The Eureka Stockade: an International/Transnational Event

Gregory Blake

Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

School of Humanities and Social Science University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy

July 2013

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents iv

List of Plates v

Abstract vi

Declaration vii

Introduction 1

Chapter One ‘We were bosses!’ - The Battle for the Stockade. 14

Chapter Two ‘To be bullied by the bayonet’ - The foundational 44 ideology for armed resistance at Eureka.

Chapter Three ‘At the hazard of our Lives’ - The British protest model of the early nineteenth century and Eureka. 68

Chapter Four ‘I’ll die before I run!’ - The Americans and Germans 96 at the Eureka Stockade.

Chapter Five ‘To defend their rights and liberties’ – Eureka, a Transnational exemplar of civil armed resistance. 128

Chapter Six ‘A magic pudding’ – the remembrance of Eureka. 156

Conclusion 189

Bibliography 195

List of Plates

Plate 1: Land of Liberty 125

Plate 2: Two Californians 126

Plate 3: Joseph Sharp of Sharps Flat 1850 127

Abstract The battle for the Eureka stockade is an event in Australian history that has been misunderstood and misrepresented by popular and academic historians almost since its inception. The historiography of the battle for the stockade has been in general one that perpetuates a tale of gratuitous massacre of poorly prepared innocents by a ruthless military. The historiography has also omitted to consider Eureka as part of an established international model of civilian armed resistance to oppression.

This thesis challenges both this characterisation and omission. Primary sources such as government reports, private correspondence, personal memoirs, trial transcripts, and court depositions have been examined. Newspaper reports contemporary to Eureka, both foreign and domestic, have been extensively consulted. Secondary sources have also been widely consulted to provide insights into events as well as elicit technical details, such as military tactics and weaponry, knowledge of which is important to understand the dynamics of the battle for the stockade. Secondary sources have also been consulted to recognise, where applicable, the extent of misunderstanding extant in the available literature.

This thesis establishes that the battle for the stockade was conducted by both protagonists as a military engagement. This thesis examines those international concepts of individual independence and the right to self defence that provided a rationale and motivation for the Eureka miners’ actions. This thesis demonstrates that the battle for the stockade was a unique event in the context of British and Australian protest. The significance of the contribution of the Americans and Germans to the miners’ preparations for conflict and defence of the stockade is recognised and acknowledged. Eureka’s place as an exemplar of civilian armed resistance within an international context is demonstrated. This thesis finds that consistent with the diverse narratives characteristic of Eureka the remembrance of Eureka is one where there is no common narrative. This thesis corrects these long standing misunderstandings and mistaken narratives related to the Eureka stockade. By doing so it adds to the knowledge of the event and establishes a basis upon which a more nuanced and correct interpretation of this important event can be constructed.

Declaration

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published, or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis.

I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.

Gregory Blake July 2013

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INTRODUCTION

At dawn on 3 December 1854 on the Ballarat gold diggings 276 soldiers and police, acting under the authority of the Victorian colonial government, stormed a roughly built stockade defended by more than one hundred dissident miners.

The action fought was brief but resolutely contested resulting in at least forty nine killed. The battle for the Eureka Stockade is an event the like of which is unparalleled in Australian history. Its importance to that history is reflected in the depth and extent to which it has become entrenched within the fabric of the Australian collective memory and folklore. Eureka is all but universally embraced as an example of resistance to despotism by ordinary people. It is without question an enduring image and powerful exemplar through which Australians can gain a sense of themselves.

Contemporary understandings of the course of events at Eureka are based on a set of well established yet questionable presumptions. Since the time of the event itself Australia’s collective remembrance of what occurred at the Stockade has been dictated by a ‘script’. The story line is well known. Innocent gold miners protesting against the harsh regime of a tyrannical government are set upon by hundreds of soldiers and police. No warning is given, and the aggrieved diggers, lacking proper arms and taken completely by surprise, are routed in a few brief minutes. Claims that the majority of the defenders of the stockade were, ‘drowsy, half drunken men‘, and ‘the firing from the stockade was an intermittent splutter’, are examples of how the traditional narrative sets the scene for what was to follow.1 Once the stockade had been stormed a fearsome bloodletting then unfolded as the military and police lost all control and ran amuck, visiting murder and desolation on any unfortunate they managed to catch. It was in this aftermath of the attack on the stockade that the narrative gives full flight to its condemnation of events. Examples such as, ‘Here begins a foul deed, worthy of devils, and devils they were’, and ‘the police in particular had lost their heads,

1 Hocking, G., Eureka Stockade – the events leading up to the attack in the pre-dawn of 3 December 1854, Five Mile Press, Rowville Victoria, 2004, p.138; Eureka Reminiscences, Ballarat Heritage Services, Ballarat, 1998, p.32.

1 killing and burning in hysterical frenzy’ are typical of many that describe this stage of the conflict at Eureka.2 Accounts such as these, written by Raffaello Carboni a notable participant in events at Eureka figure, are the foundation upon which rests the most commonly accepted interpretation of the conflict at the Eureka Stockade. This foundation is, however, a dubious one and has contributed to the serious historical misinterpretation that the Eureka miners were poorly armed, ill prepared innocents wantonly and quickly massacred by unusually bloodthirsty soldiers and police. Similarly, the historical narrative portrays the non-British participants at Eureka, when they are mentioned at all, as either saints or villains, little more than bit players adding spice to some kind of Opéra Bouffé. In the same manner this misunderstanding of the actual character of the conflict at Eureka has resulted in Eureka’s place within a contemporary international continuum of civilian armed resistance to oppression remaining unexplored. It is the first aim of this thesis to provide a corrective to these misunderstandings and omissions.

Such misunderstandings of Eureka, despite the depth of their conviction or power with which they resonate, are problematic in that they do nothing to help us understand the actual nature, importance and significance of the event. From the historiographical perspective despite its place within the Australian historical narrative, serious and rigorous revision of the fighting in and around the Eureka Stockade as an event itself, as opposed to the social and political prequel and sequel to the event, have been noteworthy by their absence. Even when serious academic historians have touched upon the moment of conflict they have done so in a manner that is cursory and unquestioning of the accepted narrative. This has resulted in a glaring gap in the published record of Eureka which itself has encouraged the perpetuation of myth, fallacy and misunderstanding. It is, therefore, the second aim of this thesis to help fill such a historiographical shortfall.

This thesis will have six chapters. Each will examine a specific aspect of Eureka and examine how well the accepted interpretations hold up to critical

2 Carboni, R., The Eureka Stockade, Miegunyah Press, Carlton, 2004, p.99; O’Brien. B., Massacre at Eureka – The Untold Story, Sovereign Hill Museums Association, Ballarat, 1998, p.97.

2 analysis. The organisation of the chapters will be thematic. Chapter One examines the battle for the stockade. The nature, dynamics and character of the armed struggle for possession of the stockade is examined in detail. Doing so enables a fuller understanding of the event itself and provides a point of reference for the following chapters. By focussing on the details of the battlefield event, long overdue corrections can be made to a number of accepted but erroneous ‘truths’ of Eureka. Chapter Two considers the intellectual heritage that inspired the armed uprising at Eureka. Links will be investigated to domestic and transnational thought and tradition of civil armed resistance directly relevant to the participants at Eureka. Establishing the importance for the Eureka diggers of such concepts and convictions provides a counter balance to the traditional narrative’s general focus on economic and legalistic causes as the primary motivations for the uprising. Chapter Three examines the British model of civil protest contemporary to Eureka. The character of British civil protest is examined with reference to the various strains running through that movement, including the call for armed resistance to oppression. Establishing the nature of British protest enables the comparison of that model of protest to what occurred at Eureka. The contested armed resistance that characterised Eureka is thus established as a distinctly different type of event to the British model of protest. The significance of the participation of non-British participants to the events at Eureka will be examined in Chapter Four. The hitherto disregarded yet decisive role played by Americans in establishing the essential dynamic of contested armed resistance, and of the Germans in the organisation for armed resistance, will be shown to be of particular importance. The following chapter compares and contrasts international examples of civilian armed resistance to oppression with Eureka. The purpose and nature of the barricade as an iconic element of such protest is examined. Two specific case studies; Lexington-Concord 1775 the precursor to the American War of Independence and Gonzales 1835 the spark that ignited the Texas War of Indpendence, are examined identifying those aspects of each that were shared with Eureka. Contemporary international acknowledgement of Eureka is examined and the influence Eureka had upon events outside of Australia is identified. In marked contrast to the two case studies examined in Chapter Five, the remembrance of Eureka in Australia is characterised by ambivalence with contrary interpretations of the intentions of the participants, causes of the conflict

3 and significance, or lack thereof of the event. The final chapter will examine this multiplicity of interpretation. Taken collectively these chapters will achieve the dual aims of this thesis – to correct the historical record where it has been distorted by factual error and to fill the historiographical and commemorative shortfall where appropriate.

In order to better frame this thesis, and further justify its second historiographical aim, it is worth reviewing the existing body of literature connected with the Eureka Stockade. The National Library of Australia lists 69 publications in ‘The Eureka Stockade – A Select Bibliography’.3 A search of the National Library’s TROVE data base uncovers 323 books, 202 Journal or Magazine Articles and 300 other articles which deal with the Eureka Stockade.4 The multitude of publications does indicate a significant interest within Australia in the Eureka stockade, or at least in aspects of related to the stockade. There is no space here to list in any detail all the Journal and Magazine articles and other articles which relate to or touch upon a multitude of aspects of the Eureka stockade story. Investigation of the books listed reveals an equally diverse range of interests and relevance to the stockade. Many in fact, while framing their offering around the theme of the stockade concentrate their interest on a narrow field related to one aspect of the stockade. Charles Currey’s The Irish at Eureka (1954) and Jack Harvey’s Eureka Rediscovered : in search of the site of the historic stockade (1994) are two examples of this. Many others which do deal with the event as a whole are of limited academic value being written for the popular readership and doing little more than repeat well established stories. Clive Turnbull’s Eureka – The Story of Peter Lalor (1946), Geoffrey Hocking’s Eureka stockade a pictorial history : the events leading to the attack in the pre-dawn of 3 December 1854 (2004), and Thomas Keneally’s Australians - Origins to Eureka (2010) are examples of this. Significantly from the collection of books only a few have been written by recognised professional historians and even then only one devotes its entire study to Eureka. Among those texts by professional historians

3 National Library of Australia (NLA) The Eureka Stockade – A Select Bibliography, , accessed 24 February 2013. 4 NLA TROVE ‘Eureka’, , accessed 24 February 2013.

