<P> In the end, the Select Committee also decided "that the first place at which gold was discovered on Bendigo was at what is now known as Golden Square, called by the station hands in 1851 "The Rocks", a point about 200 yards to the west of the junction of Golden Gully with the Bendigo Creek ." (The straight - line distance is nearer to 650 yards (600 metres).) In October 1893, Alfred Shrapnell Bailes (1849--1928), the man who had proposed the Select Committee, who was one of the men who had sat on the Select Committee, and who was chairman of the Select Committee for 6 of the 7 days that it sat, gave an address in Bendigo where he gave his opinion on the matter of who had first found gold at Bendigo . Alfred Shrapnell Bailes, Mayor of Bendigo 1883--84, and member of the Legislative Council of Victoria 1886--1894 & 1897--1907, stated that: </P> <P> upon the whole, from evidence which, read with the stations books, can be fairly easily pieced together, it would seem that Asquith, Graham, Johnson and Bannister (the three shepherds residing at the hut on Bendigo Creek and their shepherd visitor Johnson), were the first to discover gold </P> <P> The first group of people digging for gold at the Bendigo Creek in 1851 were people associated with the Mount Alexander North (Ravenswood) Run . They included, in no particular order: </P> <Ul> <Li> the shepherd / overseer John "Happy Jack" Kennedy (c1816 - 1883), his wife Margaret Kennedy nee Mcphee (1822--1905), and her son 9 year old John Drane (1841--1914). They also had with them Margaret's 3 younger daughters, Mary Ann Drane (1844--1919), 7, Mary Jane Kennedy (1849--1948), 2, and baby Lucy Kennedy (1851--1926); </Li> <Li> the cooper Patrick Peter Farrell (c1830 - 1905) and his wife Julia Farrell (c1830 - bef1870); and, </Li> <Li> the shepherds employed at the Bendigo Creek, Christian Asquith (c1799 - 1857), James Graham (alias Ben Hall) and Bannister . They were to be joined by others who had been employed elsewhere on the Mount Alexander North (Ravenswood) Run than at Bendigo Creek, including cook / shepherd William Johnson (c1827 -), and shepherds James Lister, William Ross, Paddy O'Donnell, William Sandbach (c1820 - 1895) and his brother, Walter Roberts Sandbach (c1822 - 1905) who arrived at the Bendigo Creek to prospect in late November 1851 . </Li> </Ul>

When did the gold rush start and end