Defending the Stockade

Heavy and continuous fire between the rebels and soldiers lasted for about ten minutes during which the men of the 40th wavered. At this point several of the men held in reserve, who appeared to think the attack had stalled, rushed forward and managed to get into the Stockade although they were promptly chased out by rebels armed with pikes and retired to their own lines. Blake’s explanation for this is that either the soldiers acted on their own initiative or that an unnamed officer in the reserve decided to take matters into his own hands and ordered some soldiers from his own regiment to rush the Stockade.[1]

 

Peter Lalor

The rebels were well protected by their fortifications but the volume of fire on the Stockade increased. The group of about 40 assault troops from the 40th Regiment, under the command of Captain Wise, attacking the Stockade from the north side, gradually edged forward. In addition, the soldiers on Stockyard Hill and at the Free Trade Hotel also brought fire to bear on the rebels. About 70 mounted troops from the 40th approached from the northeast, 112 foot soldiers from the 12th and 40th Regiments from the west and 70 mounted police rode from the south-west. The Stockade was now flanked and within ten minutes of the initial attack, it had been breached on its northern and western flanks. [2] The Argus commented:

Had the diggers fired longer the losses to the military would have been immense, and they, as it was, acted with a precision and regularity admired even by the officers of the military. [3]

Peter Lalor attempted to bring order to the confusion but soon recognised that the rebels had lost any tactical advantage they had and that their position was tactically untenable but that they no option but to fight. Lalor’s emphasis on the paucity of weapons and ammunition is contradicted by the military reports that spoke of the level and regularity of fire from the rebels:

There were about 70 men possessing guns, 20 with pikes, and 30 with pistols, but many of those firearms had no more than one or two rounds of ammunition.

If they attempted to surrender, they would have been cut down by the withering fire that was directed at them. As the soldiers fixed bayonets, charged and clambered into the Stockade, many rebels fled. Although Lalor’s account is suspect in many respects, he later wrote:

About three o’clock am on Sunday morning the alarm was given that ‘the enemy’ was advancing…on discovering the smallness of our numbers we would have retreated, but it was then too late, as almost immediately, the military poured in one or two volleys of musketry, which was a plain intimation that we must sell our lives as dearly as we could.

 



Beryl Ireland, Eureka Stockade, 1891

 

Lalor then jumped up on a mound and ordered the diggers to stop firing, and save their ammunition until the soldiers and police were within range. He ordered the pikemen forward, but it was only a few minutes before he was shot in the shoulder and ordered his men to save themselves as he was hidden under some wood:

About ten minutes after the beginning of the fight, and while standing on the top of a hole, calling on the pikemen to come forward, I received a musket ball (together with two other smaller bullets) in the left shoulder, which shattered my arm, and from the loss of blood I was rendered incapable of further action. Soon after, I was assisted by a volunteer out of the enclosure and placed in a pile of slabs out of view of the military & police. While in this position, the latter passed several times within feet of me. I remained there about an hour, when, thanks to the assistance of some friends I was able to leave… On the approach of night I returned to the diggings, and through the kindness of a friend, procured the assistance of surgeons, who next day amputated my arm. [4]

Ross, whose company of rebels defended the northern part of the Stockade, fell soon after. About 30 pikemen, under the leadership of Patrick Curtain tried to hold the advance long enough to allow many of the diggers to flee the stockade but at a dreadful cost and only a handful survived:

After several volleys had been fired on both sides, the barrier of ropes, slabs and overturned carts was crossed, and the defenders driven out, or into the shallow holes with which the place was spotted, and in which many were put to death in the first heat of the conflict, either by bullets or by bayonet thrusts. The foot police were first over the barricade, and one, climbing the flagstaff under a heavy fire, secured the rebel flag. [5]

The remaining 20 or 30 Californian Rangers under the leadership of Charles Ferguson had left the Stockade at around 1.00 am to look for a cache of arms. Fearing that they had been lured out of the Stockade, Ferguson returned with his men just before the Stockade was attacked by the government forces. [6] By now, many of the diggers lay wounded:

When Captain Wise fell the men cheered, and were over the Stockade in a second, and then bayonet and pike went to work. The diggers fought well and fierce, not a word spoken on either side until all was over. The blacksmith who made the pikes was killed by Lieut. Richards, 40th Regiment. Honour to his name, he fought well and died gloriously. It was rumoured that at this time the police were cruel to the wounded and prisoners. No such thing. The police did nothing but their duty, and they did it well for men that were not accustomed to scenes of blood or violence. To my knowledge there was only one wounded man despatched, and he kept swinging his pike about his head as he sat on the ground. His two legs were broken, and he had a musket ball in his body. He could not live, and it was best to despatch him. His name was O’Neill, a native of Kilkenny, Ireland. [7]

Those who tried to escape were run down by the cavalry that had now surrounded the Stockade. Within 15 to 20 minutes of the first shot been fired, the back of the rebellion had been broken, the troops and police were in complete control of the Stockade. What had been a gallant defence now became a rout as rebels fled for their lives.

