Mount Shamrock: A Symbiosis of Mine and Settlement
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Mount Shamrock: A Symbiosis of Mine and Settlement Geraldine Mate
Published online: 4 June 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract Mount Shamrock township was one of the earliest gold mining towns in the Upper Burnett district of Queensland, Australia. A study of the township and associated industrial area demonstrates the integration of town and mine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper examines the relative permanence of the mining settlement and reveals a multifaceted landscape influenced not only by miners but by the women, children and other non-mining residents operating within distinct social and administrative frameworks. Keywords Gold mining . Landscape . Social identity . Queensland . Australia
Introduction Gold mining is part of the narrative of the past in Queensland and the larger gold fields such as the Palmer River and Charters Towers are well known. However it was not just the major centers that followed the gold path in the second half of the nineteenth century; many smaller towns were established to support mining, although their stories have been overshadowed by grand narratives of gold rushes and capitalist ventures. Mount Shamrock was a gold mining town broadly typical of the many small towns in Queensland at that time which sprang up and later disappeared. Archaeological investigations across the landscape of Mount Shamrock have revealed the presence of remnants from both the township and the associated mining and processing area. Analysis of these physical remnants illuminates the role of small towns in informing our understanding of the story of gold mining. G. Mate The Workshops Rail Museum, Queensland Museum, North Ipswich QLD 4305, Australia G. Mate (*) Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Sociology, School of Arts and Social Sciences, James Cook University, Cairns QLD 4870, Australia e-mail: [email protected]
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Int J Histor Archaeol (2013) 17:465–486
Examination of the remnants at Mount Shamrock using a landscape approach showed that the town and mine were part of an integrated landscape. The history of the settlement demonstrates the relative permanence of some towns in what is traditionally regarded as a comparatively transient mode of settlement. Further, combined archaeological and documentary evidence reveal that residents operated within social and administrative frameworks which affected their approaches to everyday life in the town. Being populated by people in a range of occupations over an extended period, with the presence of women and children, and despite variable fortunes, Mount Shamrock challenges traditional narratives which paint mining towns as rough, male-dominated places and illuminates life in a mining town in late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Queensland.
Approaches to the Archaeological Investigation of Mining in Australia A number of investigations of historical gold mining complexes in Australia have been undertaken, including work by Bell (1984, 1987, 1998) on the Palmer in Qu
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