THE RUSH IS ON TO TUBBARUBBA
horse puddling machine. Some 16 feet (4.8 metres) from the workings a quartz vein crossed the creek bed, and here they found their nuggets of quartz and gold weighing 170 ounces in all (4.8kg). They were reported to have made 1000 pounds ($2000) from their find, a small fortune in those days. No other miner at Tubbarubba came close to this. The diggings at Tubbarubba continued to provide material of interest for the newspapers. In September 1895 the Standard reported on the formation of the Tubba Rubba Gold Mining Company with 13 shareholders, which included a number of well-known locals, including Alfred Downward (then a Victorian MP and previously a shire councillor), Dr J L Edgeworth Somers and Tom Caldwell (the son of the long-time Presbyterian minister James A Caldwell who lost three sons in the Mornington football team drowning disaster in 1892). In July 1896 the same paper reported that the Bulldog Creek Mining Company was working shifts day and night, with the shaft down to 50 feet. They expected to start driving (digging horizontally) in a week. One of the workers narrowly escaped death when a basket of rubble he had sent up to the surface fell on him. He received nasty cuts to the head but the contents of the basket were not sufficiently heavy to kill him. In 1900 another group applied for a mining lease and reportedly put men to work there at once. Three years later the Mornington Gold Mining Company announced its intention to build a large dam on Tubbarubba Creek to supply a battery for crushing gold-bearing quartz on their claim. This activity made items of news for the Standard in the first five years of the 20th century, but no news of large finds of gold followed. The next venture at Tubbarubba was reported in 1913 in the Peninsula Post when it was believed the old Tubbarubba goldfields were
E ssence
84 | PENINSULA
the site of an immense deposit of clay suitable for pottery “second to none in the world”. In 1937 geologist R A Keble published The Geological Survey of Victoria. As part of his research he examined the sites around Bulldog and Tubbarubba creeks and found evidence of the old workings. He found one gold-bearing reef had been worked under the head of Bulldog Creek. Keble also found evidence of mine shafts and tunnels, alluvial workings along the creek, an old battery site, and prospecting holes around Tubbarubba Creek. On his map of the area Keble marked several prospecting holes and a water race downstream from Barnes’s workings on Bulldog Creek. Keble found similarities between the geological strata around the creeks and the richly paying reefs of the Victorian Central Highlands, and suggested the reef on Bulldog Creek, which had suffered from a landslide, was probably quite rich. Almost 80 years after his investigations no one has been inclined to follow up Keble’s suggestion. The Tubbarubba Park Reserve in Tubbarubba Road was reserved in 1963 and consists of 13.3 acres (5.4 hectares) of natural bushland. It is understood it was in this area that the miners set up their camps. It is also believed this is the resting place of the murdered Chinaman, hence its original name of Cemetery Reserve. * Although the creek is generally spelled “Tubbarubba”, as is the road, the old diggings were usually spelled “Tubba Rubba” in newspapers and official documents. For simplicity the former version is used throughout unless a paper or document is being quoted. Reference: The Golden Plains of Tubbarubbabel by Mary Karney and Bruce Bennett.