Bendigo Suburb Overview
Bendigo is a major regional city in the state of Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately 150 kilometres north west of the state capital Melbourne. It is the second largest inland city and fourth most populous city in the state. The estimated urban population is approximately 90,000. It is the administrative centre for the City of Greater Bendigo which encompasses both the urban area and outlying towns spanning an area of approximately 3,000 square kilometres and over 100,000 people. Inhabitants of Bendigo are known as Bendigonians.
Originally taking its name from the Bendigo Creek, the name became official in 1891. Shortly afterwards, the term “Bendigonians” was coined to describe its residents.
Bendigo is one of the most significant Victorian era boomtowns in Australia. Gold was discovered in 1851 at The Rocks on Bendigo Creek and the Bendigo Valley was found to be a rich alluvial field where gold could easily be extracted. News of the finds intensified the Victorian gold rush bringing an influx of migrants to the city from around the world within a year and transforming it from a station to a major settlement in the newly proclaimed Colony of Victoria.
Bendigo is notable for its Victorian architectural heritage and gold mining history. Since 1851 over 22 million ounces of gold have been extracted from its goldmines, making it the highest producing goldfield in Australia in the 19th century and the largest gold mining economy in eastern Australia. It is the largest finance centre in Victoria outside of Melbourne as home to Australia’s only provincially headquartered retail bank, the Bendigo Bank, and the Bendigo Stock Exchange.
The current name dates to the Victorian Gold Rush as a shortened form of Bendigo Creek goldfields, simply “Bendigo Creek” or “Bendigo’s Valley”. The creek was named after a famous local boxer and shepherd who had earned the nickname Bendigo in reference to the Nottingham prize-fighter William Abednego Thompson, generally known as
Its first official name was Castleton after the mining town Castleton, Derbyshire, England. Sandhurst, after the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, became the official designation for the settlement in 1854 although the nickname of “Bendigo” remained popular.
After a plebiscite in 1891 the city was renamed to the more popular “Bendigo”, although the name Sandhurst has a legacy and is still used by a number of organisations such as the Sandhurst Football Club. The Roman Catholic diocese based in Bendigo is named the Diocese of Sandhurst.
Before European settlement the area was occupied by the clans of the Dja Dja Wrung people. They were regarded by other tribes as being a superior people, not only because of their rich hunting grounds but because from their area came a greenstone rock for their stone axes. Early Europeans described the Dja Dja Wrung as a strong, physically well-developed people and not belligerent. Nevertheless the early years of European settlement in the Mount Alexander area were bloodied by many clashes between intruder and dispossessed.
Major Mitchell passed through in 1836. Following his discovery, the first squatters arrived in 1840 to establish vast sheep runs. Bendigo Creek was part of the Mount Alexander or Ravenswood sheep run.
In the late spring of 1851 two women from the Ravenswood Run, Margaret Kennedy and Julia Farrell, struck gold in “The Rocks” area of Bendigo Creek, in what is now the suburb of Golden Square. They were seen with gold by a journalist who reported what he saw to Melbourne and the rush to Bendigo began.
Chinese people, in particular, were attracted to the Bendigo goldfields in great numbers, establishing a large Chinatown on a bountiful gold run to the north west of the city.
Nearby Suburbs
