A false dawn

Rumours were rife in Melbourne. The goldfield was said to be in rebel hands and people became uncomfortably aware that the diggers could form an army tens of thousands strong and be on their way to pillage their defenceless town. A citizens’ rifle brigade was formed and Hotham was applauded when he announced that special constables would be sworn in to meet the emergency. In Ballarat, some more radical diggers met at the Star Hotel where Alfred Black drew up a ‘Declaration of Independence’ but they were a small minority and Lalor, who favoured force only in defence, played no part in it. Vern did and Lalor felt sufficiently insecure in his leadership to offer his resignation on Friday 1 December in order to maintain unity within the movement. However, he was dissuaded from doing so largely because Vern and others recognised that, without him the movement would fall apart. [1] Vern had promised to raise 500 armed German diggers and sought the position of second-in-command but contented himself with enlarging the Stockade. [2] Carboni thought this absurd as there was no possibility of defending the original space let alone an extended one. [3] Vern may have promised the best hope for military leadership but largely from accounts written by Carboni who detested him, he appears vague and contradictory in his military organisation. [4] He did, however, approach the task of forming a rebel army with some energy but he is best remembered for fleeing the subsequent battle though not, as some suggested, at its outset but when a large number of the defenders fled ten minutes into the battle.

 

Few diggers slept in the Stockade on Friday night returning early on Saturday morning, 2 December. Drilling recommenced at 8.00 am and the blacksmith inside the stockade continued to make pikes for the diggers who had no firearms. Drilling stopped around midday when Father Smyth arrived to tend to the needs of the Irish Catholics. He had permission from Lalor to address the Catholics and pointed out to them their poor defences and their lack of experience in the face of well-armed troops and police, with more reinforcements on the way. He pleaded for them to stop before blood was spilled, and to attend Mass the following morning, but was largely unsuccessful. No license hunt occurred in the morning and by midday most diggers agreed that nothing would happen until Monday at the earliest and Lalor believed that this would take the form of further license hunts not a direct attack on their camp. By mid-afternoon, 1,500 men were drilling in and around the Stockade. Captain Thomas suggested that the rebels were ‘forcing people to join their ranks’. [5]

 

 

 



Around 4.00 pm, 200 Americans, the Independent Californian Rangers under James McGill, arrived in the Stockade.[6] Their arrival bolstered men’s spirits as McGill had some military knowledge and was promptly appointed second-in-command to Lalor. There is considerable ambiguity over the extent of McGill’s military experience. [7] But he put whatever military training he had to work and set up a sentry system to warn the rebels of a British attack. Even so McGill and two-thirds of his Californians left before midnight on the pretext that they were going to intercept further reinforcements from Melbourne. McGill’s wife later claimed that a representative of the American consul, a friend of Hotham, had ordered McGill to get his men out of the Stockade. [8] Vern, also without providing any evidence to support his assertion, suggested that McGill accepted a bribe of £800 to absent himself from the Stockade. This left the Stockade seriously under-manned and Rede’s spies observed these actions. In the evening, most men had drifted home to their families or visited friends outside the boundary. Lalor had retired to the stores tent within the Stockade for much needed sleep by midnight and there were only about 120 diggers within the Stockade with a hundred or so firearms between them.

 

Although it appears that Lalor did not anticipate an imminent military assault, this was not the position in the Camp where tension was rising. Captain Thomas later stated that shots were fired over the heads of sentries and that the rebels in the ‘intrenched camp… [had] the avowed intention of intercepting the force under the Major-General’s command en route from Melbourne.’ [9] Rede knew that unless he used his available men, he could lose the opportunity to end the rebellion quickly. Soldiers and mounted police had poured in from around the state; 106 men from the 40th Regiment and 39 mounted troopers arrived from Geelong. Reinforcements were also sent from Castlemaine, as well as directly from Melbourne. Rede was informed by his spies that the Californian Rangers had left the Stockade depleting its defenders. There was a hint of things to come when on the day before the attack Rede had written to Hotham:

 

I am convinced that the future welfare of the Colony and the peace and prosperity of all the Gold Fields depends upon the crushing of this movement in such a manner that it may act as a warning.

 

Now, he concluded, was the ideal time to attack and destroy the Stockade.

---

[1] Ibid, Molony, John, Eureka, pp. 146-147, draws attention to the ‘alleged’ nature of this document but says nothing more.

[2] Vern, Frederick, ‘Col. Vern’s Narrative of the Ballarat Insurrection, Part I’, Melbourne Monthly Magazine, November 1855, pp. 5-14, Part II, does not appear to have been published.

[3] Ibid, Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, pp. 80-81.

[4] Ibid, Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, p. 84.

[5] Thomas to Major Adjutant-General, 3 December 1854, PROV, 1085/P Duplicate 162, Enclosure no. 7.

[6] Ibid, Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, pp. 84-86, 88.

[7] Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, pp. 49-51.

[8] SLV, MS 13518, Charles Evans, Diary, 3 December 1854, pp. 134-135, gives an alternative explanation suggesting that one government spy ‘[possibly McGill] had decoyed a large body of men from the Stockade last night on some pretence or other, leaving only about 150 in it and they imperfectly armed…’

[9] Thomas to Major Adjutant-General, 3 December 1854, PROV, 1085/P Duplicate 162, Enclosure no. 7.

