Pioneers of Deep LeadPrint Page

The brick memorial contains a mural of two miners working on a puddling machine flanked by a goat (insisted on by the remaining pioneers to represent the value of their milk and meat) and a sheep.

During 1856, a small rush took place at "Forty Foot Hill", near where Commercial Street was later established. While work was going on here a rich discovery was made at Deep Lead, a short distance from where the North and South Wales mining Company Crushing Plant was later established. In 1857 and 1858, it was one of the busiest places in the country districts of the Colony.

As the rush of diggers increased at Deep Lead, Cobb & Co`s coaches began to run daily, bring gold buyers by the numbers, to purchase the plentiful amounts of gold offering for sale.

The unveiling of the memorial to the pioneers of Deep Lead was performed on Saturday afternoon by Mr. McDonald, M.L.A., in the presence of 500 people, including many former residents of Deep Lead, who attended from all parts of the State. Cr. D. Williams (Stawell shire), chairman of the memorial committee, stated that the memorial to perpetuate the memory of the old pioneers was made possible by the generosity of the public, who had subscribed £137, and the amount was augmented by a grant of £75 from the Government and £20 from the Stawell shire council.

The memorial, which is picturesquely situated just off the Western Highway at Deep Lead, consists of a pedestal of Grampian freestone surmounting a granite base. On the pedestal is a bronze tableture which depicts two miners at work with a sluicing cradle, with a windlass in the background. On each side of the main tablet stand two goats — a domestic animal, highly valued by the miners and their families in the old mining days. The memorial is enclosed by a siliceous stone fence and metal railing. The following inscription is on the tableture; — "Erected in memory of the early pioneers of Deep Lead by a grateful public in 1937."

Mr. James Davidson, Inspector of schools, Beechworth, who is a native of Deep Lead, gave an interesting historical sketch of Deep Lead, tracing the rise of the township to a population of 30,000 people in 1858, to the present day, with its handful of a population of 70. Cr. John Sweetman (Dunmunkleshire, Rupanyup), who attended the Deep Lead school sixty years ago, referred to the exodus of the people from Deep Lead after the decline in mining, and said that many of the people had left to pioneer farming in the Wimmera— the granary of Victoria at present. Mr. McDonald, M.L.A,, prior to unveiling the memorial, paid a high tribute to the pioneers, and congratulated the memorial committee on its enterprise and activity in erecting such a fine memorial to perpetuate the memory of the pioneers. Two pioneerwomen—Mrs. Freeland and Mrs. Davidson— each planted a cypress tree on either side of the memorial.
Age (Melbourne), 10 May 1937.

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