UNESCO­’s World Heritage sites: central Victorian gold rush.

Mining Exchange Ballarat, 1888 (top image)

Mining Exchange, Bendigo, 1872 (image below)

There are wide criteria for listing by UNESCO­’s World Heritage Con­vent­ion, from a masterpiece of human genius to exhibiting an out­st­anding example of a type of buil­d­ing, architectural or technological site or land­scape which illus­trates a significant stage in human history. Across the world, most are cultural listings and fewer are natural listings. There are currently 1,121 sites across the world that are off­ic­ially recognised by the World Heritage Convention eg the Corn­wall and West Devon mining landscape was officially designated in  2006. Only 19 UNESCO recog­nised sites are in Australia, including Uluru, Great Barrier Reef, Sydney Opera House and Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building.

The Central Victorian Goldfields led the world's gold production in the 1850s. This event created an except­ional cultural land­scape that in turn enriched the capital city, Mel­b­ourne. And even Vict­or­ia’s mul­ticulturalism came from the goldfields which were melting pots back then. So it is not surprising that local pol­it­icians and hist­orians have long discussed putting sites across the region's Central Gold­fields on the World Heritage List. Now Vict­orian coun­cils are push­­­i­ng for UNESCO to formally recognise the area, foll­owing a $50,000 state govern­ment invest­ment in developing the bid.


Shamrock Hotel Bendigo
Originally built in 1854

Joss House Bendigo
built by and for Chinese miners in the 1860s

Ballarat Mayor Samantha McIntosh and Bendigo Mayor Cr Margaret O’Rourke had attended the 15th Organ­is­ation of World Historical Cities Congress in Krakow, Poland in 2019. There the Australians confirmed they planned for the Inter­nat­ional Coun­cil on Mon­u­ments and Sites Sustainable Tourism Committee to visit the region next year. Both mayors joined the Heritage Advisory Comm­ittees.

ICOMOS is a non-government, international organisation dedicated to the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places. It is one of the two advisory bodies to provide the World Heritage Comm­ittee with evaluations of the cultural and natural sites nominated for World Heritage Listing. In time, ICOMOS will tour the entire Central Goldfields area to assess the historical treasures.

12 councils in Central Victoria are backing the bid: City of Bendigo, Macedon Ranges, Mount Alexander, Central Gold­fields, Camp­aspe, Loddon, Hepburn, City of Ballarat, Ararat Rural City, Golden Plains, Northern Gramp­ians & Pyrenees. And these councils are be­ing supported in their bid by two former Vict­orian premiers from opposing parties, Liberal Denis Napthine and Lab­or John Brum­by. Both became patrons of the bid for UNESCO World Her­it­age listing.

Back in Australia, councillors from these 12 shires etc came tog­et­her in June 2020 to plan the gold­fields’ UNESCO bid. After the dis­cussions, there was a walking tour of Ballarat’s cult­ural land­scape that included Reid’s Guest House, Federation Uni­vers­ity Just­ice Build­ing in Camp St, Hop Temple laneway and Ball­ar­at Trades Hall Building.

The final bid should include mines, architecturally significant buildings and natural landscapes at the heart of Victoria’s gold rush. So re­search will needed to determine which sites will be included in the bid, minimally Sovereign Hill near Ballarat and Castlemaine Alluvial Digg­ings National Heritage Park. The Heritage Park includes mines, panning in river beds, gullies where gold was discov­er­ed and the remnants of hist­oric houses.

In 1854 Ballarat miners, disgruntled with the way the colonial gov­ernment administered the goldfields, swore allegiance to the South­ern Cross flag at Bakery Hill and built the Eureka Stockade at the nearby diggings. As soon as the stockade was lightly guarded, gov­ernment troops attacked, killing dozens of diggers (and sold­iers). Eureka was a significant event in the development of Australia’s eventual government and attitudes towards democracy and egalitar­ianism, and must be included in the bid.


Reid’s Coffee Palace, originally built by German immigrant Joseph Reid
He opened a bakery to serve migrant workers flooding in for the gold rush.

Eureka Stockade Memorial Gardens
East Ballarat

In my opinion the Ballarat and Bendigo's mining exch­anges, the great stock ex­changes of the Goldfields in the C19th, must also be feat­ur­ed. After all, Victoria’s modern values began in the goldfields and at the Eureka Stockade. Other sites that could be listed: Cas­t­le­maine Dig­gings National Her­it­age Park, Maldon and Clunes historic street­scapes and the Hotel Shamrock Bendigo. And note all the beau­tiful churches that were built in the later C19th, and the wonderful post off­ices, town halls and court houses. Plus sites that show the contrib­ution of In­dig­enous Australian and Chin­ese Australians eg Bendigo's Joss House is a historic temple that was built in the 1860s by Chinese miners.

Even before the COVID lockdown, the two ex-premiers had hoped a succ­essful bid would spur another gold rush by bringing internat­ion­al recognition to Victoria’s goldfields. Now they are emphasising that private sector investment in hotels, rest­aurants and oth­er tour­­­ist businesses would be extremely wel­come, boosting the tourist econ­omy. A UNESCO listing would create great publicity and would put cen­tral Victoria on the post-COVID global map again. And a success­ful bid should encourage governments to spend money preparing the sites, many of which have been well pres­er­ved. 

Historians say gold rush era architecture in the region should definitely be included in the bid. But the region has half a million people, covers 40,000 square ks (17% of the state), and includes hun­dreds of signif­icant gold mining sites and archit­ectural treas­ures. These councils want the birth­place of the 1850s Victorian gold­rush to be given internat­ional recognition but if there were too many treas­ures, the final list would need to be limited by the Victorian Gold­fields Tourism Executive.

The Executive is co-fund­ing the project, committing $200,000 over 2 years to progress the World Heritage List­ing bid. The money will be used to conduct community and industry engagement across the region and will also aid dev­elopment of a sustainable tourism plan. But any for­mal pitch for World Heritage status will need to be made by Aust­ralia’s Federal Government. Note that the Federal Government has sofar prov­ided no assurance it will participate.