More negotiations: Friday 1 December

For Charles Evans and many others, the night of 30 November was spent in sleepless dread of an impending confrontation:

 

…a fearful thunder storm the most violent I have witnessed since I have been on the diggings, broke over our heads. The lightning was truly awful, but scarcely more awful than the objects its light revealed. The diggings & for a moment the eye would rest on groups of armed men talking in low earnest tone & then all was darkness. We are now waiting in darkness and uncertainty for some fearful crisis, every hour is expected to usher in a scene of blood and calamity. [1]

 

By Friday 1 December, the Camp was virtually under siege and the surrounding country in a state of growing tension. Initially, at least, communications were maintained between the protagonists. Despite their aggressive mood, Lalor was still prepared to talk with the authorities. Once the diggers arrived back at Eureka after taking the oath under the Southern Cross, Lalor met with the elected captains who decided to send one last deputation to Rede. Although Carboni suggested that this meeting took place on 30 November, it is now generally agreed that it took place early the following day. [2] Carboni, George Black and Father Smyth met Rede outside the Camp because Rede was concerned that the meeting might be a ruse to gain intelligence of the layout of the Camp and its fortifications if the diggers were planning an attack. Lalor proposed that the diggers would lay down their arms and return to work if the prisoners were released and no more license hunts were carried out until the findings of the Royal Commission were released. Father Smyth believed it was up to Rede to make concessions but Rede was unbending stating that he would maintain the Queen’s authority and not negotiate with men who were using the license as ‘a mere cloak to cover a democratic revolution’. Carboni and George Black and Father Smyth returned to the Stockade to report the failure of the meeting. Nonetheless, unknown to the leaders at Eureka, Smyth returned to the Camp a few hours later in a final attempt to reach some sort of compromise but again Rede refused.

 

The authorities were being kept informed of the situation on the diggings by ‘spies’ placed amongst the diggers. Constable Henry Goodenough, an agent provocateur had urged diggers to attack the Camp and informed Rede about a proposed 4.00 am attack on 1 December. Only a few diggers assembled at Bakery Hill, but soon dispersed when they heard that some of the Camp forces had turned out to confront them. Yet, the suspicious movements of diggers kept the Camp in a state of constant alert and troops were sent out again at 11.00 am to clear the streets and hotels at the back of the Camp and two diggers were arrested, one of whom was armed. Rede believed that the Camp was in danger and urged Hotham to send more reinforcements, including artillery. As a result, Major-General Sir Robert Nickle left Melbourne for Ballarat on Friday 1 December with a force of 800 men and 4 artillery pieces.

 

When the Council at Eureka, now the governing body for the rebels, heard that the military had mobilised, an attack on the Stockade was expected. As a result, further fortifications were constructed and positions manned but within two hours things had settled down. Carboni made the point that the diggers’ lack of weapons was clear evidence that no revolution was intended and that they had ‘taken up arms solely in self-defence’. [3] Although the making of weapons as primitive as pikes suggests that there was a shortage of arms at Eureka, contrary to Carboni’s assertions the defenders lacked neither firearms nor ammunition. [4] Ballarat had become a more settled community and this meant there was less need for diggers to carry weapons but this did not mean they were without revolvers, rifles and especially shotguns. What the rebels lacked were weapons for close quarter fighting; few had bayonets and this meant that once a musket had been fired at advancing troops, unless it could be quickly reloaded, its use was limited to being a club. The use made of pikes, far from being a consequence of shortages of other weapons, proved effective against mounted troops especially when used in a coordinated way and could also be used against soldiers with bayonets to prevent them closing with the rebels. The problem with pikes is that, unless supported by rebels with firearms they could not keep firearm-equipped soldiers at bay for long, as proved the case during the assault. The contrast generally made between military organisation of the Camp and with what is seen as the amateurish nature of preparations in the Stockade needs to be reassessed.

 

There was a problem with criminality as Carboni highlighted:

 

…a similar gang, four strong, had entered the store of D. O’Conner, on the Golden Point...but the vagabonds did not care so much for the ammunition for their guns, as for the stuff for their guts, what tempted them most was fine good Yorkshire hams, and coffee to wash it down. In short they ransacked the whole store…[5]

 

The diggings were in turmoil as roaming bands of diggers raided stores commandeering guns, ammunition and food supplies and horses for the use of the ‘diggers under arms’, shops closed and mining ceased. Evans commented:

 

Bodies of armed men visited the stores demanding arms -I was in the Rifle Gallery when two men appointed by the main body came for their rifles & guns. It was useless to resist so they gave up at once what they had in the gallery -The rest they had previously sent to the township. Soon afterwards 7 or 8 others armed with swords guns & revolvers came in & made a second demand, and would not believe that they had been given up already -[6]

 

Lalor made some attempt to combat lawlessness and picquets were sent out to prevent the seizures being made a cover for robbery.

 

Early on 1 December, Black and Kennedy rode the nine miles to Creswick’s Creek to persuade its miners to sever ties with the English but their endeavours were rejected by the majority as a call to take up arms against the Victorian Government. The Argus reported that ‘great intimidation’ was used by those under arms and that ‘every one of them that did not come out and fight would be marked and would sure to gain nothing in the end.’ [7] Kennedy assured the crowd that Ballarat was ready to revolt and weapons, food and accommodation were available. The diggers at Eureka needed to know whether they had support on the other fields but what they did not need was a contingent of unarmed and exhausted diggers. Although several hundred miners left Creswick in heavy rain, by 4.30 pm, only 150 men arrived from Creswick making a colourful spectacle as a band played the ‘Marseillaise’ but feeding, arming and housing them put an enormous strain on the limited resources of the Stockaders. Most were soon disillusioned by what they saw at the Stockade and returned home. This was, however, the extent of physical support from outside Ballarat. The following day, 600 people at Bendigo heard Henry Holyoake report on the situation in Ballarat but even though the diggers did not support the Ballarat militants and reaffirmed their policy of peaceful constitutional change, they agreed not to pay the license fee and to wear red ribbons as a sign of support. On 2 December, the Ballarat correspondent of the Argus wrote:

 

We are standing here on the brink of a great event. What the next forty eight hours will bring forth, I feel, will form a page in the future history of Victoria…The tranquillity of this day has been absolutely agonising. I am now writing amidst the reports and flashes of a thousand stands of arms. Everyone is excited and confused. I wish the crisis were over; the suspense is fearful.[8]

---

[1] SLV, MS 13518, Charles Evans, Diary, 30 November 1854, pp. 125-126.

