Wealth was not the only asset that the gold rush brought to Australia in the 19th century. It also brought riches in the form of immigrants, culture, art and political freedoms. The gold rush made this country one of the wealthiest lands on the planet and helped create the conditions that would transform it from an outlier of the British Empire to the modern independent nation it later became.
FIRST FINDS ACCORDING to one unverified story, the first gold was discovered in Australia in 1814 by convicts working on a road crossing the Blue Mountains. Fearing prospectors would swarm the mountains looking for gold, authorities threatened them with flogging if they revealed their discovery.
The first verifiable gold find was in 1823 near Bathurst by assistant surveyor James McBrien but the government again hushed it up to prevent a rush. 
With a looming labour shortage due to the end of transportation and people travelling to work the Californian gold fields, the NSW government offered a reward for the discovery of gold.
Fresh back from California, prospector Edward Hargraves found a grain of gold in Summer Hill Creek between Orange and Bathurst on   February 12, 1851. Naming the goldfield Ophir he left William Tom, James Tom and John Lister to continue digging and when they had four ounces (120g) of gold they let Hargraves know. He told the government and collected the Â£10,000 reward.
THE RUSH IS ON
NEWS of the Ophir find spread bringing thousands of people to Summer Hill Creek. The goldfield was soon exhausted and the small town of Ophir that had sprung up there vanished.
More fields were soon discovered in NSW and in 1852 gold was discovered in Victoria. Many people who went to try their luck were ill-prepared for the challenge.
Prospectors typically staked their claims (where they mined for gold) in gullies, which meant they were forced to live on the uncomfortable and slanted ground of the ridges. Prospectors tended to start out by pitching a tent, living rough, but those who stayed longer built small shacks out of canvas, wood and bark. More successful prospectors could afford to build better houses, sometimes out of brick or stone. Prospecting was not a glamorous life and as diggers dirtied the clean water of the surrounding creeks, disease was rampant.
The meagre amount of gold found by the majority of miners was usually spent on necessities such as food, water and new tools to replace those worn out by digging.
The people who most often struck it rich were not those digging for gold, but shop owners, people selling land and the local publicans.
VICTORIA CASHES IN ONCE word of gold discoveries in NSW got out, the flow of people migrating to the American goldfields slowed and people made their way to NSW instead.
Fearing it would lose new arrivals to its neighbour NSW, the recently separated colony of Victoria offered a reward to find payable fields within its borders. In 1852 gold was found near Ballarat. Finds followed in Queensland in 1858, Tasmania in 1877 and Western Australia in the 1890s.
COLONIAL BLING MANY miners elected to display some of their wealth as jewellery. They broke with classic European designs, preferring ostentatious designs over religious or other symbols. Some paid to have some of their gold melted down and made into mementos of how they came by their wealth.
Items on display in 19th Century Bling, a new exhibition at the Museum Of Australian Democracy at Eureka in Ballarat, include jewellery fashioned to look like mining tools such as picks, shovels and windlasses. There are also depictions of uniquely Australian flora and fauna and even of popular entertainers who performed at gold mining towns.
19th Century Bling, M.A.D.E - Museum of Australian Democracy, Eureka, Ballarat, Victoria,   April 16-  July 4, daily 10am-5pm, www.made.org
PROSPERITY BRINGS SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHANGES RIDING high on the wealth generated by the gold rush, in the 1860s Melbourne overtook Sydney as Australia's most populous city and it is said to have been one of the richest cities in the world at that time.
Some mining fortunes were converted into agricultural and industrial enterprises. This resulted in a boom in the arts and major social changes as new money became a force in politics and industry.
The events of the Eureka Stockade, at which gold miners protesting unfair treatment clashed violently with police in 1854, ushered in changes that saw miners holding a valid licence allowed the right to vote. Gold had effectively changed the political, financial and social landscape as well as physically changing the landscape.
WHO CAME TO DIG?
WHEN news broke that gold had been found in the Australian colonies many people walked away from their jobs in cities and on farms to stake a claim on the goldfields.
But gold also brought the biggest wave of immigration Australia had ever seen. Between 1851 and 1861 about 500,000 people came to Australia, doubling the population and pushing it past the one million mark. Among the hopefuls were English, Welsh, Irish, Chinese, Americans, Italians, French, Poles, Germans, Dutch, Danes, New Zealanders and Pacific Islanders.
RISE OF THE BUSHRANGERS BECAUSE gold fields were usually far from big towns or cities, transporting the gold was a dangerous proposition.
In between the diggings and the towns roamed bushrangers ready to pick off gold transports or rob anyone who looked like they might have something worth taking.
The prevalence of bushrangers resulted in the spread of policing to rural areas and the formation of colonial police forces. As the gold rush fervour died down in the later 19th century and policing, telegraphs and railways brought more law and order to the country, the era of the bushranger came to an end.
DID YOU KNOW?
* When Reverend William Branwhite Clarke, geologist and clergyman, told NSW Governor George Gipps in 1844 about a gold find at Hartley, Gipps is reported to have said "Put it away, Mr. Clarke, or we shall all have our throats cut." He later advised the NSW government on gold mining.
* Among the people who cashed in on the efforts of the miners were entertainers, including circuses, who travelled to isolated mining communities to put on shows. Some members of the Ashton's Circus family are buried near the former gold town Nundle. A memorial to the family was erected there in recent times.
* After Bernhard Otto Holtermann found the largest gold nugget ever at Hill End in 1872 he used some of his riches to hire photographers Beaufoy Merlin and Charles Bayliss, of the American and Australasian Photographic Company, to take photographs of the gold towns of NSW and Victoria. The photographs were forgotten for decades but were rediscovered in 1951 providing us with a rich vein of visual information about the era of the Gold Rush. The photos are now housed in the State Library and can be seen online at www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/society_art/photography/holtermann/
BOOM TIMES It is estimated the gold rush brought around 500,000 people to Australia between 1851 and 1861.
RICH PICKINGS The largest nugget even found was discovered at Hill End, near Bathurst, by businessman Bernhard Otto Holtermann in 1872. The Holtermann Nugget weighed 286kg and was 1.5m long
PROSPECTING METHODS 1. PANNING 1 PANNING: Inexperienced prospectors, and those looking for new deposits of gold, used this basic method which involves swirling sediment and water in a pan. As gold sinks faster than other matter, any gold present will soon be noticeable.
2 ROCKERS/SLUICE BOXES These simply built devices wash gold from the sediment much faster than it is possible to do by hand. This method was particularly popular on the goldfields for newcomers, as it was both cost effective and easy
3 MINING This method was the most expensive because of the large-scale operations required and the experience and effort needed to succeed. Holes were dug and excavated deep in the ground, and although this method was the most risky, both physically and financially, it offered the largest potential pay-of
4 GROUND SLUICING This uses the effect of moving water to break gravel down and is now done by hydraulics. During the gold rush it was a method rarely used on the goldfields but on the occasions it was used a stream would be diverted through a deposit where gold was believed to be.
SOURCES and FURTHER STUDY BOOKS " Bushranger Tracks by Gregory Powell (New Holland) " Gold Fever by Geoff Hocking (Five Mile Press) WEBSITES " The Australian Gold Rush www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-gold-rush" Museum of Australian Democracy atEureka www.made.org