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Focus on gold rush religions

June 20, 2022 BY

Rituals: Natasha Joyce will speak on the organisation of religious difference in death and burial at the symposium. Photo: MATTHEW WHITLEY

AN unprecedented line-up of local history pundits will come together on 23 June at the La Trobe Art Institute in View Street for a day-long series of talks on the complex subject of religious and cultural diversity during the gold rush era in Bendigo.

The Faith on the Goldfields Symposium will cover topics including Catholicism on the Central Goldfields, why Bendigo failed to become a protestant city, faith and medical philanthropy and Jewish history of the Central Victorian Goldfields.

Local researcher Natasha Joyce, who will also speak on the organisation of religious difference in death and burial, said anyone who works in cultural and heritage fields as well as faith-based institutions, will appreciate the day just as much as “any person who likes to hear stories about a town’s origins.”

“It is an academic forum, and the speakers are all researchers, but anyone who likes to really dig down into a topic will be interested,” she said.

“Connecting people to their own histories helps us all appreciate the variability of Bendigo’s heritage.

“The goldfields was a place where people of different faiths and cultures negotiated their differences every day and did so mostly successfully.”

For more information on the symposium visit bit.ly/3xIy4Yw.