Welcome Stranger is the name of the largest

alluvial Alluvium (, ) is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is ...

gold nugget A gold nugget is a naturally occurring piece of Native metal, native gold. Watercourses often concentrate nuggets and finer gold in placer deposit, placers. Nuggets are recovered by placer mining, but they are also found in residual deposits wher ...

ever discovered. It was unearthed by Cornish miners John Deason and Richard Oates on 5February 1869 in Moliagul, 9 miles north-west of Dunolly in

Victoria, Australia Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...

Discovery

Found only below the surface, near the base of a tree on a slope leading to what was then known as Bulldog Gully, the nugget had a gross weight of (241 lb 10 oz). Its trimmed weight was (210 lbs), and its net weight was (192 lbs 11.5 oz).Potter, Terry F. (1999) ''The Welcome Stranger: a definitive account of the worlds largest alluvial gold nugget''. At the time of the discovery, there were no scales capable of weighing a nugget this large, so it was broken into three pieces on an

anvil An anvil is a metalworking tool consisting of a large block of metal (usually Forging, forged or Steel casting, cast steel), with a flattened top surface, upon which another object is struck (or "worked"). Anvils are massive because the hi ...

by Dunolly-based

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

Archibald Walls. Deason, Oates, and a few friends took the nugget to the London Chartered Bank of Australia, in Dunolly, which advanced them £9,000. Deason and Oates were finally paid an estimated £9,381 () for their nugget, which became known as the "Welcome Stranger". At August 2019 gold prices, it would be worth

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

3.4 million .3 million GBP It was heavier than the " Welcome Nugget" of that had been found in

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...

in 1858. The goldfields warden F. K. Orme reported that of smelted gold had been obtained from it, irrespective of scraps that were given away by the finders, estimated as totalling another . Moliagul WS inscription

The nugget was soon melted down and the gold was sent as ingots to Melbourne for forwarding to the Bank of England. It left the country on board the steamship ''Reigate'' which departed on 21 February. An obelisk commemorating the discovery of the "Welcome Stranger" was erected near the spot in 1897. A replica of the "Welcome Stranger" is in the Old Treasury building, Treasury Place,

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, Victoria; another replica is owned by descendants of John Deason and is now on display at the Dunolly Rural Transaction Centre.

Discoverers

John Deason was born in 1829 on the island of Tresco,

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly ( ; ) are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, St Agnes, is over farther south than the most southerly point of the Great Britain, British mainla ...

, off the southwestern tip of

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, England, UK. In 1851, he was a tin dresser before becoming a gold miner. Deason continued with gold mining and workings most of his life and, although he became a store keeper at Moliagul, he lost a substantial proportion of his wealth through poor investments in gold mining. He bought a small farm near Moliagul where he lived until he died in 1915, aged 85 years. Richard Oates was born about 1827 at Pendeen in

. After the 1869 find, Oates returned to the UK and married. He returned to Australia with his wife and they had four children. The Oates family, in 1895, purchased of land at Marong, Victoria, about west of

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is an Australian city in north-central Victoria. The city is located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2022, Bendigo has a popula ...

, Victoria, which Oates farmed until his death in Marong in 1906, aged 79 years. Descendants of the two discoverers gathered to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the nugget.

Discovery

Discoverers

See also

References

Further reading