Twilight Talks 2025, Season 3, Spring Season | Gold! Gold! Bendigo – Ballarat
Bar open at 5pm
Humffray Room
Gold! Gold! A comparison between the Ballarat & Bendigo Goldfields.
An overview of the production of gold and its implications from the goldrush era of the 1850s up until today in both the Ballarat and Bendigo regions. Historian Dr Phil Roberts will provide a summary about gold in Ballarat followed by historian Dr Charles Fahey who will discuss gold in Bendigo during the same years.
Speakers
Dr Phil Roberts OAM
Phil Roberts
Phil is a former secondary humanities teacher and school principal. Also, he taught in schools in England in 1971 and in Denver, USA in 1984. He has written twenty-four local history books – seven involve schools, six are about sport, five concern local Ballarat industry and six involve community history.
In 2017 Phil received an Order of Australia Award for community service and in 2019 graduated from Federation University with a PhD based on Ballarat’s Avenue and Arch. A keen Geelong supporter, he enjoys sporting pursuits including Royal Tennis, golf and cycling. His family includes his wife Geraldine, son Andre, daughter Tonya, six grandsons and one granddaughter.
Dr Charles Fahey
Charles Fahey formerly taught in the History Program at La Trobe University. His research has focused on the Victorian goldfields, labour history and agricultural history. His recent publications include the joint authorship of Mallee Country: Land, People History (Monash 2020) and Living together on Upside Down Country: Faith, spirituality, and social cohesion on Victorias goldfields since 1851 to be published by ANU Press.
In the June 2025 edition of the Victorian Historical Journal he published an article on the family farm and he is a contributor to a forthcoming special edition of the Asia Pacific Economic History Review on the history of manufacturing in Australia.
Additional publication by Dr Fahey
Gold Tailings: Forgotten Histories of Fmaily and Community in the Central Victorian Goldfields – edited by Alan Mayne & Charles Fahey
The rich landscapes of the Victorian central goldfields are the legacy of thousands of ordinary men and women who settled in the wake of the alluvial gold discoveries of the early 1850s. Gold Tailings explores how these men and women established families and created enduring communities that survived long after the alluvial gold was exhausted.
Gold tailings explores the private and often forgotten lives of the gold settlers who built these communities. It moves beyond the sterotype of rootless single male diggers and analyses how enduring communities were formed when male gold diggers – who often travelled with mates and kin – were joined by women, and together they formed families and networks of common interest and mutual support.
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Tickets and Bookings
Tickets $9.73 BMI members & $13.83 general admittance, includes gst & bkg fee.
This event takes place on Wadawurrung Country. Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute acknowledges the Wadawurrung People of the Kulin Nation as the first inhabitants and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we work, learn and create. Always Was, Always Will Be, Aboriginal Land.
