Eureka

The events that occurred on the Ballarat goldfields leading up to the Eureka stockade can be traced without much difficulty. But the question of why Eureka occurred cannot be so easily evaluated because historians have a wide array of views about the causes that prompted such an historic rebellion.

Geoffrey Serle (1965: 42), listed the major causal factors of Eureka that include the existence of the gold licence system and the repressive methods of collection, the policy and attitude of Lieutenant-Governor Sir Charles Hotham, the inefficiency and corruption of the Ballarat administration, the inability to acquire land and issues relating to the absence of political rights (Serle, 1965: 62).

The first reported sighting of gold was in New South Wales in 1851. This brought many Australians back from the Californian gold fields and by August 25 1851, the colonial government had put forward a licence fee of thirty shillings a month for those people wanting to dig the gold fields (Gold 1977:9). There was immediate outrage by the diggers and a mass meeting was soon organised. Alfred Clarke, Geelong Advertiser reported: Thirty shillings for twenty-six days work is the impost demanded by our Victorian Czar. . . I say, unhesitatingly, fearlessly and conscientiously that there has not been a more gross attempt at injustice since the days of Wat Tyler (Gold 1977:10)

The miners’ licence (appendix 1) was introduced to raise government revenue and also to control the movement of free labour as many people left their job for the gold fields. One month after introducing licence fees Goldfield’s Commissioner Doveton enforced the payment of fees and was accompanied to Ballarat by a contingent of troopers and police to issue licences and collect revenue. The diggers had already banded together and organised a protest meeting against the price and restriction of land that a licence entitled a digger. The diggers wanted either more land for their money or to pay only five shillings per month for the 12’x12’ size of land they were entitled. No discussions took place in negotiating the licence fee and so Doveton strongly replied to the diggers: I am not here to make the law but to administer it, and if you don’t pay the licence I’ll be damned soon make you pay it (Gold 1977:13). Doveton, and the repressive role of the police was not enough to initiate the payment of licences until late October 1851 due to the strength of the diggers unrest. It was only when police and military presence was increased that the diggers finally bought their licences although they were all still against the price. There was also greater government malpractice and police corruption in that government officials were robbing diggers who paid for their licences in gold by undervaluing the price of their gold. Shortly later the police were instructed to make ‘digger hunts’ and arrested those who were unlicenced. An unlicenced digger was one who could not produce a licence when demanded to do so irrespective of whether he had paid his fees. The hated ‘digger hunts’ became a favoured sport for the authorities who would continually harass the diggers and reports revealed significant maltreatment of the diggers (Gold 1977:14).

Hostility grew among the prospecting community when it was announced by the government that a new licence fee of three pounds (double the previous fee) was to be introduced on January 1 1852; the fee was also to be paid by people involved with the gold diggings such as cooks and tent keepers (Gold 1977:16). Thousands of diggers made extraordinary demands for guns and pistols; and when the inquisitive authorities realised that the diggers had no reason to shoot at gold, the government reluctantly cancelled the original proclamation of raising the licence fee. A violent clash was narrowly avoided which proved advantageous for the government as the police force was severely depleted, numbering only a few hundred, and thus would have struggled to quell any uprisings at that time. During 1853, tension between the diggers and the consistently repressive police continually increased and many clashes were apparent, especially when police corruption was brought to the surface which the police responded to with greater force in order to preserve their authority (Gold 1977:20). An incident where the police were ordered to cock their weapons to show their strength proved unsuccessful when one policeman slipped and fired, killing a man instantly. A crowd of 2000 diggers immediately swamped the police, the constable was severely beaten whilst the rest were disarmed, beaten and pelted with rocks and stones (ibid).

