Common to all miners: The Inglewood Gold Field Common

Goldfields commons were established in numerous locations in nineteenth-century Victoria. These large parcels of Crown land provided accessible grazing for gold miners and kept land around the goldfields in the public domain. In addition to the 80 or so goldfields commons declared, there were several hundred town and farmers' commons as well, covering in total more than 1 million acres of the Victorian countryside. The Inglewood Gold Field Common was broadly typical of this wider pattern. Established in January 1861, it initially encompassed more than 50,000 acres of mallee woodlands, grasslands and auriferous outcrops. Correspondence preserved in Public Record Office Victoria reveals the many ways that miners and local residents utilised the common, and how managers and users tried to negotiate and resolve the problems they encountered. These ranged from complaints by local squatters about loss of their land to claims by selectors, plagues of rabbits and the important role of Chinese market gardeners. The Inglewood Gold Field Common was officially abolished in 1898, but much of the land remains in public hands today.