4 that consider Eureka as part of a broader story are Geoffrey Serle’s The Golden Age – The History of the Colony of Victoria 1851-1861 (1963), Weston Bate’s Lucky City, The First Generation at Ballarat 1851-1901 (1979) and Geoffrey Blainey’s The Rush that Never Ended – A History of Australian Mining (1989). Each of these devote chapters to an examination of events at Eureka. As befitting the standing of the authors as profesional historians each of these chapters have been researched with rigour and explain clearly the social, economic and political events leading up to and following the conflict at the stockade. Yet, despite this, the scope of analysis is limited by the restrictions of space. Momentous events, such as for example, the burning of the Eureka Hotel, the continuous abuse of police powers at Ballarat, and the battle itself form only small parts of a larger narrative. Within the academic literature of Eureka only John Molony’s Eureka (1984) offers a study of Eureka in the form of a complete book devoted to the subject. Molony offers a detailed investigation building an informed and nuanced narrative. The quality of the contributions of Serle, Blainey, Bate and Molony related to the general overall story of Eureka cannot be criticised yet each exhibit weaknesses when referring to the actual conflict and battle for the stockade. Perhaps because they are not military historians the lack of attention to the battle is consistent. Bate offers only a few paragraphs on the battle with nothing new to say.5 Serle and Blainey, treat the armed action in a similar précised fashion.6 Molony offers several pages describing the battle. In a mark of difference to Serle, Blainey and Bate he acknowledges the notable role played by Americans in the defence of the stockade and makes the point that atrocities could be committed by both sides in the conflict.7 In all other respects, however, Molony simply repeats the traditional story of the stockade. A characteristic consistent throughout the academic literature of Eureka is the limited range of exploration related to the actual conflict at Eureka. With the partial exception of this author’s, To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart the academic literature of Eureka has thus far

5 Bate, W., Lucky City, The First Generation at Ballarat 1851-1901, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1979, p.46. 6 Serle. G., The Golden Age – The History of the Colony of Victoria 1851-1861, Melbourne University Press, Parkville, 1963, p.181; Blainey, G., The Rush that Never Ended – A History of Australian Mining, Melbourne University press, Melbourne, 1989. 7 Molony, J., Eureka, Viking – Penguin Books Australia, Melbourne, 1984, pp.165-171.

5 studiously avoided serious analysis of the actual conflict.8 Perhaps because Eureka has been approached by historians as a social and political history in which the conflict itself has been seen as only one element in a much larger story what occurred during the conflict has not been objectively examined. The consequences of this is that central act of the whole affair, the clash of arms, has been relegated to little more than an historical curiosity, an aspect of the Eureka story that must be mentioned but passed over without any form of rigorous investigation. In the same manner, there has been no significant attempt to establish links to the broader and especially international context of that event. The plethora of popular accounts of Eureka are characterised by a general failure to cite their sources, and when they do they offer nothing new. The effect this limited consultation in the both the academic and popular histories of Eureka has had is to restrict any chance to arrive at fresh insights into the conflict which would enable the conflict to be explored in greater depth and thus offer the opportunity to develop and broaden the understanding of the event as a whole. A resume of the sources used by Serle, Bate, Blainey and Molony in their accounts of the conflict at Eureka illustrates the limitations of their investigations in this regard. Serle’s The Golden Age – The History of the Colony of Victoria 1851- 1861 (1963) Chapter 6 ‘Sir Charles Hotham and Eureka’ is rigorous in examining a great many documents related to Eureka both primary and secondary. There is for example a significant representation of correspondences from Governor Hotham, Colonial Secretary John Foster and Resident Gold Commissioner Robert Reid. There are official government reports, numerous contemporary newspaper accounts and some contemporary writings such as the diary of the digger Thomas Pierson, albeit mentioned only once, and the recollections of Henry Nicholls who was with the Eureka diggers up until the Saturday night before the battle. Serle also makes use of a great many secondary sources. What Serle does not do is look beyond the most common sources to describe the battle. Indeed the battle receives scant mention in the chapter. His emphasis that SDS Huyghue’s journal is the best

8 Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart – The Battle for the Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, Australian Military History Publications in conjunction with the Army History Unit, Loftus, 2009. This study of the battle is a history of the Eureka Stockade written from the perspective of an operational analysis of a military conflict. This study does have its limitations as it does not examine the social, international or transnational aspects of Eureka.

6 account written of the conflict is misguided.9 While Huyughe’s description of events immediately prior to the battle is a firsthand eyewitness account, his description of the battle itself is derived from second and sometimes third hand accounts and while useful is somewhat problematic when compared against other sources. Huyughe never saw the stockade for himself which did not prevent him drawing a rather fanciful plan of the stockade which has featured in many accounts of the stockade since.10 Another indication of the limitations of Serle’s sources is the use of Churchward, ‘Americans and Other Foreigners at Eureka’ as the sole reference for non British participants at Eureka. Churchward’s account was written in 1954 and while useful as a reference for the numbers of Americans in Ballarat at the time of Eureka is generally dismissive of the American contribution.11 Blainey’s The Rush that Never Ended – A History of Australian Mining (1978) while essentially a history of mining does tell the Eureka story in some detail. Blainey’s sources for disturbances at Ballarat are limited to two articles in Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand, the first being Serle’s article on Eureka’s causes appearing in the December 1954 edition, and the second being Bruce Kent’s ‘Agitations on the Victorian Gold Fields 1851-1854’ appearing in the November 1955 edition. Neither of these sources offers any new insights into the battle for the stockade. Withers’s History of Ballarat (1887) is cited and may have provided some material related to Eureka although this is not specifically mentioned as being the case. In Chapter 4 of Bate’s Lucky City, The First Generation at Ballarat 1851-1901 (1979) Bate follows the pattern established by Serle, indeed Bate refers to Serle frequently. Bate’s choice of sources to describe the general events leading up to and following the conflict at Eureka cannot be criticised. The correspondence of Resident Gold Commissioner Reid features prominently. Numerous citations of the Ballarat Times newspaper help to present the perspective of a significant contemporary local commentator of events. Bate makes great use of the official Riot at Ballarat Commission report. This document provides an excellent appraisal of the general flow of events at Eureka from the perspective of the government but does not explore the details of

9 Serle, The Golden Years, p.409 n35. 10 O’Brien, B., Massacre at Eureka, p.23. Huyughe’s map has appeared in many Eureka publications. For an account of what the stockade actually looked like see: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.88-92. 11 Churchward, L.G., ‘Americans and Other Foreigners at Eureka’, Historical Studies, Eureka Supplement, December 1954.

7 the conflict. Bate offers a wide range of secondary sources. Carboni The Eureka Stockade (1855) is the most frequently referred to, while Withers History of Ballarat (1887) is also prominent. Both of these sources do include material related to the battle, but as they are the stock standard references employed by most Eureka historians and story tellers offer nothing new in relation to the battle. Bate’s use of Huyughe’s account of the battle features more prominently than in Serle as does the use of Nicholls. As noted earlier Huyughe’s account of the actual battle is problematical. Similarly Nicholls reliability as a commentator has been questioned.12 Bate makes no efforts to go beyond the established sources for the battle and the account of the battle he offers provides no fresh insights. Unlike Serle, Blainey or Bate, John Molony Eureka (1984) explores issues in greater depth than had previously occurred. In regard to the actual conflict Molony’s Chapter 11 ‘Stockade’ deals solely with the battle for the stockade. Despite the opportunity to extend the field of enquiry Molony’s sources reflect very much those explored by Serle, Blainey and Bate. Consequently Molony, with two exceptions, delivers a narrative that does not diverge in any significant manner from the established narrative of the battle for the stockade; those exceptions being the acknowledgment of the Americans and the allusion to the mutual propensity for atrocity by each side in the conflict. The allusion to atrocity appears to be a personal reflection while the acknowledgment of the Americans reflects Molony’s consulting of Potts and Potts Young America and Australian Gold – Americans and the Gold Rush of the 1850s (1974), a source untouched by Bate of Blainey whose histories were written in 1979 and 1983 after Potts and Potts publication.13

The scholarly literature on Eureka has been generally content to concede the historical narrative of the battle for the stockade to popular authors. As indicated earlier, measured purely by the numbers of popular publications against the numbers of academic publications that focus on Eureka it is the popular histories which have been the primary vehicle for the maintenance of the Eureka story and

12 Molony, Eureka, p.157, questions Nicholls accusations about the drunkenness of the diggers before the battle pointing out that there is no reliable contemporary evidence to back up Nicholls’s claim. 13 Potts, A. and Potts, E.D., Young America and Australian Gold – Americans and the Gold Rush of the 1850s, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1974.

8 perpetuation of Eureka’s myths. Given this importance it is appropriate to take a moment to examine selected examples of Eureka’s popular literature. Prominent among these is Bob O’Brien Massacre at Eureka, The Untold Story (1973). O’Brien’s work is of uneven quality. On the one hand he most usefully offers a full transcript of colonial government clerk Samuel Huyghue’s account of Eureka but on the other hand incorrectly claims Huyghue to be an eyewitness to the battle for the stockade, when in fact he was confined to the Government camp at some distance from the stockade.14 O’Brien’s analysis of events at Eureka, in keeping with the populist genre of literature it represents, is in reality little more than news-stand literature characterised by sloppy historiographical processes, uncritical recital of traditional fables, uncited anecdotes, and compulsive speculation and assumption. Other examples of this tradition are Geoff Gold’s Eureka – Rebellion beneath the Southern Cross (1977), Al Grassby and Marji Hill’s Six Australian Battlefields (1988), and Geoffrey Hocking’s Eureka Stockade a pictorial history - the events leading to the attack in the pre-dawn of 3 December 1854 (2004). A particularly grievous example of recitation of myth and fallacy compounded by factual error can be found in Jonathan King’s Great Moments in Australian history (2009)15. The section of King’s work which deals with Eureka ‘Peter Lalor Leads Eureka Rebellion and Demands Democracy’ is nothing more than a repetition of Eureka fallacies and myths. More recent examples of the populist narrative can be found in Thomas Keneally’s Australians. Volume 1, Origins to Eureka (2010) which repeats the traditional narrative of the battle.16 The most recent work by Peter FitzSimons, Eureka – The Unfinished Revolution (2012) does include a substantial amount of well researched detail about the battle and avoids many of the pitfalls of earlier renditions of the event.17 Even so FitzSimon’s effort is a lone spark of light in an otherwise uninspiring coterie of populist narratives.

14 Huyghue, S.D.S., The Ballarat Riots 1854, State Library of Victoria (SLV) MS 7725 Box 646/9. 15 O’Brien, Massacre at Eureka; Hocking, Eureka Stockade; Gold, G., Eureka – Rebellion beneath the Southern Cross, Rigby Limited, Melbourne, 1977; Grassby, A. and Hill, M., Six Australian Battlefields, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1988; King, J., Great moments in Australian history, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2009, pp.151-162. 16 Keneally, T., Australians. Volume 1, Origins to Eureka, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2010. 17 FitzSimons, P., Eureka – The Unfinished Revolution, Random House Australia, 2012.

