Victorian gold rush in 1850s suspends Burra copper boom as labour and geologists head east

Bremer copper mine at Callington in the Adelaide Hills, worked from 1848, was left idle in the 1850s when workers went to the Victorian gold fields.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
 

Georg Bruhn, who confirmed the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851, had been among the German and other geological experts flooding into South Australia during the Burra cooper boom.

In 1848, Dr Bruhn, a German doctor, advertised his services in Adelaide as a mineralogist, geologist, miner and chemist. He received finance to explore for the colony’s minerals.

But it was his mineral expedition in Victoria in 1851 that confirmed the discovery of gold and set off a rush that had a major effect on South Australia. About 28,000 people left South Australia in 1852-1853 from a European population of 63,700.

Even the rich copper mining operations at Burra were largely suspended due to lack of labour. Smallermines soon closed permanently.

Within this exodus were most geologists based in South Australia during the copper boom, including Thomas Burr, James Trewartha, and Carl Zacchariae, who had lead a team of German miners working the Wheal Gawler lead-silver mine at Glen Osmond.

Even Johannes Menge, South Australia’s first official geologist, who had lived in the colony for 15 years and was aged 64, walked to Victoria but died soon after he arrived.

The Victorian gold rush put a serious brake on geology in South Australia as a discipline and a profession. It was only restarted when the University of Adelaide was opened in 1874 and with the Geological Survey of South Australia in 1882.