Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution

by Peter Fitzsimons

  After much discussion, two motions are passed:

  That this meeting is of the opinion that their respected pastor has been insulted by the disgraceful maltreatment endured by his servant at the hands of a government officer.

  That this meeting is of the opinion that the Magistrates of Ballarat have been premature in the decision to which they have arrived on the matter, and that we … therefore call for a revision of the case, and if the evidence adduced demand a reversion of the sentence that such be promptly and publicly done.65

  Another step the meeting settles on is to immediately send a delegation to ‘wait upon the Bench’66 at Ballarat and demand the case be revisited …

  At meeting’s end the diggers are asked to make donations to the defence fund, at which point, sadly, there is hardly a flurry of pound notes. While it is one thing to put your hand in the air to vote for a motion, it is quite another thing to put that same hand in your purse - particularly when many of them have already given generously for McIntyre and Fletcher’s bail and defence fund.

  Early afternoon, 23 October 1854, on Bakery Hill, anger unites

  And yet so troubled are the Ballarat goldfields at this point that the following day, just 150 yards away atop Bakery Hill, a stunning 9000 diggers turn up to protest against the arrests of McIntyre and Fletcher and pass their own angry motions in their support. Donations are again called for, though the biggest cheer of the day comes when Sarah Hanmer, the American owner of the newly established Adelphi Theatre - ‘a vast tent, with plain benches and a rough stage’67 - announces that she will put on a benefit show the following night, with all proceeds going to the defence fund. Hurrah! The formation of a ‘Diggers’ Rights Society’ is discussed, and a committee is chosen, The Argus observes, ‘to tickle the Camp when it acted unconstitutionally’.68 Many note that it is Friedrich Vern who readily puts PS100 of his own money into the fund. There is something about Vern that is quite compelling. In the later words of digger John Lynch, ‘Brave words came bubbling from his lips, and he spoke with the air of one having authority.’69

  The meeting concludes with three groans for the turncoat Argus - which has been unaccustomedly critical of the diggers of late - and three cheers and one more for the kindness of Mrs Hanmer.70 As Bakery Hill is clearly visible to all those in the Government Camp, the massive gathering is regarded with some alarm. This alarm becomes all the greater when the report of the magistrate and shorthand writer is submitted as - following Sir Charles’s instructions - they were present and recorded all of the speeches.

  For Commissioner Rede, there are so many meetings going on, so many motions passed, so many petitions circulating, it is hard to keep track. What he does know is that the goldfields are now in a dangerous state of agitation.

  Not that he is afraid of the diggers by any means, or at all inclined to bow down to their demands. As a matter of fact, when the Catholic deputation comprising Timothy Hayes, Thomas Kennedy and the Irish firebrand John Manning - now the editor and reporter on The Ballarat Times - arrive for their first meeting with the Commissioner to express their concerns, the man with the gold lace on his uniform keeps them waiting so long they are insulted. Manning reports in the pages of his own newspaper, with the full approval of the owner and publisher, Henry Seekamp, ‘Mr Commissioner Rede, after detaining the deputation for an unreasonable time, at length made his appearance, and whether influenced by a sense of his own importance, or actuated with contempt for the deputation and its object, there appeared to be a certain haughtiness in his manner which offended the deputation.’71

  Finally, however, Rede grants the delegation their audience with the Bench, which comprises Police Magistrate Sturt, Acting Chief Commissioner of Police Captain Charles MacMahon and his goodly self.

  And he does give them one bit of good news: ‘The trooper who has so abused the priest’s man, and so insulted the priest himself, is now under arrest.’72

  Beyond that, however, the best the Bench can advise is that the only way to get the Lieutenant-Governor to reopen the case on the priest’s servant Gregorius is to get up yet another petition with thousands of signatures upon it - Maybe this one will actually make a difference? - and send it to His Excellency. Though Manning, for one, is growing fatigued with petitions and resolutions, the delegation tells him that they will organise just that and take their leave.

