MINERS’ HEALTH
Mining was a dangerous occupation. Miners quite often suffered accidents by falling down shafts or hurt in rock falls. Living conditions on some of the gold fields was not good with poor sanitation, lack of food and water, housing and extreme weather conditions. It’s not surprising that diseases broke out and one way to trace miners is to see if they were admitted to a hospital at any time. Not all hospital records have survived but where they exist, the records can provide detailed information on miners. During his WDYTYA? journey, Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood learnt that his 3x great grandfather, Charles Tinworth, travelled from Essex to take part in the 1854 gold rush.
Charles’ wife, Elizabeth, fell ill and her hospital records were found in the Genealogical Society of Victoria ( gsv.org. au) online Genealogical Index of Names (GIN). The index includes an amalgamation of admission records from eight hospitals that were on the Victorian goldfields including Amherst Hospital 1869-1888; Ballarat Hospital 1856-1913; Castlemaine Hospital 1855-1920; Castlemaine Benevolent Asylum 1860-1922; Creswick Hospital 1863-1894; Creswick Hospital Outpatients 1873-1877; Dunolly Hospital 1860-1900; Kyneton Hospital 1862-1885; Kyneton Hospital Family Record 1869-1884; Maldon Hospital 1864-1905 and Maryborough Hospital 1855-1907.
The index is free to search but a fee is payable for further details. Information for non-society members includes the person’s name, event (hospital record) and a date. The full record includes surname, given name, admission date, hospital, age, place of birth, marital status, occupation, residence and sometimes the name of the ship on which they arrived. A hospital record may be the only evidence that someone spent time in Australia and it may be worth purchasing the extra information.
Bendigo Hospital records 1856-1938 have been indexed by the local branch of the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies ( aigs.org.au/bendigo.htm). There are over 128,000 entries in the database which is only available at the Bendigo group’s resource centre. A complete list of other Bendigo resources in the database is on the website along with contact details.
Another useful index for Victoria is the Victorian mining accident index by Dave Evans published on CD. There’s a free sample index with details of 5,600 miners injured or killed between the early 1850s and 1940 online ( ballaratgenealogy .org.au/resources/victorian-miningaccident-index). Details include miner’s name, date, status, children, location of accident and the source where more information can be obtained. It includes both injuries and deaths.
The index is hosted by the Ballarat & District Genealogy Society ( ballarat genealogy.org.au) and the society has links to local historical and family history societies and other features, such as a historic timeline of Ballarat. The society has a Research Names section online so you can to check if anyone else is researching the same family name in Ballarat & District area.