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Kōrero: Gold and gold mining

Ye diggings, 1852

This cartoon by artist and surveyor Charles Heaphy depicts the Coromandel goldfields in 1852 shortly after payable gold was first discovered. It shows officers from the survey ship Pandora on a gold-mining picnic panning and drinking. The two activities went hand in hand – miners often drank away their hard-won earnings from gold.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: E-299-003

by Charles Heaphy

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Carl Walrond, Gold and gold mining – Coromandel Peninsula, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/zoomify/8462/ye-diggings-1852 (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Carl Walrond, i tāngia i te 2 March 2009.