Ophir, New South Wales

Ophir is the name of a locality in New South Wales, Australia in Cabonne Shire.

Ophir is located near the Macquarie River northeast of the city of Orange. Ophir is the place where gold was first discovered in New South Wales in 1851, leading to the Australian gold rushes. In popular literature it has been stated that William Tom Jr, John Lister and Edward Hargraves found payable gold in February 1851 at the Ophir gold diggings, located at the confluence of Summer Hill Creek and Lewis Ponds Creek 33°10′7.68″S 149°14′19.68″E. Hargraves was awarded £10,500 (worth $1,125,434 in 2004 values) by the NSW Government.

Although Hargraves was honoured and rewarded, it may have been William Tipple Smith, mineralogist, who first discovered gold at what would be later named Ophir, in 1848. On 27 February 1852 William Tipple Smith wrote to geologist Sir Roderick Murchison in England saying the spot now called Ophir was the very spot where he had found nugget gold in 1848. Smith's claims and correspondence are exhaustively studied in a 1986 book "A Fool's Gold?" by Lynette Ramsay Silver, in the foreword of which geology Professor David Branagan of Sydney University concurs and states "It is good to see him deservedly remembered in the pages of this book".[1] William Tipple Smith was one of the owners of the Fitzroy Iron Works at Mittagong and, during a visit in February 1849, Governor Charles Augustus Fitz Roy was presented with a steel knife "mounted with colonial gold".[2][3][4]

All that now remains of Ophir is very slight. All that remains of William Tipple Smith is one small gold sample and an unmarked grave (number 4929, section 4, Rookwood Cemetery).

References
  1. Silver, Lynette Ramsay, 1945- (1986). A fool's gold? : William Tipple Smith's challenge to the Hargraves myth. Jacaranda Press. ISBN 070161983X. OCLC 15053130.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. "SYDNEY". Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 - 1857). 9 February 1849. p. 2. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
  3. "Gold Rushes". National Museum Of Australia.
  4. Kathryn Wells (5 October 2007). "The Australian Gold Rush". Website. Government of Australia. Retrieved 21 October 2012.

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