Big Beach, Queenstown, Queenstown-Lakes District, Otago Region, New Zealandi

Regional Level Types
Big Beach	Beach
Queenstown	- not defined -
Queenstown-Lakes District	District
Otago Region	Region
New Zealand	Country

Gold dredging.

Big Beach is a large riverside shingle bank in a bend of the Shotover River, 6 kilometres north of Queenstown, and just below Arthur's Point.

Most Chinese miners on the Otago goldfields lived a life of poverty, working the dregs left behind on second hand claims. Sew Hoy arrived from Canton, via San Francisco, and Victoria (Australia), and found himself on the Kyeburn diggings. Not for long, as he quickly developed a business empire. He is credited with developing the prototype shallow draft bucket dredge, subsequently adopted around the world. He owned a major water race between Lauder Creek and the Black Town site (1879), a gold mine at Macetown (1883), 175 hectares of river claims at Maori Point upper Shotover (1887), the Skippers gold mine (1889-1891), part of the Golden Stream Water Race Company at Kyeburn Diggings, and an extensive merchant business.

The flats had been worked twice over by European alluvial miners, then by large Chinese syndicates who combined claims, putting 40-50 men to work on each claim. They included the South Beach Gold Mining Company, Ham Tie and party, Sun Sing Tong Company, and Ah Chun and party.

Before 1889, Sey Hoy was working the site with a dredge under the Shotover Big Bend Gold Mining Company. Enough gold was found for him to restructure the company as public, and the Sew Hoy Big Beach Mining Company (Limited), with the enormous capital for the time of 160 000 pounds (prospectus) or 72 000 pounds (Heritage NZ) was floated. Either way the capital suggested was unrealistic, but many Dunedin businessmen signed up anyway, as Sey Hoy was at the forefront of the dredging boom.

His claims stretched from Shady Creek, just above Arthur's Point to Tucker Beach, also incorporating Big Beach, covering 260 acres. Three more dredges were built, and were set to work on this stretch of the river.

Much gold was recovered, but the number of dredges were soon working out the claims. In 1895, its noted the Big Beach claim had been abandoned, and dredges were moving into the Tucker Beach area. The last gold dredging returns published was 1897. Sew Hoy died of a heart attack in 1901 aged 64. His remains were exhumed from the South Dunedin cemetery a year later to be taken back to China to be buried, however the ship hit rocks and sank on the way.

The Golden Terrace Extended Company dredged at Big Beach in the mid 1920's, with the company liquidated in 1939. The remains of their dredge can be found in the middle of the area.

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References