In addition to secondary works, the research informing this thesis necessitated a wide primary record investigation. Some of the more important repositories in this regard include the Manuscripts collections of the State Library of Victoria; State Library of New South Wales; National Library of Australia; Public Records Office Victoria; the National Archives of the UK, the newspaper archives of the Ballarat Mechanics’ Institute and the National Library of Australia. Relevant newspapers, diaries, personal and official correspondence, court depositions, trial transcripts, military reports and regimental records have been consulted. Among the most useful sources of material to help understand what occurred during the battle found by this author were the Supreme Court of Victoria transcripts 1855 Victoria, State Trials, Queen v. Joseph and 1855 Victoria, State Trials, Queen v. Hayes. First hand memoirs, however, even though in most cases intensely personal, composed decades after the event, and of necessity viewed under that caveat, proved to be valuable resources. Some of the most useful of these included Raffello Carboni’s Eureka Stockade (2004 reprint of 1855 original), John Lynch’s Story of the Eureka Stockade, Epic Days of the Early Fifties at Ballarat (1999 facsimile of 1940 first edition); Montague Miller’s Eureka and Beyond (1988); and Richard Allan’s The Eureka uprising (2005).18

Another significant failing of the traditional literature of Eureka, both academic and populist is that it is overwhelmingly focussed on a very narrow Australian perspective reflecting once again the limited terms of reference for Eureka. There has been no significant attempt to date made to link Eureka, for example, to any wider context of protest tradition within the Anglo-American or wider Western world. Correction of this omission requires an examination of the root causes of the armed uprising to establish universal principles relevant to Eureka. John Locke’s theories of sovereignty and the right to resist tyranny (1690), Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) and Rights of Man (1791), John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859), George Gooch’s English Democratic Ideas in the 17th Century (1959) and Anthony Grayling’s Towards the Light, The Story of

18 Carboni, R., The Eureka Stockade, The Miegunyah Press, Carlton, 2004; Lynch, J., Story of the Eureka Stockade, Epic Days of the Early Fifties at Ballarat, (Facsimile), Goldfields Heritage Publications, Ballarat, 1999; Williams, V. (ed)., Eureka and Beyond – Monty Miller, His Own Story, Lone Hand Press, Perth, 1988; Allan R. and Allan, J., The Eureka uprising / by eye-witness Richard Allan, presented by James H. Allan, Self Published, Rosetta, Tasmania, 2004.

10 the Struggles for Liberty and Rights That Made the Modern West (2007) for instance offer a solid awareness of the intellectual heritage that provided the foundations for the miners’ dissent and subsequent assertion of their collective and individual rights.19 The historiography of Eureka has thus far failed to take into account the significance of these works in establishing an intellectual foundation for the actions of the Eureka diggers. In the same manner Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (2002) provides an insight into the aspirations of British working people during the early to mid nineteenth century, while Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1992) which despite its focus on the American experience of revolution, deals with values and principles of radical dissent common to the Anglo-American experience. For his part Baxter’s Armed Resistance and Insurrection: The Early Chartist Experience (1984) puts into context the frequency and incidence of armed protest in Britain during the Chartist years of the 1830s and 1840s, a socio- political milieu of direct relevance to the participants at Eureka. So too Schwoerer’s No Standing Armies! The Anti Army Ideology in Seventeenth Century England (1974) and Leach’s Roots of Conflict – British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans (1986) all provide valuable insight into the importance of civilian resistance to military oppression which was, as this thesis will establish, a significant motivator for the armed uprising at Eureka.20 Ted Gurr’s Why Men Rebel (1971) offers sober statistical analysis of the reasons groups rebel against authority, and Bowman’s Honor: a History (2004) presents a well crafted discussion of the concept of personal and collective honour and its influence upon the behaviour of individuals, an important factor to consider when analysing the

19 Franklin, J.H., John Locke and the Theory of Sovereignty, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1978; Paine, T., Common sense, addressed to the inhabitants of America : on the following subjects: I. Of the origin and design of Government in general, with concise remarks on the English Constitution. II. Of monarchy and hereditary succession. III. Thought in the present state of American affairs. IV. Of the present ability of America, with some miscellaneous reflections, H.D. Symonds, London, 1793; Paine, T. and Holyoake, G.J. introduced by Holyoake, G.J., The Rights of Man, J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1954; Castell, A. (ed)., John Stuart Mill - On Liberty, Appelton Century Crofts, New York, 1947; Gooch, G.P., English Democratic Ideas in the 17th Century 2nd Edition with supplementary notes and appendices by H.J. Laski , Harper Tourchbooks – Harper and Row, New York, 1959; Grayling, A., Towards the Light, The Story of the Struggles for Liberty & Rights That Made the Modern West, Bloomsbury Press, London, 2007. 20 Schwoerer, L.G., No Standing Armies! The Anti Army Ideology in Seventeenth Century England, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1974; Leach, D.E., Roots of Conflict – British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677 – 1763, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1986.

11 reasons for the development of the dynamics of the conflict for the stockade.21 Connections such as these must be made; their absence significantly inhibits our understanding of Eureka. Comparing and contrasting Eureka to like historical events in the Western World contemporary or near contemporary to Eureka is a requirement of establishing Eureka’s place within the context of those events. Read and Stagg’s The Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada – A Collection of Documents (1985), Galvin’s The Minute Men, The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution (1989), Wilks South Wales and the Rising of 1839 (1989), Sperber Rhineland Radicals – The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848 – 1849 (1991), Archer’s Social Unrest and Popular Protest in England 1780-1840 (2000), Davis Lone Star Rising (2004) all help establish a collective of international events to which Eureka can be compared.22 A particularly useful primary source in regard to placing Eureka into an

21 Gurr, T.R., Why Men Rebel, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey, 1971; Bowman, J., Honor A History, New York, Encounter Books, 2004; Tilly, C., Popular Contention in Great Britain 1758-1834, Paradigm Publishers, Boulder – London, 2005. 22 Read, C. and Stagg, R.J., The Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada – A Collection of Documents, The Champlain Society in cooperation with the Ontario Heritage Foundation, Carleton University Press, 1985; Wilks, I., South Wales and the Rising of 1839, Gomer Press, Llandysul, 1989; John R. Galvin, J.R., The Minute Men, The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution, Brasseys, Washington, 1989; Sperber, J., Rhineland Radicals – The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848 – 1849, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991; Archer, E., Social Unrest and Popular Protest in England 1780-1840, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2000; Davis, W.C., Lone Star Rising, Free Press, New York, 2004. It is interesting here to compare the dates of these works with that of the last serious examination of Eureka by a professional Australian historian, that being Molony’s Eureka (1984). The lack of any serious publication on Eureka since 1984 when compared with the continuous examination of international events outside of Australia perhaps indicates the lack of enquiry concerning Eureka that has characterised the historiography of Eureka. See also: Tilly, C., Popular Contention in Great Britain 1758-1834, Paradigm Publishers, Boulder – London, 2005; Pickering, P., ‘Peacefully if We Can, Forcibly if We Must – Political Violence and Insurrection in Early Victorian Britain' chapter 7 in Bowden, B. and Davis, M.T., Terror From Tyrannicide to Terrorism, Queensland University Press, St Lucia, 2008; Ellis, P.B. and Mac a’ Ghobhainn, S., The Scottish Insurrection of 1820, John Donald Publishers, Edinburgh, 2001; Kemnitz, T.M., ‘Approaches to the Chartist Movement: Feargus O’Connor and Chartist Strategy’, Albion: A quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1. Violence and Social Control. (Spring, 1973), pp.67-73; Gwyn Williams, G., The Merthyr Rising, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1988; Napier, N., The Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles Napier G.C.B, Vol 1, John Murray, London, 1857; Hogeland, W., The Whiskey Rebellion - George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s New Found Sovereignty, A Lisa Drew Book/Scribner, New York, 2006; Richards, L.L., Shay’s Rebellion – The American Revolution’s Final Battle, University of Philadelphia Press, Philadelphia, 2002; Kevin Starr, K. and Orsi, R.J., Rooted in Barbarous Soil – People, Culture and Community in Gold Rush California, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000; Sloan, R., William Smith Obrien and the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848, Four Courts Press Ltd, Dublin, 2000; Guillet, E.C., The Lives and Time of the Patriots – An Account of the Rebellion in Upper Canada 1837-1838 and the Patriot Agitation in the United States 1837-1842, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1968; Hardin, S.L., Texian Illiad – A Military History of the Texas Revolution, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1998.

12 international context was the transcript of The Trial of John Frost for High Treason - Under Special Commission - Held at Monmouth – In December 1839 and January 1840.23 Journal articles by Maehl ‘The Dynamics of Violence in Chartism: A Case Study in Northeastern England’ (1975) and Weisser ‘Chartism in 1848: Reflections on a Non-Revolution’ help to establish international benchmarks against which Eureka could be judged.24 Determining the nature of the transplanted practices, thoughts, assumptions and sensibilities specific to the non-British, especially American, participants in conflict is helped greatly by works such as Bancroft’s History of California; Potts and Potts’s Young America and Australian Gold – Americans and the Gold Rush f the 1850s (1974); Monaghan’s Australians and the Gold Rush – California and Down Under 1849- 1854 (1966), and Ferguson’s The Experience of a Forty Niner during a Third of a Century on the Gold Fields (1979).25

As will be examined in Chapter 6 of this thesis the Eureka Stockade is a moment in Australian history which continues to resonate strongly with various elements in the Australian community. Yet Eureka is an event which has in many ways been misunderstood and misinterpreted. Many of the ‘truths’ of the event are open to serious question. The literature of the Stockade generally lacks any sense of central inquiry and is often little more than repetition of accepted myth, thus reinforcing a dubious narrative. Despite the voluminous literature extant on the Eureka Stockade, there exist key gaps in that literature. Providing correction to these shortfalls is the fundamental goal of this thesis. The importance of the event justifies the attempt - the success of that attempt is for the reader to judge.

23 The Trial of John Frost for High Treason - Under Special Commission - Held at Monmouth – In December 1839 and January 1840. Saunders & Benning, Law Bookmakers, London, 1840. 24 Maehl W.H., ‘The Dynamics of Violence in Chartism: A Case Study in Northeastern England’, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 7, No.2. (Summer, 1975), pp.101-119; Weisser, H., ‘Chartism in 1848: Reflections on a Non-Revolution’, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 13, No.1. (Spring, 1981), pp.12-26. 25 Howe Bancroft, H.H., The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol XX1 History of California Vol IV, 1840-1845, A.L. Bancroft and Company Publishers, San Francisco, 1886; Potts, E.D. and Potts, A., Young America and Australian Gold – Americans and the Gold Rush of the 1850s, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1974; Monaghan, J., Australians and the Gold Rush – California and Down Under 1849 – 1854, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1966; Ferguson, C.D., The Experiences of a Forty Niner during a Third of a Century in the Gold Fields. First Edition 1888, Reprinted by H.A. Garson, Chico California, 1923.

CHAPTER 1 ‘We were bosses!’ The Battle for the Stockade

The central purpose of this chapter will correct a fundamental misinterpretation in the dominant historiographical and populist narrative of the conflict at the Eureka stockade. It will in addition, provide an indisputable framework and empirical basis for the arguments mounted throughout the rest of the thesis. The prevailing misconception under question is that Eureka was a uniquely brutal exercise in military excess directed against a gathering of legitimately dissenting and essentially defenceless civilians; that the conflict was little more than a massacre.

At Eureka, the conflict was fought between opponents who were mutually prepared for armed conflict. It was a hard fought military engagement during which the defenders of the stockade contested the ground they occupied with considerable resolve. They did so for as long as they were able with not an insignificant display of military acumen and by so doing compelled the forces they faced to adopt a serious military response. The consequence of this organised resistance was that the ensuing conflict was transformed into a battle which was brutal and in the customary nature of such combats during the era, merciless. Applying this corrective lens to an otherwise flawed historical narrative facilitates a fuller understanding of the battle for the Eureka Stockade for what it was.

