Echunga 1853-55 first payable South Australia gold mine in Adelaide Hills; nearby Jupiter Creek worked in 1868-71
A miner working with primitive equipment, looking for gold at Echunga in the Adelaide Hills during the 1930s Depression.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
South Australia's first payable gold minbne and prclaimed goldfield was discovered by farmer William Chapman in 1852 at Echunga in the Adelaide Hills. Australia’s first gold find had been in the Adelaide foothills had been at Montacute in the Adelaide foothills in 1846 but it failed to produce a substantial lode.
Chapman had tried his luck in the Bendigo goldfields in Victoria and was the first to apply for £1,000 offered by the South Australian government for a gold discovery.
An initial rush to Echunga attracted 1,000 men and nearly £20,000 worth of gold found but its diggings were almost deserted in 1852 as most Adelaide males went to the Victorian gold diggings. Echunga produced 3,100 kilograms of gold, mainly between 1852 and 1855, from tertiary and quaternary fluvial sediments. Minor production came from quartz veins in the underlying Adelaidean Aldgate sandstone and Woolshed Flat shale. In 1853, gold was discovered at nearby Bells Hill resulting in another, but much smaller, rush.
The second major diggings in the Echunga area opened up after payable gold was discovered at Jupiter Creek by farmers Henry Sanders and Thomas Plane in 1868. About 1,200 people lived at the new diggings in tents and huts were scattered throughout the scrub. A township was set up with stores, butchers and refreshment booths. The Jupiter Creek figgings produced 930 kilograms of gold, mainly between 1868 and 1871, from shallow tertiary and quaternary sediments along modern drainage channels. Production also came from quartz veins within Adelaidean Aldgate sandstone.
But, by the end of 1868, the alluvial deposits were almost exhausted and the population dwindled to several hundred. During 1869, reef mining started and some small mining companies were set up but all went into liquidation by 1871.
As with the Echunga old diggings, small amounts of gold continued to be found over the years at Jupiter Creek, especially in three distinct periods: 1884-1890s, 1904-07 and during the 1930s.
There was a renewed interest in the old diggings when there was a change in the gold standard and prices rose during the depression years of the 1930s.
During the waves of 19th Century excitement, evidence and deposits of gold were found widely, such as in the Barossa and Yatta, at Ingelwood, Lobethal; Ulooloo, north of Burra; Sixth Creek near Montacute; and Neales River in the far north.
This spawned mining companies such as the Echunga and Meadows Gold Mining, German Reef Quartz Mining, Stirling Reef Quartz Mining, Beatrice Quartz Reef and Gold Mining, Union Jack Quartz Mining, Lady Edith Gold Mining Company, and the Melbourne and Adelaide United Quartz Mining.
Bird in Hand was one of the four larger gold mines of the Woodside Goldfield, discovered in 1869. Total hardrock gold production from the field 1881-89 was 30,000 ounces of gold with Bird In Hand contributing 10,500 ounces from 22,760 tonnes at 12.9 grams per tonne of gold.