  Fine, Commissioner Rede for one is glad to see them go. For the truth of it is that he remains so horrified by the burning of the Eureka Hotel and is so little in the mood for conciliation on any front - let alone the matter of the priest’s servant - that the previous evening he wrote to the Colonial Secretary in Melbourne, offering his formal advice that the best way forward was to toughen the government’s stance, not soften it. ‘I would strongly advise … to arrest all implicated [in the burning of the Eureka Hotel] as far as possible and if anything like a serious resistance is made or an attempt at rescue, a lesson should be given them which should prove that the Government could insist …

  ‘I feel convinced that if the License Fee is to be continued it must be by coercion and the sooner the miners are shewn that coercion can be used successfully the better.’73

  In fact, with the arrival of the reinforcements, Commissioner Rede - who has long been caught between what he sees as his duty to impose the law, come what may, and his instinct to at least try to understand the grievances of the diggers and act accordingly - is feeling more aggressive by the day. It is his growing view that the essence of the problem is neither his administration nor the laws, but the fact that he is dealing with ‘the Tipperary Mob’74 - or ‘Young Ireland’, as Carboni terms the group - with headquarters on the Eureka lead near the Catholic church, and Irishmen looking for trouble where no trouble truly exists.

  Tuesday, 24 October 1854, the Legislative Council receives good news

  St Patrick’s Hall is an imposing building, standing proudly at 85 Bourke Street West. Constructed in classic Victorian style, in a manner reminiscent of a Renaissance palace, it has high ceilings, arched windows and classical Ionic columns. Dedicated to the ‘memory of Ireland’, the hall opened five years earlier and was so highly esteemed by both the people and the body politic that it is here that the Legislative Council has met since its first days of existence on 11 November of 1851. Despite this, rarely has that council discussed more grave issues than it has lately, with report after report coming in from the goldfields. Today, however, the news is good.

  Rising to speak, the Colonial Secretary, John Foster, is pleased to report that after the recent riot in Ballarat, ‘Captain Sturt, the Melbourne superintendent of police, with all the spare police, horse and foot, have been dispatched to Ballarat by the Government, together with a company or more of soldiers’.75 Altogether 450 soldiers and police, all armed, are now on Ballarat, meaning ‘that, no matter what the result might be, the law will be upheld, and it will be shown to the misguided men that the laws of the country are not to be broken with impunity’.76 Cheering breaks out around the chamber at this bit of news. The Government appears to at last have the situation regarding the men Foster considers as ‘lucky vagabonds’77 in hand.

  26-27 October 1854, on Ballarat, fortifications are strengthened

  The bastards! Despite the promises that there would be no more arrests made over the burning of the Eureka Hotel, over two days the authorities have put eight more diggers in manacles, including Henry ‘Yorkey’ Westerby and the American Albert Hurd. Yes, Yorkey and Hurd were involved, but they certainly were not the key instigators any more than the other six men. Who knew who did what in all that madness? It really does look like the authorities don’t care so long as they can be seen to be punishing a few of the diggers.

  Do they not understand?

  It seems not. Even when over subsequent days the charges against all bar McIntyre, Fletcher and Westerby are dismissed - mostly for want of evidence, and in the case of Hurd, perhaps because he was an American - the anger does not abate. It is
enough that the authorities intend to put three of their mates on trial, and likely in gaol, for engaging in what the diggers feel was a hugely justifiable act in the first place.

  (For his part, Attorney-General William Stawell is equally intransigent. Appalled at this first case of ‘lynch law’78 in the colonies, he is determined to make the charges stick and see the diggers held accountable for the unconscionable destruction.)

  Meanwhile at the Government Camp, as tensions on the goldfields continue to rise so does Rede’s fear that the digger discontent will turn into armed insurrection. The mood has become so dark in recent days, the stance of the mass of diggers so threatening, that Commissioner Rede is not at all confident that he has the military wherewithal on hand to defeat them.

