The Braidwood Museum is currently working on the conservation of an extraordinary gift, announced in June. The Major's Creek gold exploration company Cortona Resources acquired the horse drawn Gold Escort coach which is believed to have been used to transfer gold and cash between Araluen, Major's Creek and Braidwood between about 1855 and 1875, and has generously gifted it to the Braidwood Museum where it will become a central part of our new exhibits.

The coach is to be restored to its original working condition and the finished coach will be presented to the Museum under the Federal Government's Cultural Gifts Program, of which the Braidwood Museum is an approved recipient. The program encourages gifts of cultural or historical significance to be donated to collecting institutions in circumstances where they might otherwise be effectively lost in the general open market. The Museum has acquired several important items over the past two years under this program, including a rare ceramic spoon from the personal dinner service of Quong Tart, the "Perseverance" wool wagon which carted Braidwood wool to coastal steamers in the 1890s, and a fine collection of Chinese blanc de chine libation dishes. The latest acquisition will be installed using display material donated by the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

Shortly after gold was discovered near Major's Creek in 1851 a flood of prospectors arrived to stake their claims. The wealth generated on the goldfields also attracted people who were prepared to take enormous risks to steal the gold from miners both on the fields and en-route to bigger centres. An armed Gold Escort was established within a few years of the gold discoveries to protect the prospector's interests, and comprised a privately contracted carriage in which a gold bullion safe, a cash safe and a book with a register of the property on board were carried.

The escort was generally in the charge of a professional driver with an armed trooper beside him and two more on the back of the carriage. Four additional armed mounted troopers travelled ahead of and behind the vehicle. The gold safe and cash box were securely bolted to the floor of the carriage. In Braidwood, the escort would travel every week or so between Araluen, Major's Creek and Braidwood where it would meet the stage coach travelling to Goulburn or Queanbeyan, and these would also have been heavily armed. In March 1865, the bushranger Ben Hall and his gang rode to Braidwood and joined with notorious local Tom Clarke in holding up the gold escort as it travelled up the hill to Major's Creek carrying a large sum of gold belonging to an Araluen gold buyer Mr Blatchford. Four troopers accompanied the coach, and after a vicious fight managed to hold off the attackers but one trooper, Constable Kelly, was injured.  Inspector Orridge rode out from the temporary police barracks at Tidmarsh to assist. The bushrangers fled into the bush.
 
Many gold escort coaches were two wheeled vehicles but the Braidwood vehicle was required to pass up the treacherously steep track to Major's Creek, where a two wheeled cart would have been liable to tip up. The Braidwood coach has four heavy wheels and a lightweight dog-cart style body, making it fast and stable, and the  bullion safe was concealed in the back compartment.
 
This vehicle is believed to have been used in Braidwood from the 1850s to the 1870s, probably in the ownership of the Malone family who operated one of the stage coach services from Braidwood. It then went to Goulburn where it was used as a light delivery vehicle for about 50 years, finally being purchased in 1965 for an historical collection in rural NSW. It is in remarkably original order despite some minor modifications. Important historical evidence supporting the history of the coach includes the survival of the mounting holes for the strong box, which is now in the National Museum of Australia, the ledger case mounted under the seat and the unusual design of the carriage which uses English springs, heavy wooden wheels and a lightweight dog-cart style body. Conservation and restoration work is in progress and the carriage will be installed in the Museum in a few months time.