Goldfields: Women and Children
By: Xavier
Introduction
Roles and responsibilities of women in the goldfields
Many men would dig for gold every day 24/7 but there were never any women until later. Then they would bring their kids with them to the goldfields to help with their husbands to dig for gold. Most of the time women would stay home and wash the clothes and cook food. Woman would dance for there husbands which meant good luck. Men thought that women couldn't dig for gold because of the difficulty of doing so. Occasionally the women would look after children. Now that women are starting to come, kids are coming as well and by December 1852, 1200 kids were helping to find gold.
Education
Children's parents moved around alot for richer and better goldfields. This means they have to move to lots of schools. Parents can't teach their kids properly because most of the them came from the other side of the world.Europe that is. Some schools took long to be built so children eager to be educated couldn't. Parents would try to teach the kids if they were teached. But sadly, they weren't. Until proper official government schools were built, parents had to send their kids to churches or private individuals. There were also goldfield schools. The first one was just in a miniscule tent.