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by Bruce Mitchell This article was published: Edward Hammond Hargraves (1816-1891), gold rush publicist, was born on 7 October 1816 at Gosport, Hampshire, England, son of Lieutenant John Edward Hargraves and his wife Elizabeth, née Whitcombe. Educated at Brighton Grammar School and Lewes, he went to sea at 14 and arrived at Sydney in 1832.

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by June Stoodley

This article was published:

James Nash (1834-1913), discoverer of the Gympie goldfield, was born on 5 September 1834 at Beanacre, Wiltshire, England, son of Michael Nash, farm labourer, and his wife Elizabeth, née Prosser. At 9 he left school for farm work and migrated to Sydney at 23. He alternated between labouring work and prospecting on various goldfields in New South Wales. Quiet and solitary he was an indefatigable walker: once he walked 600 miles (966 km) to the Tooloom diggings and returned unsuccessful.

Nash moved to Queensland in 1863, working at Calliope and Nanango. He found rich gold on an extended prospecting tour in 1867 near the Mary River, and his report on 16 October started 'one of the wildest rushes in Queensland history'. It has been called the salvation of the depressed colony: the Bank of Queensland had closed, a financially embarrassed government had stopped work on the Ipswich-Toowoomba railway and unemployed were marching the Brisbane streets. The government had offered £3000 reward for a payable new field, but the terms had not quite been met, and for his discovery of a field which was to produce gold worth £14,538,328, Nash was granted only £1000 after twelve months' debate. The field even lost the name 'Nashville' and became 'Gympie'. He and his brother won a further £7000 from their claims, but unwise investments in mining stock and an ill-fated drapery store soon dissipated their winnings. In 1888 the government graciously made him Gympie's powder-magazine keeper at £100 a year, and after his death on 5 October 1913 granted an annual pension of £50 to his wife Catherine, née Murphy, whom he had married on 6 July 1868 at Maryborough; they had three sons and two daughters. Despite the government's forgetfulness, posterity has honoured him with a seven-ton granite block memorial fountain in Gympie's Park.

Select Bibliography

Alcazar Press, Queensland, 1900 (Brisb, nd)

A. L. Stumm and W. C. Woolgar, Historical Sketch of Gympie, 1867-1927 (Gympie, 1927)

Maryborough Chronicle, 16, 30 Oct 1867

Gympie Times, 15 Sept 1896, 16 Oct 1917 jubilee supplement.

Citation details

June Stoodley, 'Nash, James (1834-1913)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nash-james-4286/text6935, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online 25 August 2021.
This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, (Melbourne University Press), 1974
View the front pages for Volume 5

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by June Stoodley This article was published: James Nash (1834-1913), discoverer of the Gympie goldfield, was born on 5 September 1834 at Beanacre, Wiltshire, England, son of Michael Nash, farm labourer, and his wife Elizabeth, née Prosser. At 9 he left school for farm work and migrated to Sydney at 23.

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Catherine Helen Spence was a longtime writer and activist in Australia. She worked to improve the lives of women and children in many ways. In particular she focused on the education and voting systems of the country.

Spence was born in Melrose, Roxburghshire, Scotland, on October 31, 1825. She and her family moved to Adelaide, South Australia, in 1839 after her father's business failed. As a young girl, her dream was to become a teacher and then a famous writer.

In Adelaide Spence worked as a governess and began writing books. In 1854 she became the first woman to publish a novel about Australia. Spence soon became interested in social issues as well. She wrote about them for newspapers. She also helped start an organization to provide homes for orphaned children, and she supported new schools for girls.

Spence was very involved in efforts to improve the political system. She wanted to make sure that everyone was represented equally in the process. Spence traveled to the United States and elsewhere to give talks about her ideas. She also worked to gain women the right to vote. The women in South Australia won that right in 1894.

