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Licence Inspections, courtesy of Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans.
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A licence hunt, courtesy of Melbourne University Press.
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Gold licence, 1852, courtesy of Sovereign Hill Gold Museum.
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Gold licence, 1853, courtesy of Sovereign Hill Gold Museum.
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Gold licence, 1855, courtesy of Sovereign Hill Gold Museum.
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Gold licence, 1854, courtesy of Sovereign Hill Gold Museum.
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Gold licence, 1867, courtesy of Sovereign Hill Gold Museum.
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Gold licence, 1853, courtesy of Sovereign Hill Gold Museum.
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Licence Inspections
Humiliating licence inspections or ‘hunts’ might be made several times a month by armed policemen who, as one commissioner observed, tended to do their duty while ‘bullying and swearing at everyone’ in a way that made ‘respectable men extremely indignant.’ Historian Geoffrey Serle likens a full-scale hunt, conducted with commissioners and mounted police, to ‘a military manoeuvre with ambushes, surprise attacks and encircling movements.’ Some commissioners thought it quite a sport (exciting in the manner of pigsticking or tiger-hunting) and would invite visiting dignitaries along for the show. Digger ‘prey’, understandably, found it far from amusing. Author and digger William Howitt said of it:
The system of hunting up licences was styled 'Man hunting', and the foot-police 'Man-catchers' and 'Bloodhounds'. It was a system that raised the indignation of high-spirited freeborn men, and excited the universal hatred of the people.
- References
- Serle, Geoffrey, The golden age: a history of the colony of Victoria, 1851-1861, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1963. [ Details... ]