‘It was not in the Stockade that they killed the majority of diggers, but in the running away’

A lot of diggers commenced to run away, and after the shooting was done I saw Ned Flynn run into an old chimney, and a soldier ran up to him and stuck him in the neck with a bayonet. Everyone they caught they slaughtered. It was not in the Stockade that they killed the majority of diggers, but in the running away.[8]

Charles Evans wrote in the immediate aftermath of the attack:

Cowardly and monstrous cruelties such as these made up the bloody tragedy of this morning. It is a dark indelible strain on a British Government – a deed which can be fitly placed side by side with the treacheries and cold blooded cruelties of Austria & Russia.[9]

The correspondent of the Argus reported:

When the soldiers had once tasted blood they became violent, and had not the officers used every exertion the prisoners would have been murdered on the spot. [10]

Peter Lalor wrote three months after the massacre:

As the inhuman brutalities practised by the troops are so well known, it is unnecessary for me to repeat them. There were 34 digger casualties at which 22 died. The unusual proportion of the killed to the wounded is owing to the butchery of the military and troopers after the surrender. [11]

This was repeated in following years by other Eureka rebels who insisted that most of the killing took place outside the Stockade after all resistance had ceased. It is only recently that Eureka has been described as a massacre. Although the atrocities were widely reported in the Australian press, this element of the attack had been neglected. [12] This is surprising since contemporary reactions to the massacre resulted in the authorities’ use of armed force diminishing not enhancing their authority. The problem, Blake argues, is that this means accepting ‘at face value so-called eyewitness accounts of a massacre.’ [13] There is no dispute about the carnage caused after the soldiers fought their way in the Stockade when man-to-man contests and the bayonet replaced the more anonymous nature of volley fire. This was conflict at its most personal and bloody and was not unusual in the heat of battle. It was recognised by contemporaries such as Huyghue who wrote that ‘that men when generally let loose upon an enemy are not angels’ and by John Molony who correctly argued that men ‘in the fury of battle, commits atrocities which the so called logic of war renders inevitable’.

Between 5.00 am when the diggers’ defence crumbled until 7.00 am, the killing continued. [14] The police were at the forefront of the atrocities burning everything within the Stockade and shooting at whatever moved. Even the Irish priest Father Smyth was denied access to the wounded, some of whom were Catholics and was forced out of the Stockade at pistol point. The killing went on for over an hour after the diggers had surrendered and occurred up to half a mile from the Stockade. People were killed who were not involved in the protest and had not taken up arms against the colonial authorities. Bodies were mutilated; one digger’s corpse had 16 bayonet wounds. Henry Powell a digger from Creswick, whose tent was well outside the Stockade, was surrounded by around 20 mounted police. He was struck on the head with a sword by Arthur Akehurst, the Clerk of the Peace who had enlisted as a special constable and then shot several times by the police, who then rode their horses over his body. [15] However, Powell survived long enough to make a statement before he died on 9 December.[16] An inquest’s verdict concluded that Akehurst had killed him, something he denied. Akehurst was charged with murder but the case was dismissed when Powell’s dying deposition was ruled inadmissible. [17]

There was however, no evidence to connect Akehurst to the murder except the dying statement of the deceased; but before this statement could be received and admitted as evidence, it be shewn that the deceased believed he was in a dying state, and should be taken before magistrate, and ought to be, if possible, taken in the presence of the accused.; and His honor would have to decide as to the propriety of admitting this statement. The Solicitor-General himself felt doubts as to the admissibility of this evidence, and would call the attention of the court to it without knowing what the feelings of the accused might be in the matter, or calling on counsel on the opposite side to make an objection. [18] Raffaelo Carboni was among those who believed Akehurst got off on a technicality.

It was reported that three soldiers jumped a digger after he had been shot through the legs, one knelt on his chest, one tried to choke him while the third went through his pockets looking for gold. ‘Foreigners’ bore the brunt of the attack. Two Italian diggers, who had not taken part in the rebellion, were killed. One who had his tent a quarter of a mile from the Stockade was killed by mounted police and troopers. The other whose tent was in the Stockade was shot through the thigh and as he lay wounded, told the troopers that he would give them his gold if they left him alone. After taking his gold, they bayoneted him through the chest. One of the most unlikely targets in the early hours of Sunday morning was Frank Hasleham, a reporter for the Melbourne Morning Herald, a newspaper that had consistently supported the government in its fight against the diggers. A quarter of a mile from the Stockade he was met by mounted police who shot him through the chest. As he lay wounded, he hoped the ‘diggers would desist from their madness’. [19]

At 7.00 am, it was decided to round up all the diggers left inside and outside the stockade. Captain Pasley, sickened by the carnage, saved a group of prisoners from being bayoneted and threatened to shoot any police or soldiers who continued the indiscriminate slaughter. 114 diggers, some wounded were rounded up, marched to the Camp where they were firmly convinced they would be summarily hanged but were herded into a space that was normally used for six. Even so the authorities were concerned about people’s reaction if large numbers of rebels died in custody and at 2.00 am on Monday morning Rede moved the prisoners to the camp storehouse. His problem was that it was no longer possible to distinguish between those who had been taken in or about the Stockade and those who had been apprehended in the vicinity. The Melbourne Herald gave a graphic account of the scene after the battle:

