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Standing on Blue Spur overlooking Munro and Gabriel’s Gully Mr J.B. McKinley of Lawrence discusses the history of the area.
His father arrived in Gabriel’s Gully in 1861, two-three months after the discovery of gold by Gabriel Read but moved on in search of better prospects at Waitahuna River and Southland before returning to Victoria [Australia]. McKinley explains the origins of the names for Munro Gully and Blue Spur [ridge].
He describes how the advent of lawsuits literally collapsed the gold mining industry in the area resulting in the claim owners selling up to a London company that could not pay dividends to its shareholders. McKinley goes on to explain how the miners used to channel water from Waipori 30-40 miles away as a means to manage sluicing in an area where very little water was available.
The miners were delighted, he says when the Dunedin City Corporation bought them out [to build a dam]. He compares the present, barren view with the one from his youth which was one full of cottages and an industrious, friendly and sober mining community.
Standing on Blue Spur again, Fowler and McKinley look across to the township of Lawrence with Tuapeka District in the distance. McKinley talks about the old coach road (Breakneck Road) and, from what he heard from his father and has seen in paintings, tells how the number of tents and claims restricted traffic and movement of supplies up the gully.
McKinley says in his fathers’ day there used to be about 10,000 people living in the gully, however now all that remains is a small dam and the tailings from the sluice. He recalls a story about his father unexpectedly crossing paths with two Scottish school friends, Johnny O’Gillies and James McIntyre whilst walking up the gully.
McKinley names a number people who attended school in Lawrence who became famous, including Justice Christie and Justice Temple. He retells the story of how his father successfully took cover in a paddle steamer’s ballast tank successfully getting ahead of the rush to Dunedin from Melbourne.
McKinley explains how Lawrence used to be called The Junction, after the point where Gabriel and Weatherston Creeks merged. Back then he says there were blacksmith shops and several hotels, and it offered a stop-off for travelling wagons. He says the first Presbyterian service of the area was held on the gold fields on the first Sunday of July 1871.
McKinley reads out details from an old accounts book which includes quantities and prices of goods and their suppliers from 1869 onwards. Entries include tobacco, biscuits, brandy, kegs of [gun] powder, spades, kegs of butter, wool cross-overs, bundles of hoop iron, kippered herrings, split peas, boots, pieces of moleskin, American buckets, black lead blocks, figs, cases of Old Tom [gin], cases of lobsters, sheets of roofing iron, quarts of stout, gallons of vinegar, tons of soap, cases of confectionary, mill saw files, and cases of apples and picks.
McKinley explains his interest in the area. On hearing news that an early register of Tuapeka had been removed from the courts and deposited with the Turnbull Library in Wellington, McKinley set out to find it. He reads from this Register of Mining Rights (1861) that includes names and business licences issued on the goldfields and logs of freight from Dunedin.
He speaks of Mr James Rotherson, chairman and organiser of the jubilee of the discovery of gold in Gabriel's Gully who initiated the pick and shovel memorial. McKinley explains how repeated flooding at the junction of Weatherston and Gabriel’s Gully streams forced the miners to abandon their settlement of tents and buildings for a site further up the hill. This later site became known as the Borough of Lawrence in about 1866 and was a popular night-over for teams of packhorses and bullock wagons. He says the once flourishing flour mill had to close down in 1937 due to altered trading conditions.
McKinley talks about ‘the Pick and Shovel’, a monument in the Lawrence Domain erected to remember the miners who established the district’s mining industry in the gold rush of 1861. He says the memorial is well visited and thinks the site has great potential for beautification. He describes the bustling, well populated settlement of Lawrence in its heyday, and explains the origin of the names, Jacobs Ladder and Blue Spur.