Later on 23 October 1854, a large public meeting was held at
2.00 pm at Bakery Hill where the 10,000 to 15,000 diggers showed their support
for McIntyre and Fletcher, established a Defence Fund for their trial and gave
an ‘unqualified condemnation of the manner in which the laws are enforced at
Ballarat’. [1] The Argus prophetically commented
In all this there is great danger. When large masses of
chance-collected men assemble to listen to exciting harangues; when they know
that they have many and good causes for complaint; and when some of the most
urgent and most exasperating of these causes as enlarged upon, and represented
in the most striking points of view; when the ready redress of a prompt appeal
to physical force is placed in the scale with the tardy and uncertain remedies
of petitions, remonstrances and resolutions, there is a great danger of
collision…of the sacrifice of human life and the compromise of the great
principles of liberty and progress. [2]
The meeting felt that had the laws been carried out impartially
the burning of the Eureka Hotel would not have occurred and that the
entire responsibility lay with the Camp officials. Its first resolution stated:
That the diggers look with feelings of alarm at the almost
daily violation of the personal liberty of the subject, and hereby express their
unqualified condemnation of the manner in which the laws are enforced at
Ballarat. [3]
That evening, it was reported that a large body of men was
making its way from Eureka to the Camp and soldiers and police were on alert all
night. One consequence of this was that, by 27 October, Captain John W. Thomas,
the Garrison Commander, had developed a detailed plan for the defence of the
Camp. [4]
S. T. Gill, Site of Bentley’s Hotel, Ballarat
The problem of James Bentley remained. However, on 22 October,
Police Commissioner MacMahon was given additional information by Thomas Mooney,
Bentley’s barman that directly implicated Bentley, his wife and their employee
Farrell in the murder of Scobie.[5] New depositions were collected, including an
additional deposition given by mother and son Mary Ann and Bernard Welch. [6] Michael Welsh, a waiter at the Eureka hotel, also
provided a deposition incriminating not only the Bentleys but also two of their
staff, barman William Duncan and former Chief Constable Thomas Farrell, the
hotel clerk. On 23 October, after he had studied the depositions forwarded by
Johnston and the new evidence, they were arrested on the advice of
Attorney-General Stawell. Evidence implicating a man named William Hance was
also brought forward and he too was apprehended. Their trial was held in
mid-November.
By late October, the goldfield had returned to normal and on 2
November, Rede sent 40 police back to Melbourne and Geelong though he took no
action to reduce the number of troops. In an effort of quell unrest, on 30
October Hotham established a board of enquiry into the Scobie incident [7] and the actions of the Camp officials headed by
Melbourne’s Police Magistrate, Evelyn Sturt assisted by William McCrae, head of
the colony’s Medical Department, and C. P. Hackett, a Ballarat Police
Magistrate. [8] The Riot Enquiry started sitting in Ballarat on 2
November. [9] However, underlying tensions had not been addressed
and the events of the previous three weeks left the diggers with a heightened
sense of injustice. The Ballarat Times caught this mood:
The corruption of every department connected with the
government in Ballarat is become so notorious and so barefaced that public
indignation is thoroughly aroused…Amongst other grievances under which the
residents on the goldfields are suffering, there are three which ought at once
to occupy the earnest attention of the government; and they are, first, the
abolition of the present obnoxious miners’ license; second, the representation
of the mining interests in the councils of the colony; and third, an unbiased
and equitable dispensation of justice. These the miners must have and will have,
one way or other, by fair means if possible, by foul if necessary, but have them
they will… [10]
The authorities in Ballarat had badly mishandled each of the
three incidents in October 1854. [11]
…he [William Mollison, a member of the Legislative Council
on 31 October] did not believe that the outrage at Ballarat was caused by one
error of judgement or one action of misconduct on the part of the magistrate or
the other authorities, but that it had originated in a series of errors and a
course of misconduct continued for some time… [12]
Both the murder of Scobie and the assault on Joannes Gregorius
could easily have been resolved by the authorities: in the first case, if they
had followed correct legal procedure and referred the issue to jury trial (as
eventually occurred) and in the second if action had been taken against the
inexperience Constable Lord, who was moved and against Assistant-Commissioner
Johnston, who was not. Had this occurred promptly, it is possible that Bentley’s
hotel would not have been fired. What, with justification, was seen as
uncompromisingly biased attitude of the Government Camp simply aggravated the
smouldering resentment of many diggers. Governor Hotham, though well aware of
the deteriorating situation in Ballarat, did little to address the situation
until he appointed the Riot Enquiry at the end of October other than reinforce
the military and police presence in the community. In the next few months he
consistently failed to appreciate the gravity of the situation and, when he did
act, his actions tended to ratchet up the situation rather than calm it. Matters
were further exacerbated by the worsening economic conditions in Ballarat as
mining proved less prosperous on the Eureka Leads where no one had bottomed out
for weeks. With both the Gravel Pits and Creswick Creek booming, some diggers
moved elsewhere and the population on Eureka declined.
[1] ‘Ballarat’, Geelong Advertiser and
Intelligencer, 25 October 1854, p. 4.
[2] ‘The Ballaarat Affair’, Argus, 26 October 1854,
p. 4.
[3] ‘Ballarat’, Geelong Advertiser and
Intelligencer, 25 October 1854, p. 4.
[4] A report, dated 27 October 1854, from Acting Chief
Commissioner of Police Charles MacMahon for the information of Lieutenant
Governor Hotham, discusses plans made with Captain John Thomas for the defence
of the Government Camp: PROV 1189/P Unit 92, J54/12058.
[5] Mellor, Suzanne G., ‘Sir Charles MacMahon, (1824-1891)’,
ADB, Vol. 5, pp. 189-190.
[6] PROV 5527/P Unit 1, Item 2.
[7] ‘Legislative Council’, Argus, 1 November 1854, p.
4, details the decision to establish the commission while ‘Management of the
Goldfields’, Argus, 1 November 1854, p. 4, for editorial comment. ‘Class
Committees and Closed Doors’, Argus 16 November 1854, p. 4, was highly
critical of Foster’s use of committees of enquiry because those involved tended
to be linked to the issue being examined: ‘The gentlemen sent to Ballaarat to
examine the charges brought against the magistrates and Camp officials there
are, or have been, either magistrates or Camp officials themselves’.
[8] Gross, Alan, ‘Evelyn Pitfield Shirley Sturt
(1816-1885)’, ADB, Vol. 6, pp. 215-216.
[9] ‘Ballarat’, Geelong Advertiser and
Intelligencer, 10 November 1854, p. 4, ‘Ballaarat’, Argus, 16
November 1854, p. 6.
[10] Ballarat Times, 28 October 1854.
[11] ‘Legislative Council: New Municipalities’, Geelong
Advertiser and Intelligencer, 2 November 1854, p. 5.
[12] ‘Legislative Council’, Geelong Advertiser
and Intelligencer, 2 November 1854, p. 4.
