Gold was first discovered in Australia in 1847 near Bathurst, New South Wales, by mineralogist William Tipple Smith, who found payable gold on the western slopes of the Blue Mountains. However, this early discovery was largely ignored by the government at the time. The first widely recognized and officially noted gold discovery that sparked Australia's gold rushes was made by Edward Hargraves in 1851, who found gold near Orange in New South Wales at a site called Ophir. This discovery led to the famous Australian gold rushes starting in 1851, spreading rapidly to other parts of New South Wales and Victoria later that year.