Sunday Scene at the Oakenville Creek Diggings.

Very rare c.19th engraved view of Oakenville diggings near Nundle in 1854.

In the left of the image there is a bare knuckle fight happening while in the foreground a preacher is giving a sermon to a group of diggers and there family, and two male aborigines.

Many of the visitants at the Hanging Rock will be glad to learn that that indefatigable prospector, Captain Madgwick, has “hit the vein at last, and after having by his labours benefitted many a lucky digger, has now a good prospect of making a pile himself. He is at work on a ridge by Oakenville Creek, opposite Mr. Butler’s stores, and has constructed a rough railway up the ridge, by which, as his full buckets of stuff descend to the washing ground, the empty ones are drawn up. Captain Madgwick has already done well there. On Swamp Creek and towards the top of the rock, also, the diggers are still obtaining gold, above 100 ounces being bought in that locality by Mr. Haydon. Cox’s company have erected a large water- wheel, to be worked by the water from a race they are cutting, leading up towards Captain Madgwick’s ridge. The wheel has been tried and found to answer well.

From the original edition of The Illustrated Sydney News.

References:
Gibbs & Shallard. Illustrated Sydney News. ISSN 2203-5397.

Collections:
State Library New South Wales: F8/39-40
State Library Victoria: PCINF SLVIC=1853-1872
National Library Australia: Bib ID 440095