[2] Ibid, Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, pp. 73-76.

[3] Ibid, Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, p. 80.

[4] Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, pp. 26-29, examines the evidence for the miners being better armed than some of the contemporary statements suggested.

[5] Ibid, Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, pp. 93-94.

[6] SLV, MS 13518, Charles Evans, Diary, 30 November 1854, pp. 125-126.

[7] ‘Further Particulars of the Ballaarat Affray’, Argus, 5 December 1854, pp. 4-5.

[8] ‘Ballaarat’, Argus, 4 December 1854, p. 5, written before the attack on the Stockade.

The Stockade

The precise function of the Stockade is also a matter of dispute. [1] The authorities clearly saw its construction and the swearing of oaths to a flag not of the sovereign country as dangerous acts of rebellion. Their view was reinforced by its construction across the Melbourne road, the most practical way for reinforcements to reach Ballarat. This was not Lalor’s view when he highlighted its role in early 1855. [2] He went to great pains to emphasise that his intention in building the Stockade was not warlike:

 

Well-grounded fears being entertained that Government spies would mix with the volunteers, and betray their movements, and it also being found necessary that a distinct place should be marked off, in which the men could muster together and be drilled, a piece of ground at Eureka was enclosed with slabs for that purpose…The government laid great stress on the erection of this enclosure, and have dignified it with the titles of stockade, barricade, fortified entrenchment, and camp. It may suit their policy to give it these titles, but in plain truth, it was nothing more than an enclosure to keep our men together, and was never erected with an eye to military defence…It is of importance to observe that we never contemplated remaining within the enclosure till attacked. [3]

 

Lalor’s view of the Stockade, something Carboni supported, was of a poor even flimsy structure that was never conceived in terms of military defence but simply a means of keeping his men together. Those who attacked it took a different view seeing it as a reasonably solid structure capable of resisting musket balls and a barrier to horsemen.[4] Although it was not capable of resisting an artillery attack, it certainly provided protection for its defenders against small-arms fire.

Although there are many contemporary accounts of what the Stockade looked like, there is no definitive description. Situated at the point where the Eureka Lead took its bend by the old Melbourne Road, its precise location was not resolved until the 1990s. [5] There is also some disagreement about the evolution of the Stockade. Although a basic structure was begun on the Thursday 30 November, Carboni said Vern superintended its building on Friday 1 December, following instructions from Lalor.[6] However, Stephen Cummins who had been on watch on Friday night awoke next morning to see the Stockade being completed. It seems probable that initial construction began on Thursday and not completed until Friday but that during the Saturday morning, it was further strengthened. As to its size: Carboni described at as covering an acre of land, while others estimated that it was four times larger but it also included some tents, huts, a store and several shafts^[7]

 

Huyghue, a clerk at the Government Camp, described it as a semi-circle while Assistant-Commissioner Amos saw it as a parallelogram, stated that the timber breastwork was in some places nearly seven feet high and consisted of various materials such as felled trees, branches, bags of sand, and towards the Melbourne road, partly overturned carts. [8] It was, however, largely made of thick slabs that were normally used to timber shafts. The split posts were inserted into a trench about four feet in depth, the round sides facing inwards and the rough split sides to the exterior of the Stockade. [9]

 

 

Marlene Gilson: Mount Warrenhelp and Eureka Stockade, 2013

 

‘The Aboriginal people played a big role on the Ballarat goldfields and at the Eureka Stockade—my ancestors the Wadawurrung clan cared for the miners’ children in the bush as the battle raged. I also acknowledge the Woirung and Boonerung clans, proud native police and black trackers. They all are a part of Ballarat’s history.’

 

It is evident that the Stockade was a stronger defensive position that Lalor and others admitted. Events during the assault indicate that it was of reasonably strong construction providing adequate cover from musket fire for the rebels sheltering behind its slabs for at least ten minutes. The major problem was that the rebels were not engineers and the area enclosed was too large to be defended. The Stockade may have been a physical challenge to an increasingly isolated Government Camp and provided a protected headquarters for the rebellion but how it was viewed depended on what the intention of the rebels was. Those who were involved in the rebellion had a vested interest in its aftermath to play down or even deny the confrontational intentions of the rebels. Carboni may well have been right when he lamented the rebels being seduced by their militaristic infatuations. [10]

 

 

 

The ‘Southern Cross’

Given the symbolic importance of the Southern Cross and the Eureka Stockade to the later history of Australia, it is perhaps not surprising that both have been issues of controversy. The Southern Cross, first flown at Bakery Hill on 29 November and then over the Eureka Stockade until the assault on 3 December, was viewed by diggers as the symbol of their resistance to colonial authority. It was not the flag of revolution but an assertion by the people that their dignity and rights would be defended against an insensitive and despotic government. The design of the flag was taken by Charles Ross, one of Eureka’s miners from Canada to three women Anastasia Withers, Anne Duke and Elizabeth Hayes to sew in time for a large rally at Bakery Hill. There is no evidence who designed the flag, although Ross was known on the diggings as the ‘bridegroom’ of the flag and is often credited with having created its unique design.  

