Women & Children on thr Goldfields
By Mary 5N
Introduction
In 1854 in Ballarat there were about 4023 women and 12,660 men in the gold fields.
Most women were married and only five percent were single.
As the years went by more and more women came. By December 1852 there was about 12,000 children at the Victorian diggings.
Education
- For children living on the gold fields between 1851 and early in the twentieth century, life could seem very harsh. Because their parents moved around a lot, looking for new and richer gold fields, children would have to change schools pretty often. Children's had to work very hard at all times! Lots and lots of children went to the gold fields with their parents and by December 1852 there were almost 12000 children on the Victorian diggings.
- In 1851 around the goldfields it was very harsh for a women to do chores all by there selves. Back then around the 1800's when there where were little kids mostly female would finish school at the age of 12. When female were about the age of 14 they got mostly told how women would work through out education. Years pass and as you know those 14 year old females became women.
Digging in the goldfields
Sitting around a hotel
People riding horses
Health
In 1851 life on the goldfields was very hard around health. More than 200 children had painful diseaes like poor sanitation. This lead children into dysentery and cholera diseases.
A darker side can be very hard for women expecially in health. Women can get the most scariest diseases ever; like diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, typhoid and scarlet fever swept through the gold fields.
Roles and Responsibilities
In 1851 in a little village lives more than 3,000 women. Whenever women used to finish digging they used to go to their little villages and start cooking food for there families, making some clothes for their husbands, children's and their selves too. Remember women always worked between them as always. This is how they got a lot of gold... by working by their selves of course!
Back in the olden days children's used to join the husbands and women dig for gold more then stay at home most of the time. However there was more men and women working more than the children. Most of the children had to do chores in the gold fields like mining, shopping , getting water from the creek and moving schools pretty often. lt was very harsh when children were around the gold fields.