The Tale of Tom Alchin

Tom Alchin: Jerrawa Farmer, Gundaroo Miner

by Garry Norman Smith

Thomas (Tom) Alchin (1853-1925)

Thomas Alchin was born at Jerrawa, on 15 April 1853, the son of William James Alchin and Maria Bayley. Thomas, aka Tom, was baptised on 21 June 1853 at the Methodist Church, Jerrawa by the Reverend Benjamin Hurst of the Goulburn Circuit.

At the age of 26 years Tom married 20-year-old Jane Robinson at Gunning in 1879. Jane Robinson, born at Gunning in 1858, was the daughter of John and Sarah Robinson (nee Niblett). Tom lived in Jerrawa and was a farmer like his father and uncles until 1894 when he moved his family to Gundaroo to the south of Gunning.

Map showing Jerrawa, Gunning & Gundaroo

Tom and Jane’s children at the time of the move to Gundaroo were Annie (1880-1996), Matilda Maria (1882-1962), Thomas (1884-1967), Sarah Jane (1886-1951), Amy Edith (1888-1970), James (Jim) Harold (1890-1963) and Sydney Herbert (1893-1982). Jane gave birth to two more children in Gundaroo: Robert Stanley (1895-1973) and Lilian Mildred Maud (1901-1991); she had nine children with Tom Alchin.

Tom Alchin’s move to Gundaroo was, in large part, due to the discovery of gold in the area. Gold mining had been and gone in some respects in this area, but prospecting went on. The effect of the shearers’ strike of 1891 and the economic depression which reached its peak two year later, found a response from unemployed workers with even the slightest hope of some income from gold.

Once in Gundaroo, Tom Alchin fell in with local school teacher James Francis Lowe. These two miners formed a syndicate in July 1894, including Lowe and his brothers, Alan and Charles and their step-father Hector Murray Gordon. Within two months Tom hit a reef that yielded a good return, and this started something of “rush” in the Bywong area.

Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday 25 June 1895, 7

News of Lowe and Alchin’s find quickly brought new prospectors to the vicinity of their reef at Bywong, a field that was technically only part of an original goldfield at Gundaroo.

Tom Alchin may well have had a form of “gold fever” when he first arrived in Gundaroo but this soon turned into “gold business”. Lowe and Alchin’s mine was one of many gold-producing enterprises during 1895. The Bywong mine produced enough gold for Lowe and Alchin to form a company. The Lowe and Alchin Central Gold Mining and Quartz Milling Company [No Liability], Bywong, formed in July 1896. It produced gold that yielded twenty-two ounces to the ton of rock removed, according to Errol Lea-Scarlett’s book “Gundaroo” (1972). Gold was valued at three pounds ten shillings per ounce at that time.

The history of the Lowe and Alchin company, mine and milling business at Gundaroo is a complex one; as gold does, the mine gradually dried up. It became clear in 1898 that farmers in the local area were more likely to earn more from their farming than from fossicking.

Tom’s father, William James Alchin, was a crusty old seventy-year-old when Tom asked him to provide some additional capital to save the mine but no indulgence was forthcoming from father to son. Lowe and Alchin did make money but eventually the mine was abandoned.

“Crusty Old” William James Alchin

Refused to “Bail Out” the Company

Tom Alchin continued to fossick for gold but the company had collapsed, the mine was sold to become an open-cut mine. While Tom was a miner into the early years of the twentieth century, he eventually went back to being a labourer while James Francis Lowe returned to teaching.

Tom Alchin died at Gundaroo on 28 September 1925; his wife, Jane Alchin, died at Gundaroo on 14 June 1936.

Remnants of the Lowe & Alchin Mine

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