The Day the Richest City in the World Went Broke | Melbourne 1893

In 1888, the richest city on earth was not London or New York. It was Melbourne - a gold-rush town barely fifty years old, with the tallest buildings in the British Empire, the grandest hotel in the southern hemisphere, and land dearer than the West End of London. Five years later, its banks slammed their doors. Thirteen of Australia's twenty-two banks suspended in six weeks. The savings of a generation were frozen behind brass doors - and the man at the centre of the madness, a temperance preacher turned Premier whose land banks were drunk on borrowed money, sailed away from his creditors. This is the story of the land boom that built Marvellous Melbourne, the mania that consumed everyone from doctors to ministers of the church, the crash of April and May 1893, and the ten-year hangover that followed: soup kitchens, abandoned mansions, and an exodus across the desert to the goldfields of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. Every boom believes it is different. Melbourne believed it more than anyone - because for one glittering decade, it was true. This documentary uses genuine out-of-copyright photographs, posters and newspapers from Museums Victoria, State Library Victoria and the National Library of Australia (Trove), brought to life with modern technology. Scenes marked as dramatised reconstructions are historically informed recreations. If you enjoyed this, watch Marvellous Melbourne | The Richest City in the World - the story of the boom before the bust.