Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution

by Peter Fitzsimons

  Soon enough, the more experienced of the diggers know roughly-as-gutsly what to expect as they get ever lower: After the relatively easy shovel digging through the rich, black surface soil, they come to the harder red clay about nine feet down, and this stratum can be up to 50 feet deep until they hit a flinty hard crust that is neither dirt nor rock, but so close to the latter you can barely tell the difference. This stratum is known to the diggers as ‘burnt stuff’,37 and is on the one hand hated because it quickly blunts the points of the pick that the blacksmith will soon charge another two shillings and sixpence to sharpen … but, on the other hand, looked forward to, because it means that easy digging is ahead. For after that comes a thin stratum, the yellow and blue clay of the men’s most vivid dreams.

  It is here, here, dear friends, once down to the level of the ancient creek bed, that our golden dreams are to be found, sometimes in small particles, sometimes in large nuggets and sometimes in smaller nuggets gathered together like bunches of grapes. If that is the case, what joy is ours! What riches are now in our possession!

  And there is still more to come as, at this level, we expand our small shaft out into a large chamber - the size we have been allotted on the surface - which requires a great deal more slabs and technical ingenuity to hold back the mud. Then we can gather the gold, the gold, and still more gold.

  And what was that line in the Reverend Dr John Dunmore Lang’s Australian Emigrant’s Manual, again? Ah, yes, here it is: ‘Are we not told in the word of God that the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof? The silver and the gold it contains are His, for He made it, that is the earth, and deposited these precious metals in it, as in a bank deposit, thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of years ago that they be searched for and found, and drawn forth, and turned to account by intelligent, enterprising and energetic men.’38

  Well, we have now accessed God’s account, Heaven is ours, and what a life we can now lead! For the wise, it will be a wonderful life for many years to come. For the foolhardy, just a few weeks in Melbourne, but it is all equally exciting.

  Failing to find gold, however, all the diggers can do is to keep digging until they hit solid rock, meaning they have ‘bottomed out’ and are without luck. Whichever way the ancient creek ran, it did not gurgle here. It is time to move on, to try to follow the lead of the creek elsewhere. If only that ancient brook had gone straighter it would have been easier to predict, but at least as it is, it means that even late arrivals have a chance of striking it lucky.

  All up, deep-shaft mining is gut-wrenching, dangerous work, taking an average of six months to reach paydirt - if it is there at all - and fatalities from collapsing mines are as frequent as the rewards are stupendous.

  But what is clear, as Carboni expresses it, is that Canadian Gully is ‘as rich in lumps as other goldfields are in dust. Diggers, whom the gold fever had rendered stark blind, so as to desert Ballarat for Mount Alexander and Bendigo, now returned as ravens to the old spot; and towards the end of February, ‘53, Canadian Gully was in its full glory’.39

  And of course - of course! - where there are diggers there are troopers not far behind, always in pursuit.

  As described by Carboni, ‘The troopers were despatched like bloodhounds, in all directions, to beat the bush; and the traps who had a more confined scent, creeped and crawled among the holes, and sneaked into the sly-grog tents round about, in search of the swarming unlicensed game. In a word, it was a regular hunt. Anyone who in Old England went fox-hunting, can understand pretty well, the detestable sport we had then on the goldfields of Victoria.’40

  And look here, there is no point in saying you have bought your license, but you just don’t have it on you. It must be on you at all times.

  Of course this is a real problem if you have the paper license in your pants when you’re engaged in often muddy mining, at the bottom of wet shafts or knee deep in the creek, but that is not our problem. It is the law, so show us your license or face the consequences. Those consequences are severe and include first being chained to trees and logs like wild dogs before you’re marched off to the Camp lock-up - a very rough wooden cell somehow as capable of keeping the prisoners in as it is incapable of keeping the weather out - where the only way free is to pay the license fee, plus a fine.

  What do you do, thus, when the cries of ‘Joe!’ go up, when you don’t have your license on you?

  Run, Ron! Like rabbits who have caught the scent of a fox in the wind, diggers disappear down their holes as if they are burrows, and then often head off into the labyrinthine tunnels that lie beneath. It is a brave trooper indeed who will venture down there, and for the most part diggers can safely remain underground until the ‘All clear!’ is sounded by their licensed mates above.

  Even then, however, the troopers have their ruses to effectively smoke their prey out. On one occasion, they dress a couple of troopers as dirty diggers and then have them put on a blue in a dispute over a claim. Of course, the inevitable cry goes up, ‘A ring! A ring!’,41 bringing real diggers from far and wide, including up from their holes. Then, just as the two ‘diggers’ are shaping up to strike their first blows, suddenly the traps with fixed bayonets appear on all sides, backed by troopers on horseback.

  ‘Present your licenses!’

  As if the traps had cast a fishing net where the shoal is at its thickest, on this occasion no fewer than 60 diggers without licenses are handcuffed to each other like common criminals and marched off to the lock-up, cursing all the while.

