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Bendigo, Bendigo, Victoria, Australien



 


Notizen:
Wikipedia 2015:

Bendigo is a city in Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately 150 kilometres (93 mi) north west of the state capital, Melbourne. Bendigo has an urban population of 82,794 making it the fourth largest inland city in Australia and fourth most populous city in the state. It is the administrative centre for the City of Greater Bendigo which encompasses both the urban area and outlying towns spanning an area of approximately 3,000 square kilometres (1,158 sq mi) and over 111,000 people.

The discovery of gold in the soils of Bendigo during the 1850s made it one of the most significant Victorian era boomtowns in Australia. News of the finds intensified the Victorian gold rush bringing an influx of migrants to the city from around the world within a year and transforming it from a sheep station to a major settlement in the newly proclaimed Colony of Victoria. Once the alluvial gold had been mined out, mining companies were formed to exploit the rich underground quartz reef gold. Since 1851 about 25 million ounces of gold (777 tonnes) have been extracted from Bendigo's goldmines, making it the highest producing goldfield in Australia in the 19th century and the largest gold mining economy in eastern Australia. It is also notable for its Victorian architectural heritage. The city took its name from the Bendigo Creek and its residents from the earliest days of the goldrush have been called "Bendigonians".

Although the town flourished in its beginnings as a result of the discovery of gold, it experienced a reversal of fortune in the early 20th century. However, its growth accelerated in the post-war years and has continued to increase steadily since. Bendigo is the largest finance centre in Victoria outside of Melbourne as home to Australia's only provincially headquartered retail bank, the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and the Bendigo Stock Exchange (BSX).

History:

The current name of "Bendigo" dates to the Victorian Gold Rush as a shortened form of "Bendigo Creek", the name originally given to the goldfields in November 1851 and also the name of the first post office which opened on 1 July 1852.

The Bendigo Creek (a continuation of Picanniny Creek) extended downstream to its junction with Back Creek (near where Lake Weeroona is today) which formed one of the borders of the squatting run known as Mount Alexander North (later renamed the Ravenswood Run). The first printed reference to the name is in the Government Gazette 1848, page 410, in a description of The Mount Alexander North Run and that referred to the creek as "Bednego(sic) creek". The second printed reference to the name "Bendigo Creek" was in letters published on 13 December 1851 that had been written on 9 December 1851 by journalist and gold-miner Henry Frencham, one letter headlined "Mount Alexander" published in The Argus (Melbourne), and the other headlined "Bendigo Creek Diggings" published in the Geelong Advertiser.[15] (A third letter was published close to that date in the Melbourne Daily Mail.) In his letters Frencham also used the pen-name of "Bendigo".

The Bendigo Creek was named after "Bendigo's Hut", the hut of a shepherd with the nickname of "Bendigo" who had resided at the creek during the 1840s. The shepherd was nicknamed after the Nottingham bare-knuckled boxing prize-fighter William Abednego Thompson, generally known as "Bendigo Thompson". It was reported that the shepherd, who was also the hut-keeper, was "some pugilistically inclined individual" and "a fighting sailor". The former sailor, who had run away from his vessel, had been working on the ship that Thomas Myers had come to Port Phillip aboard. The shepherd/sailor was given the nickname of "Bendigo" by Thomas Myers, who from August 1844 to July 1849 had been overseer on the Mount Alexander North Run (later renamed the Ravenswood Run) that at that time had been owned by Benjamin Heape and Richard Grice. The story was verified in a letter from Richard Grice; by Mrs W. Lauder from conversations that she had with Thomas Myers in 1852; and by the shepherd William Sandbach from converstaions that he had with fellow shepherd, James Liston, who had lived on the Ravenswood Run from 1841, in the time of Heape and Grice, to 1851 when gold was discovered at Bendigo Creek in the time of the subsequent owners, the Gibson brothers. Richard Grice was to write in 1878 that the reason for the choice of the name of "Bendigo" was that "Tom (Myers), himself, was a bit of a dab with his fists, and great admirer of the boxer Bendigo." It was reported that the shepherd with the nickname of "Bendigo" later "shot through" to California when news of the gold rushes there reached Australia" in the late 1840s.