It is appropriate that this chapter begin by establishing the dominant mistaken historical narrative, interpretation and characterisation of the engagement at Eureka. This parody will be then be challenged by first investigating the actions and intentions of the Eureka diggers which include an analysis of their deliberate military arming and training and their intentions prior to the conflict will be presented. The armed clash at Eureka will then be examined in detail to determine the actual dynamics of the conflict and trace the true ‘military’ character of the event.

The Eureka Stockade has been depicted in many ways. Be it told as a tale of mindlessly excessive brutality by corrupt and authoritarian authorities against

14 innocent dissidents, the tragic consequences of the misguided foolishness of the Eureka diggers, or the justifiable action against armed and dangerous insurgents the interpretations of Eureka are as varied as they are multitudinous. Despite this cacophony of interpretations the majority of accounts and reflections on the conflict at Eureka do exhibit two more common threads. The first is the persistence in characterising the fight for the stockade as an example of a brutal military massacre perpetrated against essentially unarmed, unprepared and defenceless civilians. The second is the total lack of any attempt to conduct an operational analysis of the battle for the stockade to determine just what did happen there.1

The impetus and agenda for the public characterisation of the conflict at the Eureka Stockade as a ‘massacre’ began in the first few days immediately after Eureka when the Ballarat Times in a black bordered article bewailed a spectacle that was, ‘sufficient to appal the stoutest heart.’2 The Gold Fields Advocate presented its readers with a scene of unambiguous desolation lamenting that, ‘This morning Eureka goldfield presents a piteous scene. Women roam the camp crying aloud for their men, their children at their skirts wailing for their fathers, and in the midst of the desolate and heartbreaking sight a lone dog epitomises tragedy with a continuous mournful howl.’3 Such sentiments were not lost on the general public with speakers at public meetings in Melbourne representing events at the stockade as ‘deplorable massacres’.4 Raffello Carboni in his self published and subsequently eulogised 1855 account of Eureka repeatedly portrayed the behaviour of the police and soldiers at Eureka as brutal and inhumane, describing the event as a ‘cowardly massacre’.5 Peter Lalor, who eventually emerged as the recognised leader of the Eureka insurgents, perpetuated the portrayal of the Eureka diggers as victims in his correspondence with the press in which he depicted the events at the stockade in a manner calculated to shame the colonial

1 The single exception in this regard is a monograph by the author: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart – The Battle for the Eureka Stockade 3 December 1854, Military History Publications, Loftus NSW, in association with the Australian Army History Unit, 2009. 2 Gilbert, P.F., Gold, The Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1970, p.26. 3 Turner, H.G., Our Own Little Rebellion – The Story of the Eureka Stockade, Whitcombe & Tombs Limited, Melbourne, 1913, p.94. 4 Gilbert, Gold, p.26. 5 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.106.

15 government.6 Chartist activist John Basson Humffray was the chief stump orator for the Ballarat Reform League representing the diggers on the Ballarat gold fields up until just prior to the armed muster at Eureka. Humffray withdrew from that role just before Eureka because he disapproved of the armed nature of the Eureka diggers’ protest. Even so he remained a prominent figure and re-emerged following the battle to characterise Eureka as a massacre in the Press.7

In the years that followed characterisation of Eureka as a massacre rather than a contested battle gathered momentum until it became a ‘fixture’ of the Eureka narrative.8 Withers in his 1887 History of Ballarat presented a mass of anecdotal material and personal accounts with many of those accounts highlighting the wanton savagery of the conflict and impact it had upon the Eureka diggers and others near the stockade.9 This was significant as Withers later became a prime source for future histories of Eureka. Turner in his 1913 Our Own Little Rebellion, for example, consistently related the tale of excess and carnage, execrating the police for their misconduct.10 Clive Turnbull in his 1946 Eureka Stockade describes the actions of the police during the conflict as, ‘killing and burning in hysterical frenzy.’ Such words were echoed exactly by Bob O’Brien forty eight years later in Massacre at Eureka. As the title suggests, O’Brien’s primary thesis was that what occurred at Eureka was a deliberately calculated massacre of innocents.11 Significantly, for its later repetition by many Eureka story tellers, stockade defender John Lynch writing his account of the conflict years in later years firmly casts the conflict as carnage mostly inflicted after all resistance had ceased.12

6 Lalor to Argus 10 April 1855, p.7. Lalor’s letter to the Argus relates in much detail his version of events at Eureka. Despite Lalor being elected as the leader of the armed diggers he was not considered by the authorities to be the prime candidate for leading the uprising in the immediate aftermath of Eureka. This honour went to the German Frederick Vern who had a £500 reward placed on his head, while the reward for the apprehension of Lalor was £400 shared with George Black. 7 Argus 21 December 1854, p.4. 8 ‘Massacre rather than a fight’ are the exact words used in a chapter on the Eureka Stockade by Communist activist author/journalist Len Fox in Sloan, J., Australian Political Milestones – Making Australian Society, Mosman, Thomas Nelson Limited, 1976, p.25. 9 Withers, W.B., History of Ballarat, Facsimile Edition of 1887 original, Carlton, Queensbury Hill Press, 1980, pp.97-163. 10 See: Turner, Our Own Little Rebellion. 11 Turnbull, C., Eureka The Story of Peter Lalor, The Hawthorn Press, Melbourne, 1946, p.34; O’Brien, B., Massacre at Eureka, p.97. 12 See: Lynch, J., The Eureka Stockade – Epic Days of the Early Fifties in Ballarat.

The language used to describe what occurred at Eureka within the massacre genre is explicit. Historian Les Blake’s description of the fight at Eureka for example is suitably dramatic with the defending pikemen being, ‘cut to pieces by the redcoats’ who, ‘killed ruthlessly and indiscriminately’ while the police, ‘went crazy with bloodlust…swinging swords at inoffensive non-participants or shooting them.’13 Academic historians were not immune to this with Geoffrey Serle in the The Golden Years describes some of the military and police behaving ‘disgracefully’.14 Weston Bate in Lucky City related how, ‘the infantry burst through, firing and bayoneting…the troops were almost uncontrollable for a while….Of the thirty diggers killed, about half were despatched after the fortification had been overrun.’15 John Molony in Eureka is more circumspect in his appraisal of the conduct of the fighting, acknowledging the stiff resistance put up by the stockade defenders and that they too may have indulged in various atrocities. This does not prevent him, however, from labelling the actions of the police and military as ‘sadistic retribution and bloody vengeance’ as well as ‘butchery, for such as it was.’16

More recent popular histories continue to echo and retell the tales of murder and mayhem with numerous colourful efforts revelling in castigating the military and police for the carnage they inflicted. Descriptors such as ‘frightful’ and ‘disgraceful’ are legion and typical of the prose used to describe Eureka.17 One extreme example of this genre is Bob O’Brien’s Massacre at Eureka. O’Brien’s account is consumed with the conviction that a dark conspiracy existed within the colonial government to commit deliberate wanton massacre on the dissident diggers of Ballarat.18 Such unfounded sensationalist presumptions are symptomatic of the massacre paradigm affecting the vast bulk of literature related to the conflict at Eureka. At no time do the typical characterisations of Eureka as a massacre seem to consider alternative, objective or rational reasons for the carnage that occurred there beyond a presumption of maniacal Redcoat and police

13 Blake, L., Peter Lalor the Man from Eureka, Neptune Press Pty Ltd, Belmont, 1979, p.82. 14 Serle, The Golden Years, p.168. 15 Bate, The Lucky City, p.70. 16 Molony, Eureka, p.169. 17 See for example: Hocking, The Eureka Stockade, p.146. 18 See: O’Brien, Massacre at Eureka.

17 bloodlust. There has been, for example, no attempt at a systematic operational analysis of the conflict or an analysis of events at the stockade juxtaposed with the military milieu of the era. The dominant historical narrative reflects this in two ways. The first is the meagre space devoted by many texts to the actual battle for the stockade. The second is that when space is allowed it is given over without exception to repetition of anecdote and fable. We find exemplars of the latter, for example, in the works of Carboni, Withers and Turner. Withers is valuable as a source for individual recollections of what occurred, while Carboni offers an idiosyncratic but still useful eyewitness account of events and personalities prior to, during and after the battle. Turner is more problematic with helpful factual detail mixed freely with anecdotes many of which are not corroborated by any other sources. All three, however, fail to deal with the ‘battle’ at Eureka in any methodical way. In the years following the publication of these works the material they offer has formed the basis for countless repetitious retellings of the Eureka story. The lack of a questioning eye in relation to the moments of deadly conflict at Eureka is a standard component within these sources. One example of this is the account of the killing of Martin Diamond a store owner at Eureka, whose store was reported to have been half in and half out of the stockade. Diamond was killed during the battle and it is the account of Anne his wife who claims to have witnessed his death that is presented by Eureka story tellers as the proof that, in the words of Anne, despite Martin having nothing at all to do with the insurrection he was wantonly murdered and his body subjected to mutilation with sword and bayonet after he had been shot.19 In an example of the unquestioning presumption of guilt of the soldiers and police at Eureka that characterises the dominant Eureka narrative Anne Diamond’s description of her husband’s brutal demise has never been subjected to even passing scepticism. No question has ever been posed in regard to Anne’s motives in portraying her husband as an innocent victim with no connection to the armed insurrection. It was the case at that time that Anne was applying for compensation from the government for loss of property due to the battle. Carboni in Eureka Stockade mentions the Eureka diggers’ council of war meeting in Diamond’s store.20 It was thus distinctly in her

19 Macfarlane, I., Eureka from the Official Records, Public Records Office Victoria, Melbourne, 1995 p.99. 20 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.60.

