What is the story of the golden horseshoes and how did they end up in Wagga? Image: Chris Roe.
The story of a horse shod with golden shoes became a legend during the Australian gold rush of the 1850s and its origin was a hotly debated matter in the decades that followed.
“Many are the stories told of the old gold digging days, and in the march of time many become distorted or enlarged on, and perhaps some have only a semblance of truth when after being told and re-told some of the essential facts are forgotten,” wrote a reporter for the Wodonga and Towong Sentinel in May 1941 as they sat down with an old-timer from Wagga to set the record straight.
What became of the mythical golden horseshoes and where they had been hidden was a secret known only to a select few in the Riverina.
In 1905, a widely published article from Sydney Morning Herald correspondent “E.S.S.” shared a collection of old tales from the diggings, including the “yarn of the golden horse shoes, which has been current all over the country for half a century”.
This account has a wealthy digger named Johnson gilding a horse’s hooves as an election stunt and concludes: “Whether any horse was ever shod with gold is not certain. I have met old Victorians who swore to the truth of It; others treated it as only one of the many traditions of the golden era, when all manner of wild rumours received credence.”
The story was affirmed and corrected the following week in a letter to the editor from Mr H.D. Ferrier, who claimed to be “one who has had the shoes in his hand”.
He recalled that “in the latter part of 1955 or the beginning 1955 there came to the Woolshed Creek, near Beechworth, a circus called Tinker Brown’s Circus”.
As the tents were erected, word began to spread through the diggings that a “piebald trick horse would appear in the ring shod with gold”.
Huge crowds flocked to opening night; however, the ringmaster apologised and explained that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the horse was not yet shod and instead the golden shoes were handed around the audience for inspection.
He confirmed that the four shoes made their equestrian debut in a parade to celebrate the election victory of a local storekeeper named Cameron.
Woolshed Creek Diggings in 1855. Photo: National Media Museum, UK.
William “Tinker” Brown was transported to Australia as a convict in 1837 and married free settler Susannah Eleanor Seymour in 1941. By 1849, the couple had relocated from Parramatta to North Wagga, where they opened the settlement’s second licensed hotel, The Ferry Inn, and commissioned the building of a punt that opened in October 1950.
The family thrived in the Riverina and in the early 1850s purchased a circus that specialised in equestrian performances and the dramatic arts. With men flooding to the goldfields and limited audiences in Wagga, Tinker Brown took his show on the road and set up near the Woolshed Creek diggings in 1855.
According to elderly Wagga resident Eliza Hill’s 1941 account in the Wodonga and Towong Sentinel, Brown took with him his son “Stuttering Charlie” and her father Jack Hely, who were both boys at the time.
Her father had recalled that Beechworth was filled with men from all across the country and that “there were plenty of gambling dens and grog shops and dance halls”.
There was great excitement at the arrival of a circus, and to capitalise on “the wave of sensationalism”, Tinker Brown purchased nuggets of gold and had them beaten into the shape of golden horseshoes.
“He had them fitted for Jorracks, a piebald pony, and his best showhorse,” she said, insisting that only a set of two shoes was ever made.
“They were placed on the front feet of the pony, who pranced about with evident delight to show off his glittering hoofs.”
Mrs Hill explained that the shoes and the care of the pony were entrusted to her father, Jack, and that he had hitched Jorracks and another pony to a small gig to drive the politician Cameron on his celebratory ride from the Woolshed to Beechworth at the head of the circus band.
Other accounts from the time claim that both horses in the tandem gig were shod with gold, wearing two shoes each from the set of four. The shoes were made by a jeweller named Tofield and together, the set of four weighed a total of 32 ounces (907 grams).
Due to the softness of the gold, the shoes were only kept on the ponies for a couple of days and, once weighed, were shown to have shed almost two ounces.
Tragically, the 40-year-old Tinker Brown died at Beechworth of lung disease just a fortnight after the procession on November 30, 1855.
According to Mrs Hill, his wife Sussannah had him placed in a dugout canoe made from a gum tree and transported the body back to Wagga for burial.
The circus was sold and Sussannah Brown remained in Wagga with her son Charlie and young ward Jack Hely, and spent the next decades investing heavily in real estate.
“All through the years, she retained the golden horseshoes, but few knew that they were in safekeeping,” recalled Mrs Hill.
“Actually, the golden shoes were being walked over every other day by unsuspecting people,” she explained, revealing the secret once kept by her father.
“Mrs Brown had a door mat specially made and she secreted the golden shoes in this and placed the mat at the front doorstep.”
Eventually, as rumours of their hiding place began to circulate, Mrs Brown was persuaded to sell the unique keepsakes, earning more than 96 pounds for the two remaining golden shoes that she had hidden in the doormat.
They were briefly displayed in Sydney, before being melted down and made into golden sovereigns.
What became of the two other shoes, if indeed they existed, remains a mystery.