  It is all so appallingly unfair. Nearly all new arrivals have a starting point of very little or no capital at all, having spent everything on the materials to do the digging, their passage to the goldfields and then food and housing when they are there. That means, after scraping together the money to pay the initial license, they are dependent thereafter on finding enough gold to afford the next month’s instalment. Those who can’t have no choice but to try to proceed without a license, with many ending up in a cell for their trouble - not for being criminal, but for being merely unlucky. It is an infamy!

  And where does the license money of those who do manage to pay go? Certainly not towards providing any government facilities, schools or hospitals on the goldfields, for of these there is nothing - with the exception of the large Government Camp that houses their oppressors. No, it goes back to Melbourne, most of it, and pays the wages of the administration that is running this whole iniquitous system. Now, in another place, at another time, perhaps the people could mount a political action to change that system, but here, now, the diggers do not have the vote, and, apart from John Pascoe Fawkner, there is no consistent voice raised on their behalf in the Legislative Council.

  The Americans, of course, fought their War of Independence on precisely this issue - ‘no taxation without representation’ - and there are enough Americans on the goldfields conversant with the idea, not to mention British and Irish Chartists, that organised anger at this situation begins to bubble and spread.

  In the meantime, however, the hunts go on, day after day, week after week, on and on and on.

  On one occasion a digger by the name of Robert Serjeant returns with his mate to their hut to find the whole gully surrounded by troopers on a license-hunt. Serjeant and his mate are not worried for themselves as they both have their papers, but what about their other mate, the always unlicensed Joe - and for once, that is his real name - who they have left back at the hut?

  Aghast, they look to their hut where they can see smoke curling from the chimney into the chilly air. The door - an old flour sack stretched across a frame of wattle saplings - is wide open, and two Joes are heading towards their Joe!

  Hurrying forward to see if they can help, or talk the Joes out of it, they are just yards away from the entrance when the two troopers suddenly reel back from the open doorway.

  To Serjeant’s stunned amazement, and the troopers’ great surprise, they have been confronted by a rather bulky but certainly smart-looking
female, who asks them their business. Before they can even reply, however, she looks over their shoulders to see Serjeant and says, ‘Perhaps my brother can answer your enquiries, gentlemen!’42

  The Joes, however, have completely lost interest, beg the lady’s pardon and quickly head off. Clearly no lady such as this would ever be harbouring men without licenses.

  It is only when the troopers are safely out of earshot that Serjeant’s newly found ‘sister’ allows herself to throw up her heels and cut ‘most unladylike capers round the dining table’,43 as Serjeant would later describe it.

  What a lark! For the sister is, of course, Joe himself. Chortling all the while, he tells his mates he never has taken out a license, never will take out a license, and from this moment forth he is not to be addressed as Joe, but by his new name … Josephine!

  8 February 1853, Sofala, the Turon, New South Wales, coming to the ‘pinch’ …

  The diggers in New South Wales are not happy. By now most of them are concentrated around the Turon River, first prospected with minimal success by John Lister and James Tom two years earlier, and in certain places blessed with rich pickings.

  On this fine, hot morning, though, no fewer than 1000 of the diggers head off on ‘shank’s nag’ - digger parlance for walking - to cover the five miles into the township of Sofala, where they intend to make their views known about the Goldfields Management Act of 1853, which has been championed by the hero of the squatters, William Charles Wentworth. The central thrust of the Act is that henceforth the diggers’ license fee is not only doubled on aliens - defined as any non-British foreigners - to 60 shillings, but it would also apply to all people on the goldfields over the age of fourteen, whether engaged in mining or not - of course, ‘except in connection with pastoral or agricultural pursuits’,44 whose practicants get off scot-free.

  The diggers know precisely what that is about. Wentworth, on behalf of the squatters, is trying to make things ever more difficult for those on the goldfields and force them back to work on the squatters’ properties. As a matter of fact, in the diggers’ view, this is what the whole license fee has been about from the beginning.

  And the diggers on the Turon River have had a gutful of it. Pausing only, as recorded by The Sydney Morning Herald journalist on the spot, to ‘[break] the cradles of those who had taken out licenses and were working,’45 they continue streaming towards the meeting place. Among them are some thinly scattered Aboriginal miners, who have a strong history of protesting against the license fee. A few months earlier, one miner had overheard an Aboriginal miner ‘chaffing a sergeant of the mounted police … asking him what business had he or any other white fellow to come and take his land, and rob him of his gold? What would [the sergeant] say, if a black fellow went to England and “turn ‘em Queen out”?’46 This was very much in the vein of a group of Aboriginal diggers the year before who, when asked to show their licenses at Forrest Creek, replied to the mounted police that ‘the gold and land [are ours] by right so why should [we] pay money to the Queen?’ 47

  Another digger, James Bonwick, had met a party of natives at Bullock Creek, ‘well clothed, with a good supply of food, new cooking utensils and money in their pockets. One remarked with a becoming expression of dignity “me no poor blackfellow now, me plenty rich blackfellow”.’ 48

  Sadly, however, the rich blackfellows remain a rarity and, on this day, it is mostly fairly poor whitefellows on the march. Astute observers note that many of them have bulky, odd shapes showing up beneath their shirts at belt level - obviously guns - and their broad view is expressed in a large sign painted on canvas that adorns the podium in Sofala, where they now assemble:

  ‘AUSTRALIA EXPECTS THAT EVERY MAN THIS DAY WILL DO HIS DUTY.’49

  And that duty is to fight, to protest, to make themselves heard! The best way to do that, in the view of the Chair of the meeting, a Mr Maxwell, is to not pay the license fee - a view that is all but unanimously acclaimed, with speaker after speaker lining up to agree.

