Canton Lead in Ararat
Date Published
: memorials, Mining (gold fields)
: Central Goldfields (Vic)
: Ararat
: 1857
A sculpture to commemorate the discovery of Canton Lead by the early Chinese gold miners.
Chinese gold miner, Ararat Museum
The sculpture, in memory of the early Chinese diggers, was erected as an Australian Bicentennial Project and unveiled in 1988 and incorporates the plaque erected at the site of the Canton Lead mine by the Ararat Historical Society in 1985. In 1990, a further plaque was unveiled detailing the history of the site.
Canton Lead is unique in Australian cultural heritage and it is site upon which the city of Ararat was founded. Ararat is the only city in Australia to be founded by Chinese immigrants.
For the first five weeks it was referred to as Canton Lead, then as Mount Ararat, and then shortened to Ararat. On a Sunday morning in May, 1857, 700 Chinese miners from Southern China, travelling overland from the Port of Robe, South Australia, to the Clunes Goldfields in the Colony of Victoria, rested at a place at the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, some 400 kilometres due east of Robe.
Replenishing their water supplies at a spring, they discovered by chance the Canton Lead, the world`s richest shallow alluvial goldfield that stretched five kilometres at length. This find marked the beginning of the Ararat Goldfield, which grew to a population of more than 30,000 in a mere few weeks. In the first three months of mining, the Canton Lead yielded more than three tonnes of gold.
Source: Monument Australia
Canton Lead Memorial
Plaque associated with statue
