Charles Garland (Australian politician)

For other people with this name, see Charles Garland.

Charles Launcelot Garland (1854 – 7 January 1930) was a New Zealand-born Australian politician and mining entrepreneur. He was the founder of the town of Leadville, New South Wales.

Charles Garland c.1899.^[1]

He was born at Auckland to sea captain William Riley Garland and Nancy Turner. He was a miner from an early age, and migrated to New South Wales in 1879. Around 1882 he married Mary Newland, with whom he had a son. Garland died in Sydney in 1930.^[2][3]

Business career

From 1882 he was an assurance agent, and was also successful mining at Leadville, on the Palmer River in Far North Queensland,^[2] and on the Macquarie River.^[4]

Charles Garland, in later life.

Garland is credited with being the first to introduce gold dredging—a technique used extensively in his native New Zealand^[5]—to New South Wales, He launched the first gold dredge on the Macquarie in 1899.^[6] By 1905, there were 42 dredges working in New South Wales, resulting in a significant revival of gold production.^[4]

Political career

In 1885 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the member for Carcoar. He retired in 1891.^[2]

See also

• Leadville, New South Wales