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Forgotten gold rush women are on the come up

Welcome to The Nugget, a 24k gold newsletter about Castlemaine's people and events

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The Nugget
May 16, 2025

★ Uncovering our history, with Kacey Sinclair ★

Kacey Sinclair

Have you met Kacey Sinclair, the fascinating keeper of local stories?

Kacey is a historian known for bringing us the remarkable story of Fanny Finch, a Castlemaine legend and community builder in the gold rush.

There are no streets named after Fanny and no songs or movies written about her.

Kacey is changing that, lifting Fanny from the forgotten pages of historical records. As part of her PhD, Kacey is writing a book about Fanny that I am Busting to read.

Fanny's biggest power move was voting in an election in the Hall of Castlemaine in 1856, making her one of the first women to vote in Australia.

She made use of a loophole in voting law that was yet to discriminate against gender or race.

And speaking of race, Fanny was of African heritage. Yep. We don't hear about many women of colour in the making of modern-day Castlemaine.

"She was known (in the local history community), but I made a song and dance about her and everyone got up and danced with me," Kacey said.

Kacey's research led her to meet Fanny's descendants, Bill and Alice Garner (relatives of the great writer, Helen Garner).

Bill was a playwright who had just discovered Fanny in his family tree.

“I was like, ‘Oh, this is not going to end well for me,’" Kacey says, laughing.

"I just had this feeling that he would be inspired – how could you not be inspired by Fanny, you know, discovering someone like her in your family history."

Three years later, Kacey was standing on a stage at the Castlemaine State Festival, playing herself in the play Finding Fanny Finch, which Bill wrote, based on her research.

"I cried on stage," Kacey says.

"I just couldn't believe that this thing had grown into something so much bigger than me. What an incredible journey. I don't regret it for a second."

That was in 2019. Since then, Kacey has gone on to build a picture of Fanny's Forest Creek universe, including all the other women who were in her orbit, directly or indirectly.

"It's a technique called prosopography in history, where you may be in search of one person, but you actually build out to their community. Community says so much about us as individuals."

The Castlemaine community was everything to Fanny.

When she arrived in the early years of the Castlemaine diggings lots of people were coming and going.

"But there was this core community that really just dug their heals in and stayed. Fanny was one of them," Kacey says. 

"She kind of grew up with this community. There were people here that publicly supported her when she was, you know, kicked to the ground.

“She literally said that this was her family. That's the way that the archive reads anyway. The Castlemaine community was her family."

For a working-class woman of colour with no actual family, finding a community that respected you and had your back was a big deal.

Many of us living here today stay for that community bond, Kacey included. She says that Fanny has helped her understand her place in this space, as a woman of colour, a mother and a local business owner.

"My husband grew up here, so he has connections here that go to his childhood, whereas I grew up in Melbourne. I'm from a migrant family. We don't have an ancestral home.”

In moving to Castlemaine with her young children, Kacey has met friends who have become her family.

“The connection that I have to this place is unlike any other place, any other connection that I've had to any place I've lived before. I never thought I would feel like that in my life."

Kacey does not compare herself to Fanny, but she does plan to weave some of her contemporary Castlemaine experiences through the book.

"I became really obsessed with Fanny. I had to really draw back many, many times,” Kacey says.

“When I first learned about her, it was almost essential that I lost myself in her because it enabled me to stay up till four or five in the morning with two little kids and feel fine the next day because that's what obsession does.

"The first, like, four years of my research was that and it was so fun. I'm going to be weaving that into my biography. I'm going to be talking about the ways that we can become obsessed with our subject and the ways that can kind of impair, but also empower, and enrich the process of viewing the past."

Kacey is aiming to finish her biography of Fanny Finch in October. Stay tuned for publication details.

In the meantime, you can spend some time in Fanny's world this weekend. Kacey is speaking at the Alchemy of Gold historical conference, sharing research into two of Fanny's contemporaries: Isabella Grout and Mary Ward, who had been previously lost to history.

Mary’s story is particularly wild. She died from falling down a mine shaft in Chewton, whilst intoxicated, but there’s way more to it than that. Get all the details in our interview with Kacey on MainFM.

❀ You couldn’t make this stuff up ❀

Wheeee! How exciting.

The program has been released for the 2025 Castlamine Documentary Festival and the theme is so dang juicy: ‘Truth, you couldn’t make this stuff up.’

It hints at the next-level nature of the stories on offer.

Get ready for documentaries about:

  • a hybrid doco-musical,

  • AI and how it’s changing the way we think and behave and

  • Hazara women, writing their fate, plus lots more.

♡˖ EVENTS ˖♡

𖥔 TALK TO MOI PLOISE 𖥔

Hi! Kindly drop me a line at [email protected] to let me know:

  • if you think a Castlemaine street should be named after Fanny Finch,

  • all about your upcoming event, and

  • who I should interview next. xx