18 interests to portray herself as an innocent victim.21 That Anne’s circumstances mitigate her evidence cannot be discounted. In the same manner the space devoted to actual accounts of the battle is inconsistent. Earlier accounts such as Carboni and Withers both of which form the core of most later histories, offer substantial accounts of the battle even though in both cases what they offer is little more than a variation on the theme of wanton brutality and tragedy. Henry Turner in Our Little Rebellion devotes much of his book to the battle and presents a more measured appreciation of the military’s role but his account is equally laced with tales of wanton bloodlust by the police.22 Clive Turnbull’s Eureka The Story of Peter Lalor offers only one of its 48 pages to the battle.23 Other populist accounts such as Bob O’Brien’s Massacre at Eureka and Geoffrey Hocking’s A Pictorial History of the Eureka Stockade dwell heavily upon the bloodshed and tragedy inflicted upon the Eureka diggers.24 Academic historians have taken the opposite pathway where in place of wallowing in sensationalist detail they trim their references to the battle to a minimum. Manning Clark in History of Australia, Vol. IV, The Earth Abideth Forever 1851-1888 devotes ten pages to describing events at Eurkea, but only one paragraph of seventeen lines to the battle. Clark’s description, such as it is makes no attempt to deduce what occurred during the battle apart from relating anecdotes concerning several of the military participants in the battle. He dismisses the whole event as, ‘all over in fifteen minutes’.25 Weston Bate in Lucky City allows two paragraphs to describe the fighting for the stockade in a chapter devoted to Eureka.26 In twenty five pages

21 Macfarlane, I., Eureka from the Official Records, p.99. 22 In Turner Our Own Little Rebellion p.73 can be found the story of the German blacksmith Johan Hafele having the top of his skull severed from his head by a sword blow from Lieutenant Richards. There is no primary source material that corroborates Turner’s story, in fact in Withers History of Ballarat p.124 one eyewitness account by John Neill a soldier with the 40th who saw Hafele die mentions the blacksmith being felled by Lieutenant Richards. Neill makes no mention of how this occurred, except to say that Hafele ‘fought well and died gloriously’. Neill certainly does not mention the top of Hafele’s head being severed. Nevertheless Turner’s version of Hafele’s demise is repeated as standard sensationalist fare in many retellings of the Eureka story. 23 Turnbull, Eureka – The Story of Peter Lalor, p.34. 24 See: O’Brien Massacre at Eureka and Hocking, Eureka Stockade. 25 Clark, M., History of Australia, Vol. IV, The Earth Abideth Forever 1851-1888, Melbourne University Press, 1978, p.78. Clark’s account of Eureka needs to be read with some caution. There are numerous examples where Clark confuses chronologies, makes assumptions related to the motivations of participants that do not consider all factors and simply gets facts wrong. A good example of the latter is found on p.68 where Clark has Captain Wise commanding the troops who were assaulted by the diggers on the evening 28 November when in fact he was not present at that incident having marched into the Ballarat diggings earlier that day. 26 Bate, The Lucky City, p.70.

19 dealing with Eureka, Geoffrey Serle’s The Golden Age offers only, ‘When they were about 150 yards away a ragged fire came from the stockade. Two withering volleys were returned and the order given to charge. Within ten minutes or so, after some hand-to-hand fighting, it was all over.’27 John Molony’s contribution of four pages is something out of the ordinary but comes within a book of 259 pages entirely devoted to Eureka. In all cases the lack of attention to the detail or the misrepresentation of the detail of the core event which made Eureka what it was is typical of the scant attention paid to the conflict as an event in its own right.28 In each case Eureka has been approached as a social and political history in which the conflict itself has been seen as only one element in a much larger story. The space offered to the conflict indicates that the conflict itself is considered by these authors to be a secondary element to the overall narrative.

There is in fact an alternative interpretation of what occurred at the Eureka Stockade which runs counter to the ‘victims’ of ‘massacre’ paradigm. It is the purpose of this chapter to reveal this. Discovering the alternative begins with examining the actual preparations and organisation of the diggers for what they recognised to be the battle to come.

Prior to the battle, aroused to insurrection, the diggers had formed into ‘divisions’, which in the military terminology of the day equated to infantry companies. As they did so their names recorded.29 These companies segregated themselves according to the weapons they brought with them. Captains were elected and appointed, one for every company.30 Reinforcing the counter-notion to the line traditionally maintained by the Eureka historical narrative of a force chronically short of weaponry, firearms were abundantly available to the Eureka insurgents. The Ballarat correspondent for the Argus wrote that at the meeting of diggers held on 29 November 1854, some ‘thousands of guns and revolvers were fired off at one period’.31 Carboni confirmed this when he wrote that during the

27 Serle, The Golden Years, p.168. 28 Molony, Eureka, p.169. 29 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.59. 30 Ibid., pp.65 and 70. 31 Argus, 1 Dec 1854, p.5.

20 same meeting a ‘regular volley of revolvers and other pistols now took place’.32 The Mount Alexander Mail, reporting from the Ballarat diggings at 6 a.m. one morning a few days before Eureka, described how ‘the report of firearms is to be heard in all directions’.33 Ballart merchant Samuel Lazarus mentioned a fearful racket of many guns being fired off by the diggers through the night of 30 November.34 Samuel Huyghue, a government employee at Eureka, mentioned the incessant flashes from guns and revolvers being fired into the sky and lighting up the darkness of the night around the miners’ tents on 28 November.35 The Eureka diggers were members of this armed community and the number of firearms they had with them reflected this. Gold Field Commissioner, Gilbert Amos, captured by the Eureka diggers on the day prior to the battle for the stockade, recalled that the 100 men who took him were all armed with ‘firelocks’ by which he meant long-arms of some type.36 Importantly, the presence of pikes among the Eureka diggers was a result of more than a simple lack of firearms - a constant refrain of Eureka story tellers bent on perpetuation the portrayal of the diggers’ plight as desperate and hopeless. While the defenders of the stockade would no doubt have welcomed a greater supply of muskets, it is important to note testimony from those ‘pikemen’ present, such as Monty Miller, indicated that the pike was seen by the diggers themselves as a perfectly reasonable substitute for bayonets. 37 After the event Lalor the leader of the uprising, Carboni the self styled ‘aide de camp’ to Lalor and the uprising’s post factum propagandist and Lynch a well know defender of the stockade all made claims of the scanty supply of firearms and ammunition available to the Eureka diggers.38 Lalor also mentions that those defenders possessing firearms each had ‘no more than one or two rounds of ammunition’.39 The often repeated account by clergyman, writer and educator W.H. Fitchett of a pistol loaded with quartz pellets found inside the stockade has

32 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p55. 33 Outbreak at Eureka, The Eureka Story From the Pages of the Mount Alexander Mail, 8 December 1854, Ballarat Heritage Services, Ballarat, 1998, p.12. 34 ‘Diary of Samuel Lazarus’, SLV, MS11484 Box 1777/4. 35 Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’, SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9. 36 State Trial Transcript, Supreme Court of Victoria, State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.27. 37 See: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, Chapter 2. ‘Gentlemen Soldiers’. 38 Lalor to Argus 10 April 1855 p.7; Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.79; Lynch, Story of the Eureka Stockade, pp.29-30. 39 Lalor to Argus 10 April 1855 p.7.

21 also been used as further proof of the insurgents’ lack of ammunition.40 Despite the iconic status among Eureka story tellers of Lalor, Carboni, Lynch and Fitchett their claims of a paucity of available armament for the Eureka diggers are less than satisfactory as an explanation for the course of subsequent events. That the stockade defenders kept up a ‘sharp and sustained fire’ for some ten minutes once the battle was joined, for example, does not fit with their testimony. What was in fact the case was that the Eureka diggers did lack weapons of a military style. The shotguns, handguns and other assorted pieces possessed by them were at a decided disadvantage against heavy calibre military muskets with bayonets. Lynch alluded to this when he lamented the ‘disparity of arms’ between the attackers and the defenders.41 Beyond the issue of armament the concept that the Eureka diggers were an armed rabble would at first glance seem to be incontestable. Observations from Carboni, Lynch and Richard Allan, one of the armed diggers, mention the poor state of drill and lack of discipline exhibited by the various armed companies among the insurgents.42 What is never acknowledged is a deliberate intention among the insurgent hierarchy to address this failing. The German Frederick Vern was appointed second in command of the insurgent forces by Peter Lalor. Vern had some knowledge of military affairs and the temperament to impose his will upon others. When the decision was made to form armed companies from among those diggers inclined to do so, Vern set to codifying his concept of what that force should be (examined in Chapter 4). Vern clearly intended to organise the Eureka diggers as a mustering of organised armed companies, with captains elected by those within the ranks. The fact that several such recognisable companies came into being and maintained themselves, even during battle is evidence that Vern was at least able to achieve part of his goal. Insurgent Richard Allan, for example, mentioned a company of Californians and Americans who were veterans of the Mexican-American War. He referred to these men as the Californian Rifles, recalling that they possessed ‘a considerable knowledge of military evolutions’.43 The captain of this company was an American known as Nelson, or Nealson in some accounts. Canadian Charles

40Eureka Reminiscences, Ballarat Heritage Services, Ballarat, 1998, p.33. 41 Lynch, Story of the Eureka Stockade, pp.29-30. 42 Carboni, Eureka stockade, p.77 and 81 and 86; Lynch The Story of the Eureka Stockade, p.28; Allan, J., The Eureka uprising / by eye-witness Richard Allan, presented by James H. Allan, Moonah Tasmania, 2004, p.15 and 17. 43 Allan, The Eureka Uprising, p.16.

Ross, German Edmund Thonen, Irishman Patrick Curtain and American James McGill were also captains of armed companies. Carboni would later lament the militaristic infatuation which led his peers to behave in this manner, but by doing so acknowledged that they did indeed see themselves as a military force.44

Lalor and Carboni claimed after the event that the intentions of the Eureka diggers were entirely defensive.45 Such a presumption, however, like much else in the Eureka narrative is in need of correction. There was no consensus among the diggers on just how they should proceed. Some among them demanded immediate action by storming the government camp. Others made up mostly of Chartists and the local Catholic priest argued against resorting to arms.46 In this instance the camp was not attacked, but other actions taken by the Eureka diggers indicated evidence of a not entirely defensive intent. One example of this was the location chosen for and the intention of the stockade itself. This, like much else connected with Eureka, is dominated by myth and presumption generated in the desire to portray the Eureka diggers as victims. Writing in 1855 Lalor went to great pains to emphasise that the intention of building the stockade was not warlike. He claimed that, ‘in plain truth it was nothing more than an enclosure to keep our men together, and was never erected with an eye to military defence.’47 This depiction was echoed by others. Carboni described the stockade as being constructed in a higgledy-piggledy manner and that it was, ‘simply fenced in by a few slabs placed at random’.48 Insurgent Richard Allan depicted the stockade as a, ‘flimsy, useless construction altogether, without the slightest pretensions to military engineering, and of very little use as a defence or protection to those behind it.’49 Waterloo veteran Thomas Allen, a digger loyal to the government, particularly disaffected with the insurgent cause and trapped inside the stockade, dismissed the structure as, ‘merely slabs just merely put together higgledy-

44 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.81. 45 Lalor to Argus, 10 April 1855, p.7, Carboni The Eureka Stockade, p.67. 46 Among those inside the stockade journalist John Manning encouraged the diggers to attack the government camp, see: Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) 5527/P Unit 2, Item 3; Father Patrick Smyth advocated against violence, see: Carboni The Eureka Stockade, pp.81-2 and Withers History of Ballarat p.105. George Black and Thomas Kennedy, both Chartists argued not to attack the government camp, see: Withers History of Ballarat p.105. 47 Lalor to Argus 10 April 1855, p.7. 48 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, pp.80-1. 49 Allan, The Eureka Uprising, p.15.

23 piggledy. The stockade was of no strength.’50 Lalor, Carboni and Allan described the stockade in this manner to stress their non belligerence. One can equally understand the motivation for Allen to do so as he would not wish to grant any semblance of credibility to a cause he did not support. Innumerable retellings of the Eureka story have over the years been influenced by these accounts. Professional historians have also parroted Lalor’s depiction of the stockade. Bate in Lucky City, for instance, paints the image of the stockade as, ‘an expression of defiance rather than a fortification.’51 Molony in Eureka uses the words, ‘frail symbol of resistance’ and ‘earth ramparts and flimsy sticks’, Blainey calls it, ‘a simple fence…’, and Serle in The Golden Years describes it as, ‘a rough breastwork of pit-slabs.’52 The reality was somewhat different.

