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Dating back to 1880, the nickname ‘Marvelous Melbourne’ was given to our city, this was introduced when Melbourne was progressing into a major world city. This was a result of the Gold Rush. The Gold Rush caused Melbourne to become one of the richest cities in the world. During this time of the Gold Rush, Melbourne expanded rapidly, causing the population to rise by. This essay will investigate the creation of Melbourne and how it came to be a ‘Marvelous City’. This essay will also answer the question how did Melbourne become known as the ‘marvelous’ city.
The Gold Rush throughout the 1850s and 1860s resulted in people flocking the goldfields in search of gold and wealth. The Gold Rush helped form the Australia we know today. The chaos of the Gold Rush caused was unimaginable. As soon as the word got out people flooded the goldfields with shovels and a hope for prosperity. Many people achieved a plethora of wealth, others didn’t. The economic impact of the Gold Rush mostly affected Victoria. The goldfields were rich and plentiful in towns such as Ballarat and Bendigo. They flourished with new wealth and a whole new population of people. As people digging for gold made their fortune, so did shop owners, butchers and of course, the government. Around 174 tons of gold worth 14,000,000 pounds was found in 1852 alone, the rich fields caused ridiculous numbers of immigrants from Europe and China to pile into Australia. These extra people picked up jobs that were abandoned by people searching for gold, and were paid very highly for their effort. The London Times wrote this “this is California all over again, but, it would, appear, California on a larger scale”. This was after the ships returned to England carrying eight tons of Australian gold. This shows that the gold found in Victoria was of a much more substantial amount than the Californian Gold Rush.
The rise in population in Melbourne from people all around the world resulted in the city needing to expand, so new ideas and technologies needed to be installed. The goldfields were Australia’s first encounter with a truly diverse and multicultural population. Between 1851 and 1854, the population of Victoria grew from around 77,000 to more than 200,000. In 1850 the estimated population of Australia was around 400,000, but by 1860 the population increased to around 1 million. The value of imported goods from outside Victoria reached an extraordinary 18 million, everything needed was shipped into Victoria, from mining to food, houses and equipment. More than 86 million grams of gold we mined in 1856. Victoria was the fastest growing city in the British empire during the gold rush, with the discovery of gold came a lot of great wealth. During this time many find buildings and houses were built. On the fields apart from gold miners, there were people supplying the miners with goods and services, mine managers, miner’s families, farmers, government officials and local indigenous people. “The delightful idea of going to such a country was great, then I tried to achieve as much money as I could”, – said Lum Khen Yang in ‘The Wesleyan Chronicle’, 1st of February 1859.
The income of Melbourne brought many new buildings and developments, from 1853 to 1854 the number of buildings in Melbourne doubled. Many young and talented British architects were drawn to Melbourne by the building boom, such as John James Clark, Peter Kerr and William Wilkinson Wardell, who in fact designed the Wardell building at Genazzano. They created grand buildings with elegant designs similar to those in European cities. The Victorian Legislative Council drafted Victoria’s first constitution, after the need and want for greater democracy and a home for political debate. After this they started building the Victorian Parliament House. Many other things were built during this time such as the Public Library, the Old Customs House, the Old Treasury, the Royal Amphitheatre and the ANZ Gothic Bank. There were also buildings devoted to Italian classicism, banks offices and clubs were reinterpretations of villas, palaces and temples. New buildings also displayed state power and wealth from the gold rush contributed to the construction of many churches, school galleries, the State Library and Flinders Street Station. Elegant and ornate buildings with attractive paved and tree-lined streetscapes were built. The Royal Exhibition Centre drew large amounts of popularity to Melbourne. In 1880 Melbourne hosted the International Exhibition which brought almost 1.3 million people over the 7 months it ran for, and at this time the population of Melbourne was only about 220,000. After 2 very prestigious and famous events were held at the Exhibition Centre it is now world heritage listed.
In conclusion, Melbourne became a ‘marvelous’ city because of the Gold Rush, the nickname was given to our ever developing and growing city. The Gold Rush helped Melbourne to evolve and grow into the fabulous city we know today. The Gold Rush also assisted in Melbourne’s economy giving the population better income and more money to build elegant buildings. Building elegant buildings gained more population for Melbourne. These developments gave Melbourne a name and gave us the nickname ‘Marvelous Melbourne’. The growing population required new machinery and transport, giving people the opportunity to invent new things.
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