A small but hardy group of community members turned out to join Chewton Domain Society and Parks Victoria in celebrating the 20th birthday of Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park and commemorating the Diggers’ 1851 Monster Meeting last Sunday.
The young and young at heart enjoyed some gold panning with Parks Victoria rangers, before Uncle Rick Nelson welcomed everyone to country with a smoking ceremony.
Master of Ceremonies Cr Christine Henderson urged those in attendance to think for a moment about what the landscape looked like before the goldrush, when it was under the care of First Nations people.
Local thespian Gus Read Hill then recited the Diggers’ words of defiance as they rallied for justice against Governor La Trobe’s plans to hike the miners licence from 30 shillings to three pounds a month which was met by cheers from the crowd.
Bendigo West MP Maree Edwards spoke about the importance of the event in helping to shape democracy and multiculturalism in Victoria.
“If you can imagine this area near Forest Creek was covered with 15,000 people, men and women, protesting against what Governor La Trobe had decided to do,” Ms Edwards said.
“Most of those diggers didn’t have that kind of money. When you think about La Trobe and where he came from and his privilege. He had no idea. The people that came here to Forest Creek and Victoria to mine for gold came from across the world, it was a multicultural and significant event and we are very fortunate to bear the fruits of that wonderful multicultural society here in Victoria today,” she said.
Parks Victoria manager of heritage services, Paul Roser, spoke about the park’s significance as one of only six national heritage parks across Australia and specifically in terms of its goldfields heritage and geology.
He also spoke about the installation of new signage created in collaboration with the Dja Dja Wurrung to share this knowledge, and the efforts to attain World Heritage listing.
Finally local group Brasselmaine shared a couple of musical numbers which were played by the band which led the 15,000 diggers from the goldfields to the Monster Meeting site on December 15, 1851.
To cap off the day those in attendance joined in singing ‘Happy Birthday’ and cut the ‘gold themed’ cake created by Jenny Howe of Chewton CWA Phoenix to celebrate the park’s 20th birthday.