  The first thing he decides to do is take measures to improve security and gives carriage of it to the finest military man on site, Captain John Wellesley Thomas, who arrived in command of a detachment of mounted men of the 40th Regiment just two days earlier in response to the urgent despatch requesting reinforcements after the burning of the Eureka Hotel. The highly decorated 32-year-old son of a gun of a famous British admiral has been with the 40th Regiment for the last 15 years, having graduated from the prestigious military college Sandhurst in southern England and served in front-line positions in Afghanistan and India. He arrived in Australia on his latest posting aboard Vulcan in late 1852.

  Sah!

  A slim, neat man with a slim, neat manner, Thomas is nevertheless extremely energetic and has no sooner arrived in Ballarat than he begins a detailed study of the Government Camp, going from building to building and - only occasionally pausing to stroke his slim, neat moustache - works out exactly how the compound might be better fortified for defence. He determines just how many soldiers and police are needed to guard each building, which unit they should come from, how many should be in reserve and where a cavalry of 26 sabres of the mounted 40th Regiment and 50 mounted police should position themselves, ready to counterattack should any major offensive be launched. Still not content, he instructs carpenters on where to bore holes in the wall for defenders to fire through. Water barrels are to be immediately filled and placed strategically throughout the camp, in case the rebels try to set fire to the buildings.

  ‘Responsible persons are to be appointed to take charge of, and arrange the issue of Ammunition’79 and all officers and ‘gentlemen’ not attached to any unit are to be held in reserve. If an attack beckons, all women and children are to be sent to the commissariat store building. Utmost silence is to be maintained, with no talking above a whisper, and all orders by officers and NCOs are to be given in a low voice.

  It is a comprehensive effort, and Commissioner Rede is highly impressed at Captain Thomas’s military acumen. He regrets it when Thomas is called back to Melbourne only shortly after compiling the plan.

  28 October 1854, Ballarat, the temper of the times starts to boil over

  Henry Seekamp is in his element.

  He is at his best when there is something to be upset about, and now there are more reasons upsetting him than he has fingers and toes, but he sums it up in a 28 October editorial in The Ballarat Times: ‘Everyone who has been a reflective spectator of the partial, oppressive, domineering and unjust line of conduct pursued of late by the authorities at Ballarat, must have considered the people less than men and worse than brutes to endure it much longer; must have considered the authorities more than men, and not less than gods to be able to continue their course of corrupt injustice without a serious interruption - without some popular and terrible demonstration of terrible disfavour …

  ‘The corruption of every department connected with the government in Ballaarat is become so notorious and barefaced that public indignation is thoroughly aroused; and though the expression of public feeling be for a time in abeyance on account of the numerous armed mercenaries lately sent up from town, the fire of indignation is not extinguished; it still smoulders, only to burn forth again with unabated and unbeatable vigour.

  ‘The Government deceive themselves most egregiously if they suppose that the present display of armed force is sufficient to overawe the miners into passive submission to any measure they please to bring forward, to any law they please to enact, or to protect its corrupt officials from the just indignation of an oppressed people.’80

  1 November 1854, Ballarat, the diggers gather at Bakery Hill in force

  And so it has come to this.

  On this afternoon a meeting to protest against the actions of the Ballarat authorities is attended by no fewer than 5000 diggers at Bakery Hill, where a few boards placed upon some tree stumps form a podium, allowing the meeting to begin at 2 pm.

  As Commissioner Rede and his staff watch nervously from the Government Camp, tension rises at the vision of such a large mass of men gathered in the one spot at the one time, talking about their unhappiness with the authorities. In response, Commissioner Rede gives orders that all his soldiers are to keep their weaponry close, while the sentry guard is doubled.

