BENDIGO'S history buffs have discovered a tasty gem to keep on records.
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The ‘Bendigo Amalgamated Goldfields Company’s' December 1917 luncheon menu has been catalogued by the Bendigo Historical Society.
The use of mining and geological terminology to describe the food listed will be appreciated by those with a gold seeking background.
‘Nothing is so important in mining as good filling’ quoted from a ‘Mining Manual’ headed the menu.
This was followed by descriptions of the listed food as Stratified Sandwich Samples, Sundry Small Cakes [gold] Salad of Amalgamated Fruits, Nodular Trifle, and Christmas Conglomerate.
Below the list of beverages available was a quote from the ‘Text Book on Concentration’.
‘To make a good recovery a proper proportion of liquids to solids on the table is essential’.
Bendigo Amalgamated Goldfields Company had formed seven months earlier.
The company had a capital float of £500,000 in 5 shilling shares.
The luncheon was a public relations exercise designed to foster and retain interest in their radical approach to improving gold production through amalgamation.
The acquisition in the heart of the central Bendigo Goldfield of 38 principal mining properties contiguous to each other and containing 93 active shafts totalling over 45 kilometres in depth had been achieved.
The area of leases measured roughly 8 kilometres in length by 1.5 kilometres in width covering approximately 1100 hectares.
The amalgamation was the brain-child of ‘B.A.G.’ director Edward Clarence Dyason a trained mining engineer and son of Isaac Dyason renowned for his association with George Lansell.
‘Efficiencies and economy of scale will be achieved leading to greatly improved profitability allowing for vastly expanded lateral development’, I am confident was espoused by Dyason at the luncheon.
Unfortunately, within five years the dreams of amalgamation had proven to be a fiasco.