the gold mine and 26 tonne of gold was recovered. An early settler at the time, Mr Campbell wrote that, "the blacks were here in those days…. On each side was nothing but thick tea tree scrub and snakes…. When the rush for gold was discovered there was only two shops, drapery and grocery but soon the little township swarmed with people. More shops, hotels, dance halls and hall were built for plays to come to the town which they did in plenty. There came circuses and the children got excited and followed to see the horses and elephants going through the town to get somewhere to camp and build their tents. Those entertainments came very often because there was plenty of money about The town began its early life as "Brandy Creek" because of the colour of the water in the creek where the gold was originally discovered. "The growing civic consciousness found voice in the demand for a new name for the town and in March 1879 Brandy Creek was renamed Beaconsfield, after Lord Beaconsfield, (Benjamin Disraeli)", (Town With a History by Coultman Smith, 2006) the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the time "in a ceremony conducted Governor Weld after he rejected a suggestion that it should be named after him". In 1903 an English company bought the Tasmanian Gold Mining and Quartz Crushing company and formed the Tasmanian Gold Mining Company Ltd. As water had become such a huge problem at Beaconsfield, a substantial injection of capital was required to purchase and operate suitable dewatering equipment. The Company extracted gold from two shafts adjacent to each other, Grubb and Hart Shafts. In 1904 engine houses were built at these shafts and a central boiler house. These buildings now house the Beaconsfield Mine & Heritage Centre. Underground mining began in 1879 with the sinking and development of three main shafts to access the reef: the Hart Shaft, the Main Shaft and the Grubb Shaft. Beaconsfield became the richest gold town in Tasmania. In 1881 there were 53 companies working the field. These were all absorbed by the owners of the Tasmania mine. The gold mine closed in 1914 due to regular flooding of the shafts but re-opened in 1999 with mixed success. To 1914, the mine was worked to a depth of 450 metres and produced 800,000 ounces of gold. In 1982, the Grubb Shaft