Living History

Depression Days In Windeyer

I was born on the 22nd January 1927 and reared in Windeyer New South Wales a small forgotten village, which lays sixty K’s from, Mudgee heading South West towards Bathurst. Windeyer during the gold rush days of the 1850’s was a thriving village where gold diggers hoped to find their fortune. Most left soon after their arrival and moved on to other gold rush areas yet many stayed and worked the area in their search for gold. I was successfully panning for gold when I was six years old and in my later years periodically return, and use my fossicking skills that I learned in my younger days and find gold that has been missed in the past.

During the Great Depression Windeyer many of the unemployed arrived and for a very good reason. Here at Windeyer during that period new arrivals for the price of two shillings and sixpence the price of a Miners Right, allowed them to mine or fossick for gold and take up two acres of ground on which they built a home to live These houses little more than shacks, were built from the timber which was in abundance in the bush and the more elaborate had walls constructed from mud, They could grow their own vegetables. If they owned a horse, or a cow it cost two shillings a head a year to run their stock on the common. The Common was administered by elected trustees (The common has now gone it was split up into blocks in the nineteen seventies). As most of Windeyer’s inhabitants were unemployed they drew the paltry dole of seven shillings and six pence (75 cents) a week for a family, and two shillings and six pence (25 cents) for a single person. Those who received the dole payment where required to attend the local police station where the local police officer processed their claim. No one declared any gold that they fossicked and sold to the local storekeeper that was an extra advantage of living in Windeyer during the Depression years.

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