I was attracted by the smoke of the tents burnt by the soldiers, and there a most appalling site presented itself. Many more are said to have been killed and wounded, but I myself saw eleven dead bodies of diggers lying within a very small space of ground, and the earth was besprinkled with blood, and covered with the smoking mass of tents recently occupied. Could the Government but have seen the awful sight presented at Ballarat on this Sabbath morning- the women in tears, mourning over their dead relations, and the blood-bespattered countenances of many men in the diggers’ camp, it might have occurred to His Excellency that ‘prevention is better than cure’. [20]

The battle had been decisive but the ‘massacre’, whatever its military explanation, once know so revolted the community of Victoria that any return to the old ways was impossible. [21]

Many of the leaders in the Stockade fled though Timothy Hayes and John Manning were arrested and Carboni who was not in the Stockade at the time of the attack remained to help tend to the wounded until he too was arrested around 8.30 am. Kennedy and Black, in disguise, made for Geelong but apparently got lost, Kennedy ending up as a bullock driver whilst Black eventually reached Melbourne. Esmond, whose original discovery of gold started the rush, was among those in the Stockade, and he too made for Geelong. There were many accounts of Lalor’s escape but the account by Stephen Cummings, a close friend is the fullest:

After the soldiers and police retired, Lalor was put on Father Smyth’s horse, and he rode into the ranges and got shelter in a tent near Warrenheip…I suggested that his arm would have to come off and that Father Smyth’s house would be safer…The next thing was to get a doctor, and I went for Doctor Doyle of Golden Point, who said it was a case of amputation. ‘All right’ said Lalor, ‘let’s know the worst’. He was a very brave man, with all his defects. Dr Gibson and Dr Stewart and I were there while Doyle performed the operation…A few days after that a messenger came to me from Lalor. I went and found him in a bed in a small tent on Black Hill Flat, where there was only just room for a man to lie down. We got him shifted to a nice large tent belonging to Michael Hayes at the foot of Black Hill. He stayed there until he got a carrier named Carroll and little Tommy Marks to take him to Geelong. [22]

How many rebels died or were wounded in the initial battle and subsequent carnage is far from clear. [23] As at Newport, some of the wounded managed to find their way home to die later. Lalor’s estimate was fourteen killed, eight wounded and twelve wounded but recovered. [24] However, as he admitted, he did not include Powell and Rowlands who were killed near their own tents and who played no part in the movement. [25] The list of those killed at Eureka and registered on 20 June 1855 by Ballarat’s Registrar, William Poole, numbered twenty-seven. Information about casualties among the military is more precise. Three privates lay dead or dying, Michael Rooney, Joseph Wall and William Webb, twelve more were wounded and Captain Wise was also wounded and subsequently died. Unlike the military, the actual location of the burials of diggers killed at the Eureka Stockade was not precisely recorded in documentation that has survived. One of the officers later informed Withers:

The number of insurgents killed is estimated as from thirty-five to forty, and many of those brought in wounded afterwards died…The bodies of the insurgents, placed in rough coffins made hurriedly, were laid in a separate grave, the burial service being performed by the clergyman to whose congregation they belonged.[26]

John Molony states, ‘The diggers were initially put to rest near the spot where Scobie fell, while the soldiers were interred at the cemetery near Yuille’s Swamp off the Creswick Road’. [27] Some of those wounded in the Stockade lingered on, Frederick Coxhead, for example did not succumb until May 1856. [28] In 1857, Captain Ross, James Brown, Edward Thonen, the lemonade seller and the blacksmith were re-interred with the other bodies of those killed at Eureka. [29]

---

[1] Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, pp. 156-157.

[2] Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, pp. 164-172, considers events in the Stockade once the troops breached its defences.

[3] ‘Fatal Collision at Ballaarat’, Argus, 4 December 1854, p. 5.

[4] Argus, 10 April 1855, reprinted in ibid, ‘Eureka Documents’, Historical Studies, p. 11.

[5] Letter from Government Officer printed in ibid, Withers, W. B., The History of Ballarat, p. 106.

[6] Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, pp. 144-150, examines the significant contribution of the Californians to the defence of the Stockade and why this was air-brushed out of subsequent accounts of the action.

[7] ‘With regard to the Attack on the Stockade, the author has a letter signed ‘John Neill, late of the 40th Regiment’, and dated from Devil’s Gully on 7 February, 1870, printed in ibid, Withers, W. B., The History of Ballarat, pp. 123-124.

[8] Evidence of Shanahan, a storekeeper in the Stockade printed in ibid, Withers, W. B., The History of Ballarat, p. 117.

[9] Evans gives a graphic account of the aftermath of the attack on the Stockade. Other than what he assumed was a dream of the sound of volley fire, he appears to have slept through the whole assault. SLV, MS 13518, Charles Evans, Diary, 3 December 1854, pp. 131-138, at p. 137.

[10] ‘Geelong’, Argus, 5 December 1854, p. 4.

[11] Argus, 10 April 1855, reprinted in ibid, ‘Eureka Documents’, Historical Studies, pp. 11-12.

[12] Ibid, O’Brien, Bob, Massacre at Eureka, includes a previously unpublished eyewitness account by Samuel Douglas Smyth Huyghue.

[13] Cit, ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, p. 187.

