West Coast: Women Gold Miners

Date: 6 Nov 2023 to 6 Nov 2023
Location: West Coast, New Zealand
Surname/tag: Foley, Guilford, Goodwin, Cowan.

At the Australian Mining History Conference held in Reefton, West Coast, New Zealand in November 2023, Julia Bradshaw, Author and Canterbury Museum Curator, formerly of Hokitika Museum, was a speaker who spoke about 'Gold Mining Women in New Zealand.' New Zealand newspapers at the time of the gold rushes did not draw attention to the women miners, claims were generally in men's names and there is little research material available. Maori men and women were mining together in Takaka in 1858 and women were at Gabriel's Gully in Otago in 1862.

On the West Coast it is know that:

1. Waimangaroa: A few years before the main gold rush, a husband and wife team were working a claim in Waimangaroa and apparently doing well.

2. Kangaroo Creek: A woman dressed in male clothing was gold mining in 1895 at Kangaroo Creek in the Grey River Valley, miles from anywhere and with no track.

3. Isabella Cowan. In the 1880s and 1890s, a woman born in Scotland, Isabelle Cowan, was prospecting at Moonlight Creek, Blackwater.

4.Bridget GoodwinBridget Goodwin (abt.1810-1899), born in Ireland, first went to the Victorian gold fields in Australia, then with two male companions worked in various areas of the Buller gold fields. After the death of her male companions, Bridget lived in Reefton where she was known as "Biddy of the Buller". She died 19 October 1899.

5. Elizabeth Guilford Elizabeth Guilford (abt.1818-) was born in Wiltshire, England and emigrated to New Zealand in 1859, to join her brother, John, and his family at Canterbury, New Zealand. Her nephew Henry John wrote in his diary 1911 that "For some years she lived in Christchurch, then went to Nelson, thence to the "West Coast" where for a number of years she carried on a Storekeeping business at Charleston."

In 1878 Jacob Bradwell, a Geordie, paid Notown a visit after an absence of seven years and in these out of the way diggings at Bell Hill, found five or six miners and one elderly female who had lived from year to year in almost primitive style, seldom hearing anything of the outer world, save when the packer of their three months' supplies visits the locality. Miss Guilford, the only woman of Bell Hill, was an English lady, possessed of considerable energy and pluck, and seemed to have acquired the position of general adviser to the limited community. She frequently does would lend a willing hand to any of the men in their claims.

Elizabeth could be seen in Bell Hill wearing gumboots and male clothing, wielding a long-handled shovel and female clothing in her home. By 1889 she was in her early 70s and was living in a deplorable state with no food, her clothes in rags and the house leaked. Elizabeth died 21 February, 1892 at the Grey River Hospital. Death Notice: Elizabeth Guilford, native of Easton, near Malvern, Wiltshire, and late of Bell Hill, aged 75 years. Her burial was at Greymouth Cemetery February 24, 1892.

5. Anastatia FoleyAnastatia Foley (1872-1922) was born in the gold rush town, Brighton, and remained there all her life. Anastatia worked two blacksand beach sluicing claims after her father died. She was said to handle a shovel as well as any man and would be seen as a commanding presence riding side-saddle into Westport with her orange hair blowing in the wind.

Anastatia brought two nieces out from Ireland and when she died left an estate worth £ 500, which would be about $57,000 in 2023. Anastatia Foley died at the age of 50 years in the Buller District Hospital in Westport after a short illness. She was buried in the Brighton Cemetery.

Women of Westland and Their Families. Volume II

6. Annie Rankin Annie (Rankin) Dunbar (abt.1848-1910) was born in the North of Ireland in about 1848. She emigrated to New Zealand during gold rush days and worked mining a gold claim. She may have married John Clarke, who was killed in the Brunner Mine Disaster, in New Zealand in 1868. Annie became a familiar sight to people at Notown when she visited Clem Parfitt's grocery store dressed in either men's clothing or sugar bags which earned her the name "Sugar Annie". Annie died in about 1910.

Research Notes: The article for Annie Rankin in the booklet "Women of Westland Volume II" confuses her Elizabeth Guilford, the only woman miner of of Bell Hill, the information for whom was provided by Julia Bradshaw. The same confusion between two women appears on the 'West Coast Recollect' web site.