The soldiers tasked with storming the stockade in the heat of battle described the physical character of the stockade as a robust and significant obstacle. Giving evidence at the State Treason Trials after Eureka Gold Commissioner Gilbert Amos, who accompanied the attacking force and had the previous day seen for himself the stockade at close quarters, provided a very detailed description of the fortification. When shown a plan of the stockade which had been prepared as evidence for the trial Amos, replied that it was much stronger than what was depicted testifying that,

The slabs were placed at a great angle facing outwards; they were three or four feet separated in some places by other slabs placed crosswise, in some places by carts, and in some places by mounds of earth. The configuration of some of the slabs formed bastions. It was so strong that, although only about four feet high, there was no horse would take it at the time of the attack.53

Charles Carter, who was to lead the foot police in the attack on the stockade, described the defences as, ‘a great number of slabs put together about breast high. A great number of them very thickly piled together.’54 Lieutenant Thomas

50 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.36; State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria, Queen v. Hayes, p.86. 51 Bate, The Lucky City, p.68. 52 Molony, Eureka, pp.143 and 144; Blainey, The Rush that Never Ended. p.55; Serle, p.167. 53 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.29. 54 Ibid., p.29.

Richards of the 40th Regiment recalled that the stockade, ‘was constructed of slabs like they use in digger’s holes; they were placed across and supported themselves….They were leaning outwards.’55 Sergeant Daniel Hegarty of the 40th Regiment mentioned that, ‘They had port-holes like’, when referring to the slabs, between which presumably the diggers fired.56 When asked what was the nature of the stockade and how it was constructed Private Patrick Lynott described it as, ‘fenced in by slabs of wood, and the part I saw was trenched round about two feet outside the slabs of wood and, the stuff thrown over the slabs to make the fence a little firmer.’ Lynott was of the opinion that musketry would not penetrate the slabs that were about three feet high and two or three inches thick, but then added, ‘It was not a strong defence, the men jumped over it’.57 What Lynott meant by this must be understood from the point of view of a soldier, rather than a casual observer. As a soldier Lynott would have assessed the stockade from what he knew of military earthworks and entrenchments he had seen. These would of course have been much more formidable defences than that presented by the stockade, hence his dismissal of its strength. His mention of a trench most probably referred to a drainage trench of no military importance as no other accounts mention a trench of any significance at all. One should recall the old soldier Thomas Allen’s dismissal of the defensive capabilities of the stockade, most likely influenced by the same reasons as Lynott. Neither Lynott nor Allen’s criticisms, however, fail to acknowledge that the stockade was in fact quite musket proof when put to the test, a practical consideration of the highest importance. For some ten minutes prior to the soldiers entering the stockade, an exchange of heavy fire was maintained between attacker and defenders inside the stockade. This would not have been possible if the stockade had been as flimsy as Lalor claimed. Rather the stockade was a purpose built defensive structure that resisted to a significant degree the massed musketry of attackers. Its physical characteristics were nothing like the weak and ineffectual image insistently portrayed in traditional accounts.

55 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v Hayes, p.77. 56 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.21. 57 Ibid., p.20.

There were other aspects of the stockade that indicate its purpose was not purely defensive. The stockade provided, for example, a secure base from which parties of diggers could embark on requestioning expeditions.58 It also provided a safe haven in which the insurgent diggers could meet.59 It created a secure location for the storage of arms and ammunition and a place for armed companies to form and from which they could drill. Pikes were manufactured inside the stockade without the chance of interference from the authorities.60 Moreover it represented an assembly point to launch larger scale operations against government forces such as the expeditions launched on Friday and Saturday night to Warrenheip to ‘intercept’ military reinforcements.61 It also provided a haven in which the ‘rebel’ flag could fly. The most significant indicator of all that the purpose of the stockade was not altogether defensive was its deliberate extension across the Melbourne Road at some time after its initial construction.62 This ‘road’ was in fact a meandering trail of potholes and muddy pools, but it was the most accessible wheeled access route to the Ballarat diggings and a vital axis to bring in supplies needed by the government forces then confined to their camp. By cutting this route the stockade presented the Government forces at Ballarat with a major challenge. Supplies for the Government Camp were under duress, with water in short supply and local tradesmen could no longer be relied upon.63 The soldiers and police within the Government Camp were operating under a state of siege, sleeping in uniform, under arms and prepared for call out at a moment’s notice.64 Gold Commissioner Robert Rede, the senior civilian authority

58 Parties were sent out from the stockade to forage for and requisition arms and supplies. Lalor in his letter to the Argus 10 April 1855, p.7 relates how diggers went about ‘procuring horses, arms, and ammunition’. Carboni The Eureka Stockade p.89 and Allan The Eureka Uprising p.15 describe similar expeditions. In his testimony at the State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.27 Gold Commissioner Amos related how a body of armed men, under the command of Charles Ross occupied his camp and took weapons and a horse. Withers History of Ballarat p.104 relates several incidents when diggers issued receipts to those from whom they had requestioned goods. 59 Lalor to Argus 10 April 1855, p.7; Carboni The Eureka Stockade, pp.60 and 77 and 79. 60 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.78. 61 Ibid., pp.79 and 94. 62 Ibid., p.80. 63 Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’, SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9. 64 Ibid. Historians, whose interpretation of events at Eureka has universally underplayed, or ignored entirely, the military aspects of events have consequently not considered the influence on communication and supply to the government camp posed by the site of the stockade. For example Molony Eureka p.158 refers to the ‘highly tuned frustration’ of those inside the government camp, but only in relation to the expectation of attack from the diggers making no connection between that ‘frustration’ and the site of the stockade.

26 at Ballarat was convinced that the armed diggers meant to attack the camp at some stage. On 27 November Rede wrote to Governor Charles Hotham that, ‘we are in a most dangerous position that measures had been arranged as to make us the aggressors in which case it was determined to make a general assault on the Camp’.65 American digger Thomas Pierson, who lived near Bakery Hill, confirmed that it was the intention of a faction among the diggers to attack the camp at 10 a.m. on the Sunday morning.66 Indeed there was talk among the diggers inside the stockade on the Saturday to discuss that very point with radical journalist and diggers’ advocate John Manning in favour of an attack on the camp, while the Catholic priest Patrick Smyth and Chartist digger leaders Thomas Kennedy and George Black argued successfully against it.67 Throughout all of this the garrison of the camp was stood to arms for considerable stretches of time without adequate rest.68 It is not difficult to see why one American historian when considering the history of Eureka as part of a larger history of the Australian gold rushes was moved to observe in passing that if the stockade was, ‘not built for military defence, why was it built at all?’69

The most convincing indication that the Eureka diggers’ intentions were something other than purely defensive was that for two consecutive nights, on 1 and 2 December, armed groups made up from the best armed and most capable men were sent into the bush to confront expected military reinforcements from Melbourne. This was not a spontaneous, uncoordinated effort but a deliberately considered tactical move. Just who organised this move and who authorised it can only be assumed, but given the number of those involved the authorisation for it must have come from the leading elements among the Eureka diggers. For example such a move could not have occurred without the knowledge, and

65 Rede to Hotham, 27 November 1854, PROV1189/P Unit 92, J55/14458. 66‘The diaries of Thomas Pierson’, SLV MS 11646 Box 2178/4-5, pp. 239-249. 67 For Manning’s encouragement to attack the camp see: PROV 5527/P Unit 2, Item 3; for Smyth’s advocacy against violence see Carboni The Eureka Stockade, pp.81-2. Smyth, Black and Kennedy’s efforts to dissuade any attack on the government camp are mentioned in Withers History of Ballarat p.105. 68 See Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp. 95-7 for a discussion of the conditions inside the Government Camp prior to the battle at Eureka. 69 Monaghan, Australians and the Gold Rush, p.258. Monaghan’s observation is made only in passing without further elaboration in a section of his book that deals with the Australian Gold Rush era in which he considers events at Eureka. Nevertheless, despite its brief nature, it is a cogent observation given its recognition of the military aspects of the Eureka diggers’ preparations as well as an interesting one from a historian outside the Australian historiographical tradition.

27 presumably approval of Lalor and other senior Eureka digger leaders. On the Friday those who went out to Warrenheip included the companies of the American Nelson and Canadian Ross, and on the Saturday the companies of Nelson and the American McGill.70 Ross was a leading figure among the Eureka diggers and McGill from his arrival on the Saturday had assumed military command of the diggers ‘army’.71 Carboni used the word ‘intercept’ to describe the intentions of these armed parties, an understatement at best. Later Carboni admitted that the intentions of the diggers was to confront the soldiers coming from Melbourne and, ‘get at their arms and ammunition.’72 Charles Ferguson, an American digger and member of one of the armed companies of Californians was much more sanguine stating that the intention of the diggers at Warrenheip was to strike at the military, ‘thus weakening the government force.’73 Such an action could have only led to bloodshed and it is inconceivable that those who sent them out on their mission would not have appreciated that. It was purely a matter of chance that there were no military present for these diggers to confront. Ross and Nelson went out to Warrenheip with their companies on the Friday night.74 Ross’s was leading slightly more than 100 men when he accosted Gold Commissioner Amos at Amos’s camp in the days prior to the battle.75 The size of Nelson’s company is not known, but Frederick Vern in his plan for the digger’s army (see Chapter 4) stipulated that a company should equal 43 men.76 Whether or not Nelson’s company reached Vern’s planned size for companies can only be guessed at but it was at least numerous enough to be recognised as a distinct company. McGill was said to have brought with him 200 Californians to the stockade and to have taken two thirds of these out on the Saturday night.77 Nelson’s company accompanied McGill making the total force about 300 men.78 If this force had confronted the military column then marching from Melbourne

70 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, pp.79 and 94. 71 Ross’s role at Eureka is frequently mentioned by Carboni and specifically by Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.60. It is discussed in some depth in Blake, To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.49-52. 72 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, pp.79-80. 73 Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.58. 74 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.79. 75 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.27. 76 See Chapter 4 of this monograph. 77 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.94. 78 Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.58. Whether or not all of these extra 150 men were from Nelson’s company or other men who had joined the force for the evening is not known.

28 with the intention of getting at their arms and ammunition or ‘weakening the government force’ there would have been the potential for serious conflict. It is inconceivable that the leadership of the Eureka diggers would have been oblivious to this possibility. The despatch of the diggers to Warrenheip reinforces the importance of the defended location of the stockade as a site from which such expeditions could be mounted and underscores that a spirit of active armed defiance was certainly alive among a significant number of the Eureka diggers. This same spirit manifested itself in the defence of the stockade.