[14] ‘Geelong’, Argus, 5 December 1854, p. 4, give a succinct account of the ‘massacre’. Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, pp. 186-203, considers the ‘massacre’.

[15] Dunstan, David, ‘Arthur Purssell Akehurst (1836-1902)’, ADB, Supplementary Volume, pp. 6-7. SLV, MS 13518, Charles Evans, Diary, 11 December 1854, p. 153, discusses Powell’s inquest.

[16] Ibid, Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, pp. 107-108, prints Powell’s deposition; see also, ‘Ballaarat’, Argus 15 December 1854, pp. 4-5, for a further attack on the behaviour of troopers: ‘the tyrannical and arbitrary treatment to which the people have been subjected to by the troopers.’.

[17] Akehurst was the only Ballarat official brought to trial as a result of the massacre. The inquest into the death of Henry Powell occurred on 11 December and, because of the unsworn statement made by Powell, Akehurst was brought to trial on a charge of manslaughter. On 18 January 1855, he was found not guilty.

[18] Argus, 19 January 1855, p. 3.

[19] Ibid, Carboni, Raffaelo, The Eureka Stockade, pp. 109-110, prints Hasleham’s deposition.

[20] Melbourne Herald, 5 December 1854.

[21] Ibid, Molony, John, Eureka, p. 165.

[22] Argus, 1 July 1899.

[23] Wickham, Dorothy, Deaths at Eureka, (Ballarat Heritage Services), 1996.

[24] Argus, 10 April 1855, reprinted in ibid, ‘Eureka Documents’, Historical Studies, pp. 12-13.

[25] Ibid, ‘Eureka Documents’, Historical Studies, p. 11.

[26] ‘Letter from Government Officer’, printed in ibid, Withers, W. B., History of Ballarat, pp. 106-107.

[27] Ibid, Molony, John, Eureka, p. 166.

[28] Melbourne Herald, 12 May 1856.

[29] Melbourne Herald, 2 December 1857.

Imploding Politics

Having spent much of the past three years writing about Chartism and its importance in the development of radical working-class politics, it is ironic that during those years that the Labour Party has degenerated from a credible opposition and potential government into political farce.  The precipitous resignation of Ed Miliband in the immediate aftermath of his defeat in the 2015 General Election and the consequent leadership election in which Jeremy Corbyn--left-wing, arch-rebel and only on the ballot paper when some MPs ‘lent him’ their vote—surprisingly emerged victorious. 

That Jeremy was not expected to win…something that he probably thought himself at least to begin with…and that he did reflected a growing disconnect between Labour politics as seen from Westminster and the Labour Party and perhaps more importantly (electorally) in the country.  Those who support Jeremy initially came from the young..and his motivating the young to become involved in politics is important…but many of those thrown out of the Party in the 1980s and 1990s re-emerged..the problem of ‘entryism’…often with views of politics that had changed little.  It is perhaps not surprising that the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party took a contrary view…from the beginning Jeremy did not have the wholehearted support of his MPs.  Increasingly the issue between him and his MPs was not one of policies—though inevitably there were differences between the leader and his troops—but whether he was or was not a credible leader and future Prime Minister.  This was evident right from the beginning…one remembers the National Anthem incident (a grossly overplayed issue by the government)…and over the past ten months have reoccurred with monotonous regularity.  To be fair, Jeremy made concessions to his opponents sitting behind him on issues such as active intervention in Syria by making it a free vote but this showed him as a weak leader unable to get his MPs to vote for his policies. 

 

What has happened in the past few weeks has been a slow motion car crash.  Matters have now come to a head with the failure of attempts to persuade Jeremy to resign as party leader following the ‘rolling resignations’ from the Shadow Cabinet.  What is clear is that there is now an unbridgeable chasm between the PLP and the leadership with its ‘mandate’ from the party membership.   Will changing the leader actually help?  Well probably not.  Despite restricting the electorate in the forthcoming contest between Jeremy Corbyn and Angela Eagle and/or Owen Smith (assuming those opposed to Corbyn can get their act together) for, as one MP has it, for the ‘soul of the Labour Party’, whoever wins it difficult to see the party coming together at least in the short term.  The divisions are now so deep, the internicine, intimidating behaviour so intense and the words spoken so toxic  that they are not going to be healed overnight, if they can be healed at all.

Breaking the Habit: a review by John A. Hargreaves

Breaking the Habit: A Life of History, Richard Brown, Authoring History, 2016, 175 pp., £7.13, paper, ISBN 9781530295234

 

In this retrospective but far from introspective, autobiographical memoir Richard Brown muses ‘on the nature of History in an increasingly challenging environment’. The author, familiar to readers of online reviews on the Historical Association website as a prolific reviewer of a wide range of historical resources and as a compulsive blogger on his popular blog, The History Zone, which has a diverse following encompassing students in secondary, tertiary and higher education, confesses himself to being addicted to history for almost as long as he can remember. I first encountered Richard as a fellow reviewer for the Historical Association’s flagship journal for secondary school teachers, Teaching History, and utilised many of his textbooks in the classroom in my own teaching, finding them always well-grounded in classroom experience, thoroughly researched and lucidly stimulating in the historical interpretations they offered. But this is more than a handbook for history teachers as the equestrian photograph of the infant author on the cover anticipates and essentially it reveals the extent to which a developing understanding of history interweaves with our life experiences from the cradle to the grave. It is more personal than anything else he has written and particularly moving in its account of how as a registered carer he supported his late wife Margaret, to whose memory the book is dedicated, in his post-retirement years until her death in 2015.

