To the Miner Born

In the 1850s, on the dusty streets of Ballarat in central Victoria, a small group of mining men ran the headquarters of the Australian gold rush. As the diggers hunted for gold, here fortune seekers built an institution at their gathering place known simply as "The Corner". Providing the capital needed to get the gold, The Corner men ushered in a period of extreme entrepreneurship in a high risk game of both mining and speculation. In doing so, they became Australia's first stockbrokers and their institution Australia's first Stock Exchange. Follow the lives of some of these men and see how they won and lost fortunes, took extraordinary risks and founded practices that are still evident today. From Ballarat to Egerton, Berringa and Daylesford, as rich is the gold heritage of Victoria, so are the stories of those that made it possible.