As the sky gradually lightened on the morning of 3 December 1854, the stockade’s defenders could make out indistinct shapes moving, mere shadows in the greying light some one hundred yards or so to their front.79 Charles Ferguson, waiting in line at the palisade with his fellow Californians, eventually identified what he thought to be an officer directing his men. There had been orders issued among the diggers to shoot at the officers if they were attacked by the military.80 Fellow American Robert Burnette, described by stockade defender Henry Sutherland as ‘a little fellow formerly a barber’, stepped forward, lifted his rifle and fired hitting the soldier Ferguson had identified. This was to be what Ferguson would later call the first shot of the ‘Ballarat War’.81 Burnette was noted as taking deliberate aim and hitting his mark. No other account indicates any casualties being inflicted on the soldiers prior to the general action commencing. Governor Charles Hotham in his official report to the Colonial Secretary in London refers to, ‘a private killed before a shot was returned’.82 The military casualty returns issued immediately after Eureka indicate that only one soldier, Private Michael Roney of the 40th Regiment was killed outright, by a shot through the head, during the action at Eureka. If as Hotham’s report indicates, and other accounts of the battle presented later in this chapter confirm, the military fired only after they had been fired upon and thus only after Roney has been killed it must have been Burnette’s first shot of ‘the Ballarat War’ that killed Roney.

79 Lynch, The Story of the Eureka Stockade, p.30. 80 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.117; Rede to Wright, 2 December 1854, PROV 1189 Box 92 54/J14462. 81 Eureka Reminiscences, p.64; Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.60. 82 The National Archives (UK) (TNA), CO309/28, Hotham to Colonial Secretary, 22 December, 1854.

Burnette’s shot was not a shot fired randomly nor in response to shots being fired from the opposition. It was a deliberately calculated shot delivered with skill and precision at a target clearly identified as being a soldier.

Burnette’s shot which killed Private Roney transformed the clash at Eureka. Instead of a show of military force resulting in the dispersal of protestors, Eureka took on from that moment the character and dynamics of a serious military engagement. Following immediately Burnette’s shot the defenders of the stockade let off an ‘instantaneous fusillade of musketry’, ‘flying about thick as hail.’ 83 The result of this opening fusillade of fire on the soldiers was severe. Private John Neill of the 40th recalled four men of the 12th and four men of the 40th falling.84 Among the casualties were Privates Felix Boyle and William Juniper. Boyle, a 32 year-old veteran of the Sikh Wars was hit square in the face, a ball entering his head near his nose.85 Private Lynott recalled seeing a soldier lying under a windlass after the first volley and that the man died the next day.86 Private William Juniper had a bone in his leg smashed so badly by a ball that it caused a compound fracture.87 Having taken fire and with men down, one of who was killed, it was only then that Captain Thomas rode across and ordered his bugler to sound ‘Commence Fire.’88 Carboni, who had been sleeping in his tent not too far from the Stockade, heard a discharge of musketry and then a bugle call.89 It is most unlikely that this first volley Carboni heard came from the soldiers without an order to fire.90 The only practical means for Thomas to deliver such an order so that it was heard by all and acted on as one would have been by bugle, which is

83 Lynch, The Story of the Eureka Stockade, p.30; Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’, SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9. 84 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.124. 85 Thomas to Nickle, 3 December, 1854, PROV 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162 Enclosure no. 7; for Boyle’s age and experience see TNA WO12/5366, Muster Rolls, 40th Regiment. 86 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.19. 87 Thomas to Nickle, 3 December, 1854, PROV 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162 Enclosure no. 7; Private Neill of the 40th in Withers, History of Ballarat p. 124, states that this wound was inflicted by the Diggers first volley. 88 Hugh Anderson., (ed), Eureka, Victorian Parliamentary Papers, Votes and Proceedings 1854- 1867, Red Rooster Press, 1999, p.41. 89 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.95. 90 British military discipline for the common soldier at the time of Eureka was harsh, to act impetuously without orders, especially to fire without orders would have been highly unlikely considering the consequences for any soldier so acting. For an account of the service conditions of the British soldier at that time see: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, Chapter 3, ‘In Brave Devotion to Duty’, pp.59-83.

30 what he initiated. The bugle call heard by Carboni would have been that order. This was, according to Carboni, followed immediately by another discharge of musketry, which would have been that ordered by Thomas, and by the command ‘forward’.91 This volley from the soldiers was no half-hearted display. The military response was one forced upon them by the actions of the defenders of the stockade.

An examination of the means employed by the defenders of the stockade and the means taken by the military to achieve their task once the battle had begun illustrates how this was so. The traditional narrative of Eureka, when it bothers at all to dwell upon the methods used by the soldiers to overcome the defenders of the stockade, consistently misunderstands those methods. This is no doubt due to the fact that in all but one case those writing about Eureka are not military historians and are unfamiliar with the nuances and details of military tactics.92 Geoffrey Hocking’s account of the actions undertaken by the soldiers at Eureka in his Eureka Stockade is typical of this basic lack of understanding of the battlefield dynamics and infantry tactics of the era. In describing the assault on the stockade he writes:

At the sound of the bugle, the troops abandoned their lines, and in skirmishing order surged forward. Several of the soldiers in the front line were hit by fire. It was plain to the officer in charge of the foot soldiers that the men within the stockade would have the best of the battle if it was to be confined to shooting, so he ordered a bayonet charge. With a cry of ‘40th follow me!’ the red coated troopers dashed for the barricade as Captain Wise led the charge forward.93

As will be explained later in this chapter such a description bears no resemblance to how disciplined soldiers actually behaved during battle during the era of Eureka. Other autheors fare little better. In Our Own Little Rebellion Turner’s description of the battle, while recognising that the order to charge the stockade was eventually given following a final volley, confuses timings and offers what is

91 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.95. 92 Apart from the authors own monograph the one exception is Smith, N.C., Soldiers Bleed Too – The Redcoats at the Eureka Stockade, Mostly Unsung Military History, Melbourne, 2004. 93 Hocking, Eureka Stockade, p.138.

31 little more than a précis of proceedings tinged with hyperbole. Describing the assault on the stockade Turner writes:

After another volley from the soldiers, which sounded like an earthquake in comparison with the dropping fire of the insurgents, the order was given to charge. With a wild cheer the soldiers threw themselves on the flimsy palisades, which readily went down before them.94

O’Brien in Massacre at Eureka essentially ignores the opening stages of the combat and concentrates heavily on events once the soldiers had reached the stockade and were engaged in hand to hand combat with the defenders. O’Brien is much more concerned the aftermath of that combat than the actual combat itself.95 Neil Smith in Soldiers Bleed Too, purports to offer an examination of the events at the Eureka Stockade from the soldier’s perspective, but fails to do so in any convincing manner, preferring instead to far too often indulge in fanciful stories.96 Only John Molony among professional historians attempts to describe the battle in anything more that the most cursory manner, but even he concludes that the whole affair was conducted quickly with skilful and rapid moves by the military and police overwhelming the defenders.97

Such accounts demonstrate that both academic and popular historians of Eureka have been handicapped by their lack of knowledge of military matters, specifically the military modus operandi of the era. This has resulted in a misreading of the character of the conflict for the stockade. When the actual actions taken by the soldiers at Eureka are considered and viewed within the context of the standard military modus operandi of the era a very different image of the battle emerges.

Even before the first shots were fired, Thomas, had deployed his leading men into skirmish order with each skirmish contingent, ‘…having its proper support’.98 In 1854 the British Army was employing a system of skirmishing

94 Turner, Our Own Little Rebellion, p.72. 95 O’Brien, Massacre at Eureka, pp.88-100. 96 Smith, N.C., Soldiers Bleed Too. 97 Molony, Eureka, pp.165-66. 98 Thomas to Nickle, 3 December, 1854, PROV 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162 Enclosure no. 7.

32 based on the 1798 Regulations for the Exercise and Conduct of Rifles and Light Infantry on Parade and in the Field. Skirmish order involved the deployment of a portion of the total force, the number determined by the officer in command at that time, in four man contingents each man spaced several paces apart and fifty or so paces to the front of the main body of troops. ‘Support’ in this case meant a reserve comprising the bulk of the force which remained in close order ranks and kept available to respond to any unforseen eventuality.99 When Thomas ordered ‘Commence Fire’ a volley crashed out from the ranks of soldiers which according to one account cut down some nine diggers.100 The assault against the stockade then commenced. This was not the ‘dash for the barricade’ or soldiers throwing themselves forward after a ‘wild cheer’ evoked by Hocking or Turner. Instead it followed a set pattern that was both measured and steady. When the order came for the skirmishers to commence fire the system used to carry out that firing was known as a ‘Chain’. The man on the right wing of each four-man section would step forward three paces and fire, then step back and load. The next three men would then do the same individually, when the right wing man would repeat the process. Such a system ensured that fire was always being delivered against the enemy, and that the line always presented a partially moving extended order target and was thus much more difficult to hit. The ‘Chain’ was not intended to hold ground and not to necessarily advance. When the order did come to move forward, the skirmishers would move and fire in bounds, with each man running forward in a controlled manner, firing in turns and holding the new ground. Working in this way allowed a steady rate of advance to be maintained, as well as ensuring that while one quarter of the line was firing as the other three quarters was preparing to do so, an important consideration in an era of single shot weapons. Skirmishers were not necessarily meant to engage their enemies in hand-to-hand combat. They would do so only if they were compelled to. The normal military consensus of the day, however, was that, when it came to serious bayonet work closer formations were preferable. Consequently bayonets were not fixed when troops were skirmishing, as was the case for Thomas’ infantry that morning. If an assault looked to be in the making, or the tactical situation

99 See: Strachan, H., From Waterloo to Balaclava, Tactics, Technology and the British Army 1815 – 1854, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985. 100 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.117.

33 appeared to be unfavourable, the skirmish line’s supports would be brought up.101 This is in fact exactly what Thomas did at Eureka as the situation developed into a serious confrontation. Once again the traditional Eureka narrative, when it bothers to address such matters, gets the elementary military details wrong. In describing skirmishing tactics Hocking characterises such a deployment as,

Once the bugler sounded the call to ‘extend to skirmish order’, the troops were enabled to break ranks and attack at will. At a time when military campaigns were usually well-planned in advance, and attacks, no matter how disastrous, were pursued like set play on a chess board, the skirmish attack was totally random and men charged in any direction, firing at will, until the day was won – or the battle lost.102

Such a description bears no resemblance to what actually occurred when troops were deployed into skirmish order at the time of Eureka and represents how the dynamics of the conflict at Eureka have been misunderstood by historians and story tellers whose expertise lies outside the military mores of that era.

It is claimed that the Diggers were poorly armed and unable to deliver effective fire. Lalor claimed that the amount of ammunition available to the defenders of the stockade was limited to two or three rounds per man. Carboni stated that ‘arms and ammunition were our want’ and Lynch mentions the ‘disparity of arms’.103 Fitzpatrick in The British Empire in Australia, An Economic History 1834 – 1939, Molony in Eureka, Strange and Strange in Eureka, Gold Graft and Grievances are several examples of the many histories of Eureka that assert that this was the case.104 Reinforcing this volleys of the diggers were described as an, ‘intermittent splutter’ and, ‘ragged.’105 Such descriptions pay no heed to the observations of those engaged on either side, nor in the reality of the results of the contest or arms which lasted according to accounts from both

101 See: Strachan, H., From Waterloo to Balaclava. 102 Hocking, Eureka Stockade, p.134. 103 Lalor to the Argus, 10 April 1855, p.7; Carboni, p.79; Lynch, pp.29-30. 104 Fitzpatrick, B., The British Empire in Australia, An Economic History 1834 – 1939, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1949, p.207; Molony Eureka, p.149; Strange, B. and Strange, B., Eureka, Gold Graft and Grievances, Bert and Bon Strange, Ballarat, 1973, p.19. 105 Eureka Reminiscences, p.32; Serle The Golden Years, p.168.