The town which began to develop on the goldfield was at first known as "Bendigo", a shortened form of "Bendigo Creek". "Bendigo", however, although a popular name, was not in the earliest days of the settlement an official name. The town was at first officially named as "Castleton", after the mining town of Castleton, Derbyshire in England, in a government notice dated 2 December 1852. This name, however, only lasted six weeks. In a second government notice, dated 18 January 1853, the name was changed to "Sandhurst" after the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. (The name of the post office, however, was not changed to Sandhurst until 1 January 1854.) The nickname of "Bendigo", however, always remained popular. This is demonstrated in the name of the local newspaper which, from its establishment in 1854 until today, has been known as the Bendigo Advertiser. It is also demonstrated in the term "Bendigonian", still used today for a resident of Bendigo, but also used for a resident of Bendigo during the time that Bendigo had the name of Sandhurst (1854–1891).

After a plebiscite on 28 April 1891, which had been called as a direct result of agitation to have the old name back, the city was renamed on 4 May 1891 to the more popular original name of "Bendigo", although the name "Sandhurst" has a legacy and is still used by a number of organisations such as the Sandhurst Football Club. The Roman Catholic diocese based in Bendigo is named the Diocese of Sandhurst.

The original inhabitants of Greater Bendigo area were the clans of the Dja Dja Wurrung people, also known as the Jaara people. They were regarded by other tribes as being a superior people, not only because of their rich hunting grounds but because from their area came a greenstone rock for their stone axes. Early Europeans described the Dja Dja Wrung as a strong, physically well-developed people and not belligerent. Nevertheless the early years of European settlement in the Mount Alexander area were bloodied by many clashes between intruder and dispossessed.

Major Mitchell passed through the region in 1836. Following his discovery, the first squatters arrived in 1837 to establish vast sheep runs. The Bendigo Creek was part of the Mount Alexander North or Ravenswood sheep run.

Gold was found at Bendigo Creek in September 1851. The first persons to mine for gold at the Bendigo Creek were farmers and shepherds associated with the Ravenswood Run. They were soon joined by miners from the Forest Creek (Castlemaine) diggings.Henry Frencham, under the pen-name of "Bendigo", was the first to publicly write anything about gold mining at Bendigo Creek. It was Frencham's words, published in The Argus in December 1851, that were to announce the existence of the Bendigo goldfield. He was also the first person to deliver a quantity of payable gold from Bendigo to the authorities.

In 1890 William Sandbach was to reminisce about the earliest days of gold-mining on Bendigo Creek, stating that "I have written this for the interested, dwelling in the once Bendigo, but now famous city (Sandhurst – the name of Bendigo from 1854 to 1891)". He recalled saying in January 1852 to his fellow shepherd James Lister "Jim, I should not wonder but what this one of these days will be a big diggings". He also quoted what is the earliest known poem written about the Bendigo Goldfields that he had composed at that time:

O, lift your eyes, ye sighing sons of men;

The long-fled golden age returns again.

See! youthful riches, with his yellow wand,

Touching the hills and valleys through the

land.

The Bendigo gold rush was at first treated as an extension of the Mount Alexander or Forest Creek (Castlemaine) rush. By mid-December 1851 it was reported that hundreds of diggers had moved to Bendigo Creek, which was soon regarded as a goldfield in its own right. On 27 April a Court of Petty Sessions was established and a fortnight later a resident police magistrate was appointed. In June "it is estimated that there were 40,000 diggers on the field – an extraordinary number bearing in mind that in February pre-goldrush Melbourne had a total population of only 23,000".

Also by June 1852 a mail delivery service was established between Forest Creek (Castlemaine) and Bendigo Creek. The first official post office opened on 1 July 1852 under the name of "Bendigo Creek". It was predated by the other goldfields post offices at Ballarat on 1 November 1851, at Forest Creek (Castlemaine) on 1 March 1852, and at Carisbrook on 1 May 1852. The post office was renamed from "Bendigo Creek" to "Sandhurst" on 1 January 1854 and then to "Bendigo" on 8 May 1891.

Chinese people, in particular, were attracted to the Bendigo goldfields in great numbers, establishing a large Chinatown on a bountiful gold run to the north east of the city at Emu Point. Within ten years the Chinese miners and merchants made up 20% of the Bendigo population. While most of the Chinese gold miners returned home when the alluvial goldfields declined, a small population remained to form the Bendigo Chinese community which has continued to influence the city. Other ethnic communities also developed including the Germans at Ironbark Gully and the Irish at St Killian's.

