by Clare Wright
Westoby’s proposition tapped directly into one of the chief moral concerns of the diggers: the dignity of providing a permanent and prosperous home for their families. How better to cut a man down to size than to invade his castle? Shame him in front of his wife and child. Show him to be no better than the rest of the dispossessed, disempowered crowd outside his painted door. They would seize the high ground, both morally and literally. Bentley’s Hill would be no more. Let his house belong to the diggers. Not an egalitarian gesture of sharing property, but a cutthroat ritual of exclusion.
The same people who had only moments before decried the arbitrary flouting of due process and the flagrant cruelty of its custodians now turned itself to retributive justice. And so, in the words of Samuel Huyghue, the match was applied to the train of long gathering discontent.
Riots are the kissing cousin of charivari. Add alcohol and soaring temperatures to a public display of disaffection, and it doesn’t take much for things to get perilously out of hand. The mob was a feature of pre-modern societies; authorities held a traditional fear and loathing for irate crowds as riots waiting to happen: embryonic uprisings. ‘Neither mindless nor revolutionary’, writes Bernard Capp, ‘riots were an attempt by the disenfranchised to connect with the political and administrative structures of the state’.
Once the crowd had surrounded the Eureka Hotel and its half-acre of funhouses, stables and storage facilities, Robert Rede was called from the Camp. Rede attempted to quell the mob’s fury. He stood up on a window ledge. He called for order. He was hooted and jeered, pelted with bottles, bricks, stones and eggs. Someone threw a rock at a window. One report says a little girl cast the first stone; another says it was a teenage lad. It is of no consequence. Once the glass shattered, so did the last of the crowd’s equilibrium. That very morning, the final touches to the hotel’s major construction works had been completed. Within minutes, the crowd had set upon the process of disassembling all the Bentleys had taken months to build: ripping at boards, smashing windows, throwing stones at lamps. The edifice of Bentley’s success was demolished.
Imagine Catherine Bentley’s terror. As the hotel rocked with the force of the crowd’s fury, Ximines’ men, holed up inside the hotel, scattered. Catherine and the other residents were left to fend for themselves. Climbing through shattered windows and splintered doors, people began to infiltrate the building. Kegs of liquor were dragged out of storage rooms and eagerly tapped. Furniture was hurled from windows. Someone found Catherine’s bedroom and began throwing her jewellery to the people below, stretching their arms up like a pack of savage bridesmaids.
A cry of Fire! went up. Someone had set light to the canvas of the bowling alley. The wind had been blowing hot all day, recalled Raffaello Carboni, and at this fatal precise hour…[it was] blowing a hurricane. And that was it. The fire in the bowling alley leaped to the main building. Flames consumed the hotel before the glistening, vengeful eyes of the crowd. It burnt like paper, said Robert Rede. A few hours before, said D’Ewes, had stood by far the most extensive building in the diggings, painted and decked out in gay and gaudy colours, with a long row of stables and outhouses, erected at an expense of £30,000, and totally uninsured. Minutes after the blaze was started, Charles Evans arrived. He saw only a black heap of smoking ashes.
Ellen Young could clearly see the rioters and the fire from her vantage point outside her tent at Golden Point. She saw clothes and linen being thrown from upstairs windows. She watched a bonfire made of the contents of the house of every description. As goods rained down from the hotel windows, people tossed them into the inferno. One person threw Catherine Bentley’s jewellery box on the bonfire, quickly fished it out again, studied it, then threw it with great force into the flames. Finally a handsome gig was backed onto the fire, turning status to cinders.
James Bentley, having fled to the Camp on horseback, spent the night in Inspector Gordon Evans’ tent. But what happened to Catherine as her home combusted around her? Emily Eliza Boyce, twelve years old in October 1854, was present at the burning of Bentley’s Hotel. She saw Mrs Bentley and her child landed safely from one of the windows.32 Kenneth McLeod, a wine and spirit merchant, had rushed to the hotel when it was engulfed. He entered the building and found Catherine. With the assistance of a man named Robert McLaren, and at the risk of my own life, he tossed Catherine and little Thomas from the second storey, into the arms of the crowd.33 As in a chivalrous mosh pit, Catherine was caught and released.
