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