Image study: Government gold escort, 1852

Getting the gold from the goldfields to safe storage in the city was a serious business, requiring armed guards.  Strutt here shows how the Gold Escort expanded from a small group in 1851, to a larger force in 1852, as the amount of gold being transported was increasing.

 

William Strutt, pencil and watercolour sketch. 1851. Victoria the Golden, sketchbook

 

Courtesy of the Victorian Parliamentary Library

Dangers of life on the goldfields