CHARLESTON
have left for the Thames fields and for a new field south of Brighton. It was well ascertained that steam machinery was too expensive for the workings of Charleston. The population has been orderly and there has been little crime. There is a Catholic Church, a Church of England, and a Wesleyan Chapel. £80 has been raised for a public library, to which the Government added an equal subsidy. There is a Freemasons’ Lodge, an Oddfellows’ Lodge, and branches of the Union, New Zealand, and New South Wales Banks. There is also a hospital.”
The Mechanics’ Institute and Library was opened in 1871 and readings were given every Monday evening. £200 was raised for the hospital and other sums for the purchase of a piano and other furniture for the Institute.
In the same year, the charge of the Charleston district was taken over by Dr. Joseph Giles, the Warden of Westport and Brighton, who held a weekly Court.
The South-West Goldfields, which included the then unexplored stretches south of the Buller where later were the towns of Charleston, Addison’s Flat and Croninville, had been proclaimed a district on 31st July, 1865, and on 1st August of that year Mr. John Blackett was appointed Warden of the whole. In 1873 a District Board of six persons, under the Goldfields Local Revenue Act, was elected and functioned at Charleston, of which Mr. T. G. Macarthy was Chairman.
From 1866 to about 1873 Charleston maintained its reputation of being one of the richest fields on the Coast. During the week before Christmas in 1870 the banks received gold to the value bf £24,000; while during the financial year ending 31st March, 1870, the revenue from Miners’ Rights was £1,220, and from Publicans’ Licenses £2,368.
For comparison, in 1930 the combined revenue of Charleston and Westport (the Charleston Court having been closed at the end of 1922) was only £49/10/- for Miners’ Rights and £1,200 for Publicans’ Licenses. From 1873 the gold supply seriously diminished and the mining returns became comparatively small, good results being difficult to secure.
The Coast was a healthy spot—the late Mr. J. W. Poynton, Public Trustee, has recorded that “the death rate of the
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