Sir Charles Hotham, the newly appointed Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Victoria, was a man who “from the commencement took everything, great and small, into his own hands (Legislative Assembly). Hotham’s position required him to make irreversible decisions about the successful running of the colony including economic matters and issues concerning the strength of the police and military forces. The beginning of 1854 saw a very weak police and military presence in Ballarat. The military mainly consisted of retired British soldiers who were seen as an older less efficient military force. These soldiers made up the Corps of Enrolled Pensioners who were seen to be forever drunk and useless. In 1854, Police Sub-Inspector Arthur Taylor described the uselessness of such a corps:

At about one o’clock pm on this day, the Lock-up Keeper requested me to accompany him to the prison to see the state of the sentry posted there. I went, and found the sentry (one of the Enrolled Pensioners) lying on his face and hands insensibly drunk. His [fire]arms were placed by the side of the door. I sent for the Sergeant Major of Pensioners and had him relieved. The man was in such a state that he was obliged to be carried away on the shoulders of another man (VPRS 937: box 10).

Many accounts of the Enrolled Pensioners were reported to the police and military forces as being inefficient. Early September 1854 saw the gradual breakdown and withdrawal of the Corps and in their place arrived a detachment of the 40th Regiment from Melbourne.

More police were dispatched to Ballarat from areas such as Geelong (VPRS 937: box 212), and in October 1854 an enquiry into the quantity and conditions of the munitions revealed that there was enough ammunition available to overpower any major civil rebellion (VPRS 1189: box 140). The hasty enquiry into munition stores and the movement of police into Ballarat was a sign that the police were expecting some kind of hostility by the diggers.

In August 1854, eight months after the Legislative Council agreed to a reduction of licence fees from thirty shillings to one pound (twenty shillings) per month or eight pounds for a yearly licence, Hotham estimated a £1,000,000 deficit for the 1884 budget (Gold 1977:52). Customs, gold, and land were the three possible sources of large scale revenue for the Victorian Government in 1853 – 1854, but with customs revenue down 40%, gold by 39%, and land by 32% the estimated £1,000,000 debt blew out to a £2,000,000 deficit by the end of 1854 (ibid). Also having noticed that there was an increase in the number of diggers who refused to pay their licence fees, Hotham, who “seldom or never asked for advice” (VPRS 937: box 10) saw that the diggers could solve his budget problems if he introduced bi-weekly licence hunts. Foolishly he did so and the police again implemented repressive actions, harassed diggers and arrested them if they refused to pay their fees. Hence, Hotham’s budget strategy (which was believed to be wrong by his advisers in Melbourne) shaped the events that later occurred in Ballarat.

The diggers on all gold fields soon became distraught, and February 1853 saw, for the first time, the New South Wales authorities being forced to give into the demands of 400 armed men at the town of Turon Valley (Gold 1977:56). Some six months later 90% of the diggers in Bendigo were wearing red ribbons on their hats to show the authorities that they had not and would not pay their licence fees. This idea of resisting the payment of fees grew in number and a movement in Castlemaine saw the diggers prepared for armed action against the military. It is believed that on every gold field during the licence hunt, miners resisted the authorities by pelting rocks and stones at the patrolling troops and thus created decoys for unlicenced diggers to flee or hide.

A major change in the police force included the introduction of police detectives in 1844. These plain clothed personnel were regarded as very suspicious and whose methods of policing were regarded as foreign, provocative, and inhumane forms of entrapment (MacFarlane 1995: 74). Detective James Ashley advised the Legislative Council that detectives would play an integral part in the policing of the gold fields. Two hours before the burning down of the Eureka Hotel on 17 November 1854, hotel owner James Bentley deposited cash, silverware and jewellery at the Bank of New South Wales (MacFarlane 1995: 74). Bentley had been aware of strong rumors of impending trouble and thus indicated that there was a major failure in police awareness of such rumors. Detectives were soon at the scene of the Eureka Hotel but were too late in communicating with the relevant authorities. Robert Rede relied more and more heavily on his plain clothed informants as the situation at Ballarat deteriorated. Sir Charles Hotham wanted more information about the strengths and objectives of the Ballarat Reform League which was officially formed on November 11 1854. Gold digger Stephen Cummins, commented on how the diggers viewed the police Some of the diggers would sooner meet a serpent as a policeman. A trooper is looked upon as a devil, no better (Goldfields Commission). A dramatic warning had been given to police spies when Dr. Carr who was thought to be a government spy by those who attended an armed diggers meeting, was swiftly escorted away with a cocked revolver. Surveyor Thomas Burr escaped being captured by the diggers three times and after each time relayed messages back to Rede about the diggers activities. Burr passed information on to Rede that the object of the renegade diggers was to storm the Government Camp at Ballarat ‘and murder every person connected with it’(Goldfields Commission:ibid p.139: para 2767), before proceeding to Melbourne, perhaps to set up a republic. A major weakness of the diggers intentions was that the diggers intent and movements were known to all even the Government officials. American miner Charles Ferguson noted: Anyone was allowed in the camp or stockade who wished to visit it, and the consequences was that the government sent in spies who kept the enemy posted on every move of the diggers (Ferguson: 1979: 58).

