Tracing Nicholas and Bassett from a redacted line in William Kelly’s Life in Victoria
This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge (#AtoZChallenge), where I’m
exploring historical newspaper clippings—one story at a time—through my series
“Behind the Newsprint.”
The Clipping
My starting point is a peculiar, almost teasing, passage
from William Kelly’s 1859 travel narrative, Life in Victoria.
Describing the aftermath of a company’s failure, he writes of two
"youthful Cornish, who
came out in humble employ... in a partial disembodying of the staff and
N---c---s and B---ss---tt commenced on their own hook, making out a claim on
the very reef assigned to the company." [i]
The deliberate redaction of their names—N---c---s and
B---ss---tt—immediately marks them as key players in a story worth telling. But
for me, there was something more. Bassett is not an unfamiliar name. It raised
a possibility that was impossible to ignore: that this might be John Bassett,
my third great-granduncle.
What It Suggests
At first glance, this is a quintessential goldfields
morality tale. Two humble employees are cut loose by a bumbling, mismanaged
company. Left to their own devices, they have the audacity and grit to work the
very ground their former employers had ignored—and they strike it rich. It’s a
story of individual initiative triumphing over corporate negligence. The phrase
"incalculable fortune" suggests a reward so vast it’s almost beyond
measure, a just dessert for the hard-working "youthful Cornish"
against the "dilettanti gentlemen" who ran the company.
Looking Closer
If B---ss---tt is indeed John Bassett, then this moment
marks his transition.
Looking more closely, the context provided by other sources adds layers of complexity and corroborates the core elements of Kelly’s tale.
- The
"Disembodying": A 2002 thesis clarifies that the
"partial disembodying" wasn't just mismanagement, but a formal
release. In 1853, the Port Phillip and Colonial Gold Mining
Company was struggling. The resident director, Rivett Bland,
released miners from their five-year contracts, allowing them to seek
their own fortunes. So, Nicholls and Bassett didn’t just quit; they were
given legal permission to go independent.[ii]
- "On
Their Own Hook": This 19th-century idiom is key. It meant
acting as an independent entrepreneur, for one's own profit and on one's
own initiative. For these two men, it meant transitioning from company
employees to self-employed partners. They staked a claim on the very
quartz reef at Sailors’ Gully that the government had originally assigned
to their former employer, a reef the company had failed to develop.
- The
"Incalculable Fortune": Kelly’s flourish is backed by a
specific, staggering detail: the pair allegedly found 30 lbs.
weight of gold in a single ton of quartz. This wasn't just a lucky
panning; it was evidence of a rich, deep reef that the company had
literally let slip through its grasp.
What Lies Behind It
For me, this clipping is less a simple tale of luck and more
a powerful illustration of a critical moment in the history of the Victorian
goldfields. It reveals the clash between two competing models of extracting
wealth: the corporate, joint-stock model versus the individual, entrepreneurial
model.
The Port Phillip and Colonial Gold Mining Company represented
an early attempt to industrialise deep-lead and quartz mining. But its
directors, Kelly’s "dilettanti gentlemen," were often absentee
investors more versed in boardroom politics than the realities of a mining
camp. Their "negligence" wasn't necessarily laziness, but a failure
to adapt to the volatile, high-risk environment of the goldfields.
In contrast, Nicholls and Bassett—and the
thousands of other "diggers" like them—represented the new order:
self-reliant, risk-tolerant, and intimately knowledgeable about the ground they
worked. Their success on the company’s neglected reef wasn't just a windfall;
it was a public indictment of a system that prioritised comfort and shareholder
dividends over the hands-on labour required to succeed. The fact that the
phrase "on their own hook" was used at the time as a rallying cry for
political autonomy on the diggings reinforces this idea. For Nicholls and
Bassett, their personal fortune was also a form of liberation.
What Happened Next
Kelly’s account ends with the “incalculable fortune.” But
newspaper records reveal an even more remarkable second act: Nicholas and
Bassett didn’t simply take their wealth and retire. They became industrialists.
By September 1855, they had already formed a
partnership—“Bassett, Nicholas, and Wellington”—and were advertising
their Cornish Steam Stamping Machine at Sailors’ Gully,
offering to crush quartz for other miners at £6 per load.[iii]
The men who had arrived in “humble employ” were now employers themselves, their
mill a sign of permanence in a landscape of transience. A shipping notice from
November 1857 confirms the scale of their ambition: an importation of “1
boiler, 3 cases machinery, 1 chain, and 28 pieces machinery” consigned to J.
Bassett—machinery worth thousands, arriving to build something substantial.