In 1853 there was a massive protest march by surface miners against the amount of the 30s gold license fee and the frequency, monthly, with which it was collected. This protest, the Red Ribbon Agitation, was peaceful (unlike the later Eureka Stockade event in Ballarat) because of the ability of the miners' leaders and the young Scots police commissioner, Joseph Anderson Panton. Predating the 1853 protest, on the evenings of 8 and 9 December 1851, when the diggers had only been on the Bendigo goldfield for two weeks, meetings were held to object to a government proposal to double the monthly gold license fee to 60s or £3. These were also peaceful meetings, as was a similar evening meeting at Forest Creek (Chewton, Castlemaine) on 8 December, and a larger day-time "Monster Meeting" at Forest Creek (Chewton, Castlemaine) on 15 December that was attended by representatives from Bendigo, and it was reported about 15,000 out of the 25,000 diggers at Forest Creek. The number assembled for the second meeting in Bendigo on 9 December 1851 was reported to be "gold diggers assembled to a man, except those engaged in looking after the tents" numbering about 250. The names of men who were reported to have addressed the meeting were the political activist Captain John Harrison, the zoologist and mining engineer Count William Blandowski, the reporter Henry Frencham, the shepherd William Sandbach, Mr Regan, Mr Moss, Mr McDonald, Mr McGrath, and Dr Russell. A third meeting was held at Bendigo Creek on 1 January 1852 after the Government Camp Commissioner, Captain Dane, arrived to inspect the goldfield. This meeting was about wanting to continue to pay the monthly gold license fee in gold "as hitherto had been the custom" rather than in cash as the government was now requiring. The men reported to have addressed this meeting were William Sandbach, a Mr Coombs, a Mr P. McKenzie and a Mr W. Gamms.

Bendigo quickly grew from a "city of tents" to become a substantial city with great public buildings. The first hospital was built in 1853, the first town plan was developed by 1854, the municipality (then known as the Sandhurst Municipality) was incorporated on 24 April 1855. The Bendigo Building Society (today's Bendigo Bank) began in 1858 in an effort to improve conditions on the Bendigo Goldfields. The first town hall was commissioned in 1859. The municipality became a borough on 11 September 1863.

Bendigo was connected to Melbourne by telegraph in 1857 and it was from Bendigo (then known as Sandhurst) that the first message reporting the deaths of Burke and Wills was sent on 29 June 1861. The Bendigo Benevolent Asylum, now known as the Anne Caudle Centre, was erected in 1860. Frequent Cobb & Co. coaches ran to Melbourne until the railway reached Bendigo in 1862. With the opening of the railway line the township grew rapidly.

By the end of the first gold rush in the 1860s, the township had established flour mills, woollen mills, tanneries, quarries, foundries, eucalyptus oil production, food production industries and timber-cutting.When the early discoveries of alluvial gold began to run out the goldfields soon changed from small operations to major mines with deep shafts to mine the quartz-based gold. Mining companies were formed and numerous pit mines were sunk to exploit the underground ores which are found in elongated saddle quartz reefs in corrugated sedimentary rock.

Having made the transition from small mining town to a municipality and then a large and wealthy borough, the town was declared a city on 21 July 1871. Bendigo (then known as Sandhurst) became established as a key centre for surrounding settlements.

A mining boom in the 1870s helped the city to continue to grow rapidly. By the late 1870s Sandhurst (Bendigo) had grown into a "fine handsome town" with nearly 28,000 residents in its urban area. Growth then continued at a slower rate through to 1900.

Water supply was always a problem in Bendigo. This was partly solved with a system harnessing the waters of the Coliban River, designed by engineer Joseph Brady. Water first flowed through the viaduct in 1877.

Bendigo from its earliest days has been one of the major Cornish Australian settlement areas. In 1881 46.9 percent of fathers and 41.4 percent of mothers in Bendigo were born in Cornwall. This was in addition to those Cornish who were born in Australia or places as far afield as Mexico or Brazil. The Cornish in Bendigo outnumbered the combined strength of their Irish and Scottish counterparts.

The architect William Charles Vahland left a major mark on Bendigo during this period. He is credited as innovating what was the most popular residential design of the period, low cost cottages with verandahs decorated in iron lace which became a popular style right across Victoria. He transformed the Bendigo Town Hall between 1878 to 1886 into a grand building and designed more than 80 more public and private buildings, including the Alexandra Fountain, the Masonic Temple (now the Capital Theatre) and the Mechanics Institute and School of Mines (now the Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE), "Fortuna Villa" in Golden Square (which was the home of "Quartz King" George Lansell), the Law Courts, former Post Office and the expanded Shamrock Hotel in Pall Mall.

A tram network began in 1890 and was used for public transport.

Ort : Geographische Breite: -36.7587109, Geographische Länge: 144.28374659999997


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1 Nagel, Georg Friedrich  1906Bendigo, Bendigo, Victoria, Australien I1554