California And N.Z. Gold

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31251, 24 December 1966, Page 1

California And N.Z. Gold

Mr P. R. May, senior lecturer in history at the University of Canterbury, believes the New Zealand gold rushes may owe more to the “forty-niners” of California than is generally recognised. He thinks techniques of gold discovery, of hydraulic sluicing, and saving fine grains can be traced directly to California.

To substantiate and elaborate his theories, Mr May will spend next year on refresher leave at the University of California at Berkeley, chiefly because it has the famous Bancroft Library, the greatest American repository of information on the western. Americas from Alaska to Chile. Mr May, author of the notable book “The West Coast Gold Rushes” in New Zealand (for which a second edition is planned in April), found during research for the first edition that even historians were not fully aware “of our indebtedness to the diggers of California.” “A great body of mining technology spread from California over the Pacific,” Mr May said yesterday. “The first real discovery of gold in New Zealand w«s mafia in Coromandel in 1852

by Charles Ring, a former Californian digger. “Hartley and Reilly, also from California, made the Dunstan discoveries in Otago and taught the locals the Californian techniques of saving very fine gold.

“These and other Californians showed us how to use long water races and hydraulic sluicing, techniques more applicable in New Zealand than in Australia. “It is on record that West Coast gold diggers in 1866 and 1867 celebrated American Independence Day; but I can’t say whether this was a tribute to Californian influence or just an excuse for a party,” said Mr May. These and many more New Zealand findings have prompted Mr May to “dig deeper” into the Californian gold rushes to see how experience developed and spread to New Zealand.

He has at least one Canterbury lead to follow. John E. (“Yankee”) Brown was a prominent citizen in the 1860 s and 1870 s. He was a Canterbury provincial councillor and then a member of the House of Representatives. He was also a Californian “fortyniner.” He left a journal of the crossing of the “Great Plain” which Mr May has located in America. Mr May will also select books on the "mining frontiers” for use in Canterbury University’s American studies programme. As proctor, he will also £tudy American student disci- ( pline. Accompanied by his wife and three children, Mr Max will leave early in January.