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The Hargrave/Hargraves surname is also recorded as Hargrave, Haregrave, Hargreave, Hargrove, Hargraves, Hargreaves, and possibly others. The suffix "s" denotes "of that place".
This surname, of Anglo-Saxon origin, is a locational name from any of the various places in Cheshire, Northamptonshire and Suffolk called Hargrave or Hargreave, recorded as "Haregrave" and"Haragrau" respectively in the Domesday Book of 1086. The place names are derived from either the Olde English pre 7th Century "har" meaning grey, or "hara" meaning hare, plus the element "graf, grove" or "graefe", meaning a thicket. Locational surnames were developed when former inhabitants of a place moved to another area, usually to seek work, and were best identified by the name of their birthplace. The surname dates back to at least the late 12th Century
An early settler in the New World was Richard Hargrave, aged 20, who embarked from the Port of London on the ship "Bonaventure", bound for Virginea in January 1634.FAMOUS HARGRAVES/HARGREAVES/HARGROVESetc
1. Edward Hammond Hargraves (7 October 1816 – 29 October1891) – Promoter and self-professed Discoverer of the first Goldfields in Eastern Australia 1851 – at Ophir, New South Wales.
Biography of Edward Hammond Hargraves (1816-1891) by Bruce Mitchell
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 4, (MUP), 1972[1]
Edward Hammond Hargraves (1816-1891), gold rush publicist, was born on 7 October 1816 at Gosport, Hampshire, England, son of Lieutenant John Edward Hargraves and his wife Elizabeth, nee Whitcombe. Educated at Brighton Grammar School and Lewes, he went to sea at 14 and arrived at Sydney in 1832. He worked on a property at Bathurst, gathered bêche-de-mer and tortoise shell in Torres Strait and in 1834 took up 100 acres (40 ha) near Wollongong. In 1836 at Sydney he married Elizabeth, née Mackay. In 1839 they moved to East Gosford where he became an agent for the General Steam Navigation Co. and with her dowry bought land and built the Fox under the Hill Hotel. In 1843 he forfeited his property, left his wife to look after a store and took up land on the Manning River.
Hargraves sold out and sailed for California on 17 July 1849. He returned to Sydney in January 1851, planning to win a fortune not so much by finding gold but by claiming the government reward for discovery of a payable goldfield. On his way to the Wellington district he saw promising specimens at Guyong and on 12 February, with John Lister, found five specks of gold in Lewis Ponds Creek. In the next weeks he traversed much of the area with slight success, but his campaign depended on finding rich deposits so he enlisted Lister and William, James and Henry, sons of William Tom, to continue the search. Hargraves had taught them Californian panning techniques and how to make and use a wooden cradle.
Hargraves returned to Sydney in March and interviewed the colonial secretary (Sir) Edward Deas Thomson. Encouraged by news from the Tom brothers, Hargraves wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald describing in general terms the rich fields. When sure of the government reward some weeks later he announced in the press the specific areas where gold existed and left for Bathurst early in May. He ignored pleas by the Toms and Lister for secrecy, named the area Ophir and whipped up enthusiasm in the Bathurst district. By 15 May over 300 diggers were at Ophir and the first goldrush had begun.
Although Hargraves exaggerated and falsified his finds he never denied his main purpose. The government gave him £10,000 and from 1877 an annual pension of £250. He was also showered with testimonials, valuable cups and other trophies. In 1851 he became a commissioner of crown lands for the gold districts and a justice of the peace. In 1853-54 Hargraves visited England, lived in style, met the Queen and in 1855 published Australia and its Gold Fields, which was probably ghosted. Some £3000 poorer he returned with a builder to erect, entirely of cedar, a fine house at Norah Head. He entertained lavishly and by the early 1860s was virtually penniless. Invited by governments he prospected in Western Australia in 1862 and South Australia in 1863. In 1861 he had begun to appeal to the Victorian government for the balance of its £5000 reward, of which he had received only£2381 6s. 1d. in 1854. When petitions failed, he sought help in 1867 from James Butters who persuaded a member of the Legislative Assembly to move for payment. The motion was lost and Hargraves went to Melbourne and in the Age charged politicians with corruption. Inquiry by a select committee found none of his charges proven. Deserted by the manipulators he had tried to use, he claimed to be specially shocked by Butters who had paid his hotel bills as a fellow Freemason but cast doubts on his honesty.
