Why were old timer newspaper reports so detailed?

[tim]

I've been reading some old (late 19th century) newspaper articles in trove about gold mines, and can't get over how detailed they are in terms of revealing yields, depths and other information that I (in the 21st century) would have thought would be proprietary secrets.

Why did old timers, and their newspaper articles, disclose such details? Did regulations require such details be publicly available in any case, or were the articles intended to attract investors, the journos/readers better educated in the subject, or some other reasons?

Very different from today's click bait.

Thanks

 

[Mirrors]

lol tim im reading them right now and thought the same

 

[Ward69]

I've been reading some old (late 19th century) newspaper articles in trove about gold mines, and can't get over how detailed they are in terms of revealing yields, depths and other information that I (in the 21st century) would have thought would be proprietary secrets.

Why did old timers, and their newspaper articles, disclose such details? Did regulations require such details be publicly available in any case, or were the articles intended to attract investors, the journos/readers better educated in the subject, or some other reasons?

Very different from today's click bait.

Thanks

Gday Tim. Definitely beautiful to read and lot better English than todays paper but youll notice not more information after the end of ww1 something happened to a lot of newspapers got brought out or close down

 

[mbasko]

Australia was then (& still is) a very young country.
Once the goldrush officially started here the governments + towns wanted people to join the rush to boost both Australias & their own local prosperity. I'd guess people were encouraged to talk the goldfields up & many were happy to do so.
Government Geologists were sent out to prospect ground & report on it to entice further prospecting in areas also.
Miners were required to report on production but I doubt all did. You can find these reports on sites like DIGS (NSW) but I'm not sure they were made public back then. Either way it seems some were very free with information & no doubt some others likely weren't. Probably more to do with being the popular news story of the day.
During the 1850's to late 1800's gold was the big news topic so occupied a lot of newspaper space. During this time there were a lot of travelling reporters covering the goldfields news. It petered out as most of the prolific goldfields also did & as such the reporters left the fields so I suspect the drop in detailed information is refelected in that time (after the late 1800's).

Some good reading are the articles by Charles de Boos & "A Visit to the Western Goldfields" by Anonymous.

 

[Nightjar]

Great write up Mbasko.

I think the cloak & dagger aspect of mining today or any business for that matter revolves around that swear word, GREED!

 

[Solid Luck]

They had a lot more time on their hands and no phones to distract them.

 

[Ward69]

They had a lot more time on their hands and no phones to distract them.

Yep. No simplified txt. Like we do today. What is going to happen in the next 100 years. ????

 

[Moneybox]

There were some government rewards for reporting new gold finds. Perhaps this just encouraged a lot more discussion and communication.

 

[just starting]

They had a lot more time on their hands and no phones to distract them.

Yep. No simplified txt. Like we do today. What is going to happen in the next 100 years. ????

We are headed this way :

In the Year 2525 Song by Zager and Evans

In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find
In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today
In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you
In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you
In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube
In the year 7510
If God's a coming, He oughta make it by then
Maybe He'll look around Himself and say
Guess it's time for the judgment day
In the year 8510
God is

 

[Jaros]

I'll have what you're having -should sleep well. :zzz: :zzz:

 

[Ward69]

Many thanks Foz enlightening. But back to topic that Tim started with.

Back in yesterday year. And Mbaska beautiful started. It was required in Victoria to report all findings, as most of the easy gold had been found and the deep mines require investors to place money into them. Its was like the current ASX today. Declare or dont get the investments to finish the job.

 

[Goldfreak]

Agree with above, plus the the average Joe back then probably had more knowledge about the gold fields and prospecting so wanted more precise info.

 

[just starting]

I bought detailed original mining reports of my local area with maps of the mines themselves and all the finances from each mine.
They list how much gold was found ,how many shareholders there were for each one and the dividends paid out . I also have info on the timelines of what happened in these mines with regular updates including when they were payable , when they were starting to slow down and when they were onsold or closed up all together.
I can also read when the mining companies moved their whole operations to one area and why they did it.
It`s very interesting reading and gives an insight into how much was involved in operating a mine. You also get a feel for how the population migrated from one area to the next ,following the gold trail. Did you know that the main township of Scarsdale / Browns wasn`t located where it is now ? It started around Monkey Gully, a few miles down the road and as the gold mining got more intense to the west ,the miners started moving around and eventually the township was settled around the Glenelg highway.