  At first the idea is for all the men to march on the Commissioner at his headquarters and tell him they will no longer pay their license fees, but when it is decided that this is too provocative, the meeting agrees to send just four men instead, as a delegation.

  When those four men take their leave to do exactly that, crossing the Turon River to present themselves, the situation becomes rather odd. Once they advise the Commissioner and his police of their intent, they are treated with great courtesy.

  ‘Do you have licenses?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you intend taking licenses?’

  ‘No, not while this law remains in force.’

  ‘Very well, we are sorry you have involved us in the disagreeable necessity of taking you, but other than to do our duty we have no alternative!’50

  And the four are indeed arrested.

  Apprised of this news, the masses on the other side of the river react savagely.

  ‘To the rescue!’51 comes the cry. Some diggers take out their pistols, while others wildly flourish clubs, and all set off to do exactly that when the local Wesleyan minister, the Very Reverend Mr Piddington, rushes to the platform and implores the mob to at least wait a while, stay their anger and see if there might be a peaceful solution.

  Sure enough, a second delegation of miners is soon advised that the first delegation will be released upon paying a fine of PS1 each, which they do. Further, the Commissioner politely informs them that there will be no more pursuits for license fees until further instructions are received from Sydney, and a universal bonhomie replaces the anger. ‘At parting they gave the Commissioners three cheers, and the latter acknowledged the salutes.’52

  As the satisfied diggers return to their huts and tents, a happy calm descends on the Turon River goldfields once more. Violent disaster has been averted by wise counsel, a decent Commissioner and goodwill on all sides.

  The correspondent for the Empire is among those impressed, noting the great forbearance of the officials from making a difficult situation worse. ‘They have, I say, done their duty, and to their coolness, firmness and prudence, must be attributed the shedding of no blood, this day, upon the Turon.’53

  He is under no illusion, however, as to who is to blame for what could have been a catastrophic situation. For it is neither the diggers, nor the Commissioners and their men, ‘but evil be to them who have framed laws to bring friends into deadly collision’.54

  May 1853, Ballarat continues to grow

  Ballarat is not only growing wider as ever more people flood in and dig deeper, but it is also growing up. By now the streets that the government surveyor, Mr Urquhart, had first drawn on a piece of paper only eighteen months earlier are actually taking shape. Though habitations of canvas still predominate, here and there they are giving way to stone and wood as more and more diggers - particularly those with a missus and kids - are choosing to live in solid constructions.

  You can often tell where the Americans are living because they tend to build log cabins and display their curious flag of stars and stripes, while the English and most other Europeans favour habitations composed of bullock hides and sheep skins nailed to vertical slabs of wood for walls under tin roofs. As to the Irish … well, the only symmetry to their huts is that individually they tend to have no symmetry at all. As described by William Howitt, ‘They seem to be tossed up, rather than built.’55

  And, of course, now that the town is more established, some of the new constructions are businesses, like banks and stores.

  In a community with as much sudden wealth as Ballarat, there prove to be many ways of making money that do not involve digging for gold. Selling supplies to the diggers, for example, can reap enormous profits for a canny operator. Many of the stores springing up in town are as extraordinary for the diversity of their contents as for their expense. Inside the doors are to be found everything from sugar-candy to potted anchovies; from East India pickles to Bass’s pale ale; from ankle jackboots to a pair
of stays; from a baby’s cap to a cradle; and every apparatus for mining, from a pick to a needle … Here lies a pair of herrings dripping into a bag of sugar, or a box of raisins; there a gay-looking bundle of ribbons beneath two tumblers, and a half-finished bottle of ale. Cheese and butter, bread and yellow soap, pork and currants, saddles and frocks, wide-awakes and blue serge shirts, green veils and shovels, baby linen and tallow candles, are all heaped indiscriminately together.56

  One can pay for this with pounds, but the shopkeepers’ preference, of course, is for the currency of all of their dreams: gold. And yet in these exchanges, as the veteran diggers know, they must be more than careful. As elucidated by Ellen Clacy, who has spent many months on the goldfields by this time, there are many ruses. One is to weigh the gold in separate lots, on the reckoning that scales could not cope with the whole, and then, in the quick calculations adding it all up, make a mistake in the shopkeeper’s favour. Another method is to fix the scales themselves so they always weigh light, and still another is to have the gold dust weighed in a zinc pan with slightly raised sides. Clacy is one who notes that these pans are then ‘well rubbed over with grease; and under the plea of a careful examination, the purchaser shakes and rubs the dust, and a considerable quantity adheres to the sides. A commoner practice still is for examiners of gold-dust to cultivate long finger-nails, and, in drawing the fingers about it, gather some up.’57