 

 

Its starting point is the affirmation that many would share that ‘being a teacher remains one of the most fulfilling of the professions’ and that ‘there is nothing more enjoyable than observing students learning to become critical in their approach to life’. What follows, he continues, is ‘an otiose attempt to make sense of my own life by intermingling autobiography with materials on History, teaching and learning initially written often at speed as part of on-going debates on education and history but now revised in the more cloistered solitude of my study’. It identifies the hybrid influences combining the rural experience of the Fens and the traditions of his mother’s family with the urban experience of his father and his family, mediated initially largely through memories and stories but with an increasing recognition of the importance of historical evidence in creating ‘a narrative to explain the evidence’ and a developing focus on how students learn history throughout his teaching career influenced strongly like so many of us by the Schools History Project.

Chartism: A Global History—a review by John A. Hargreaves

Chartism: A Global History and other essays, Richard Brown, Authoring History, 2016, 324 pp., £10.96, paper, ISBN 1534981438

 

This volume of essays written partly, the author reveals, as a response to a student enquiring in 2003 ‘What impact did Chartism have on the rest of the world brings the word total of the series of six volumes of which it forms part to 850,000 words. Few if any individual historians have ranged so widely and encompassed so many dimensions of the Chartist movement than Richard Brown. Moreover, like so much of Richard Brown’s work it combines a pedagogic enthusiasm with cutting edge research engaging particularly with the global resonance of the movement, an aspect of Chartism that had not previously been ‘the subject of serious consideration’. The author revisits and develops in the opening chapters of this volume of essays his previous consideration of ‘the nature of Chartism as it looked outwards to Britain’s colonies’, exploring how Chartist ideas spread across the globe. It also considers how and to what extent Chartism influenced ‘the critique of Britain’s place in the world and particularly how far Chartists and Chartist ideas influenced the definition of colonial rule within and by white-settler colonies in opposition to colonial rule as seen from the Colonial Office. It provides extended, detailed studies of Chartism and North America and Chartism in Australia, whilst recognising that the three decades after 1830 saw widespread rebellion against British colonial rule from the Canadas to New Zealand and from India to South Africa and Australia where there was ‘an upsurge of anti-colonial protest as indigenous peoples and colonial settlers sought to assert their “rights” against the overweening authority of coercive and largely unaccountable colonial states’.

 

 

In the remainder of the book, Brown provides an up-to-date perspective upon ‘issues that have been persistent themes’ in understanding the genesis and impact of this absorbingly fascinating movement, encompassing ‘historiography, women, radicalism and Chartism’, Chartist leadership, and Chartism and the state, re-affirming the continuing value of the groundwork of F.C. Mather in exploring the reaction of the government to Chartism. He also considers how Chartism has been viewed through ideological prisms ranging from late-nineteenth century socialism to twentieth-first century Welsh nationalism and remembered in memorials, literature, drama, sculpture and public art such as the Newport Mural unveiled for the 150th anniversary of the rising of 1839. In contrast to the centennial discussions in 1939, which had focused upon whether the event should be commemorated at all and the question of whether it was ‘an accidental riot or a rebellion’, in 1989 ‘the Charter was no longer controversial and the emphasis was on the benefits the commemoration brought to the town in terms of the potential economic boost from tourism’. ‘Ironically’, the author concludes ‘the rebellion was being given a capitalist slant by generating civil pride’.

 

Finally, the cover, like all the preceding volumes in the series features a distinctively atmospheric painting by the romantic artist J.M.W. Turner, though its particular relevance here is perhaps less self evident than in some of the illustrations selected for the other volumes, most notably the Welsh sunset of 1838 on the cover of one of the companion volumes Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The North, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The illustration on the cover of the volume under review is Petworth Park with Lord Egremont and his dogs c 1828 and distinctly pre-Chartist. Given that one reviewer of Franny Moyle’s recent biography of Turner has observed that there is ‘no evidence that Turner was ever distracted by politics’ it is perhaps more tenuous in other respects also, though implicitly it may have been chosen because it depicts a representative of an ancien regime landed aristocracy in a world about to change a decade later as a result of the People’s Charter.

