Women & Children on the Goldfields
By Aditya
Introduction
In 1854 there were 4023 women on the Ballarat goldfields compared to the men of about 12500. 5% of the women were single. As the years past more and more women came. Also more women got maried.
Many children came with their parents but more children were born on the goldfields.
Health
Life on the goldfields was very harsh and health was poor. Most children helped find gold but this got them sick because they didnt get lots of rest. Sometimes children got hurt by the heavy equipment that they tried to picked up. Children got sick very often and there wasn't many medicines available to heal children. Children were definately a source of labour.
Health for women was very hard. Their life was harsh because when they gave birth they didn't have hospitals like these days and their only help to give birth was other women on the fields. IT was very usual that after a women gave birth she would get a bad sickness and die.
Education
Often children didn't have an education. Education was a problem for all children because their parents kept on moving to richer goldfields.Sometimes children didn't even go to school because it took a long time to build schools in newer goldfields.
Roles and Responsibilities
The responsibilities for a lady was mostly to stay home with the children and cook, clean and wash the clothes.They had to prepare lunch before their husbands came home. Some women had a role like dancing for male diggers and collecting gold nuggets. Women made food like porridge and bread. Also some women helped there husbands on the goldfields or they were shopkeepers to earn more money. They sold bread, gas and tinned food.
Children had a responsibility of helping their mums clean the house. Girls had roles to help their mum sew clothes and boys had to help in the backyard or the farm if they had one.