A bit of history for you ,but it is also useful info .

FOZ

 

[tim]

Some web searching leads to a linguistic analysis [https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2016.1249272] that suggests that it was (someone who became) a NSW gold commissioner and mining warden, Frederick Dalton, who wrote "A Visit to the Western Goldfields", supporting mbasko's statement about the role of government geologists.

Government Geologists were sent out to prospect ground & report on it to entice further prospecting in areas also.
...
Some good reading are the articles by Charles de Boos & "A Visit to the Western Goldfields" by Anonymous.

 

[mbasko]

The Government Geologists helped open up a lot of areas to resources (not just gold).
If you're in NSW, or interested, then look for reports from Samuel Stutchbury (NSW Colonial Geologist). Some of these were in newspapers of the day.
Various Gold Commissioners also made contributions with articles on their area/s. (And yes some Commissioners were geologists etc.).
There's some great information on Trove that is definitely worth researching & useful. :Y:

 

[casper]

I've been reading some old (late 19th century) newspaper articles in trove about gold mines, and can't get over how detailed they are in terms of revealing yields, depths and other information that I (in the 21st century) would have thought would be proprietary secrets.

Why did old timers, and their newspaper articles, disclose such details? Did regulations require such details be publicly available in any case, or were the articles intended to attract investors, the journos/readers better educated in the subject, or some other reasons?

Very different from today's click bait.

Thanks

Back then, and being true to the job description, a REPORTER did just that! they reported everything verbatim, and largely without opinion. News is news, but a SCANDAL is a next level, because that's where the juicy stuff is... Back in 1819 my 4th great grandparents had a messy separation, and you can read the whole saga in every tiny detail online today. Maybe not that
much has changed in 200 years.......

 

[Hawkear]

I think back then gold had to be sold to the government via local gold commissioners. So all the gold from an area could be reported on from a single source ie the commissioners office.
At the time the colonial government was then trying to encourage production so information was recorded in much detail and there were no privacy laws or indeed qualms about disclosing those details publicly to encourage others.
For parties known to be working claims in a particular field there would be no secret as to where and how deep they found there gold.
The govt was particularly keen to record details of the larger nuggets for newsworthy reasons and as a result to this day we have a fine record of the larger Victorian nuggets although not complete by a long shot.
”Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Victoria
No 12.
List of Nuggets Found in Victoria”
Of course one always has to treat information from prospectors as to exactly where they report finding their gold with some caution, and I would suggest it would have been little different in the old days.

 

[Jaros]

Me thinks that people who could read did so therefore understanding the text the ones who couldn't read were like sheep to the slaughter.

 

[Hawkear]

Me thinks that people who could read did so therefore understanding the text the ones who couldn't read were like sheep to the slaughter.

The motives of the early diggers differed something from us today. Back then they came to find gold to achieve a better life to what they felt they were destined for. Many of them were well educated and highly literate but lacking opportunity in their native lands. The Eureka stockaders were well versed in the ideas of the Chartist movement in England.
For us it is either an occupation or a hobby or something in between. For them they came to make sufficient to enable escape from the lifestyle they feared. Many stayed on for a life here or returned to from where they came somewhat richer, but not always so.
It was much more a quick buck mentality for them to bump themselves up the scale of life.

 

[XLOOX]

There were very very few sources of information in those days. Papers were read front to back and important life changing decisions made based on them. The role of paper journalism in creating and maintaining a community was taken seriously.

A single 3m old paper from Melbourne might be the latest and only source of news for a small community when it first started but as it grew then local info was of equal importance and helped promote the area.

With the significant effort required to printing a single edition in the frontier regions, they packed as much info as they could in on all topics.

The farming info was equally detailed. Who put was trialing new sheep breeds, how many cattle had redwater disease in what farms, vegetable yields...