Three years later she became Australia's first female political candidate. She ran for a position at the convention that was to discuss making Australia a unified country. At the time, it was a collection of separate colonies. Spence did not win a seat at the convention, but she continued to campaign for changes in her society. Catherine Spence died on April 3, 1910.

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Catherine Helen Spence was a longtime writer and activist in Australia. She worked to improve the lives of women and children in many ways. In particular she focused on the...

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Lalor and his brother Richard left Ireland because of the Irish Potato Famine. They arrived in Australia in 1852. Lalor found work on a railway and then as a merchant. In 1854 he moved to Ballarat, where he worked as a gold miner, or digger. In November 1854 he joined the Ballarat Reform League. The league wanted the government to treat diggers fairly. The government ignored them, so the miners organized a fight. Lalor was chosen to be their leader.

Lalor and the diggers marched to Eureka, where they built a stockade, or defensive enclosure. On December 3 the police and military attacked the stockade. Lalor lost an arm in the attack and then went into hiding for many weeks. When he came out of hiding, the charges against him were dropped. The government then addressed the diggers' demands.

Lalor was elected to the Victoria Legislative Council in 1855. He served in various government positions until 1887. Lalor died on February 9, 1889, in Melbourne.

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Peter Lalor was the leader of the 1854 gold miners' uprising at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It was the most celebrated rebellion in Australian...

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Lola Montez, original name Elizabeth Rosanna Gilbert, (born February 17, 1821, Grange, County Sligo, Ireland-died January 17, 1861, New York, New York, U.S.), Irish adventuress and "Spanish" dancer who achieved international notoriety through her liaison with King Louis I (Ludwig I) of Bavaria.

Elizabeth ("Eliza") Gilbert spent much of her girlhood in India but was educated in Scotland and England. At age 19 she eloped with Lieutenant Thomas James; the couple separated five years later, and in 1843 Gilbert launched a career as a dancer. Her London debut in June as "Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer" was disrupted when she was recognized as Mrs. James. The fiasco would probably have ended the career of anyone less beautiful and determined, but Montez received additional dancing engagements throughout Europe. During her travels she reputedly formed liaisons with Franz Liszt and Alexandre Dumas, among many others.

Late in 1846 Montez danced in Munich, and Louis I of Bavaria was so struck by her beauty that he offered her a castle. She accepted, became Baroness Rosenthal and Countess of Lansfeld, and remained as his mistress. Under Montez's influence (the cabinet became known as the "Lolaministerium"), Louis inaugurated liberal and anti- Jesuit governmental policies, but his infatuation with her helped to bring about the collapse of his regime in the revolution of 1848. In March of that year Louis abdicated in favour of his son. Montez fled to London, where in 1849 she married Lieutenant George Heald, although she had never been divorced from James. Heald later left her.

From 1851 to 1853 Montez performed in the United States. Her third marriage, to Patrick P. Hull of San Francisco in 1853, ended in divorce soon after she moved to Grass Valley, California. There, among other amusements, she coached young Lotta Crabtree in singing and dancing. Montez settled in New York City after an unsuccessful tour of Australia (1855-56) and gathered a following as a lecturer on such topics as fashion, gallantry, and beautiful women. An apparently genuine religious conversion led her to take up various personal philanthropies.

Montez published Anecdotes of Love; Being a True Account of the Most Remarkable Events Connected with the History of Love; in All Ages and among All Nations (1858), The Arts of Beauty, or, Secrets of a Lady's Toilet with Hints to Gentlemen on the Art of Fascination (1858), and Lectures of Lola Montez, Including Her Autobiography (1858). The international notoriety of her heyday persisted long after her death and inspired numerous literary and balletic allusions.

John M. Cunningham, Readers Editor.

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Lola Montez, Irish adventuress and "Spanish" dancer who achieved international notoriety through her liaison with King Louis I (Ludwig I) of Bavaria. Elizabeth ("Eliza") Gilbert spent much of her girlhood in India but was educated in Scotland and England. At age 19 she eloped with Lieutenant Thomas