Hargraves, Edward Hammond (1816-1891), is recognized as an early discoverer of gold in Australia. He discovered gold near Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia, in 1851. The developing colony of New South Wales had needed gold to finance its overseas trade. The colony’s government offered a reward for the discovery of the first commercially profitable gold field. Hargraves was initially given the credit and the reward by the government for the discovery.
Hargraves is also credited with bringing to Australia useful methods of recovering gold that he had learned while prospecting in California. Some people mistakenly believe Hargraves to be the first person to discover gold in Australia. However, several other people had earlier found small amounts of gold in Australia.
Hargraves was born on Oct. 7, 1816, in Gosport, Hampshire, England. He settled in New South Wales in 1832 and worked as a cattle grazer for many years. In 1849, he decided to join the gold rush in California. He had little success there, but he noticed that the gold country of California resembled the land near Bathurst. Hargraves returned to Australia in 1851. On February 12, with his assistant John Lister present, Hargraves found grains of gold as he panned for the metal in Lewis Ponds Creek. The colonial secretary in Sydney was not impressed with the amount of gold that Hargraves had found. In April, Lister and Hargraves’s other assistants—William, James, and Henry Tom—discovered about 41/4 troy ounces (132 grams) of gold near Bathurst. They sent news of the find to Hargraves in Sydney, and Hargraves proclaimed the discovery of gold. In granting its reward to Hargraves, the New South Wales government took into consideration the fact that Hargraves had headed the partnership and given Lister and the Tom brothers the benefit of his gold-mining experience. However, an inquiry by the New South Wales Parliament in 1890 officially declared Lister and the Tom brothers with the first discovery of a commercially profitable gold field. Hargraves died on Oct. 29, 1891.