Did she join James at the Camp? Ellen Young says the inmates fled in terror. It’s not clear whether Catherine was among them. But Catherine did find someone to take her in. One of her later petitions for compensation for the financial loss of her property states that she was dependent on the kindness of a few friends for her daily bread.34
Perhaps the Bentleys, Catherine and James alike, had been too cocky in parading their success before an increasingly alienated and aggrieved mining community. Not only were they close to the seat of parochial power, but their ostentatious demeanour reflected the growing social cleavages in Ballarat at precisely the time when democratic sentiment was reaching its apex. Martha Clendinning knew that ‘dressing down’ was the key to her business success. Lady Hotham had been praised for her willingness to get hands dirty among the people, crumbling chunks of mullock. Remember one digger’s remark: she hasn’t half the airs of your innkeeper’s and storekeeper’s wives.35
That Catherine Bentley may have ‘had airs’ is alluded to in the evidence of Mary Ann Welch. In testifying that it was definitely Mrs Bentley she had overheard saying ‘how dare you break my window’, Mary Ann stated that Mrs Bentley was a stranger to her; had never spoken to her but had often heard her speak. Given that the Welches’ tent was not ten yards from Bentley’s Hotel, it is odd that Catherine had never made the acquaintance of a neighbour with eight children, including one boy of similar age to Thomas. Perhaps the thirty-nine-year-old miner’s wife was affronted that the twenty-two-year-old publican’s wife had not been more solicitous of her friendship, quarantining her precious child from the rabble. The struggling English mother might also have been less than sympathetic herself towards a bejewelled Irish mother who employed a small army of live-in servants and regularly entertained the cream of the Jewish merchants. After all, Mary Ann was herself high born, the daughter of a barrister. In choosing a farmer’s son she had married down. Envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness was how Ellen Young summed up the burning of Bentley’s Hotel in a letter to the editor of the BALLARAT TIMES on 4 November.36
In late 1854, Catherine would attest to how thoroughly the destruction of her hotel had levelled her circumstances. In one of many petitions to Charles Hotham outlining her situation, the former publican claimed she was blameless in the above lamentable affair and in no way connected with the assault on the deceased. In consequence of being blamed, Catherine had been reduced from comparative affluence to absolute poverty. And in the note penned in 1892, scrawled on the back of a petition written by the citizens of Ballarat attesting to James Bentley’s innocence, Catherine went further. She offered an alternative version of what happened on the night of Scobie’s apparent murder. The man Scoby mentioned in the printed form as killed, was hid in the Abbotsford Convent during the riots, under the influence of Peter Lalor.37 Catherine went to her grave believing that her family had been intentionally robbed of their fortune, reputation and status in the Ballarat community.
Fire is not as discerning as friendship, and the Bentleys were not the only ones to suffer losses that day. Twenty-six people later submitted claims for compensation, either for the material destruction of property or as creditors to the now-bankrupt Bentleys. Alexander West lost all his musical instruments and was thus forced to relinquish his profession. James Waldock had conducted a livery and licensed auctioneer’s business from the stables at the hotel; he lost his large stock of cattle, drays, bridles, saddles, hay and oats to the tune of £2,000 and was reduced to beggary. All of these c
laims were subsequently denied.
Michael Walsh’s rejected compensation case was the most poignant. Walsh had a tent close to the hotel. It was also consumed by the wayward flames, burning down around the ears of his family. Mrs Walsh was in labour at the time, striving to deliver her first child. Assistant Commissioner Amos assisted in getting Mrs Walsh away from the blazing tent. He carried her to safety. I thought she was dying at the time, Amos later told the select committee, [but] she was in the pains of labour. Mrs Walsh delivered a stillborn baby. In 1857, Michael Walsh considered that his actual pecuniary loss was insubstantial when compared with the long illness of my wife…consequent upon the Great Excitement, the effects of which she nor I have never been able to overcome. The Walshes went on to have eleven children, never registering the death of the first baby on that tempestuous October day.
