The "Welcome Stranger" is the name given to the largest alluvial gold nugget

Gold nugget

A gold nugget is a naturally occurring piece of native gold. Watercourses often concentrate and grow the nuggets. Nuggets are recovered by placer mining, but they are also found in residual deposits where the gold-bearing veins or lodes are weathered...

 ever found, which had a calculated refined weight of 2,283 oz 6 dwts 9 gr. It measured 61 cm (24 inches) by 31 cm (12.2 inches), and was discovered by Cornish

Cornish people

The Cornish are a people associated with Cornwall, a county and Duchy in the south-west of the United Kingdom that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales, as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe...

 prospectors John Deason and Richard Oates on 5 February 1869 at Moliagul, Victoria

Moliagul, Victoria

Moliagul is a small township in Victoria, Australia, 202 kilometres north west of Melbourne, notable for the discovery of the world's largest gold nugget, the Welcome Stranger in 1869...

, Australia, about 9 miles north-west of Dunolly

Dunolly, Victoria

Dunolly is a town in Victoria, Australia, located on the Dunolly - Maryborough Road, in the Shire of Central Goldfields. At the 2006 census, Dunolly had a population of 969....

.

Found only 3 cm below the surface, near a root of a tree on a slope leading to what was then known as Bulldog Gully, its gross weight was 3,523.5 troy ounces, the trimmed weight was 2,520 troy ounces, and net it weighed 2,315.5 troy ounces

Troy weight

Troy weight is a system of units of mass customarily used for precious metals, gemstones, and black powder.There are 12 troy ounces per troy pound, rather than the 16 ounces per pound found in the more common avoirdupois system. The troy ounce is 480 grains, compared with the avoirdupois ounce,...

 or 72.02 kg.

At the time of the discovery there were no scales capable of weighing a nugget this large, so it was broken into three pieces on an anvil

Anvil

An anvil is a basic tool, a block with a hard surface on which another object is struck. The inertia of the anvil allows the energy of the striking tool to be transferred to the work piece. In most cases the anvil is used as a forging tool...

 by Dunolly-based blacksmith

Blacksmith

A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...

 Archibald Wall.

Deason, Oates and a few friends took the nugget to the London Chartered Bank, in Dunolly, which advanced them £

Pound sterling

The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

9,000. Deason and Oates were finally paid an estimated £

Pound sterling

The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

9,381 for their nugget, which became known as the "Welcome Stranger". It was heavier than the "Welcome Nugget

Welcome Nugget

The Welcome Nugget was the name given to a large gold nugget, weighing 2,217 troy ounces 16 pennyweight. , that was discovered by a group of twenty-two Cornish miners at the Red Hill Mining Company site at Bakery Hill in Ballarat, Victoria, on June 9, 1858...

" (of 2,217 ounces/ 68.96 kg) that had been found in Ballarat in 1858. The goldfields warden F. K. Orme reported that 2,269 ounces 10 dwt 14 grains (70.5591 kg) of smelted gold had been obtained from it, irrespective of scraps that were given away by the finders, estimated as totalling another 47 ounces 7 dwt.

The nugget was soon melted down and the gold was sent as ingots to Melbourne for forwarding to the Bank of England. It left the country on board the steamship "Reigate" which left on 21 February.
An obelisk commemorating the discovery of the "Welcome Stranger" was erected near the spot in 1897. A replica of the "Welcome Stranger" is in the City Museum, Treasury Place, Melbourne, Victoria; another replica is owned by descendants of John Deason.

The discoverers

John Deason was born in 1829 at Tresco

Tresco

Tresco is the second-biggest island of the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is in size, measuring about by .-History:In early times one group of islands was in the possession of a confederacy of hermits. King Henry I gave it to Tavistock Abbey which established a priory on Tresco;...

 on the Isles of Scilly

Isles of Scilly

The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...

 in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, England, UK. Prior to being a gold miner, in 1851 he was a tin dresser. Deason continued with gold mining and workings most of his life and, although becoming a store keeper at Moliagul, he lost a substantial proportion of his wealth through poor investments in gold mining. He bought a small farm near Moliagul where he lived at the end of his life and died in 1915, aged 85 years.

Richard Oates was born about 1827 at Pendeen

Pendeen

Pendeen is a village on the Penwith peninsula in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is north-northeast of St Just and west of Penzance.The village has a community centre, a shop, a post office, a primary school, and a few small businesses. Community activities include an art club, silver marching band...

 in Cornwall. After the 1869 find Oates returned to the UK and married. He returned with his wife to Australia where they had four children. The Oates family purchased 800 acres (3.2 km²) of land at Marong in 1895 about 15 miles (25 km) west of Bendigo, Victoria

Bendigo, Victoria

Bendigo is a major regional city in the state of Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne. It is the second largest inland city and fourth most populous city in the state. The estimated urban...

, and Oates farmed until his death at Marong, Victoria

Marong, Victoria

Marong is a town in Victoria, Australia. At the 2001 census, Marong had a population of 393. It is located kilometres to the west of Bendigo. Its local government area is the City of Greater Bendigo...

in 1906 aged 75 years.