  ‘Every precaution is taken,’ one correspondent would note, ‘as if the authorities were in a real enemy’s country.’81

  The atmosphere, to begin with, is festive. In attendance is a German band - composed of diggers who have brought their musical instruments all the way from that nation - who play several popular airs. Around the speakers’ platform are placed the gaily coloured English, Scottish and Irish national flags, as well as those of France and the United States.

  There are many speakers, but the most powerful of them are, as ever, the organisers of this meeting: John Basson Humffray, Thomas Kennedy, George Black and Henry Holyoake. All of them had been heavily involved with the Chartist movement in England - Henry’s brother is no less than the great George Jacob Holyoake, England’s most famed Chartist and atheist - and all meet regularly at the Star Hotel on Main Road in Ballarat East, with people such as Sam Irwin, the regular contributor to the Geelong Advertiser, John Manning of The Ballarat Times, and, of course, Timothy Hayes, to discuss the issues of the day.82

  The first pressing issue is the need to have all the charges dropped against Fletcher, McIntyre and Westerby. Having journeyed to Geelong - where superior judicial authorities reside - in an effort to do exactly that, Henry Holyoake and a 27-year-old Canadian digger by the name of Charles Ross report back that there is no sign that their release from gaol is imminent, though everyone at Bakery Hill appreciates Holyoake and Ross’s efforts.

  An even larger issue is the continued attempts by officials from the Government Camp to make even more arrests for the burning down of the hotel, despite officials having intimated eight days earlier to the digger delegation that such arrests would cease.

  A strong resolution is passed condemning this outrage, and then the assembly begins to grapple with the issue of what they can do to stop these offenses.

  Now, as moral-force Chartists, those on the podium believe that the best method of change is by exactly that - the moral force of their arguments - calmly and consistently expressing the legitimate will of the people. Ideally, that view could also have been expressed via the ballot box. Yet, sadly, as diggers they have not been invited to contribute to the electoral process and are in fact barred from it as they do not satisfy the electors’ (let alone Members’) property qualifications. And they are not alone.

  The only people allowed to vote in the colony of Victoria for the 20 non-appointed members of the Legislative Council are those in possession of a freehold estate of the value of PS100, those who have been resident in a dwelling house with a value of PS10 per annum for at least six months, those holders of a lease with an annual value of PS10 with three years to run, and those holding a depasturing license. This means that only 4000 men out of a total Victorian population of some quarter million can vote at this time.

  And so the likes of Humffray and Holyoake warm to the theme that they must unite in their political actions, not only with each other but also with the diggers at ot
her goldfields, who are all facing the same issues. After debate and discussion lasting no less than three hours, they reach a resolution: ‘That the diggers of Ballarat do enter into a communication with the men of the other goldfields, with a view to the immediate formation of a general league, having for its object the attainment of the moral and social rights of the diggers.’83

  For those here at these diggings, the idea of this ‘reform league’ is to have a body that can express their united views and allow their voice to be heard by a Government that has allowed them no voice in its Legislative Council, apart from that coming from sympathisers like John Pascoe Fawkner. (Fawkner had, after all, recently published a pamphlet entitled, ‘Squatting Orders … Orders in Council … Locking Up the Lands of the Colony in the Hands of a Small Minority, Giving Them, Without Any Real Reason, the Right to Buy the Whole or Any Part of the Sixty Million Acres of This Fine Colony, at Their Own Price.’)

  Meanwhile at the meeting, one of the speakers, as recorded by Thomas Pierson, said, ‘If all the people would only just assert their rights that they [would be] able to maintain a Republican Government!’84

  As is ever his way, Thomas Kennedy goes further: ‘The press has called us demagogues, who must be put down,’ he thunders. ‘But I for one will die a free man, though I drink the poison as Socrates of yore. We have come 15,000 miles, and left the enlightenment of the age and of the press, not to suffer insult, but to obtain greater liberty. We want men to rule over us [not such as we have]. Most of all, we have to think of our children, who will grow up in this great colony, and all of us must never forget their own dearest interests.’85