It was obvious to all that no attempt had been made to control the crowd or protect life and property. One thing is certain, a select committee later determined, the destruction of Bentley’s Hotel was not confined to a few, but thousands of men and women too were engaged in the work of destruction. Why hadn’t Commissioner Rede read the Riot Act, the parliamentary enquiry asked. Rede blamed Police Inspector Gordon Evans, who had authority over the police, for not clearing the crowd or defending the hotel despite the fact that Ximines and his men had occupied the hotel all morning. Rede also claimed he had no power over the military, who were despatched only after the fire began. Other police testified that Evans had lacked determination to stop the rioting. Had his instructions been more direct, the hotel would have been saved. Evans defended himself against the charges of inaction. My hands were completely tied, he said, I must obey my orders. Only the resident commissioner could read the Riot Act. What a shambles. Who exactly was in charge of Ballarat?
It was only after the Eureka Hotel riot that Rede was given a letter of absolute power. He now stood at the apex of a chain of command that included the police and military. But many believed that the damage had been done. The people had carried the day. They had sensed their own power. Samuel Huyghue assessed the disposition of the police and government on the afternoon of the riot. A silent hush had settled over the Camp. Troopers and traps spoke in low mutters in their tents. There was angry humiliation that Rede had tried to make conciliatory speeches rather than take swift action. There had been a loss of prestige. How could it be regained?
A huge downpour came in the night, settling dust and tempers. For now.
There was something in the air that spring. No doubt about it. Back in 1853, James Bonwick had read the mood of the people and predicted that a sudden excitement, a sudden revolution, a sudden political change may take place. But Bonwick feared that a society oddly composed of the ill educated and newly rich might have been democratic but it was also unmistakeably given up to selfishness, and often to impure indulgence. Now, his dystopian vision seemed to be coming true. ‘Excitement’ was the word used by most commentators to describe Ballarat’s heady mix of anxiety, restlessness, disaffection and disregard for authority. It was contagious, and while Bendigo was undoubtedly the locus of unrest in 1853, there was no more exciting place to be in late 1854 than Ballarat.
Henry Seekamp could not contain his sense of a unique destiny rolling, like an electrical storm, towards his adopted town. On 19 October, the Bentleys, Hance and Farrell were rearrested to stand trial in Melbourne for James Scobie’s murder. On 21 October, two miners, twenty-four-year-old Scot Andrew McIntyre and Charles Evans’ business partner Thomas Fletcher, were named arbitrarily out of the thousands of rioters and charged with the arson of the Eureka Hotel (a third, John Westoby, would later be added). Here is Henry Seekamp’s editorial on 21 October:
In all the history of Australia—from its earliest discovery to the present time—from the days the soil first bore the impression of the white man’s foot—during all the different phases of convictism—of commercial failures—of the discovery of the different gold fields—of the agitation for the repeal of that incubus of industry, the miner’s licence—of the feting and rejoicing on the arrival and visiting of a new chum Governor—of the expected invasion of the Russians, never has there been a more eventful period than the present of Ballarat. Public feeling is so great that no rumour, however absurd, but what gains credence—everything is believed and everything is expected. The people have, for once…begun to feel their own strength…the first taste of liberty and self-government.
Seekamp could only view the cascade of October’s events as an inevitable step towards liberty, a child beginning to walk, in a little time the child will be able to stand alone. But twenty-six-year-old Henry had no offspring of his own; he was stepfather to Clara’s children. He may not have been in the best position to wield metaphors of infant development. Children also discover their narcissistic will. Separating from their psychically overbearing parents requires a monstrous act of defiance—something approximating Bonwick’s prophecy of selfishness and indulgence.
Surely some malignant spell, surmised the ARGUS, must blind the Captain, that he cannot see the rocks ahead.38
The fine weather was a boon to government surveillance of the diggings. From late September, licence hunting stepped up with a new vigour now the winter mud was gone. Suddenly, large, armed military forces were sent out from the Camp to patrol the diggings. Foot police carried batons. Soldiers wielded carbines, swords and holster pistols. Some were mounted, parading frisky horses through tents and holes in search of unlicensed miners. A new chum, wrote An Englishman to the GEELONG ADVERTISER on 10 October, might think the show of force was to intimidate criminals against the dog poisoning, horse stealing and tent breaking that had become endemic this spring. But no, it was merely digger hunting, pursued with an unusual degree of severity since Hotham’s visit to the goldfields. The Englishman attributed the new regime to the resident commissioner proving his utility.
