VPRS 19145 Ballarat Mine Cards

Full description

This series is comprised of handwritten cards relating to mines in the Ballarat area that track the history and progress of various companies and mines from the mid-1800s onwards. 

Each mine card is identified by the mining company and mine location and/or mine name at the top of the card. The Parish number is often recorded in the top right hand corner. The cards contain a varied amount and type of information, but may include division number, account number, the type of mine (e.g. alluvial, reef), mining lease references, notes as to the progress made by the company and/or mine, financial details, and technical details. 

Further research is needed to determine the purpose for these cards being created.  It is however likely they were created in preparation for a merger between two mining companies ‘Ballarat Goldfields NL’ and ‘Highlake Resources NL’, as referenced in the article ‘It’s a Golden Merger’ in Victoria’s Earth Resources Journal Discovery from November 1998 (pp.8-9). As stated in the article “Hundreds of producing mines [in the Maryborough field] were never properly recorded or documented leaving modern explorers with no records from which to develop an overall picture of the field”  and “As a result, the Highlake exploration team has had to start from scratch, plotting old mine workings against the few records available…” 

This series also contains Ballarat Project Mine Information Reference cards, which detail the citations used to compile the information on the mine cards.