Three years later, the Bendigo Advertiser (1858)
provided a detailed progress report on Bassett’s new quartz crushing works.[iv]
The scale is staggering: an 11‑horsepower engine, eight stampers (with room for
eight more), a fifty-foot stone chimney, a stable, residences, and workshops.
The reporter notes that Bassett was in Melbourne personally investigating why
machinery had gone missing en route—“the system of peculation,” the paper
called it, a reminder that even at this level, the goldfields remained a place
of risk and graft.[v]
Just 100 yards away, a rival machine—a novel wind-powered
design—was being erected by a Mr. Mitchell, who was “pecuniarily unassisted.”
The contrast could not be more stark. Mitchell’s “nautical-terrene experiment”
was a clever but small-scale gamble. Bassett’s operation was a statement: the
former company employee had built an industrial enterprise that would outlast
the claims and outcrush the competition.[vi]
6. Reflection
This trail of clippings is a perfect example of both the
power and the pitfalls of using contemporary newspapers as historical sources.
Bias is a feature, not a bug. Kelly was an
observant traveller with a clear agenda: to critique the failings of absentee
capital and celebrate the rugged individualism he believed was driving the
colony’s progress. His use of redacted names is a deliberate device to
titillate and protect, forcing us, as later researchers, to dig deeper.
Gaps require filling. Kelly gives us the
sensational story, but it’s the shipping lists, mining intelligence, and
advertisements that fill in the “how” and “what happened next.” Without them,
Nicholas and Bassett would remain a one-line wonder—a pair of lucky Cornishmen.
With them, they become a case study in goldfields social mobility: from
contract labour, to independent miners to owners of capital, all within five
years.
The surprise is in the synergy. Kelly’s vivid,
biased account gives us the hook. The drier, contextual records—advertisements
for stamping mills, shipping manifests for boilers, and detailed mining
intelligence—give us the arc. Together, they reveal not just a moment of
individual fortune, but a pivotal shift in the economic and social landscape of
the goldfields.
Nicholas and Bassett didn’t just find gold. They built
something far more enduring than a lucky strike.
What makes this story particularly compelling is the nature
of the source itself. This “clipping” is not drawn from a newspaper report, but
from William Kelly’s Life in Victoria (1859/60), a travel narrative
based on observations he made during his 1852 visit to the colony. Writing as
an experienced travel author undertaking a “rapid but observant tour” for a
British audience, Kelly positioned himself as both eyewitness and commentator.
Although published several years after the events he
describes, his account reflects a moment when the Port Phillip and Colonial
Gold Mining Company was already faltering. He wrote with a clear critical
perspective, using the success of the “youthful Cornish” to expose what he saw
as the failings of absentee, gentlemanly management. At the same time, he
claimed to have checked his “skeleton sketches” with other experienced
observers before publication, placing his work somewhere between personal
narrative and informed reportage.
That dual nature—part observation, part argument—helps
explain both the vividness of his story and the need to read it alongside other
sources.
For family historians, the frustration is obvious. The names
are glimpsed here not in a family record, but in a half-hidden line of
print—and still, even now, only partially revealed. Yet it is precisely that
incompleteness that makes the clipping so compelling. It invites
identification, demands comparison, and turns a general account into a personal
investigation. In the possibility that B---ss---tt is John Bassett, the story
shifts—from something that happened on the goldfields to something that may
have happened within my own family.
Further reads:
For those interested in learning more about John
Bassett, see his profile on WikiTree.
Sources:
[i] Kelly,
William, 1860, Life in Victoria, or, Victoria in 1853 and Victoria in 1858 :
showing the march of improvement made by the colony within those periods, in
town and country, cities and diggings, London : Chapman and Hall ; Melbourne :
George Robertson,
(https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Life_in_Victoria/N84NAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP2&printsec=frontcover
: accessed 6 September 2023) p.199
[ii] Woodland,
R. H., 2002, Bland and the Port Phillip and Colonial Gold Mining Company, PhD
Thesis, School of Historical and European Studies, La Trobe University,
(https://doi.org/10.26181/21841971.v1 :
accessed 6 September 2023)
[iii] Advertising
(1855, September 12). Bendigo Advertiser (Vic. : 1855 - 1918), p. 3. Retrieved
April 1, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88047447
[iv] SHIPPING.
(1857, November 3). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 4. Retrieved
April 1, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article154834474
[v] MINING
INTELLIGENCE. (1858, January 13). Bendigo Advertiser (Vic. : 1855 - 1918), p.
2. Retrieved April 1, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87978113
[vi] MINING
INTELLIGENCE. (1858, January 13). Bendigo Advertiser (Vic. : 1855 - 1918), p.
2. Retrieved April 1, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87978113
Following crumbs can be so rewarding
ReplyDeleteYour research trails are fascinating.
ReplyDelete