The history of the town of Clyde is intrinsically linked with the history of the discovery and mining of gold in Central Otago. The first post office building dates to the beginning of the town in 1863. Although it was officially named Clyde in 1864, the town was first known as Dunstan in the 1850s and as Hartley's township after his discovery of gold in 1862.
Gold mining began in Central Otago with Gabriel Read's discovery of gold in Gabriel's Gully, near present-day Lawrence, in 1861. The following year Hartley and Reilly left this gully and travelled further into Central Otago. They spent the winter prospecting in the now-flooded Clutha Gorge between present day Clyde and Cromwell, finding enough gold in the area to travel back to Dunedin and lodge 87 pounds with the Gold Receiver.
The 1862 discovery precipitated a rush to the area, with the first passenger-carrying coach travelling from Dunedin to Clyde in November of that year. Six weeks earlier, the first gold escort had left Clyde for Dunedin with packhorses. Subsequent gold escorts consisted of a solid covered wagon with armed guards. A ragged canvas town quickly sprang up, and by December of that year between six and seven thousand miners and settlers occupied Clyde and the surrounding areas. Sunday afternoons would see up to 4000 men congregate in the town. At Christmas 1862, 320 people sat down to dinner at one of the "innumerable" hotels, the cost of the meal being 10s 6d. While Clyde was itself the centre of mining activity in 1862, as gold was quickly discovered in other parts of Central Otago such as Arrowtown and Queenstown it was also the source of supplies for those travelling on to other areas.
A photograph dated c. 1862 shows a profile of canvas and wooden buildings along the terrace above the river where the town now stands, and a small collection of wooden structures on the lower beach . McCraw gives a date of 1865 for the same photograph, a more likely date given the number of structures and roads visible, and has annotated it with details of the infrastructure used to mine a seam of coal along the riverbank. By the late 1860s photographs show a row of single-storied wooden buildings running cheek-by-jowl along the main street, now known as Sunderland St. The buildings all feature flat-fronted facades with business signs, among them one named the Dunstan Hotel, and the Hartley Arms Hotel can be seen several doors along. These were just two of many hotels in the town.
Within a week of the first report of Hartley and Reilly's discovery the first Goldfields Commissioner, Jackson Keddell, was dispatched to the Dunstan. The district was legally proclaimed a goldfield on September 23 1862, and Keddell's appointment confirmed in the Otago Gazette of 1 October 1862. A police officer and a gold receiver travelled to Clyde with Keddell to take up their appointments. The first court building on the site of the former courthouse was constructed out of calico and scantling in 1862. Police superintendent Bayly's outward letters for 1863 note court appearances, for example a hotelkeeper being fined 20s on 2 February 1863 for keeping his bar open after hours, the sixth time he had committed such as offence, while the police "Diary of Duty" details work allocated to policemen and records daily events such as deaths and arrests for robberies. The first courthouse was destroyed in the storm of 1863, and replaced the following year by the present structure. As well as providing a venue for court hearings the building was the administration headquarters for the Dunstan goldfields. Offices were located here for the Commissioner for the Goldfields and the Mayor. Keddell only remained in this post until 1863, when he travelled north to fight in the New Zealand land wars with troops he had raised on the goldfields, but he returned to Clyde as a magistrate in 1879. A subsequent influential Goldfields commissioner stationed at the courthouse was Vincent Pyke, who was also first chairman of the Vincent County Council that was based at Clyde. Pyke returned a detailed report from the Otago goldfields to the government in 1863, but gives no information about public buildings and government infrastructure in Clyde at this time.
The former courthouse once stood on a section reserved for general government buildings and stood about a block back from the centre of the town. The complex included law enforcement and civic administration buildings. A survey plan dated 1879 shows the council chambers on a triangular shaped site next to the courthouse, while a larger section to the south of the courthouse shows police offices, a prison, warden's quarters and inspector's quarters. The section is stamped "reserved for Buildings of General Govt". Sullivan notes that a stone house built in the 1860s for the Sergeant of Police (possibly the inspector's or warden's quarters noted on the survey plan) still remains, but the stone jail on the same site has now been demolished. Up to fifteen mounted troopers were once housed in an adjacent area. The troops policed the goldfields, where crimes such as robbery were rife, and acted as escorts for the gold coach travelling to Dunedin. Any prisoners from the goldfields committed to serve sentences were taken back to Dunedin shackled to the escort wagon, and stayed overnight on the way chained to a ring in the Styx jail, halfway between Clyde and Dunedin.
In a photograph dating to the 1860s the armed, mounted gold escort is shown at Clyde outside a barracks building with a flagpole in the foreground, most likely the barracks used to house the troopers, associated with the courthouse. Gilkison describes the gold being transported "in a strongly built covered van drawn by six magnificent horses and accompanied by an officer with several troopers on horseback". A later photograph of Clyde taken in the early twentieth century shows the council chambers on the other side of the courthouse prominent on its corner site to the rear of the main street, but the courthouse is not visible .
In 1958 the former courthouse was vested in the Vincent County Council under the Land Act (1948) , and transferred to the Central Otago District Council in 1990 after the reorganisation of local government in the late 1980s. From 1966 the former courthouse was used as the local museum until 1992, when it was moved into the neighbouring former Vincent County Council Chambers. The former courthouse stayed empty for a number of years until the Central Otago District Council sold it to private owners in 1999. In 2001 the courthouse was purchased by its current owner, Murray River Investment Ltd, and was until recently used as a café.