 

 

During the battle on December 3 1854, he was mortally wounded near the flagpole and the Eureka flag was torn down, trampled, hacked with sabres and peppered with bullets. It was retrieved by Trooper John King and the King family kept the flag for 40 years, until loaned to the Ballarat Art Gallery in 1895, where it remained in continued obscurity until it was ‘rediscovered’ by Len Fox during the 1930s. However, it took decades to convince authorities properly to authenticate it. [1] Final proof was found in the sketchbooks of Charles Doudiet, auctioned in 1996. Doudiet, a French Canadian artist-digger, had been prospecting at Ballarat in 1854 where he had befriended another digger, ‘Charlie’ Ross. When ‘Captain’ Ross, as the diggers called him, was severely wounded in the attack on the Stockade, it was Doudiet who took Ross to a hotel to nurse him.[2] Doudiet, eyewitness of these events, then recorded meticulously in his sketchbook the two major events of the Eureka story: the diggers taking the famous oath of allegiance beneath the flag and also the storming of the Stockade that he labelled, ‘Eureka Slaughter 3 December’. Both of his paintings show the flag flying, its design exactly as described by Len Fox’s research. The remnant of the original Eureka Flag remains today, preserved for public display in Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, along with Doudiet’s sketches.[3]

Under the Southern Cross

On 28 November, the Argus commented in its leader:

Canada could not get a British statesman to listen to her grievances till she broke out in rebellion…We must warn the diggers that it is no slight affair upon which they are entering. [1]

The first sentence may have been a warning to the authorities but, if the second was to warn the diggers, it was almost an open invitation to rebel. Two days later, it was clear that neither the authorities nor the diggers had heeded the warnings and the mood in Ballarat hardened on both sides. After the license hunt on 30 November, several thousand diggers, many armed rushed to Bakery Hill. [2] None of their usual spokesmen were present to conduct the meeting. Humffray and George Black had already distanced themselves from the movement and it is unlikely that diggers would have listened to their calls for calm. The leaderless crowd was about to disperse when Peter Lalor took charge calling on the diggers to unite and fight to free themselves from tyranny. Critical in the shift from peaceful protest to direct action was belief in the right to bear arms in one’s own defence.

The concept of self-defence was an ambiguous Common Law right but legal opinion suggested that it did not extend to those who resisted the lawful authority of the state. However, Captain Wise’s untimely parading of his troops on 28 November and especially the clash at the Gravel Pits two days later confirmed the fear of many diggers that the authorities were preparing to use force against them. The miners would have been fully aware that the British government had used troops to deal with dissent and unrest in Britain and in the colonies. It does however seem that it was the prominence of the bayonet in both incidents that aggravated the situation: the bayonet was seen as ‘the iconic weapon of despotic coercion’. [3] Carboni was not alone in expressing his outrage at the threatened use of the weapon:

John Bull…was born for law, order and safe money making on land and sea…he hates the bayonet: I mean of course that he does not want to be bullied by the bayonet. [4]

Hundreds enrolled as volunteers and were organised into companies by Lalor while George Black’s brother, Alfred recorded the names of each division and its captain. The companies were made up of men from all nationalities on the diggings according to the weapons they brought with them. Charles Ross, for instance, took command of the division of men armed with rifles and muskets while Irishmen Michael Hanrahan and Patrick Curtain commanded a division armed with pikes, seen by some as an archetypically Irish weapon and the Prussian Edward Thonen took charge of another company of riflemen. [5] Lalor asked Carboni to tell those without firearms to make pikes. This was not, as some have argued, a reflection of the shortage of firearms among the rebels but recognition of the value of the pike as a weapon for defence. What was important about pikes was that they were easily made and could be used to some effect with little training. About 1,000 diggers with their leaders, Lalor, ‘Captain’ Ross, Timothy Hayes, Frederick Vern and Raffaelo Carboni then marched to the Eureka diggings with the Southern Cross flying before them. [6] This made tactical sense since Bakery Hill was an open, cleared space where diggers could be surrounded by troops from the nearby Camp. Eureka was less exposed.

Charles Doudiet, Swearing Allegiance to the Southern Cross, watercolour

At a meeting of the thirteen captains, Lalor was chosen as ‘commander-in-chief’ with a mandate to ‘resist force by force’.[7] After his election, the diggers began to erect a simple fortification about 200 metres from the remains of Bentley’s hotel. They enclosed about an acre of relatively flat ground with slabs of timber shovelling some earth round the slabs to strengthen them. Once the palisade had been completed, the men who had marched to Eureka, already reduced to 500, marched back to Bakery Hill, the symbolic centre of digger resistance. Lalor and his captains returned to Bakery Hill and as the sun was setting Captain Ross, sword in hand hoisted the Southern Cross. Holding his rifle in his left hand, Lalor mounted a stump nearby and ordered those not prepared to swear an oath to leave immediately, which many did. He then knelt at the foot of the flagpole and with his right hand raised towards the flag, swore in the men who remained:

We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other, and fight to defend our rights and liberties.

As dusk fell, they took down the Southern Cross and marched back to Eureka. Although they did not know it, the diggers had won the first round of the Battle of Eureka. They had not thrown away their arms or deserted the Stockade, that frail symbol of resistance and returned to their diggings.[8]

---

[1] ‘Government by Artillery’, Argus, 28 November 1854.

[2] ‘Ballaarat: Serious Outbreak at Ballaarat’, Argus, 2 December 1854, p. 5.

[3] Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, p. 19.

[4] Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, (Melbourne University Press), 2004, p. 6, cit, ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, p. 19.

