Fairly and Feloniously: Women Making Money in 1850s Ballarat

From herding sheep, to helping her husband with his trade, to keeping a sly grog tent, to running a dress shop, women in the Ballarat region were busy participating in the economy right from the start of the goldrushes. Female occupations were crucial to the survival of families, and on a bigger scale, to the development of Ballarat as we know it. Far from being wallflowers, most women on the goldfields were active participants in the financial world around them. However, whilst some went about making money in legal ways, others sought money through more illicit means…

This Talking History features stories drawn from the ongoing research of Sharni Brownbridge. Sharni is a current PhD candidate at the Australian Catholic University at Ballarat, researching women in the Ballarat community between the 1830s and 1860s. Her research aims to reinterpret Ballarat’s histories to show that women were integral to the city’s development, from the pastoral era to the beginning of a permanent European township.

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Image: Thomas Ham, ‘Store at the Diggings’ [detail], 1854, lithograph. State Library of Victoria, H2918.