Australian Joint Stock Bank, Gulgong
1872
Glass photonegative
Miners usually stored their gold in the local bank. The Mudgee Guardian, 26 September 1871, recorded:
Through the courtesy of Mr. Stewart, the Manager of the Joint Stock Bank, at Gulgong, we were yesterday shown a nugget weighing 38 oz 3 dwts 20 grs [12 kg]. This is the largest nugget found at Gulgong. It was found in a block claim between No. 1 and the Prospectors' on Happy Valley at a depth of 130 feet; it is of pure gold without any admixture of quartz.
From the Australian Town and Country Journal, 10 June 1871
I'll guarantee that some of our Sydney banking chiefs wouldn't keep their horses in such quarters as I saw occupied by Mr. Stewart, of the Joint Stock, while confined to his bed with a very serious attack of colonial fever; and Mr. Stacey, of the Oriental, who has just recovered from a like attack, is no better housed. These gentlemen have on their shoulders all the anxiety inseparable from the safe custody of a thousand or two ounces of gold in a bark hut; and they are liable to all the ills consequent on wet and cold, while looking out day after day and hour after hour for someone coming to ease them of their charge. It isn't as if it took an age to put up a building, for some private individuals have stores built in a marvellously short space of time ; but somehow, "out of sight out of mind" seems as natural to Sydney bankers as to Sydney Governments, and nothing is done. [Australian Town and Country Journal, 10 June 1871]
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