[5] Thonen was German-born Jew from Elbertfeld, Prussia and in 1851 the twenty-three year old was in Britain earning a living as a teacher of languages. Thonen, just five foot tall, travelled about the diggings with a keg as a ‘lemonade seller’, probably a euphemism for sly grog of some kind.

[6] O’Grady, Desmond, Raffaelo! Raffaelo!: A Biography of Raffaelo Carboni, (Hale and Iremonger), 1985, is an good study of this enigmatic figure. In addition to his The Eureka Stockade, it was known that he had published another book about his experiences in Australia in 1853-1855 ­ Gilburna, this book, first published in 1872 had been thought to have been lost until a copy was discovered in Rome in 1990. It throws new light on the forgotten people in the Eureka story, ­ the indigenous inhabitants of the land. Carboni, Raffaelo, Gilburna, translated and annotated by Tony Pagliaro, (Jim Crow Press), 1993.

[7] The thirteen captains included: Lalor, Frederick Vern, Carboni, Edward Thonen, a Prussian who sold lemonade, John Manning, Timothy Hayes, Patrick Curtain who led the pikemen and George Black. It is probable that Captain James McGill and Thomas Kennedy were also there: ibid, Molony, John, Eureka, pp. 129-130.

[8] Ibid, Molony, John, Eureka, pp. 136-137.

Deliberate provocation?

Hotham increasingly shared Rede’s suspicions about the revolutionary aims of the diggers and decided to reinforce the regular troops in Ballarat. As events moved rapidly to their climax over the next six days, all Hotham could do was to wait for despatches to arrive in Melbourne with growing unease. On 27 November,[1] he deployed 70 soldiers of the 12th Regiment under the command of Captain Atkinson and a company of the 40th Regiment, 50 strong, commanded by Captain Henry Wise to Ballarat. [2] When Wise arrived at Ballarat the following day, he brazenly marched his men with bayonets fixed and muskets primed through the diggings to the Government Camp. In addition, the Argus reported that mounted police troops with two pieces of artillery and many of the police from Melbourne were also under orders to go to Ballarat.

In Ballarat, Father Smyth, acting as an unofficial mediator, secretly visited Commissioner Rede on Sunday night or Monday morning warning him of the potentially explosive situation on the diggings and that the Camp was in danger of being attacked. As a result, Rede reported his concerns to Melbourne having been informed that the diggers could muster 1,000 rifles and 900 men had assembled on one occasion to attack the Camp. This was fabricated either by Rede or Smyth since at no time were the diggers able to muster 1,000 riflemen in Ballarat. Rede faced a paradox: an attack on the Camp was daily expected and yet the diggers appeared as quiet and well-disposed as ever. There is no evidence that the Reform League had any intention of attacking the Camp and Rede was correct in telling Melbourne he was in charge of the fields in which good order prevailed. Despite this, he concluded that the only way out of this impasse was to crush the digger movement. Events now reinforced that conviction.

On Tuesday 28 November, a detachment of two officers and men of the 12th Regiment, accompanied by supply carts carrying ammunition arrived at Ballarat at dusk.[3] Unlike Captain Wise, the officer commanding did not order his men to fix bayonets or load their muskets; in fact many of the muskets were not being carried but were in the carts. Their route took them through the Eureka diggings, a difficult process during the day but even more so at night, where the last two carts were attacked by a group of diggers. A skirmish occurred, shots were fired and the wagons overturned. John Egan, the Regiment’s drummer boy was shot in the leg and an American driver seriously wounded. [4] It has never been determined who attacked the soldiers or who fired the shots but the attack may have been occasioned by the belief among diggers that the soldiers were bringing artillery to Ballarat. At the time of the scuffle, Rede was attending a function for the American Consul James Tarleton at the Victoria Hotel where Tarleton gave his support to the government and reminded American diggers that they should obey the law. [5] Once his reinforcements arrived, Rede had 435 officers and men under arms. Rede had, according to some sources ‘come to a state bordering on frenzy’. [6] He saw the mob as the potential source of rebellion but he was unsure who the mob was except that he believed that no true Briton was part of it. He was also unclear about what rebellion meant but feared a republican uprising. By Tuesday night, Rede had the military force to deal with anything the diggers were planning.

Public opinion was important to the diggers but this incident suggests that they were not going out of their way to cultivate it. The Argus had been forthright in its criticism of the government and in its support for the diggers but this incident led to a temporary shift in editorial perspective. It commented:

While the burning of the Eureka Hotel was condemned as a rash and inconsiderate action, the hope was entertained that the occurrence might give additional earnestness to the enquiry which has been instituted, and lead to real and permanent good....A wagon upset in the dark night, the soldiery, who have never yet struck a blow or fired a shot against the diggers, beaten with their own arms, a driver brutally maltreated and a poor drummer shot through the thigh - are these deeds that will enlist the sympathies of an intelligent people? Is the maiming of a drummer-boy a worthy triumph for a large mass of a British population, who wish to occupy a creditable position in the eyes of the world?’ With an eye to the future, the editorial commented ‘Now it must be evident to intelligent men that there is a point at which Government must take a stand. [7]

Evans was equally critical of the attack:

It is some relief to the feelings of Englishmen to know that the row was commenced & principally carried on by the worst portion of the digging community, old Convicts & Tipperary men, for no man however well disposed towards the diggers’ interests can disguise the fact from himself that it was a cowardly affair. [8]

---

[1] Argus, 28 November 1854, p. 4.

[2] Smith, Neil C., Soldiers Bleed Too: the Redcoats at the Eureka Stockade 1854, (Mostly Unsung Military History Research and Publications), 2004, lists the men of the 12th and 40th Regiments.

