by Clare Wright
41 Kristin Phillips on Youtube, 12 May 2013: ‘2010 Eureka Flag Conservator Kristin Phillips on conserving an Australian icon’. In August 2013 she added this in an email:
It would have taken longer than a couple of nights to make the flag. It is big. The cutting out and pinning would have been difficult without a reasonable space to work in. By my very rough calculation there are approximately twenty-nine metres of seams and the flat felled seam is double—requiring two rows of hand stitching—so that’s effectively fifty-eight metres of sewing. Flat out, with the seam all ready to go and no pinning etc., you can sew at about a metre per half hour. So at best that would mean that the time it would take to hand sew the fifty-eight metres would be twenty-nine hours. But you have to cut it, pin it and work out how to physically fit the people around the flag, as you couldn’t all be doing it at the same time. For example, as you sew around a star you need to move the flag around so your hand is in the right spot, which affects the other people working on it. I would think that this would effectively double the time required, so sixty hours at the very least; and, again, this is not including the time to cut it out and pin it.
42 Artlab Australia, Condition Assessment, Eureka Flag, May 2010.
43 PROV VPRS 1189/92 K54.13.511.
44 Geelong Advertiser, 2 December 1854.
45 PROV VPRS 1085/08.
46 Ballarat Courier, 5 December 1904.
47 PROV VPRS 1085/08.
48 Argus, 11 April 1917. Frederick Vern later wrote that Lalor stepped forward because he was the only public speaker there at the time. Vern and Captain Ross were down at the Eureka.
49 John Molony claims that Kennedy’s words are an old Scottish saying, 93.
50 Anne Diamond née Keane gave evidence to the Gold Fields Commission of Enquiry on 26 December 1854.
51 In his essay, ‘Eureka: Why Hotham Decided to Swoop’, Geoffrey Blainey also argues that the Eureka Stockade was a strategic disaster, but for another reason. He argues that if the miners had fought a guerilla war, fanning out among the hills, bush and tents instead of barricading themselves in like sitting ducks, they could have ‘won’. Blainey takes too literal an idea of warfare here. The Stockade was symbolic, not strategic.
52 Vern claimed that although Lalor knelt down and swore to protect each other, he did not ask the miners to swear allegiance to the flag.
53 PROV VPRS 1189/92 K54.512.
54 PROV VPRS 1189/92 K54/13.570.
55 PROV VPRS 12882.3 no. 27.
56 Report of the Ballarat correspondent to the Geelong Advertiser, written at 5am on 1 December 1854.
TWELVE: BLOODY SUNDAY
1 The Geelong Advertiser (1 December 1954) noted that the absence of drunken men was remarkable.
2 Money, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, was described at the time as a play which, for pathos, unexaggerated sentiment and elegant sarcasm, stands unrivalled in modern dramatic literature. It premiered at the Haymarket Theatre in London in 1840. Hobart Courier, 7 October 1854.
3 Geelong Advertiser, 2 December 1854.
4 Ballarat Times, 3 December 1854.
5 Eyewitness H. R. Nicholls revealed this detail in his 1890 reminiscences.
6 The letter is quoted in Molony, though no source is given.
7 Interview with Stephen Cuming in Ballarat Courier, 3 December 1897.
8 Menstrual synchrony among co-habiting women is widely accepted in the scientific literature. Lunar synchrony is more controversial but has its champions within orthodox science. See, for example, W. B. Cutler and C. R. Garcia, ‘The Psychoneuroendocrinology of the Ovulatory Cycle of Women: A Review’, Psychoneuroendocrinology, vol. 5, 1979, 89–111. In ‘Menstrual Synchrony—An Update and Review’, C. A. Graham concludes that although menstrual synchrony is widely documented in scientific studies, the precise mechanisms involved and the adaptive function of menstrual synchrony are still not understood. Human Nature, vol. 2, issue 4, 1991, 293–311. There is an extensive literature of women’s health and spirituality devoted to lunar menstrual synchrony. See, for example, Lara Owen, Her Blood is Gold: Celebrating the Power of Menstruation (San Francisco: Harper, 1993).
9 Evidence of policeman Robert Tully at the state trials: Geelong Advertiser, 28 February 1855.
10 Blainey makes the point about the strategic benefit of this single hour of darkness for an advancing army in his essay ‘Eureka: Why Hotham Decided to Swoop’.
11 An incident in an 1873 riot in Clunes, a mining town close to Ballarat, demonstrates that women did expose their breasts in times of conflict. William Spence, a miner turned union organiser, tells the story of the riot by striking miners and their families in his 1909 memoir, Australia’s Awakening:
Nearby was a heap of road metal, and arming herself with a few stones, a sturdy North of Ireland woman, without shoes or stockings, mounted the barricade as the coaches drew up. As she did she called out to the other women, saying: ‘Come on, you Cousin Jinnies, bring me the stones and I will fire them’. The sergeant in charge of the police presented his carbine at the woman and ordered her to desist. Her answer was to bare her breast and say to him: ‘Shoot away, and be damned to ye, better be shot than starved to death.’
12 Despatch from Thomas to Hotham, VPRS 1085/08.
13 The observations of Charles Schulze are drawn from his eyewitness account, held by the National Library of Australia. Schulze called the cry of Joe! A kind of Masonic password.
14 Anne Diamond, evidence to Gold Fields Commission of Enquiry.
15 Geelong Advertiser, 25 January 1855.
16 Geelong Advertiser, 6 December 1854.
17 PROV VPRS 1189.101 c55/11.052.
18 Charles Evans’ diary.
19 Geelong Advertiser, 6 December 1854.
20 PROV VPRS 1189/240 54/J14453.
21 Story recounted in Laurel Johnson, Women of Eureka.
22 ‘Grandma hid miner under her skirt at Eureka’, Ballarat News, 15 June 1983.
23 William Withers says James McGill met Sarah Hanmer at The Springs.
24 The observation is noted by Charles Evans.
25 The deposition of Henry Powell was reprinted in the Argus, 15 December 1854.
26 PROV VPRS 5527/P, unit 2, item 9.
27 Evidence of Thomas Millan and John Doherty, state trials, reported in GA 28 Feb 1855.
28 PROV VPRS 1189.101 c55/11.052.
29 The incident is recounted in R. S. Ross’s 1914 account, Eureka: Freedom’s Fight of ’54. Ross was a socialist journalist and trade union organiser, born in Sydney in 1873.
30 PROV VPRS 1189/204.
31 PROV VPRS 1189/240 54/J14433.
32 The story was recounted to R. S. Ross.
33 Geelong Advertiser, 6 December 1854.
34 Martha Clendinning ended up with a piece of the flag. She said it was a gift from Dr Carr. It was among her papers donated to the State Library of Victoria.
35 PROV VPRS 1085/08.
36 PROV VPRS 1189/94.
CONCLUSION: A DAY AT THE RACES
1 The Gold Fields Commission of Enquiry was first instigated in late October 1854 with the purpose of sending men of high standing to the goldfields to hear and enquire into complaints against officials, particularly seeking out instances of corruption or maladministration. Instructions were issued to the chairman, Westgarth, on 16 November and commissioners named. However, no paperwork appointing members was signed and sealed by the governor until 7 December, after events in Ballarat precipitated government action.
2 Thatcher Papers. Thatcher’s misogyny is only surpassed by his anti-Semitism.
3 Thatcher’s Colonial Songster, 7.
4 Desertions were recorded in the Victorian Government Gazette.
5 Quoted in Neil Smith, Soldiers Bleed Too, 21.
6 PROV VPRS 5527/P/2/9. This is Richards’ sworn deposition at the state trials. Anastasia’s words have been quoted differently in many secondary sources.
7 Geelong Advertiser, 28 February 1855.
8 The
bill was passed by the Victorian Legislative Council in 1854, leading some historians to argue that the Eureka Stockade played no part in bringing democracy to Australia. This is a view to which J. B. Humffray was himself partial. In 1884 he declared that it was a romantic nonsense to claim, as some did, that the Victorian Constitution was cradled in the Eureka Stockade. The constitution, he corrected, was drawn up by La Trobe and passed by the old Legislative Council, so that it was already nursed, weaned and full grown by December 1854. According to Humffray, it was a complete delusion to think that the Eureka Stockade riots had anything to do with the current Victorian Constitution. (Ballarat Star, 29 July 1884.) It was not a popular view. Geoffrey Blainey was to attract a similar level of public hostility when he proffered much the same thesis in The Rush That Never Ended in 1963.
9 PROV VPRS 1189/244, M55/735.
10 Geelong Advertiser, 3 December 1855.
11 Hobart Courier, 11 December 1855.
12 The extracts of Lady Hotham’s diary are held in the Hotham Papers at Hull University in England. Lady Hotham transcribed these few pages of her diary, plus scores of condolence letters she received from individuals and associations in Victoria, into one neat volume in her precise and elegant hand.
13 Isene Goldberg, Queen of Hearts, 280.
14 Melbourne Punch, 28 February, 1856, 27.
15 Ballarat Times, 8 September 1856.
16 Argus, 5 February 1856.
17 Quoted in Charles Fahey, Heather Holst, Sara Martin and Alan Mayne, ‘A Miner’s Right: Making Homes and Communities on the Victorian Goldfields’, in Alan Mayne (ed.), Eureka: Reappraising an Australian Legend, API Network Books, Perth, 2006, 202. Fahey et al. have interpreted the miner’s right as the most important instrument in the social transformations that occurred in the wake of the gold rush.
18 For examples of miner’s rights held by women, see George McArthur Collection, Special Collections, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne.
19 Ballarat Times, 12 September 1856.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
A NOTE ON SOURCES
This bibliography contains the primary and secondary sources that most influenced my research and thinking in the writing of this book over the course of a decade. It is by no means an exhaustive list of published and unpublished material on the subject of the Eureka Stockade or the Victorian gold rushes.
The full references for material cited in-text and in the endnotes can be found here.
Note that the Public Record Office of Victoria (PROV) holds an extensive collection of archives related to the management and regulation of the Victorian goldfields in general and the Eureka Stockade in particular. Individual accession records for material cited in this book can be found in the endnotes.
PROV series most useful to this study are as follows:
VPRS 30 Office of the Crown Solicitor, Criminal Trial Briefs
VPRS 937 Victoria Police, Inward Registered Correspondence
VPRS 1085 Governor's Office, Duplicate Despatches from the Governor to the Secretary of State
VPRS 1189 Colonial Secretary's Office, Inward Registered Correspondence
VPRS 3219 Colonial Secretary's Office, Outward Registered Correspondence
VPRS 3253 Legislative Assembly, Original Papers Tabled in the Legislative Assembly
VPRS 4066 Governor's Office, Inward Correspondence
VPRS 5527 Attorney-General's Department, Eureka Stockade—Historical Collection
VPRS 7601 Licensing Courts, Licensing Register—Metropolitan
VPRS 11878 Legislative Assembly, Select Committee Records, Sessional Arrangement
VPRS 1288 Department of Crown Lands and Survey, Index to Applications Registers, All Districts, Section 42, Land Act 1865
VPRS 12882 Resident Commissioner for Crown Lands at the Goldfields Ballarat Inwards and Outwards Correspondence Regarding the Ballarat Riots
VPRS 289 Ballarat Courts, Court Records (includes Petty Sessions Registers 1854–1962)
VPRS 1011 Outward Correspondence Books
VPRS 61 Denominational School Board, Inward Registered Correspondence
VPRS 24 Registrar-General's Department, Inquest Deposition Files
PRIMARY SOURCES
(Vic), Maryborough. Records, 1851–1902, 1851–1902. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 10943.
Adams, Bethuel. Diary of Bethuel H. Adams, 1853. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, H15970.
Adams, David, ed. The Letters of Rachel Henning. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin, 1988.
Anderson, Robert. Robert Anderson Diary, 1851–56. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 8492.
Andrews, Silas. A True Story of Early Victorian Days from a Diary Written by Silus Andrews, 1852–57. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 10943.
Anon. Craig’s Royal Hotel, Ballarat. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 01/111.
Archer, William Henry. Archer Papers, 1854. University of Melbourne Archives, 64/10.
Austin, Anna. Letter to Lizzy, 1856. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 10514.
Barrett, James. Letter to Sister Betsy, 1854. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, AJCP M866.
Batey, Isaac. Isaac Batey Reminiscences, 1910. Royal Historical Society of Victoria, MS 000035.
Belinfante, Solomon. Ship Diary, 1854. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, PA 98/76.
Bentley Murder Trial: Transcript of Evidence. 1854. Royal Historical Society of Victoria, MS 15327 MS 000283 (Carr).
Birchall, Lucy. Papers, 1855. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 9328.
Bogg, Henry. Letters to Mother, 1854. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, PA 99/68.
Boldrewood, Rolf. The Miner’s Right: A Tale of the Australian Goldfields. 1973 edn, Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1890.
Bond, John James. The Diary of J. J. Bond, 1853–54. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, AJCP M724.
Bonwick, James. Australian Gold Digger’s Monthly Magazine and Colonial Family Visitor. 8 vols Melbourne: Argus Office, 1852.
—–—. Notes of a Gold Digger and Gold Digger’s Guide. Melbourne, 1852.
Boynton, Alpheus. Diary of Alpheus Boynton, 1852–56. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, ML MSS 1058.
Bridges, Walter. The Travels of Walter Bridges, c. 1856. Central Highlands Library (Ballarat).
Bristow, Mary. Aunt Spencer’s Diary, 1854. Royal Historical Society of Victoria, MS 23801.
Brothers, Lazarus. Lazarus Brothers’ General Almanac for 1866. Melbourne, 1866.
Brown, H. Letter to Sister, 1854. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 12255.
Bushman, A. Sidney’s Australian Hand-Book: How to Settle and Succeed in Australia. London, 1848.
Caffyn, Mrs Mannington. ‘Victims of Circe.’ In Coo-Ee: Tales of Australian Life by Australian Ladies, edited by Mrs Patchett Martin. London: Richard Edward King, 1891.
Caldwell, Robert. The Gold Era of Victoria: Being the Present and Future of the Colony in Its Commercial, Statistical and Social Aspects. London: Orr and Co, 1855.
Calwell, Davis. Calwell Family Letters, 1853–55. Royal Historical Society of Victoria, MS 000476.
Cannon, Michael, ed. The Victorian Goldfields 1852–3: An Original Album by S.T. Gill. Melbourne: State Library of Victoria, 1982.
Capper, John. Phillips’ Emigrants’ Guide to Australia. Liverpool: George Phillip and Son, 1855.
Carboni, Raffaello. The Eureka Stockade. Edited by Geoffrey Serle. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1855.
—–—. Letter to W. Archer, 1854. Royal Historical Society of Victoria, MS 000315.
Chisholm. Chisholm Family Letters, 1854–75. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 10512.<
br />
Chisholm, Caroline. Caroline Chisholm, 1854. Royal Historical Society of Victoria, MS 000422.
Clacy, Mrs Charles. A Lady’s Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852–53: Written on the Spot. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1853.
—–—. Lights and Shadows of Australian Life. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1854.
Clancy, Patricia and Allen, Jeanne. The French Consul’s Wife: Memoirs of Céleste de Chabrillan in Gold-Rush Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1998.
Clark, Seth Rudolphus. Seth Rudolphus Clark Diary, 1852–58. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 10436.
Cleland, Robert Glass. Apron Full of Gold: The Letters of Mary Jane Megquier from San Francisco, 1849–56. California: Huntington Library, 1949.
Clendinning, Martha. Recollections of Ballarat: A Lady’s Life at the Diggings Fifty Years Ago, 1892. State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 10102/1.
Council, Historical Committee of the Women’s Centenary. Records of the Pioneer Women of Victoria. Melbourne: Osboldstone, 1937.
Council, Women’s Centenary. Records of the Pioneer Women of Victoria, 1934. Australian Manuscripts Collection, State Library of Victoria.
Coyne, J. Stirling. Wanted, 1,000 Spirited Young Milliners for the Gold Diggings: A Farce in One Act, 1852. University of Melbourne, Special Collections, SpC/MCL L-D Coyne.
Cripps, James. James Cripps Reminiscences, 1906. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, MLMSS 1524.
D’Ewes, John. Ballarat in 1854. London: Richard Bentley, 1857.