Government Camp, Creswick Creek.

Scarce, c.19th hand coloured engraved view of Creswick Creek

The “Government Camp, Creswick Creek” was the local administrative and policing headquarters established by the Victorian Government on the Creswick goldfield during the gold rush. It was situated on the hill at the northern end of the early settlement, overlooking the diggings and Creswick Creek, on what became known as Commissioner’s Hill.  By 1853 the camp consisted largely of tents and rudimentary timber structures. Alexander Hunter, who arrived at Creswick in that year, described a large tent occupied by the Goldfields Commissioner, with adjoining tents for government servants and police, together with a small slab hut and a slab-and-bark lock-up for prisoners. The camp therefore functioned as the centre of government administration, policing and the enforcement of the goldfields regulations.  By 1855, when S. T. Gill depicted the site, it remained a rough goldfields administrative settlement rather than a formal government complex. Gill’s view shows the Commissioner’s buildings and flagpole on the hill, with tents, miners, police, carts and a timber bridge across the creek below. The surrounding diggings were predominantly alluvial, with miners using pans, buckets and windlasses to work the shallow leads.  The Government Camp was also involved in the political unrest surrounding the gold licence system. In October 1854 Creswick miners threatened to burn the camp and remove the government officials, and Creswick subsequently contributed men to the Ballarat Reform movement preceding the Eureka Stockade.