[3] ‘Domestic Intelligence’, Argus, 1 December 1854, p. 5, wrongly identified the troops as from the 40th Regiment. See also, Rede to Chief Gold Commissioner Wright, 30 November 1854, PROV, 1189/P Unit 92, J54/14460.

[4] John Egan or Eagan was not fatally wounded in this incident as was persistently believed until shown as myth by Dorothy Wickham. The people of Ballarat even erected a small memorial to him since he was thought to have died in the rebellion. Egan did not die until 8 September 1860 (Death Certificate: NSW 1860/002463) aged twenty-one at Victoria Barracks Sydney and was interred in the Roman Catholic burial grounds.

[5] Potts, E. Daniel, and Potts, Annette, ‘American Republicanism and the Disturbances on the Victorian Goldfields’, Historical Studies, Vol. 13, (1968), pp. 145-164, and Potts, E. Daniel, and Potts, A., Young America and Australian Gold, (University of Queensland Press), 1974, explore the American dimensions to Eureka.

[6] Ibid, Molony, John, Eureka, p. 118.

[7] Argus, 28 November 1854, p. 4, 1 December 1854. p. 5.

[8] SLV, MS 13518, Charles Evans, Diary, 28 November 1854, p. 117.

Trials and demands

Although the Riot Enquiry, which reported on 17 November, expressed general satisfaction with affairs in Ballarat, it recommended the dismissal of Police Magistrate Dewes, whose close links with James Bentley were exposed and Police Sergeant-Major Milne, whose activities included bribery and corruption, on which Hotham acted quickly on 20 November. [1] It also noted that the most important cause of alienation was the gold license. Hotham had already concluded that a full-scale investigation was needed after his visit to the goldfields in August and on 16 November had established a Royal Commission to Inquire into the Condition of the Goldfields of Victoria, something more wide-ranging than the Riot Enquiry. [2] Chaired initially by William Haines[3] and supported by fellow Legislative Councillors John Pascoe Fawkner, John O’Shanassy, William Westgarth and James Strachan [4] and by William Wright, the Chief Commissioner, its report proved to be a ‘document of crucial importance’. [5] Commissioner Rede was in Melbourne during the second and third weeks of November attending the trial of Fletcher, McIntyre and Westerby and took the opportunity to meet with both Wright and Hotham. He was increasingly convinced that problems in Ballarat were the result of a small group of ‘foreigners’ who wanted to overthrow colonial government and who were manipulating the other diggers. Hotham took a less serious view of the Ballarat incidents recalling most of the troops sent to restore order after the riot on 17 October though he agreed with Rede on limiting the influence of known troublemakers.

On Saturday 18 November, the trial of James Bentley, Catherine Bentley, John (or Thomas) Farrell and William Hance in Melbourne’s Supreme Court began. Judge Redmond Barry presided over the case; Richard Ireland acted as Counsel for the Bentleys, while A. Michie and Mr Whipman represented Thomas Farrell and William Hance respectively. Crown Prosecutor, Attorney-General W. F. Stawell, presented evidence that had been previously used in the inquests and magisterial hearings, but on this occasion called two new witnesses, who would alter the fate of the accused. [6] Michael Welsh, who lived at the Eureka Hotel, testified that on the night of Scobie’s murder he saw the victim arguing with William Hance through the broken window of the hotel. This evidence was supported by the testimony given by Mooney that revealed Bentley’s and Farrell’s attempts to conceal what had occurred in the early hours of that morning. The jury took only fifteen minutes to convict Bentley, Hance and Farrell of the manslaughter of James Scobie but Catherine Bentley, now heavily pregnant was acquitted. On 20 November, they were sentenced to three years hard labour on the roads. [7]

The same day, Redmond Barry began the trial of McIntyre, Fletcher and Westerby who were represented by Richard Ireland. During the trial, Ireland stated that had the authorities been more vigilant in dealing with the death of James Scobie, the diggers would not have felt compelled to seek their own form of justice. Stawell, taking great offence on the government’s behalf, retorted that the motive behind Ireland’s inflammatory statement was monetary, a claim the defence counsel vehemently denied, stating he was defending the three diggers pro bono. Despite evidence from Assistant-Commissioner Amos and others that McIntyre had tried to save property from the hotel and Fletcher was only a spectator, several witnesses against McIntyre had submitted depositions of his active involvement in the destruction of the hotel. [8] The jury retired in the afternoon to discuss its verdicts but returned two hours later claiming it could not reach a unanimous verdict seeking permission to take account of the ineptitude of the police on the day and the provocation experienced by the diggers. Redmond Barry emphatically refused the request. At around 9 pm after deliberating for five hours, the jury returned its verdict to the court. McIntyre, Fletcher and Westerby were found guilty with a recommendation for clemency. The jury expressed its opinion that ‘it would never have been their painful duty to give such a verdict had the Government officials at Ballarat done theirs’, a declaration well received in the community. The crowd in the courtroom asserted its jubilation with loud cheers, even though Judge Barry refused to accept the jury’s rider, itself an unorthodox decision. The following day, Redmond Barry handed down less harsh sentences than were anticipated: McIntyre three months, Fletcher four months and Westerby six month in Melbourne Gaol. Barry’s leniency may have been intended to avoid providing further grievances among the diggers and prevent further acts of civil disobedience. The Argus concluded:

In this trial, as in that of Bentley, the law has been upheld; but, in both cases, the Government has been disgraced. The verdict of the jury, in the case of the riot was as adverse to the Government as it was to the prisoners. [9]

On Monday 27 November, the Ballarat Reform League’s representatives John Humffray, Thomas Kennedy and George Black went to Melbourne to meet Hotham, but without success. [10] The deputation put the diggers’ grievances before Hotham, the Colonial Secretary and Attorney-General were also present, not as a petition, but as demands. Evans commented:

