Goldsborough

Goldsborough is a rural locality 6 km north-west of Dunolly and 170 km north-west of Melbourne.

Goldsborough is the site of the Dunolly homestead built by the pastoralist Archibald McDougall. When the Dunolly township was formed in 1857 the homestead site was known as Old Dunolly. It was renamed Goldsborough, not because of the gold discovery there in 1855, but after the leasehold pastoralist, Richard Goldsborough, who later was a partner in the woolbroking firm, Goldsborough Mort and Co.

The Goldsborough township was surveyed and allotments sold at about the time of the gold discovery. Gold-bearing reefs ran generally northwards from Goldsborough to Moliagul, and the town of Inkerman was about 3 km north of Goldsborough. A school was opened at Inkerman in 1860 for children there as well as from Goldsborough. When the school population required rebuilding of the school in 1882 it was moved to Goldsborough where the majority of the population resided.

There were two hotels and a Wesleyan church recorded at Goldsborough in the mid-1860s. The Queen's Birthday reef was profitably worked from 1865 to 1896, and the Belgian and Perseverence reefs also had long lives and were reworked in the 1920s-30s. Goldsborough railway station was on the Dunolly-Bealiba line (1878). In 1903 Goldsborough was described in the Australian handbook:

Goldsborough's census population fell from over 800 to 150 during 1881-1901. It thereafter mainly followed pastoral pursuits. The school closed in 1959.

Goldsborough's census populations were: