by Clare Wright
1 Geelong Advertiser, 25 May 1854.
2 Melbourne Monthly Magazine, vol. 1, no. 1, May 1855, 28.
3 Neither Ellen nor Frederick’s death certificates list any offspring, but it is clear from Ellen’s writing that she once had a son.
4 Note that average life expectancy in the 1850s was less than forty years, but this is largely because the high rates of infant mortality skew what demographers call ‘the life table’. Having survived the first five years of life, many in the gold rush generation lived into their sixties, seventies and beyond.
5 The better-known Mary Fortune, for example, had journalism published in the Melbourne press from the 1860s under the by-line Waif Wanderer or WW.
6 Note, however, that there are Letters to the Editor of the Ballarat Times published from September 1854 signed by Justitia that could have been written by Ellen Young. I suspect, however, that they were penned by Clara Du Val Seekamp. Justitia, Lady Justice, was the Roman Goddess of Justice. She is often represented as a matron carrying a sword—the power of reason and justice—and a set of measuring scales. Justitia is considered an allegorical allusion to moral force within western legal systems. In art, aspects of Justitia are sometimes conflated with the goddesses Fortuna (luck), Tyche (fate) and Nemesis (vengeance).
7 Unsourced quotation in Laurel Johnson Women of Eureka. The Montrose Cottage Collection, now held at the Gold Museum but previously curated by Johnston for her now defunct Montrose Cottage Museum in Ballarat, includes a reference to Clara being interviewed by a journalist for the Courier on 8 January 1902.
8 Mr H. Brown noted these prices in a letter to his sister written in 1854. The State Library of Victoria holds the letter.
9 Noah’s letter to his mother, written in 1854, is held by the State Library of Victoria.
10 Geoffrey Serle provides the figures for this analysis of the land problem in The Golden Age.
11 This observation was made by Reynell Everleigh Johns, who was a police magistrate on the goldfields. The State Library of Victoria holds an extensive collection of Johns’ diaries, papers and scientific writings, as well as a fragment of the Eureka Flag in Johns’ possession at his death in 1910.
12 English historian Anna Clark explains the literary genre of Chartist melodrama in The Struggle for the Breeches.
13 See the work of Jutta Schwarzkopf in particular.
14 The poem may also have been published in the Ballarat Times, but no copies of the Times are extant for this period.
15 The Liberty Song was written by patriot John Dickinson during the American Revolution. First published as a poem in the Boston Gazette in 1768, its lyrics contain the following sentiment: Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all, By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
16 PROV VPRS 1189/93 G54/7193.
17 PROV VPRS 1189/93 F54/5371, I54/5194.
18 John Bastin, ‘Eureka: An Eye-Witness Account’, The Australian Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, December 1956, 78.
19 Hotham’s speech was reported in the Geelong Advertiser on 26 June 1854.
20 Of Jane and her four sisters, only one had any children, suggesting the Hood girls may have suffered from hereditary infertility.
21 The Argus report was widely circulated. See the Hobart Colonial Times, 5 July 1854.
22 PROV VPRS 1085/08, despatch to George Grey no. 112.
23 Ballarat Times, 2 September 1854.
24 The Argus correspondent also guessed that Lady Hotham was less than thirty: a gift, perhaps, of the English sun.
25 Simplex Munditiis—simple, neat attire. Ben Jonson wrote a poem called Simplex munditiis: (Still to be neat, still to be drest/As you were going to a feast…), a telling indication of the much-touted superiority of education and culture of many diggers. Thanks to Barry Jones for the translation and Jonson reference.
26 Geelong Advertiser, 12 September 1854.
27 Ballarat Courier, 3 December 1904.
28 Reported in the Geelong Advertiser, 12 September 1854.
29 See Paul Pickering and Alex Tyrrell, The People’s Bread.
30 The petition claimed that coffee drinking caused impotence in men, who came home from coffeehouses with nothing moist but their snotty noses, nothing stiff but their joints, nor standing but their ears.
31 PROV VPRS 1189.245 A53/5241.
32 PROV VPRS 1189.244 L55/254.
33 PROV VPRS 4066.01. See also the letters and petitions contained in VPRS 4066.02/03 and VPRS 1189.244 and VPRS 1189.238–240.
34 VPRS 4066.02.
35 VPRS 4066.03.
36 VPRS 4066.02.
37 Esther McKenzie’s letter was written on 13 January 1855 and Mrs O’Neill’s letter is dated 15 January 1855. Both are found in PROV VPRS 4066.02.
38 Geelong Advertiser, 10 October 1854. When Ellen Young wrote directly to Governor Hotham on 10 September 1854, she made it clear that it was with her husband Frederick’s sanction that she took the liberty. VPRS 4066.01.
EIGHT: PARTING WITH MY SEX
1 Argus, 18 May 1854.
2 Geelong Advertiser, 11 May 1854. A copy of the notice in the Ballarat Times was forwarded to the Geelong Advertiser by its Ballarat correspondent. The Ballarat Times began publication on 4 March 1854, but the earliest extant copies date from September. The Adelphi was a famous theatre in London’s West End. There was also an Adelphi Theatre in gold rush San Francisco. Sarah Hanmer may have worked at either of them.
3 The anecdote is relayed in Ferguson’s The Experiences of a Forty-Niner, written on his return to America in 1888. Sarah Hanmer made enough of an impression on Ferguson to include her in a memoir penned forty years after the event.
4 Geelong Advertiser, 8 June 1854.
5 Ballarat Times, 2 September 1854.
6 PROV VPRS 1189.244 M55/735.
7 Quoted in Alice M. Robinson et al.’s edited collection, Notable Women in the American Theatre (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1989).
8 Melbourne Punch, 14 September 1855, p. 65.
9 Howard’s essay is found in the fascinating collection Crossing the Stage, edited by Lesley Ferris. Laurence Senelick’s The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre also explores the themes of subversion, transgression and transformation in the nineteenth-century theatre.
10 Argus, 3 August 1854.
11 For the full lyrics, see Thatcher’s Colonial Songster of 1857. Thatcher himself was a critic of female suffrage. While in New Zealand in 1865, Thatcher wrote to a Dunedin newspaper mocking the idea of women having a legislative role. ‘A female Town Board I should like to see/Oh fancy what fine food there’d be for me’. Thatcher Papers, State Library of Victoria.
12 See, for example, Melbourne Punch, 28 February 1856 and 29 May 1856.
13 Miska Hauser’s letters from Australia have been translated and published by Colin Roderick and Hugh Anderson.
14 Catherine Smith and Cynthia Greig’s extraordinary annotated collection of nineteenth-century photographs of cross-dressing in America, Women in Pants, graphically illustrates these points.
15 It is sometimes claimed that Henrietta Dugdale wore the bloomer costume, but Susan Priestley’s biography of Dugdale sets us straight. She wore a simple divided skirt but not the full bloomer costume, patterns for which could be obtained from Amelia Bloomer’s magazine by women, for women, The Lily, published in Seneca Falls, New York, but readily circulated in England and continental Europe.
16 ‘Females in Men’s Clothing’, Bendigo Advertiser, 20 September 1879, cited in Lucy Chesser’s Parting with my Sex.
17 John Hargreaves gives this estimate in his study of Ballarat’s hotels.
18 For a longer discussion of the legend and legacy of Big Poll, see my 2003 book, Beyond the Ladies Lounge. Folk singer Glen Tomasetti gives a rendition of Thatcher’s song on her 1961 album, Glen Tomasetti Sings.
19 Melbourne correspondent to Mt Alexander Mail, 15 July 1854.
20 A copy of this document is in the hands of descendant Andrew Crowley. Catherine’s signature
can be clearly seen.
21 This extract from the Ballarat Times of 15 July 1854 is republished in John D’Ewes’ memoir.
22 In Australia, Raelene Frances, with her ‘hidden history’ of prostitution, and Elaine McKewon, with The Scarlet Mile, have begun this important, if difficult, project.
23 This point is made by Bronwyn Fensham in her MA thesis about women on the Ballarat diggings.
24 PROV VPRS 289.1.
25 Statistics and quotes drawn from Richard Holmes’ masterful book, Redcoat.
26 Argus, 8 February 1855.
27 Ballarat Times, 11 February 1855.
28 Ballarat Times, 3 September, 1858.
29 Raelene Frances makes this point clear in Selling Sex, 42.
30 Fred Cahir documents this experience in his PhD thesis, ‘Black Gold’.
31 The quote comes from Charles Gattey’s 1967 history of the dress reform movement, The Bloomer Girls.
NINE: BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
1 In Scandal in the Colonies, Kirsten McKenzie notes that subscription lists were used as a form of social gesture to divide the respectable from the dishonourable. Who was put on or off the list could create scandal in a community.
2 PROV Original Papers Tabled in the Legislative Assembly VPRS 3253/60.
3 Details gleaned from the Select Committee on Bentley’s Hotel. VPRS 3253/60.
4 Diggers’ Advocate, 16 September 1854.
5 Ballarat Times, 7 October 1854.
6 Ballarat Times, 23 September 1854.
7 Diggers’ Advocate, 16 September 1854.
8 Ballarat Times, 23 September 1854.
9 Geelong Advertiser, 11 October 1854.
10 Diggers’ Advocate, 16 September 1854.
11 Diggers’ Advocate, 16 September 1854.
12 PROV VPRS 1189/94.
13 ‘Col. Vern’s Narrative of the Ballaarat Insurrection’ was published in the Melbourne Monthly Magazine, no. 7, vol. 2, November 1855. It claimed to be the first account published by a miner. Vern accused James Johnston of bribery and said he was the most disliked officer on the goldfield. After the Eureka Stockade battle, Vern was spotted in Buninyong, disguised in female attire viz: black drawn silk bonnet, light shawl and light cotton gown. VPRS 937/10.
14 There is, however, a Victorian marriage certificate for a James Scobie in 1865. Andrew Crowley’s theory is that another miner was killed that morning and a very alive James Scobie was transported in the dead of night, at Peter Lalor’s behest, to the Abbotsford Convent, where he lay low. Crowley swears it was in fact a miner called John Martin who died from a blow to the head earlier in the day. Crowley believes Martin was the partner in James Scobie and others’ gold claim, and that Scobie was involved in his murder. He argues that James Scobie then pretended to be ‘Peter Martin’ when testifying at the inquest of the dead body brought to the Eureka Hotel later that day. Crowley lays out his case on his website www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/History/Bentley.html
15 Coronial inquest into the death of James Scobie. PROV VPRS 5527/01.
16 Court reporters followed the case in both the Age and the Argus from 23 October to 24 November. Witness depositions and petitions are held in the Eureka Historical Collection at PROV VPRS 5527/01.
17 This observation is drawn from D’Ewes’ own account.
18 See John Molony’s Eureka, 55.
19 PROV VPRS 1189/92.
20 Argus, 4 November 1854.
21 Alexander Dick describes the atmosphere of fear and alarm in Melbourne in his diary.
22 Melbourne Monthly Magazine, vol. 1, no. 1, May 1855, p. 41.
23 Geelong Advertiser, 18 October 1854.
24 Argus, 18 November 1854.
25 PROV VPRS 5527/02
26 Argus, 2 November 1854.
27 PROV VPRS 1189/468
28 McFarlane’s account is based solely on the archival sources held by PROV.
29 Fifty years later, on 5 December 1904, Elizabeth Rowlands published a letter in the Ballarat Courier recounting her involvement in the events of 1854.
30 Riot at Ballarat, Victorian Parliamentary Papers.
31 My account of the burning of Bentley’s Hotel is drawn from evidence given to the Select Committee, which began hearing evidence on 2 November and tabled its report to Parliament on 21 November.
32 Emily’s story is recounted in Records of Pioneer Women.
33 PROV VPRS 3253/60.
34 Catherine sent petitions for pecuniary aid and compensation in late 1854, 17 May 1855 and 14 November 1855. She claimed a loss of £30,000. PROV VPRS 1189/95 M55/912, S55/14.772.
35 Ballarat Times, 2 September 1854.
36 Ellen owes her choice of words to the Great Litany of the Book of Common Prayer.
37 This is the document that Andrew Crowley showed me during our interview. He has since donated it to the Gold Museum, Ballarat. See plate section 3, and transcript, page 479.
38 Argus, 4 November 1854.
39 Argus, 13 November 1854.
TEN: HIGH CAMP
1 PROV VPRS 1189/153, K54/13.392. The submission was not entertained being an anonymous communication.
2 This unofficial census is drawn from the account of John D’Ewes.
3 PROV VPRS 1189/91, G54/6826.
4 Geelong Advertiser, 2 March 1854.
5 PROV VPRS 937/10. The letter is dated 20 March 1854. Unless otherwise stated, all quotes and details pertaining to the Camp are drawn from police reports contained in the PROV series VPRS 937/10.
6 PROV VPRS 1189/164 G54/10.805 and H54/10533.
7 Neill’s diary is used in Neil Smith’s book, Soldiers Bleed Too. The diary is in private hands. Smith’s self-published book endeavours to ‘put the case from the Redcoat view’, concluding that ‘these men fought honourably and with courage in what was a difficult and hostile environment’.
8 PROV VPRS 1189/92 K54/14.002.
9 PROV VPRS 1189/153, K54/13.392.
10 PROV VPRS 1189/92 H54/11824.
11 PROV VPRS 1189/92 H54/11824.
12 PROV VPRS 1189/92 H54/11836.
13 Geelong Advertiser, 10 March 1854.
14 All details of Catherine McLister’s case are drawn from the PROV series VPRS 1189/153, K54/12.242.
15 Robert McLister’s death certificate in 1874 lists his profession as ‘constable’, indicating a return to the police force at some time subsequent to his wife’s death.
16 Note that Geoffrey Blainey has made the point that the Eureka story has conventionally been written from the perspective of the miners only in his essay, ‘Eureka: Why Hotham Decided to Swoop’. For an unusual approach to the emotional lives of soldiers, see Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing.
ELEVEN: CROSSING THE LINE (REPRISE)
1 Ballarat Times, 11 November 1854.
2 Ballarat Times, 25 October 1854.
3 Ballarat Times, 25 October 1854.
4 Geelong Advertiser, 28 October 1854.
5 PROV VPRS 12882.1.
6 Gregory Blake puts this case strongly in To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart.
7 Ballarat Star, 6 December 1884.
8 Geelong Advertiser, 3 November 1854.
9 Geelong Advertiser, 28 October 1854.
10 Geelong Advertiser, 30 October 1854.
11 Geelong Advertiser, 30 October 1854.
12 Ballarat Times, 11 November 1854.
13 PROV VPRS 1095 box 2.
14 My thanks to Andrew Vincent for the Latin translation.
15 Ballarat Times, 8 September 1856.
16 See, for example, Edith Thomas’s book, Les Petroleuses, translated in its English edition as The Women Incendiaries.
17 William Howitt reports the incident in Land, Labour and Gold.
18 Ballarat Times, 15 August 1856.
19 PROV VPRS 5527/01.
20 Argus, 1 November 1854. Detective Cummings later commenced legal proceedings for libel against the journalist, declaring that Mrs Bentley had not been handcuffed but rather had sat by the side of he
r co-accused Hance, who was cuffed.
21 Argus, 20 November 1854.
22 Age, 20 November 1854.
23 Argus, 16 November 1854.
24 Argus, 16 November 1854.
25 PROV VPRS 4066.01.
26 PROV VPRS 1085/08.
27 Argus, 29 November 1854.
28 PROV VPRS 30/P/37.
29 The observations of W. H. Foster are drawn from the letters to his parents held in the State Library of Victoria.
30 PROV VPRS 1085/08.
31 PROV VPRS1189/92 K54/13219.
32 Keith Bowden makes this point in his study of Ballarat’s doctors.
33 Ballarat Times, 18 November 1854.
34 The context in which the word was used was ironic: The rebels, as they are pleased to term us, would not be conciliated while there was still corruption and double-dealing in the judiciary: Geelong Advertiser, 30 November 1854.
35 Geelong Advertiser, 1 December 1854.
36 Geelong Advertiser, 1 December 1854.
37 As reported by Howitt in Land, Labour and Gold.
38 Anne Beggs-Sunter, ‘Contesting the Flag: The Mixed Messages of the Eureka Flag’, footnote 12.
39 Dorothy Wickham et al., The Eureka Flag: Our Starry Banner, 11.
40 There is certainly evidence that in 1854 people visualised the Southern Cross as a star-studded Latin cross. In Hevelius’s influential Firmamentum (1690), the first star atlas to depict the southern skies, Crux was depicted under the rear legs of Centaurus as a curved-edge Latin Cross riveted with a star on each of its four extremities. In Purgatorio, Dante attributed the cardinal virtues of Justice, Prudence, Temperance and Fortitude to the four brightest stars of the Southern Cross constellation. And in Alexander von Humbolt’s Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent 1799-1804, published in 1852, the popular scientist-explorer wrote:
A religious sentiment attaches them [the Spaniards] to a constellation the form of which recalls the sign of the faith planted by their ancestors in the deserts of the New World.
Von Humbolt drew his Crux with five stars contained within an angular cross.
Another sign of faith might have influenced the design of the Eureka Flag. Its five stars are eight-pointed. It is possible that this is because, in pattern-making terms, an eight-pointed star is the easiest to cut out quickly. But it is equally conceivable that the number of points was chosen with a less pragmatic view. In Christian religious iconography, the eight-pointed star is known as the Star of Redemption. Eight traditionally represents regeneration, hence the octagonal base of the baptismal font. (Noah also saved eight people on his ark and Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth.) So perhaps the eight-pointed Eureka stars symbolised new beginnings too: a new home, a new start, and now, a new and redemptive relationship of the governed to the laws that governed them. Early Fenian flags, flown by Irish republicans in the mid-nineteenth century, also employed eight-pointed stars.