Women & Children on the Goldfields
By Kianna 5N
Introduction
There is about 4023 women on the goldfields in 1854 in Ballarat and about 12,500 men. Approximately 5 per cent of the women on the goldfields were single. As the years went by more women came to the goldfields to help their husbands.
Many children went to the goldfields with their parents and some were born at the goldfields.
Health
In 1851 life was difficult on the goldfields.Children died on the goldfields because of the heat.They also died from measles and typhoid.
Women on the goldfields had a hard time giving birth.There was not that many doctors on the goldfields and medicines were expensive.
Children died from poor sanitation. They died because they had no medicine.
Children and Education
On the goldfields education started in tents. Some tents were not able to fit all of the children. If they can't fit in the tent they had to sit on long wooden benches.
The children's parents has to pay a fee to let their children to go school. Children had to keep changing schools so their parents could mine. If no teachers arrive they had to wait until one arrives.
Some women were teachers others were untrained.Teachers lived in tents on the goldfields.Teachers stayed at their tents for several years and then they moved to other schools. They had no equipment to teach children.
Roles and Responseability
Some women went to the goldfields and some stayed home.The women had to clean and cook. Women cooked jam,bread and butter. Women stayed home ironing their clothes and their husband clothes.
Once the conditions were less dangerous children started to join their fathers on the goldfields. Their was about 5,000 children on the goldfields. Children had to move schools often. Sometmes the children weren't able to go school because there was only a limited number of schools.