Nobody counted on.147

The numbers grow

On 31 August 1867 Mackay wrote to his Superintendent that there were already 400-500 on the field and that 129 miners' rights had been taken out.148 Of course not all who went to the Thames were miners. Speaking of the Australian fields A.G.L. Shaw wrote that 'diggers had to be fed and clothed' and housed 'even if primitively'.149 And that process set in early at the Thames. Before August was out, Mackay reported that about 20 were already engaged as publicans or storekeepers and 56 allotments taken up for business purposes in the hitherto 'paper' town of Shortland.150 The growth of the settlement was perceptible. Within a few months kahikatea and kauri disappeared from the flat, and the hills behind were denuded apart from a few clumps. Tramways, batteries, cottages, wharves, churches, hotels, banks and shops all rapidly took shape.151 In under two years, according to one estimate, the value of buildings erected on leasehold land in Shortland, was at least £250,000.152

Boom town

Once parts of the field had proved fabulously rich, the population took off. The Herald reported that within three months of the field's opening Thames had 5,000 residents.153 But 1868 was the year of spectacular growth. Mackay was astonished at how 'rapid and complete' were changes taking place in a period of two months (for most of which he was absent) during the winter of 1868.154 In September G.M. O'Rorke claimed in Parliament that the Thames population had reached 12,000.155 Gold was the magnet. In 1868 some 6,000 miners' rights were issued.156 The insignificant gold export out of Auckland in 1867 of £18,277 lifted in the following year to £168,874 climbing to £1,188,708 in 1871.157 The census of 1871 showed that Thames had become the fifth largest town in the colony; larger than Nelson, and much larger than Napier and New Plymouth; its population was exceeded only by Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

148 ACL A208/611, NARC.

149 A.G.L. Shaw, The Economic Development of Australia, Camberwell (Vic.), 1973, p. 69.

150 Mackay to Superintendent, 31 August 1867, ACL A208/611.

151 Salmon, A History of Goldmining, p. 193

152 AJHR, 1869, A-17, p. 11.

153 New Zealand Herald, 7 Nov. 1867.

154 Mackay to Superintendent, 13 July 1867, ACL 208/611.

155 NZPD, 1868, Vol. 3, p. 561(24 Sept. 1868).

156 Salmon, A History of Goldmining, p. 187.

157 Stone, Makers of Fortune, p. 10.

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