I never heard of anything more ridiculously absurd. No man in his senses can believe for a moment that the Governor will recognize the word demand in a petition. It is easy to guess the result of it. [11]

George Black ‘demanded’ the release of McIntyre, Fletcher and Westerby ‘in the name of the Ballarat diggers’. Hotham unsurprisingly took exception to the use of the word. Black pointed out that it had been requested by the Reform League Committee and reiterated that all the diggers felt that they were guilty of arson but were justified in their actions as the magistrates had failed to dispense justice. Hotham argued that he had set up the Board of Enquiry that uncovered corruption on which he had already acted and that he had also appointed a Royal Commission though Black objected that its members had been appointed without reference to the diggers. Although emphasis has been placed on the diggers’ ‘demand’, the minutes of the meeting suggests that it was more wide-ranging dealing with the broader constitutional and political issues raised by the diggers. Humffray emphasised the constitutional nature of the protest but intimated to Hotham that the ‘popular voice’ needed to be heard. Hotham appeared willing to make some concessions offering to admit one elected digger representative to the Legislative Council immediately but Black felt that this was insufficient. The delegates were reminded of the benefit to the diggers in the new legislation that was then en route to England and the meeting ended. The delegates, who found Hotham fair but certainly not conciliatory, left the meeting with only a vague hope that a formally prepared petition might bring success and returned to Ballarat to consult with their members. Hotham and the moderate reformers had lost their last opportunity for reconciliation.

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[1] Riot at Ballarat, Report and Evidence of the Board of Enquiry into the Death of James Scobie and Burning of the Eureka Hotel, printed 21 November 1854, Votes & Proceedings, A.27/1854-55. See also, ‘Legislative Council’, Argus 22 November 1854, p. 4.

[2] ‘Legislative Council’, Argus, 17 November 1854, p. 4. Anderson, Hugh, (ed.), Report from the Commission appointed to inquire into the Condition of the Goldfields, first published 1855, (Red Rooster Press), 1978, pp. 116-120.

[3] Malone, Betty, ‘William Clark Haines (1810-1866)’, ADB, Vol. 4, pp. 315-317.

[4] Brown, P. L., ‘James Ford Strachan (1810-1875)’, ADB, Vol. 2, p. 492.

[5] H. V. Evatt’s introduction to Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, first published 1855, (Sunnybrook Press), 1942, p. xxvi.

[6] The brief for the prosecution documents the ways in which it planned to conduct its case against those accused of Scobie’s murder, PROV 5527/P Unit 1, Item 5.

[7] ‘The Trial of Bentley’, Argus, 20 November 1854, p. 4.

[8] PROV 5527/P Unit 1, Item 8.

[9] Argus, 21 November 1854.

[10] Minutes of the meeting between Hotham and the diggers’ representatives: PROV 1095/P Unit 3, Bundle 1 no. 16. Ibid, Molony, John, Eureka, pp. 106-110, gives a riveting account of the meeting. See also, ‘Ballaarat’, Argus, 29 November 1854, p. 4.

[11] SLV, MS 13518, Charles Evans, Diary, 26 November 1854, p. 116.

The Ballarat Reform League

‘Monster meetings’ came late to Ballarat but series of increasingly large gatherings were held on Bakery Hill through October and November that were addressed by some with experience of Chartist movement. Catholics had held a meeting there on 15 October, followed by meetings on 17 October before the burning of the Eureka Hotel and the following day where Catholics restated their demands. There was a spontaneous meeting on 21 October after the committal of McIntyre and Fletcher and on Monday 23 October, Bakery Hill was again the focal point for digger action. This meeting decided to form a Diggers Rights Society to help curb future unconstitutional actions by the Camp. Ballarat was made up of many different nationalities but leadership of the diggers’ movement remained stubbornly in the hands of men whose allegiance was to Britain. Its three leaders John Basson Humffray, George Black and Henry Holyoake were strongly Chartist in outlook and their contribution to the formation of the Ballarat Reform League was crucial.

Thomas F. Flintoff, John Basson Humffray, 1859

Humffray, law clerk from Wales and proprietor of The Leader became the first president of the League. [1] George Black had been the owner of the Gold Diggers’ Advocate, a newspaper that represented the opinions of the disaffected in the goldfield.[2] Although the Advocate took a radical line, Black and his two colleagues favoured the use of ‘moral persuasion’ to achieve their goals. Lalor was still a minor figure standing aloof from organised protest. While the Riot Enquiry was taking evidence, protest meetings took on a more organised character and the Ballarat Reform League assumed an embryonic form at this time. [3] The leadership broadened digger protest beyond the unjust licensing system and corrupt administration by campaigning for digger representation on the Legislative Council and the opening of land for small farms. Vying with Humffray for leadership of the movement were Frederick Vern, a volatile German and Thomas Kennedy, a Chartist of Scottish origin who had become a Baptist preacher and took a more confrontational approach, necessary they maintained, to convince the authorities of the need for change.

On Wednesday 1 November, the committee gave an account of proceedings in the Fletcher and McIntyre cases.[4] Humffray as secretary had ended the meeting with:

…Diggers, be calm but determined, and then, with truth and justice on your side, the knell of the colonial tyranny will be rung.

