Bendigo Settlement 1851

Bendigo Victoria

The area was originally known as Bendigo's Creek, named for an employee on a local property who was nicknamed "Bendigo" after the famous English prize fighter William "Bendigo" Thompson. The area was settled in 1851, proclaimed a municipality in 1855, a borough in 1863 and a city in 1871. The town was officially known as Sandhurst, after a town by the same name in England, but the name Bendigo was restored in 1891.

Bendigo grew as a result of gold mining in the mid to late 19th century and saw a large influx of Chinese to the area who knew it only as dae gum san or "Big Gold Mountain". Bendigo actually produced much more gold than rival town Ballarat but had fewer and smaller mines. The mines were deeper and the culture was more corporate than Ballarat.