A HISTORY OF BLACKBALL: LIFE ON THE GOLD DIGGINGS, 1865-1869

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DescriptionA HISTORY OF BLACKBALL: LIFE ON THE GOLD DIGGINGS, 1865-1869

We don’t really know how many goldseekers dug in the shingles of ‘the Black Ball’ in the 1860s. Diggers were a restless crew. They swarmed in suddenly. They swarmed away suddenly. ‘The largest population at any time was about 150,’ noted the West Coast Times. At the end of the decade there were only about thirty-five men and boys. Yet one or two thousand must have spent at least some time digging and washing on Ford Creek and Blackball Creek.
Almost all worked together in gangs. A working gang might be three men or it might be twenty men and was known as a ‘party.’ A party was a little democracy. All members of the party were equal owners of the claim, which they had to register with the provincial government of Nelson. All members of the party voted on what to do.
Although a lot of us have a vague idea that those who rushed to the diggings were driven by the wish to win the jackpot, most diggers were not so silly. Almost all diggers came from the skilled working class or the lower middle class. Almost always they hoped to find enough gold to allow them to buy a small farm, to set up a workshop, or to buy a pub or a shop and live their lives without being beholden to a boss – to free themselves from having to work for a wage or salary.
How much money did they make from digging at Blackball? A few found big nuggets. One ‘curious piece of auriferous timber’ unearthed in 1867 was a stick or root nearly half a metre long, ‘much contorted and water-worn,’ embedded with ‘nuggets and specks of gold.’ A lot more found small nuggets, flakes and specks plentiful enough to make a good living. A provincial official reported in the fourth year after the beginning of the rush that diggers were earning on average ‘£4 per man per week’ at Blackball Creek. A very good wage by the standards of the day. A fair few diggers made so little, though, that they gave up, packed their kits and trekked off to another diggings – or threw in their hand altogether and went back to wage or salary work.
Or they were killed by the work. Gold digging was dangerous. A digger could be drowned by a sudden flood. A digger could also be buried alive under a shingle fall.
The end of some careers on the diggings was to be driven in a hearse through the streets of Greymouth and buried in the town’s raw new cemetery

Pic: advertisement for a Greymouth funeral service, 1869 See LessDate of PhotoBetween 1st January 1865 and 31st December 1869Map^[1]ContributorStevan Eldred-Grigg

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Location (city or town)BlackballEventA 'history of Blackball - why was it called Blackball?

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Date Created8th April 2021CommentsJohn Rosanowski
Worth comparing the value of the reported "4 pounds a week" at Blackball against other claims in the Grey Valley. The value depended a great deal on the cost of living in a particular place. Diggers rated the value of a claim using their own self-explanatory terms, in a rising order: Duffer, Tucker, Wages, Piler and Homeward Bounder.

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A HISTORY OF BLACKBALL: LIFE ON THE GOLD DIGGINGS, 1865-1869

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