Gold mining began in Central Otago with Gabriel Read's discovery of gold in Gabriel's Gully, near present-day Lawrence, in 1861. The following year Hartley and Reilly left this gully and travelled further into Central Otago. They spent the winter prospecting in the now-flooded Clutha Gorge between present day Clyde and Cromwell, finding enough gold in the area to travel back to Dunedin and lodge 87 pounds with the Gold Receiver.
The 1862 discovery precipitated a rush to the area, with the first passenger-carrying coach travelling from Dunedin to Clyde in November of that year. Six weeks earlier, the first gold escort had left Clyde for Dunedin with packhorses. Subsequent gold escorts consisted of a solid covered wagon with armed guards. A ragged canvas town quickly sprang up, and by December of that year between six and seven thousand miners and settlers occupied Clyde and the surrounding areas. Sunday afternoons would see up to 4000 men congregate in the town. At Christmas 1862, 320 people sat down to dinner at one of the "innumerable" hotels, the cost of the meal being 10s 6d. While Clyde was itself the centre of mining activity in 1862, as gold was quickly discovered in other parts of Central Otago such as Arrowtown and Queenstown it was also the source of supplies for those travelling on to other areas.
A photograph dated c. 1862 shows a profile of canvas and wooden buildings along the terrace above the river where the town now stands, and a small collection of wooden structures on the lower beach . McCraw gives a date of 1865 for the same photograph, a more likely date given the number of structures and roads visible, and has annotated it with details of the infrastructure used to mine a seam of coal along the riverbank. By the late 1860s photographs show a row of single-storied wooden buildings running cheek-by-jowl along the main street, now known as Sunderland St. The buildings all feature flat-fronted facades with business signs, among them one named the Dunstan Hotel, and the Hartley Arms Hotel can be seen several doors along. These were just two of many hotels in the town.
Within a week of the first report of Hartley and Reilly's discovery the first Goldfields Commissioner, Jackson Keddell, was dispatched to the Dunstan. The district was legally proclaimed a goldfield on September 23 1862, and Keddell's appointment confirmed in the Otago Gazette of 1 October 1862. A police officer and a gold receiver travelled to Clyde with Keddell to take up their appointments. The first court building on the site of the former courthouse was constructed out of calico and scantling in 1862. Police superintendent Bayly's outward letters for 1863 note court appearances, for example a hotelkeeper being fined 20s on 2 February 1863 for keeping his bar open after hours, the sixth time he had committed such as offence, while the police "Diary of Duty" details work allocated to policemen and records daily events such as deaths and arrests for robberies. The first courthouse was destroyed in the storm of 1863, and replaced the following year by the present structure. As well as providing a venue for court hearings the building was the administration headquarters for the Dunstan goldfields. Offices were located here for the Commissioner for the Goldfields and the Mayor. Keddell only remained in this post until 1863, when he travelled north to fight in the New Zealand land wars with troops he had raised on the goldfields, but he returned to Clyde as a magistrate in 1879. A subsequent influential Goldfields commissioner stationed at the courthouse was Vincent Pyke, who was also first chairman of the Vincent County Council that was based at Clyde. Pyke returned a detailed report from the Otago goldfields to the government in 1863, but gives no information about public buildings and government infrastructure in Clyde at this time.
The former courthouse once stood on a section reserved for general government buildings and stood about a block back from the centre of the town. The complex included law enforcement and civic administration buildings. A survey plan dated 1879 shows the council chambers on a triangular shaped site next to the courthouse, while a larger section to the south of the courthouse shows police offices, a prison, warden's quarters and inspector's quarters. The section is stamped "reserved for Buildings of General Govt". Sullivan notes that a stone house built in the 1860s for the Sergeant of Police (possibly the inspector's or warden's quarters noted on the survey plan) still remains, but the stone jail on the same site has now been demolished. Up to fifteen mounted troopers were once housed in an adjacent area. The troops policed the goldfields, where crimes such as robbery were rife, and acted as escorts for the gold coach travelling to Dunedin. Any prisoners from the goldfields committed to serve sentences were taken back to Dunedin shackled to the escort wagon, and stayed overnight on the way chained to a ring in the Styx jail, halfway between Clyde and Dunedin.
In a photograph dating to the 1860s the armed, mounted gold escort is shown at Clyde outside a barracks building with a flagpole in the foreground, most likely the barracks used to house the troopers, associated with the courthouse. Gilkison describes the gold being transported "in a strongly built covered van drawn by six magnificent horses and accompanied by an officer with several troopers on horseback". A later photograph of Clyde taken in the early twentieth century shows the council chambers on the other side of the courthouse prominent on its corner site to the rear of the main street, but the courthouse is not visible .
In 1958 the former courthouse was vested in the Vincent County Council under the Land Act (1948) , and transferred to the Central Otago District Council in 1990 after the reorganisation of local government in the late 1980s. From 1966 the former courthouse was used as the local museum until 1992, when it was moved into the neighbouring former Vincent County Council Chambers. The former courthouse stayed empty for a number of years until the Central Otago District Council sold it to private owners in 1999. In 2001 the courthouse was purchased by its current owner, Murray River Investment Ltd, and was until recently used as a café.