 

Deploying the troops

Around 2.30 am, Rede mobilised nearly 300 police and soldiers, more than double the number of miners left in the Stockade. There were 77 men of the 40th under Captain Wise and 65 men of the 12th Regiment under Captain William Meade. Lieutenant Charles Hall led 30 men of the 40th Regiment’s mounted company accompanied by 24 police on foot and 70 police mounted commanded by Sub-Inspector Taylor. [1] Thomas commanded the force and Pasley acted as his aide-de-camp. The remaining 200 men were left in the camp under Captain Atkinson in case reinforcements were needed and to guard against surprise attack from the rebels not in the Stockade. They were armed with 1842 muskets, with an average rate of fire of two rounds a minute but notoriously inaccurate and carried around sixty rounds of ammunition. The 17 officers were armed with British Pattern 1845 infantry swords and did not carry firearms in the battle. The weapons at the disposable of the military and police may not have been superior to the diggers’ rifles and crudely manufactured pikes but they were in the hands of professionals. [2]

The precise route of Thomas’ march has been unclear since the event. [3] The Government Camp was about two miles from the Eureka Stockade and the troops fell into their ranks between the Camp and Soldiers’ Hill. They remained there in complete silence until 3.10 am when they began silently marching southeast, hiding behind Black Hill before striking out towards the Stockade. They halted near the Free Trade Hotel about 250 yards from their objective and then advanced from behind the hotel towards the Stockade. By this time dawn was breaking, Captain Thomas and Charles Hackett and their men marched towards the Stockade on their horses. When they were around 150 yards from the Stockade, firing began. There has been much controversy about who fired the first shot. [4] Lalor was always adamant that ‘The military fired the first volley, which one company of the insurgents returned much sooner than I wished…’ [5] Ferguson later wrote:

The Fortieth regiment was advancing, but had not as yet discharged a shot. We could now see plainly the officer and hear his orders, when one of our men, Captain Burnette, stepped a little in front, elevated his rifle, took aim and fired. The officer fell. Captain Wise was his name. This was the first shot in the Ballarat war. It was said by many that the soldiers fired the first shot, but that is not true, as is well known to many. [6]

Charles Hackett, who according to Carboni, was the only government official at Ballarat not detested by the diggers testified that ‘No shots were fired by the military or the police, previous to shots being fired from the stockade’.[7] According to Withers, one of the Eureka leaders later stated ‘The first shot was fired from our party’. [8] Desmond O’Grady claims that it was a sentry, Harry de Longville, who noticed the troops and police and fired the first shot around 4.20 am, although possibly he may be referring here to a warning shot to rouse the diggers left in the Stockade. [9] Indeed, a letter from a soldier at Eureka, John Neill of the 40th Regiment, said:

The party had not advanced three hundred yards before we were seen by the rebel sentry, who fired, not at our party, but to warn his party in the Stockade. He was on Black Hill. Captain Thomas turned his head in the direction of the shot, and said ‘We are seen. Forward, and steady men! Don’t fire; let the insurgents fire first. You must wait for the sound of the bugle’. [10]

It seems probable that the first shot, fired either as a warning or directly at the advancing troops came from the Stockade. This was followed by a volley fired by the diggers as the soldiers and police advanced. At this point Captain Thomas gave the order to commence firing and the police and military moved forward rapidly in an attempt to maximise the confusion among the miners caused by the surprise attack:

…At about 150 yards we were received by a rather sharp and well directed fire from the rebels, without word or challenge on their part. Then, and not till then, I ordered the bugle to sound the ‘Commence Firing’. For about ten minutes a heavy fire was kept up by the troops advancing, which was replied to by the rebels. During this time, I brought up the infantry supports and foot police. The entrenchment was then carried, and I ordered the firing to cease. [11]

The attack on the Eureka Stockade, Ballarat, drawn December 1854; Source: from the map by S. D. S. Huyghue in Withers, W. B., History of Ballarat, 2nd ed., Ballarat. 1887.

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[1] The 12th Foot East Suffolk Regiment served in Australia between 1854 and 1867 and the 40th Foot (2nd Somerset) Regiment between 1823 and 1829 and 1852 and 1860.
[2] Ibid, Smith, Neil C., Soldiers Bleed Too, is a valuable corrective on events.
[3] Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, pp. 113-121.
[4] Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, pp. 127-134, considers the evidence.
[5] Argus, 10 April 1855, reprinted in ibid, ‘Eureka Documents’, Historical Studies, p. 12.
[6] Ferguson, Charles D., The Experiences of a Forty-Niner in Australia and New Zealand, (Gaston Renard), 1979, p. 60.
[7] Currey, C. H., The Irish at Eureka, (Angus and Robertson), 1954, pp. 68-69.
[8] Ibid, Withers, W. B., The History of Ballarat, p. 109.
[9] Ibid, O’Grady, Desmond, Raffaelo! Raffaelo, p. 159.
[10] Ibid, Withers, W. B., The History of Ballarat, pp. 123-124.

[11] First Report from the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Ballarat Outbreak Petition, 1856, Appendix A: Claims for Compensation, pp. ix-x, evidence taken, 6 July 1855, printed in Anderson, Hugh, (ed.), Eureka: Victorian Parliamentary Papers, Votes and Proceedings 1854-1867, (Hill of Content), 1969.

