The First Payable Australian Gold Find

Moving forward in time to the autumn of 1851, a group comprising the family of Mr Tom are assembled in the front room, watching a visitor recently returned from the Californian goldfields putting together a strange device which he demonstrates by rocking it with a cradle-like motion. Soon afterwards, a party of four men set out from the Tom house; two are sons of William Tom (William Jnr and James), one is the visitor (Edward Hammond Hargraves) and the other is the son (John Hardman Australia Lister) of a ship captain who had retired and was running a small inn at Guyong, not far from the Cornish Settlement. They have heavily-laden pack-horses. After a difficult time, they return disappointed from their week's search which was for gold, but the cradle (the strange device) had not helped them. Hargraves, who had set them up with the knowledge of using a panning dish and the cradle, took his leave and set out for other places.

A little later, the Tom sons and Lister set out again and this time they actually found gold only eleven miles from their home. As Glasson records, And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold (1 Kings, 9-28). William Tom Snr was going to Sydney and he took the 4 oz. of gold and handed it to Mr Hargraves. William Jnr and James Tom did not hear further from Mr Hargraves. They wrote again but no reply came.

A paragraph appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 15 May 1851 stating that Hargraves had found the first payable gold in Australia at Ophir near Orange. The two Tom men and Lister were said to be Hargraves' associates. After many more years of disappointment at the lack of recognition of their find, a Select Committee of the NSW Legislative Assembly was appointed on 25 August 1891 with power to send for persons and papers, to inquire into and report upon the claims (if any) of William Tom, James Tom, and J.H.A. Lister for remuneration as the first discoverers of gold in Australia.

The Select Committee submitted their agreed Report to the Legislative Assembly and it was ordered to be printed on 2 September 1891. It reads as follows:

Your Committee having carefully considered the Report referred to them, find as follows:-

(1) That although Mr. E.H. Hargraves is entitled to the credit of having taught the claimants, Messrs. W. and J. Tom and Lister, the use of the dish and cradle, and otherwise the proper methods of searching for gold, which his then recent visit to the Californian gold-fields enabled him to do, your Committee are satisfied that Messrs. Tom and Lister were undoubtedly the first discoverers of gold obtained in Australia in payable quantity.

(2) It has been alleged that the existence of gold in the Colony of New South Wales was known and that small quantities or "colours" had been found; but, so far as your Committee have been able to gain any information on the subject, what is now known to practical miners as "payable gold" was not known until the month of April, 1851, when the Messrs. Tom and Lister, after persistent and determined seach, under very great difficulties, unearthed 4 oz. of the precious metal, which being handed to Mr E.H. Hargraves were by that gentleman exhibited to the then Colonial Secretary, Mr E. Deas Thomson, whereupon Mr. Hargraves was thus recognised as the first discoverer of gold in Australia, and subsequently was rewarded by a gratuity of £10,000 from the Government of this Colony, and upwards of £2,300 from the Colony of Victoria, and in addition to these sums has been in receipt for several years of a pension of £250 per annum from this Colony.

(3) Considering the severe depression, almost stagnation, of trade and of business generally, which existed prior to the discovery of gold, and the marked improvement which immediately followed and has since continued, enriching the Colonies to an extent that can scarcely be even estimated, your Committee are of opinion that the Messrs. Tom and Lister have not received that consideration which the magnitude and importance of their discovery entitled them to.

(4) Mr. Hargraves appears to have abandoned the search for gold after his first course of prospecting with Messrs. Tom and Lister, until they informed him that they had found 4 oz. of gold, which, according to his own evidence, they discovered when he was not within 100 miles of them; and as he acknowledges to having received such 4 oz. of gold from them on 6th May, 1851, and that he immediately took it to the Colonial Secretary, your Committee have no doubt that this was the cause of the issue of the famous proclamation of gold announcing the discovery eight days afterwards, on the 14th May, 1851, from which may be dated the new era and the commencement of the sudden and marvellous increase in the value of all kinds of property and of the great strides in progress which the Colonies have since made.

(5) Your Committee regret that they have to report the death of one of the party Mr. J.H.A. Lister, who expired on the day upon which he was to have given his evidence; but a few days before his death he had written a full statement of his case, which is appended to the former Report, and which your Committee believe to be quite truthful.

(6) Your Committee therefore recommend the claim of Messrs. William Tom, James Tom, and J.H.A. Lister to the favourable consideration of the Government.

JAMES TORPY
Chairman

No. 2 Committee Room
Sydney, 2 September, 1891

Even today, E.H. Hargraves is pictured and stated to have been the first to discover a payable gold reserve in the region of Ophir in 1851 but William Tom, James Tom and John Lister are referred to as Hargraves' associates.
The pity of it was that John Lister did not survive to hear and read the report of the Select Committee. There are many who still have not read it to this day, so it seems.