News Summary

• One Spring Monday in 1852 around thirty gold buyers gathered for the evening at Mrs Black’s Royal Hotel in Bathurst, which was (and is) just on the other side of the Blue Mountains from Sydney.
• They debated the role of the local branch of the Union Bank of Australia in undercutting their business.
• The bank had begin purchasing gold at a slightly higher rate than individual gold buyers could do, bringing diggers in from the gold fields to Bathurst where they would get a better deal.
• Some gold buyers thought this was fair of the bank, which added gentlemanly respectability to what was recently a frontier townships.
• Others noticed that the bank was cutting out the middleman.
• And since they were the middlemen, that was pretty uncool.