Lot 80
Minton Plate from the Lord Milton Service, c.1867

Lot 80 Details
Minton Plate from the Lord Milton Service, c.1867
painted in colours on the centre with ‘Miners Washing for Gold’, the pierced rim with etched gilding, one oval reserve painted with the Milton cipher
stress crack
diameter 9.3" — 23.5 cm.
grams
impressed marks, printed MINTON’S CHINA and retailers’ marks for Phillips of London in puce, painted title in red script
Estimate $1,000-$1,500
Exhibited:
Milton and Cheadle’s Great Adventure, Jonny’s Antiques, Shakespeare (with label, #15)
Note:
Miners Washing For Gold. (Dessert Plate 15)
“A shaft is sunk to the required depth, and the ‘dirt’ carried up by a bucket raised by a windlass. This is emptied into a long box, called the dump-box or ‘long tom,’ having a false bottom of parallel bars, with narrow spaces between them, raised a few inches above the true bottom, across which several cross pieces are placed. A stream of water, brought in a series of troughs called ‘flumes,’ sometimes for a considerable distance, pours into the dump-box at one end, and runs out by another series of troughs at the other. As the dirt is emptied in, a man armed with a large many-pronged fork stirs it up continually, and removes the larger stones. The smaller particles and the clay are carried down the stream, while the gold, from its greater weight, falls through the spaces”
Milton & Cheadle, page 372
The gold rush of 1858, centering on the Fraser & Thompson sandbars and small tributary rivers, attracted over 25,000 prospectors, mostly Americans coming from the dwindling California fields. Just as the discovery of gold changed the nature of California, so too it brought rapid, dramatic change to British Columbia. Governor James Douglas, a former Hudson’s Bay Company employee, quickly established control, claiming all gold mines for the crown, and insisted on mining licences issued in Victoria for one guinea a month. The mining communities, at the peak of the rush, had a primarily male population larger than New Westminster & Victoria combined.
The ‘easy’ gold, nuggets panned in the mountain creek beds, gave way to more elaborate methods employing water power, deep mines worked with machines and paid staff. Fortunes for the lucky few could be immediate, but most miners found only danger, illness, bad food, drudgery and failure. However, supplying the needs of the miners, whether it be food, gear or diversion, greatly boosted the developing colony’s economy.