Although already active for several weeks, the Ballarat Reform League began officially on Saturday 11 November 1854 with a meeting on Bakery Hill. Timothy Hayes was unanimously voted to the Chair with Humffray as secretary. Thomas Kennedy called on ‘Brother Diggers’ to be united advising them to obey the law while denying the legality of the license tax. In colourful terms, he spoke of the tyranny of officials and added by swearing that while he would die for the Queen, he would shed the last drop of his blood before paying another license fee. The crowd roared its approval and Kennedy was carried outside where he was joined by Vern and Humffray. By now the number of diggers had swollen to 10,000 and the Ballarat Reform League was officially launched with Humffray as President, Timothy Hayes as Chairman and George Black as Secretary.

The diggers’ grievances and the political changes contemplated by the League were recorded in the Bakery Hill Charter.[5] This had taken shape by early November 1854 in a note presented to the Riot Enquiry but it was not until 11 November 1854 that it was adopted as the diggers’ platform in language strongly reminiscent of the People’s Charter of 1838. The first proposal was for ‘full and fair representation’, the right of goldfield residents to stand for parliament and vote in elections. The others were manhood suffrage, no property qualifications for Members for the Legislative Council, payment for members and short, fixed-term parliaments. At local level, the League wanted the immediate ‘disbanding’ of the Gold Commissioners and the ‘total abolition of the diggers’ and storekeepers’ license tax’. They also intended to issue ‘cards of membership’ of the League, divide Ballarat into districts within ‘a few days’ and to commence ‘a thorough and organised agitation on the gold fields and in the towns’. [6] The Argus reported that separate unions for Irish and German diggers had been formed independently of the League and that ‘their objects are more specific as to the forming themselves into armed bodies to make resistance a sad reality.’ [7]

The principles of the Charter went to the heart of popular constitutionalism maintaining that every citizen had:

…an ‘inalienable right…to have a voice in making the laws he is called upon to obey…

It also stated that the goldfield communities had been ‘hitherto unrepresented’ in Parliament and had been subjected to bad and unjust laws. To that extent, they had been ‘tyrannized over’ so that they had:

…a duty as well as interest to resist and, if necessary, to remove the irresponsible power which so tyrannizes over them.

Not content with a statement of principles, the authors of the Charter moved to the ultimate source of their discontent speaking directly to Queen Victoria who was warned that firm action would be taken unless ‘equal laws and equal rights’ were ‘dealt out to the whole free community’ of the colony named after her.

The authors of the Charter were careful in their choice of words and there is no indication that they thought their demands were excessive or that the authorities had any right to reject them. The first action proposed by the League if demands were not met was to separate Victoria from Great Britain. Separation was not a declaration of independence from the Crown, but the League made it clear that it would take those steps if:Queen Victoria continues to act upon the ill advice of dishonest ministers and insists upon indirectly dictating obnoxious laws for the colony, under the assumed authority of the Royal prerogative.

It reminded the monarch that there was another and higher source of power in a prerogative that was ‘the most royal of all’ that lay with ‘the people [who] are the only legitimate source of all political power’ and proposed to use that power if forced to do so and supersede the ‘Royal prerogative’. This drew on a long tradition that the Royal Prerogative must be exercised only for the common good of the people. The prerogative singled out was the appointment of public authorities, including Hotham and his ministers. Although undertaken on the advice of the British Prime Minister and Cabinet, such appointments were technically made under the prerogative of the Crown. The Charter made it plain that, at whatever cost, the diggers would take all necessary steps to prevent the use of the Royal Prerogative in Victoria unless the reforms they demanded were introduced. This platform for change and especially its belief that all power resided in the people proved a ‘revolutionary’ proposition for Australia.

Henry Seekamp,[8] the fiery editor of the Ballarat Times, wrote that the League:

…was nothing more or less than the germ of Australian independence. The die is cast, and fate has stamped upon the movement its indelible signature. No power on earth can now restrain the united might and headlong strides for freedom of the people of this country… Bakery Hill is obtaining a creditable notoriety, as the rallying ground for Australian Freedom. It must never be forgotten in the future history of this great country, that on Saturday, Nov. 11, 1854, on Bakery Hill, and in the presence of about ten thousand men, was first proposed, and unanimously adopted, the draft prospectus of Australian Independence. [9]

Whatever he made of the Charter, Hotham was clearly concerned when he heard the League’s proposals and recognised the seriousness of the situation. What began as a conflict over the financial interests of diggers had been transformed into a struggle involving citizens’ rights and dignity. The business interest and the squatters were also anxious about events in Ballarat. They were given assurances by the government that it was in control of the situation, but doubts remained after the defiance of the mob at Bentley’s hotel. Squatters had already seen their control over the Legislative Council weakened by the business interest and faced increasing demands, especially from diggers to open at least part of their land. Diggers threatened their wealth and power and Hotham looked on them as firm allies in any potential struggle.

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[1] Langmore, Diane L., ‘John Basson Humffray (1824-1891)’, ADB, Vol. 4, pp. 444-445.

[2] Pickering, Paul A., ‘Mercenary Scribblers’ and ‘Polluted Quills’: The Chartist Press in Australia and New Zealand’, in Allen, Joan, and Ashton, Owen R., (eds.), Papers for the People: A Study of the Chartist Press, (Merlin Press), 2005, pp. 200-204, examines the Gold Diggers’ Advocate.

[3] ‘Ballaarat’, Argus, 13 November 1854, p. 6.

[4] Argus, 2 November 1854, p. 4.

[5] PROV 4066, p Unit 1, November no, 69.

[6] Ibid, Molony, John, Eureka, pp. 94-97, prints the document.

[7] ‘Ballaarat’, Argus, 13 November 1854, p. 6.

[8] Sunter, Anne Beggs, ‘Henry Seekamp (1829?-1864)’, ADB, Supplementary Volume, pp. 355-356.

[9] Ballarat Times, 13 November 1854.

Arresting the murderers

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.

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[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.