase. The Gold License remained at thirty shillings a month.

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