Others could see that the new governor had pledged to remedy the colony’s ailing economy and was going about the task with obdurate zeal. The public service was being whittled to a shoestring to reduce expenditure. On the income side of the ledger there were only liquor excises and mining licences to lift the bottom line. The diggers would conveniently drink to their hearts’ content, but showed increasing reluctance to produce a valid licence. What was a governor to do, other than order his minions to carry out more licence hunts? If once a week was not enough to demonstrate that this government meant business, then make it twice. Or every day bar the Sabbath. Is it to be endured, wrote the Englishman, in a possession of the British Crown, that an armed police force may ‘bail up’ and require the production of your badge in all places at all times? Does this happen in London? He finished by calling for some more influential pen to take up the cause of the unrepresented digger. Ellen Young patriotically obliged.
On 4 November, following Scobie’s murder, the Eureka Hotel riot and the fire, the arrests, the trials and the public meetings, Ellen captured the mood of her clan in a long letter to the BALLARAT TIMES.
I can but remark on the sad picture of humanity your last Saturday’s paper presents…Alas for the poor diggers, over whose spoil the whole tribe are squabbling. Alas for the honest of each party that he should be sacrificed to the dishonest. Alas, alas for us all that we cannot get a snap of land to keep a pig live pretty, and grow cabbages on; and three times alas; let it three times be for us (the people) poor dupes… following in high hopes the jack o’ lantern dancing over the land, his false light blinding all.
Here we have the diggers as fools and their governor as the will-o’-the-wisp trickster figure of English folklore who draws innocent travellers down the garden path with devilish false promises. Hotham had betrayed Ellen’s early trust. She would now place her faith in another organ of authority, the fourth estate. Her letter continued: We ought to congratulate ourselves in possessing so admirable a vent as your paper for the spleen. How amiable shall we become in time…I am but a simple dreamer at the f
oot of the mount.
While Ellen Young waxed lyrical at her literary base camp, a host of nameless sherpas did the grunt work to spread the word of mutiny on the streets. Gossip and rumour, writes Bernard Capp, were ‘a powerful coercive weapon, defining and reasserting the social values of the community’. Traditionally, he says, women have wielded gossip as a form of ‘quasi-public power’. Through informal networks and collective pressure, women were able to play a role as active citizens, turning private grievances into public issues and refashioning themselves as the persecutors rather than the persecuted. Capp argues that this ‘informal political world based on female networks’ was vital in shaping public opinion in pre-industrial communities, particularly in times of crisis. Gossip and rumour could be malicious and judgmental or simply informative about comings and goings central to the community’s wellbeing. Gossip was a powerful tool for otherwise disenfranchised people, but its central importance is not reflected in the public/historical record, for the simple fact that by its very nature rumour is spread discreetly, in whispers—often Chinese whispers—at the marketplace or at work in the fields. Gossip is the backdrop to what survives in hard copy, such as Ellen Young’s letters to the editor.
The public record of Ballarat’s rumour-mongers is surprisingly resilient. Ellen Clacy described the interior of your average shop on the diggings: pork and currants, saddles and frocks, baby linen and tallow, all are heaped indiscriminately together…added to which, there are children bawling, men swearing, store-keeper sulky, and last, not least, women’s tongues going nineteen to the dozen. Raffaello Carboni begins his account of the Catholic servant affair like so: The following story was going the rounds of the Eureka. The TIMES revealed that prior to the destruction of the Eureka Hotel, rumours had been flying thick and fast. Police Magistrate D’Ewes was a partner in the business. Bentley had paid thousands of pounds for exoneration. The licensing bench was bribed. And the paramount tall story: Catherine Bentley was in fact Scobie’s wife!