The Pennyweight Kids : Why did more than 200 children die at Forest Creek, Victoria, and who were they? 1830 The Ancestors - The Descendants 1930. by McMillan, A.R - 1988

Castlemaine Victoria: Castlemaine Mail (Printer), 1988. Stapled Wraps. 116 pages, illustrated. There is minor underlining, highlighting and annotations, but generally a clean and solid copy. On the front cover: "The Pennyweight kids 1852-1857" "The cemetery occupies about an acre of land at Pennyweight Flat, on the outskirts of Castlemaine in central Victoria. When gold was discovered in the 1850's, it was to this region that most new arrivals in Melbourne headed. It soon became a very rich gold bearing area and was originally known as Forest Creek. Pennyweight Flat is adjacent to this famous gold field. The flat was so named because the diggings were not substantial there, the diggers claiming that the area was incapable of producing more than a pennyweight of gold for an acre worked. Thus the name Pennyweight and also the reason why a section of the flat was used for the site of a cemetery. In later years the cemetery was referred to as "God's Acre" .....But life on the diggings was hard, especially for little children. Between 1852 and 1857, nearly 200 children were buried in shallow graves at Pennyweight Flat Cemetery. Some of the reasons why so many children died include an inadequate water supply, poor diet, lack of sanitation, the spread of diseases like typhoid and whooping cough and the constant dangers of living in close proximity to deep holes." (Jim - Simply Australia)