Writing Reconsidering Chartism

When I retired it was my intention to write a book on Chartism…one volume that distilled much of my teaching of the subject into a narrative history of the movement. That was ten years ago and it’s only now that I have managed to complete what started as one volume into a series of six books.  The reason for the delay was that I side-tracked myself into other projects that were to inform my later volumes on Chartism.  So a book that looked at rebellions in Canada, South Wales and Australia, my Three Rebellions grew into the Rebellion Trilogy with the addition of Famine, Fenians and Freedom 1840-1882 and Resistance and Rebellion in the British Empire, 1600-1980 that were finished by 2011 though the final volume was not published until early 2013.  These books in turn were in 2012 and 2013 expanded into Rebellion in Canada 1837-1885, ‘A Peaceable Kingdom’: Essays on Nineteenth Century Canada and Settler Australia, 1780-1880. Parallel to this I had been working on six Kindle books on Nineteenth Century British Society and a synoptic volume Coping with Change: British Society, 1780-1914 and Sex, Work and Politics: Women in Britain, 1830-1914 and a second edition covering 1780-1945, on translations and commentaries of some medieval texts and Breaking the Habit: A Life of History, a book combining some autobiographical musing with essays on history in education.  Never one to use one word when I can use a paragraph—according to one of my students—these are substantial pieces of work;  Coping with Change, for instance, comes in at over 700 pages.   Some of this work represented a break from Chartism, an interlude in a project that lasted nearly four years from beginning to end. 

The delay in getting down to the Chartism series actually proved to be advantageous.  Researching and writing the other series meant that I allowed myself time to think about how best to approach the movement.  My conclusion was that it needed four volumes.  One of my major concerns about existing books on Chartism was that its context was, at best, condensed into an opening, often short, chapter.  So, yes there needed to be a contextual volume.  Since I had been involved in the early 1970s in the Local History Classroom project, an innovative and very early project on using computers in the classroom, I had developed a view of history as a continuum from local to national to global—what I called ‘a micro-macro approach’ and this view called for three volumes on Chartism from local, national and global perspectives.  That was the plan which, for a variety of reasons, was modified as the research and writing progressed.  Four volumes became six and 850,000 words.

31 December 2013: 100,339 words	22 May 2014: 177,875 words
9 July 2015: 141,158 words	13 December 2015: 143,452 words
10 January 2016: 241,015 words	1 July 2016: 134,879 words

Having worked out what I planned to do, the next step was to make decisions about research approaches.  Getting to research libraries and archives proved an impossibility as I was the sole carer 24/7 for my wife.  This meant that I had to rely on material on the Internet that I could access at home such as the British Newspaper Archives, the National Archives online, EthOS, Google Books and so on.  Fortunately, I have an extensive collection of material on Chartism that I have accumulated over several decades. 

I started writing the first volume in May 2013 so it has taken just over three years to complete.  There was little problem with the first two volumes but it was the volume on Chartism from a local perspective that proved most challenging.  My decision to include discussion of the nature of radical politics in the decades before Chartism was established in each chapter meant that a single volume would have been too long.  So I divided the subject into two--the first dealing with London and the South; the second on The North, Scotland, Wales and Ireland—and then produced an abridged version The Chartists, Regions and Economies.  The final volume effectively examines the global impact of Chartism and also considers some of the themes than run through the remainder of the series—the historiography of the movement, Chartist leadership, women, radicalism and Chartism, the state and Chartism and how Chartism has been memorialised. 

This volume completes the Reconsidering Chartism series. What began as a plan for four books—context, national narrative, local narrative and global history—expanded into six volumes . While these books, in their printed and Kindle manifestations, form my most considered examination of Chartism, whether they are my last word on the subject is possible but I suspect unlikely. I keep being drawn back to the issues raised by O’Connor, Lovett and the like and by the political challenges faced by the working-classes in the decades round the mid-nineteenth century.

A final thrust

In the light of the tragic murder of Jo Cox, today’s recall of Parliament to pay tribute and the break in the referendum campaign should have given politicians and the rest of us time to ponder the direction in which we want our politics to go.  Whether her death will have a lasting effect on the way that we ‘do’ politics is, I suspect, unlikely.  MPs will still have close and personal links with their constituents that will inevitably make them vulnerable; social media will continue to pile bile on politicians in ways that are often offensive and threatening; we will continue to hold politicians in considerable contempt even though the overwhelming majority are good public servants; and, though the language of debate may be temporarily muffled it will soon return to its vibrant, confrontational best.  It’s easy for us all to say, after this we must do things better and I’m certain that’s what we believe but past experience suggests that we soon return to our good or bad old ways.

It will, however, have an impact on the butt-end of the referendum campaign and I think that is a good thing.  The intensive campaign has lasted for three months with politicians from both sides making their pitches for your vote on what is billed as an existential question, a generational response to whether Britain should remain in the EU or not.  I do not use the term ‘member’ as our membership has always been conditional and tentative…we have never been enthusiastic Europhiles and were we voting on whether to join or not on Thursday I think there would be a resounding ‘Non’.  Jo’s death has led to a softening in both Remain’s and Leave’s campaigns…both sides are still fighting for every vote but now making the case with vigour rather than just using ‘fear’ as their political tool of choice.  One thing that has been thrown up during the campaign is the profound distrust people have for ‘experts’ especially those seeming to support the establishment’s position.  In his debate on BBC last night David Cameron sought to defend ‘experts’ by arguing that if a mechanic said that your car needed repairs before you went on a long journey, you would undoubtedly take her advice.  Well of course you would especially if the alternative was being wrapped round the central reservation of the M25.  But this misses the point.  The problem is that economists—the group trusted least I think—have difficulty predicting what will happen to the economy next week, let alone next month or next year.  The IMF had to apologise to the British government when it got its predictions wrong.  You should certainly listen to employers as they are in the forefront of the economy and know what they’re talking about…but then you could argue ‘they would say that wouldn’t they.’  