In New South Wales Lister and the Tom brothers realized too late that they too had been used by Hargraves. In 1853 a Legislative Council select committee heard long arguments about the 1851 events and, while upholding Hargraves's key role, recommended that £1000 be granted to the men taught by Hargraves and a similar amount to Rev. William Branwhite Clarke. Hargraves's polemical account of the matter in his book did not silence the increasingly bitter Toms and Lister. From 1870 they bombarded parliament with petitions and campaigned in pamphlets and press. Their persistence was rewarded in 1890 when a Legislative Assembly select committee found that although Hargraves had taught the others how to use the dish and cradle, 'Messrs Tom and Lister were undoubtedly the first discoverers of gold obtained in Australia in payable quantity', but the legend of Hargraves, 'the discoverer of gold' persists.
Select Bibliography
· C. Swancott, The Brisbane Water Story, vol 4 (WoyWoy, 1955)
· G. Blainey, The Rush that Never Ended (Melb, 1969)
· Votes and Proceedings (Legislative Council, New South Wales), 1853, 2, 747
· Votes and Proceedings (Legislative Assembly, Victoria), 1864-65, 2 (E6), 1867, 2 (D23)
· Votes and Proceedings (Legislative Assembly, New South Wales), 1890, 4, 1053, 1087
· Parliamentary Debates (Victoria) 1867
· G. Blainey, ‘The Gold Rushes: The Year of Decision’,Historical Studies, Australia and New Zealand, vol 10, no 38, May 1962, pp129-40
· Town and Country Journal, 12 Feb 1876
· J. Clifford, Edward Hammond Hargraves, the Gold Discovery and Crisis of 1851 (B.A. Hons thesis, University of New England, 1963).
Note by Geoff Blackburn
Hargraves was never a gold miner and instead made money from writing and lecturing about the Australian goldfields. Hargraves was controversially engaged by the West Australian Government as a consultant to lead a group of prospectors throughout the known (at that time) areas of WA in an attempt to discover a goldfield in WA. He arrived in West Australia in October 1862 and gave a lecture on Monday evening, 6th Oct 1862, at Albany, then the main port for Western Australia titled Gold Discoveries in California and New South Wales — indications of Gold — working and washing Gold. Hargraves and his party then departed “on his tour of exploration on 8th October, proceeding to the eastward, by way of the Stirling Range and Jeeramangup (Jerramungup).” Eventually, “Hargraves arrived in Perth, on Saturday [24th January 1863], having been unsuccessful in his search for gold.”
Ref: Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA), Wed 5 Nov 1862, p 2; Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA),Wed 28 Jan 1863, p 2
A large number of people claimed to have discovered gold in Australia prior to Hargraves and the controversy carried for decades – one of the more interesting was a London mineralogist, John Calvert (1814? – 1897), whose efforts are elaborated on in a volume published in 1895 by Wm. Milligan & Co., 32 Camden Road, London, by Robert James Coningsby, titled The Discovery of Gold in Australia. In an obituary for John Calvert originally published in the London Mining Journal of 13 November 1897 and reprinted in the Launceston Examiner, 6 June 1897 p 7 under the headline of DEATH OF MR. JOHN CALVERT – AN EMINENT MINERALOGIST AND GEOLOGIST – WHO DISCOVERED GOLD IN AUSTRALIA – HARGREAVES'S CLAIM STRONGLY DISPUTED, it is stated that “in March 21, 1853, The Times [of London] announced that "Mr. John Calvert arrived in Liverpool per ship Falcon.bringing with him from Australia 26,896oz. and some odd pennyweights of gold {abt 840 ozs currently worth a million dollars (Aus) or so.
[1] Bruce Mitchell 1972 Hargraves, Edward Hammond (1816–1891), in Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, online version at http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hargraves-edward-hammond-3719
2. RichardHargrave (1614 Wakefield, Yorkshire, England – 1686 Norfolk Co., Va., USA.)
Richard Hargrave born abt, 1614 is considered a very early settler in the New World when at aged 20, he embarked on the 2nd January 1634 at the Port of London, England on the ship Bonaventure, bound for Virginia. Against the odds he seems to have survived and had a successful life in Virginia. According to Marion Hargrave (1883) "Richard Hargrave survived for more than half a century. He started a family that is now enormous, and he was moderately prosperous, and he worried less about the Tidewater climate than about the everlasting flames of Hell. He started out with great luck, or marvelous timing, or both. He came before the days of overcrowded ships and exploited manpower, and sold his labor in a seller's market."
Ref:
· Hargrove, Marion 1883 Richard Hargrave of Yorkshire and the New World, 1614-1686 in The Hargrove Newsletter, Vol. 4, #3,July, 1883. Note: Marion Hargrove wasthe “contributing editor”. available at
· Beebe, Dorothy, & Hargrove, Johnny 1993 TheHargrove family study Self published Pico Rivera, CA. : D. Beebe, c1993. Pp 755 p.: ill. (1 col.); Includes index.
3. If any member has another Hargrave/Hargreaves/Hargrove etc family story, and would like to send it to me I am happy to consider placing it on this page