On 20th November 1854, Colonel Secretary Foster wrote on behalf of the Governor, to military authorities, an account which described the tension at Ballarat: Recent events have pointed out to him the uncertain temper of the vast population on the Gold Fields; no-one from day to day can tell when an outbreak may arise, and therefore it is very necessary to have a sufficient force in hand to check a riot in the bud (VPRS 3219). Foster continued to discuss the possible deployment of Volunteer Corps in order to assist the police and military presence (ibid).

On November 28, Captain Charles Pasley witnessed a large number of military and police personnel enter Ballarat (VPRS 1189: box 153). A second party of soldiers and mounted police entered Ballarat later that day and had rocks and stones pelted at them by diggers. Some of the military were held captive temporarily, and others were stripped of their weapons, whilst one cart was overturned and being looted of its munitions. This attack resulted in the hospitalisation of six soldiers and police and whilst many shots were fired none came from the military (ibid). This attack on the military and police forces strongly emphasised the diggers’ angry feelings toward the Ballarat administration and its authoritarian forces. The police and military presence could not hope to be accommodating in nature especially when the unwelcomed licence hunts were still much a part of the weekly routine. Since 11 November 1854, when approximately 10,000 diggers held a mass meeting whereby they pledged themselves to work for: a full and fair representation, manhood suffrage, no property qualification of members for the legislative council, a change in the administration of the gold fields by the dismissal of the commissioners, and abolishing the diggers’ and storekeepers’ tax (Clark, 1963: 122), the number of soldiers grew from 247 to around 800 men by November 29 (VPRS 1095).

November 29 1854, saw the diggers assemble for another mass meeting which ended up with them burning their licences in a huge bonfire (Clark, 1963: 122). The commissioner absurdly (and perhaps vindictively) chose the next day for a licence hunt, which infuriated the diggers who then built a stockade at Eureka in Ballarat. The resistance against the fees and other related causes were at boiling point and it was after three years of resistance of the diggers and repression of the authorities that on 30 November 1854, on Bakery Hill, Ballarat, a vote was finally taken by the diggers to form up into regiments (Gold 1977:56).

The diggers erected a flag by which they took an oath of loyalty, and upon the morning of December 3 1854, 300 well armed troops and soldiers attacked the stockade and battled with the 120 residents for about ten to fifteen minutes. The troops and soldiers were reported to have mutilated bodies that had been fatally wounded. As soon as the soldiers had once tasted blood they became violent and the mounted troops began to mangle the diggers until they were stopped by their commanding officers (Clark, 1963: 122). Samuel Lazarus witnessed the aftermath of Eureka and later wrote that there were: Some shot in the face, others literally riddled with wounds – another, the most horrible of these appalling spectacles with a frightful gaping wound in his head through which the brains protruded, lay with his chest feebly heaving in the last agony of death - one body pierced with 16 or 17 wounds I recognised as that of a poor German whom I often joked with (Manuscripts Collection). Approximately thirty diggers and by-standers were killed and four soldiers also died from wounds resulting from Eureka (Clark, 1963: 122).

The rights that the diggers fought for were finally handed to them. The one pound per year licence replaced the previous hated licence, an export duty on gold of two and sixpence per ounce was imposed to raise money for the administration of the fields, the administration of the gold fields was changed with the substitution of wardens for commissioners, the gold fields were made part of electral districts, and the possession of a digger’s right became a qualification for voting for the legislative assembly in Victoria.

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