Gum-diggers
Gum-diggers were men and women who dug for kauri gum, a fossilised resin, in the old kauri fields of New Zealand at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The gum was used mainly for varnish. The term may be a source for the nickname "Digger" given to New Zealand soldiers in World War I. In 1898, a gum-digger described "the life of a gum-digger" as "wretched, and one of the last a man would take to."
Gum-diggers worked in the old kauri fields, most of which were then covered by swamp or scrub, digging for the gum. Much of the population was transient, moving from field to field, and they lived in rough huts or tents (which were called "whares", after the Maori for 'house'). It was extremely hard work and not very well paid, but it attracted many Maori and European settlers, including women and children. There were many Dalmatians, who had first come to work the South Island goldfields in the 1860s. They were transient workers, rather than settlers, and much of their income was sent out of the country, resulting in much resentment from the local workforce. In 1898, the "Kauri Gum Industry Act" was passed, which reserved gum-grounds for British subjects, and requiring all other diggers to be licenced. By 1910, only British subjects could hold gum-digging licences.
Gum-digging was the major source of income for settlers in Northland, and farmers often worked the gumfields in the winter months to subsidise the poor income from their unbroken land. By the 1890s, 20,000 people were engaged in gum-digging, of which 7000 worked full-time. Gum-digging was not restricted to settlers or workers in the rural areas; Auckland families would cross the Waitemata Harbour by ferry at weekends to dig in the fields around Birkenhead, causing damage to public roads and private farms, and leading to local council management of the problem.
Read more about this topic: Kauri Gum