The Walhalla goldfield is located south of the Great Dividing Range, one hundred and eighty kilometres east of Melbourne, in a narrow valley surrounded by steep, densely timbered mountains and gullies. It is a remote but beautiful place.

In 1863, following the discovery of gold around Stringers Creek, thousands of men and women flocked to the district hoping to make their fortune. They were a diverse group of individuals and national and ethnic groups dominated in numbers by Anglo-Celts. Among them were hundreds of Italians and Swiss-Italians (Italians), mostly woodcutters, timber contractors, tramway builders and charcoal makers who generally worked in groups (work clusters).¹ They were also miners, owners of wine bars, hotels and boarding houses, a bootmaker and a mining agent. A number of Italians took up land on the goldfield's periphery and became farmers. By the early 1920s, however, apart from a few remaining families and single men, most Italian speakers had left few traces of their presence in the district, and there are a variety of reasons for this. Principally, many had been sojourners, temporary workers intending to stay only for a short period before returning home.²

There are large gaps in the historiography of Italo-Australian society. Gentilli, O'Connor, Pascoe and Douglass have documented well the migration of specific regional or provincial groups.³ Templeton, using letters, was able to capture the aspirations of her subjects and their motives for migrating.⁴ However, apart from Carlson's dissertation on Daylesford's Italian-speaking settlers, there is little coherent historical understanding of the particularities of early Italian rural settlements in colonial Victoria.⁵

Essentially, the migration patterns of Italians to Australia usually involved the arrival of male migrants who moved around the country looking for work. As they became settled, they were followed by male kin, compatriots and, later, wives and children. Charles Price has argued, in part, for the 'accidental' development of migrant communities, with settlements springing up as 'pioneer' or early arrivals from particular nationalities, regions or localities became involved in the same type of work.⁶ His theory has limitations (as he himself acknowledged) as it relies principally on statistical data and naturalisation applications that can provide only an impersonal and abstract description of migrants and what they may have made of their lives. Women, of course, play little part in it.

Castles and Miller refer to migrant settlements as 'micro-structures', informal networks developed by new arrivals in order to cope with migration and settlement. Double-sided bonds and dynamic cultural responses developed between them and the receiving population in relationships of co-operation, competitiveness and conflict.⁷

Micro-histories of small groups and the individuals within them help to challenge accepted theories. I argue here that application of Price's model to the Italian community which developed on the Walhalla goldfield gives just a broad brush effect and discounts the flexibility and versatility of the men and women involved. While their choice of occupation may have been limited because of language, cultural and other difficulties, this did not prevent ambitious Italians from becoming involved in a wide range of work. In my Walhalla study, I found that Italians were engaged in diverse occupations, albeit mostly running parallel to the needs of a goldmining society.

In my reconstruction of the settlement, I examined large volumes of primary source material including births, deaths and marriages indexes, shipping lists, Italian records, local newspapers, and Public Record Office Victoria goldmining, Crown Lands Department and probate files. Limited information was provided by some descendants. Collectively, these helped to flesh out and develop the lives of certain Italian individuals and their families.

Individuals will always find a means to defy categorisation and Vittorio Campagnolo is a case in point. He was not restricted to any one occupation in Walhalla, but over his lifetime criss-crossed occupational boundaries whenever a fresh opportunity offered a better life for him and his family. I now trace Campagnolo's documented life in Victoria and the various levels of his economic and social involvement around Walhalla from the 1870s until his death.

Vittorio Campagnolo was born in Bergamo in the Lombardy region in about 1849.  He arrived in the colony of Victoria on the Somersetshire in December 1871, aged 22.⁸ In the early years, he regularly changed occupations and places of abode in and around the various Victorian goldfields. This was typical of Italians (and others) at the time. In 1872 he spent six months in Maldon, an established goldmining centre which had a large Italian-speaking presence, probably in work associated with a mine. He went to the Walhalla goldfield for the first time after this and stayed for eighteen months.⁹ Little is known of his activities except that he is referred to in a colleague's work diary as a wood contractor.¹⁰ After leaving Walhalla, Campagnolo went to Stawell for three years.¹¹ This, too, was a well-known mining destination for early Italians attracted by work and family clusters already in place. His life to this point fits within the Price model but will not continue to do so.