Why, you may wonder, is the result still on a knife-edge?  Why are many people, despite the doom and gloom peddled by Remain, still prepared to vote for Leave?  For many people what is crucial is the question of ‘control’ and taking back control to govern our own country, make our own choices and so on and, if we don’t like them, have the right to boot out the politicians whose policies we dislike.  For them, these cannot be present as long as we are members of an undemocratic and unaccountable EU.  These are views—whether they be right or wrong—that Remain has largely failed to dent.  As in 1975, the critical question for them has been the economy though, in a globalised world, this has less resonance with many people than forty years ago.  I have long been a supporter of the EU—though primarily as an economic institution than a political one—and remain so but it needs fundamental reform, something that appears not to be a priority for those in Brussels.  The EU has grown too quickly..nothing we can do about that…and the principles on which it is based are today less for for purpose that they were in 1957 or 1986.  Its tunnel vision and one-track approach is no longer acceptable to the peoples of Europe.  For me, the costly and completely unnecessary cycle of the European Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg epitomises the need for change and the problems of actually making changes that everyone thinks are needed.

So, with the polls finely poised, my prediction for the result of the referendum is as follows: Remain will win with 53 per cent of the vote. Let’s hope I’m right.

Planning the attack

The attack on the Eureka Stockade in the early hours of Sunday 3 December 1854 demonstrated the superiority of regular military forces against rebels. [1] By early December, there were 450 men in the Government Camp including 150 mounted men and their horses. Conditions were increasingly difficult. Contractors were reluctant to supply fresh water and food and the need to keep a constant vigil against attack meant that sleep was at a premium and troops slept on the ground next to their horses. A plan for defending the Camp had been developed in late October that included burning down adjacent building that could be used for cover by attacking rebels and turning the stone-built Bank of Victoria into a fortified outpost garrisoned by armed civilians.

 

On Saturday, the decision was finally made to assault the Stockade at a meeting between Robert Rede, Captain J. W. Thomas of the 40th Regiment, Captain Pasley and District Commissioner Amos. Amos, who had briefly been detained by the diggers and ‘robbed of his horse’, played a crucial role because of his intimate knowledge of the Eureka diggings and the Stockade. The construction of the Stockade with its implied threat to the Camp and to communications with Melbourne and the knowledge of the planned meeting of the Reform League on 3 December at which it was possible that the miners’ militant wing might emerge dominant increased the need for the authorities to suppress the rebellion quickly. Rede’s report of the attack suggested that Amos’ detention ‘decided us at once to put a stop to this state of anarchy and confusion’. [2] Once the military option had been decided, Rede had no further control over events. Captain Thomas assumed overall authority for suppressing the rebellion.

 

 

Thomas’ plan was deceptively simple. He would march his men under the cover of darkness across the diggings and surprise the rebels at dawn. The critical issue was how to get to the Stockade without rousing every miner in the area. This precluded a direct approach down the Melbourne Road but using Amos’ intimate knowledge of the diggings Thomas decided on an indirect approach that would keep any observers guessing as to the intention of the force. He would halt his forces behind Stockyard Hill to the north of the Stockade and would then advance against its north-western defences. It was also important for Thomas to reduce the number of defenders within the Stockade and he was able to exploit the rebels’ uncertainty about when Nickle’s column would arrive from Melbourne. The previous night two divisions of rebels had left the Stockade to confront the anticipated reinforcements. The Camp had made widespread use of spies and there is evidence that a false warning about Nickle’s column was delivered to the rebels. [3] Whether this was the reason why McGill left the Stockade with over a hundred of the best-armed rebels or whether McGill had other incentives to do so is unclear, but the outcome was the same, a depleted rebel force at Eureka.

 

Although Thomas advanced knowing that his men might have to fight, this was not inevitable. Police Magistrates Charles Hackett and George Webster were part of the force that marched out of the Camp suggesting that Thomas did not plan an unprovoked attack and considered that only police action might be needed. Hackett wrote immediately after the attack that he ‘had no opportunity of calling upon the people to disperse’. [4] Neither did Thomas order his men to fix bayonets when they deployed to advance; this did not occur until they closed with the rebels some ten minutes after the initial firing took place. Whatever Thomas’ intentions once hostilities broke out, what might have been a police action was transformed into a full-scale military engagement.

---

[1] See, ‘Fatal Collision at Ballaarat’, Argus, 4 December 1854, p. 5, ‘Further Particulars of the Ballaarat Affray’, Argus, 5 December 1854, pp. 4-5.

[2] Rede to Chief Gold Commissioner Wright, 3 December 1854: PROV, 1085/P Duplicate 162, Enclosure no. 9.

[3] Ibid, Blake, Gregory, To Pierce The Tyrant’s Heart: A Military History of The Battle for The Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, pp. 105-107, examines the somewhat tenuous evidence for Thomas’ ruse.

[4] Charles Hackett to Charles MacMahon, 3 December 1854, PROV, 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162, Enclosure no. 9.

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]