34 sides for some ten minutes.106 Instead of intermittent splutter and ragged fire, what actually ensued was an exchange of fire that stockade defender Ferguson described as being delivered, ‘with like effect, as deadly as theirs.’107 Ferguson’s assessment was not simply bravado, it was echoed by Captain Charles Pasley Royal Engineers who at Eureka was acting as Aide de Camp to the force commander Captain John Thomas of the 40th Regiment, as well as commanding the forward skirmish line of the 40th Regiment during the assault on the stockade. Pasley described the fire from the stockade as, ‘Sharp and sustained.’108 Thomas, a soldier of some experience, referred to the fire coming at his men as, ‘rather sharp, and well directed.’109 This was a description with which John Lynch concurred recollecting the diggers engaging in, ‘Some sharp shooting.’110 That such fire could be produced by the stockade’s defenders indicates the availability to them of sufficient weapons and ammunition.

Historians’ accounts of the battle also do not account for the time taken by the soldiers to reach the stockade after the first shots were fired. As indicated elsewhere in this chapter every informed account, from both defenders and attackers, confirms that the exchange of fire between the defenders and the military lasted for close to ten minutes. This one fact alone indicates that this advance was, with one aberration, very much one predicated by caution and by so doing an acknowledgment, no matter how grudgingly given, of the resistance being encountered.111 In was not until roughly the ten minute mark, when the mounted police had outflanked the stockade defenders and the defenders fire was thus distracted that the soldiers finally came up to the stockade’s palisade. It was only then that the soldiers were ordered to fix bayonets.112 It took the soldiers close to ten minutes to cross the roughly 120 yards from the point where Private

106 Anderson, H., (ed), Eureka, Victorian Parliamentary Papers, Votes and Proceedings 1854- 1867, Red Rooster Press, 1999, p. 42; Argus, Wednesday 11 April, 1917, p.11. 107 Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.60. 108 Pasley to his Father, MS 6167 Box 94/4 (b), p.55-57. 109 Thomas to Nickle, PROV 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162 Enclosure no.7. 110 Lynch, Story of the Eureka Stockade, p.30. 111 There was a moment when a handful of soldiers broke ranks and rushed ahead scaling the palisade and entering the stockade. They were quickly chased out and forced to beat a hasty retreat. For a discussion on why these soldiers did what they did see: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.156-7. 112 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.24.

Roney was killed to when they arrived at the palisade. This was certainly not Hocking’s ‘surge’ of Turner’s ‘wild cheer’ and ‘charge’.

That the fire power encountered by the soldiers was something utterly unexpected and subsequently harrowing for them was confirmed when some of the men of the 40th Regiment began to fall back out of line. As the bullets from the insurgents cut through their ranks the soldiers faltered. Carboni recalls seeing the soldier’s line ‘swerve from its ground’113. Lynch mentions that, ‘the advance of the infantry was arrested for the moment’.114 Huyughue commented on how the severity of the digger’s fire, ‘caused the Queen’s infantry to waver and many of them held back.’115 This event illustrates all too clearly the effectiveness of the fire coming from the stockade. Into the crisis stepped Sergeant Harris of the 40th Regiment who in an effort to rally the wavering soldiers shouted ‘Forward!’116 A shop keeper inside the stockade said he thought he heard Captain Wise of the 40th Regiment call out, ‘Fortieth are you going to retreat?’117 Carboni recalled a bugle boy bravely standing his ground and the men, rallied by the efforts of Harris and Wise formed up on the boy’s right.118 It was about this time that Thomas, no doubt realising that he must intervene and restore the spirit of his men, dismounted and took direct command of the troops in front of the stockade.119 Thomas’s actions in doing so highlighted just how serious for the military the situation for the attackers had become. Thomas would have been fully aware that by placing himself in harm’s way it was quite possible for him to have been hit by a shot from the stockade. His death or wounding could have potentially led to an unravelling of the whole attack, but at that moment, the situation demanded his presence.

At this point some of the police and mounted military that had moved out to the east of the stockade now took post on high ground behind the Free Trade Hotel. From that elevated position about 200 yards from the stockade, they began

113 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.64. 114 Lynch, Story of the Eureka Stockade, p.30. 115 Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’, SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9. 116 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.64. 117 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.117. 118 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.64. 119 Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’, SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9.

36 to lay down covering fire to support the left of the infantry line. Aside from their momentary waver, for the next six to eight minutes or so the Redcoats of the skirmish line had edged forward. From behind the protection of their musket proof slabs the diggers had continued firing. As they did so they made sure to keep their heads down as much as possible, prompting Sergeant Edward Harris of the 40th Regiment to recall later that the defenders of the stockade were, ‘rather shy, and kept their faces on the side.’120 Nevertheless as the soldiers slowly advanced the fortunes of battle were shifting inexorably against the defenders of the stockade.

A brief statistical digression is appropriate at this stage to ascertain the volume of fire directed at the stockade as it helps illustrate the nature of the conflict that day. There were 176 infantrymen at Eureka opposed to something like 120 defenders of the stockade. It was expected that a trained soldier using the muzzle loading muskets they were armed with could fire up to three aimed shots per minute or a few more with less hope of hitting what he aimed at.121 Thomas estimated that the overall exchange of fire continued for about ten minutes. This estimate is confirmed by Samuel Perry who as a nineteen year old was inside the stockade. In later years he recalled that, ‘we were bosses for about 10 minutes.’122 Even if Thomas’s and Perry’s estimate of time is taken as an absolute maximum, the numbers of soldiers, and police, present and the rate of fire expected from the soldiers over that period of ten minutes implies that many hundreds of musket balls were fired at the stockade. The continual heavy reports of muskets and shotguns, muzzle flashes, and clouds of billowing smoke were clearly seen from the government camp some distance from the stockade.123

It was at about the ten-minute mark since the attack had begun that the mounted police began to make their presence felt. The police had been sent around to the west and rear of the stockade while it was still relatively dark. There were not enough diggers inside the stockade to adequately cover that part of the stockade. As the light improved this had been noticed by the attackers and

120 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.26. 121 Adkin, M., The Waterloo Companion, London, Aurum Press, 2001, p.167. 122 Argus, Wednesday 11 April, 1917, p.11. 123 Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’, SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9.

37 was now exploited by the mounted police who in the words of John Lynch, ‘wheeled round, and took us in the rear. We were then placed between two fires and further resistance was useless.’124 With fire now coming in from one side and behind them the Eureka digger’s position was tactically untenable. In response, and perfectly consistent with mainstream military practice throughout history many of the diggers, with their flank and rear now compromised, decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Abandoning their posts they turned and ran.125 As with all things concerned with Eureka there are conflicting accounts of just how this affected the continuing defence being put up by the diggers.126 Samuel Huyghue, a government clerk listening to the sound of battle from the safety of the government camp and going by hearsay after the event, claimed that at that time the fire from the stockade became desultory.127 This was directly contradicted by Private Patrick O’Keefe who stated that a great deal of firing was still going on up until the time the order to charge was given, after many diggers had fled.128 Lieutenant Richards of the 40th Regiment recalled that, ‘on both sides the fire was kept up heavily until the stockade was taken.’129 Magistrate Graeme Webster who was present throughout the battle stated that, ‘at the moment the soldiers entered the stockade’, in itself being after many of the diggers had fled, ‘There were so many men killed or wounded there in the course of a moment or two, and the men not seeing exactly what it was, hesitated for half a moment.’130 Nevertheless encouraged by the fleeing of numerous insurgents, Thomas ordered up his infantry reserves including the foot police who had been waiting back behind the skirmish line.131 The order to fix bayonets was the key moment. Private O’Keefe of the 40th distinctly remembered he was standing only a few yards from the stockade when the order to fix bayonets was given.132 With this order the soldiers would have known that there was to be no compromise. In an

124 Lynch, The Story of the Eureka Stockade, p.30. 125 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.64. 126 Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’, SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9; State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p. 24; State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Hayes, p. 76; State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p. 35. 127 Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’, SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9. 128 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p. 24. 129 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Hayes, p. 76. 130 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p. 35. 131 Thomas to Major Adjutant General, 3 December 1854, PROV 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162 Enclosure no. 7. 132 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.24.

38 era when firearms were woefully inaccurate single shot muzzle loaders, the bayonet was used to settle the issue once and for all. The British army of the early nineteenth century was deeply imbued with the cult of the bayonet and soldiers were encouraged by their officers to use the weapon with exhortations such as to, ‘not give them the false touch, but push it home to the muzzle’.133 Before the ‘cold steel’ would be put to use against the stockade’s defenders, however, one final volley was fired. 134 Carboni described its effect as mowing down all those who had their heads above the barricades.135 Having fired their last volley, their muskets now unloaded, and with bayonets fixed, Captain Thomas still dismounted called out something like, ‘Fortieth, follow me!’136 The Redcoats only now cheered and rushed forward.137 It was about this time that the officer in command of the assault company of the 40th Regiment, Captain Henry Wise, who had already been wounded in one leg, fell with what would be a mortal wound.138 Those defenders still holding their ground continued to fire at their attackers. Lieutenant William Paul of the 12th Regiment fell severely wounded with a bullet in his hip.139

The battle became one of desperate individual combats. Ferguson recalled the fighting as savage and ‘the most exciting time of my life’.140 It was during this wild melee that an extraordinary act of bravado and courage occurred, one that underscores the character and resolve of some among the stockade’s defenders. Those men from, ‘the division having revolvers’, the Californians, rushed right up to the soldiers hoping no doubt by so doing that they might make their remaining shots count.141 It was about this time that the leader of the Eureka insurgents, Peter Lalor, fell with a shot to the top of his left shoulder. Helped by nearby

133 Holmes, R., Redcoat, The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket, London, Harper Collins, 2002, p.394. 134 Bayonets at that time were in fact made from iron, but the term cold steel for any bladed weapon was very much part of the military vernacular. 135 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.64. 136 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v. Joseph, p.21. 137 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.124. 138 There is much conjecture about when Wise fell. It is a fixture of many retellings of the Eureka story that he fell very early in the fight, some saying that he was the first soldier to fall. The evidence clearly establishes that Wise fell when the soldiers entered the stockade. For a detailed discussion on Wise’s fate see Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp. 162-3. 139 Thomas to Nickle, 3 December, 1854, PROV 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162 Enclosure no. 7. 140 Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.60. 141 Argus 5 December 1854, p.5; Chapter 4 of this monograph examines why an act of such reckless bravado was not at all out of character for the Californians.

Californians, Lalor was hidden out of sight in a hole beneath a pile of slabs and the fighting for the stockade passed over and around him.142 At some time during or before this final assault the German Edmund Thonen was shot down. Thonen commanded a rifle company of diggers and his corpse seen after the battle by Carboni.143 Canadian Charles Ross, whose company of diggers defended the northern part of the stockade, also fell, hit in the groin; he would die later in the day from his wound.144

With the soldiers, surging into the stockade it must have seemed at that moment that the diggers’ fight for the stockade was over. Yet this was still not to be. One more deliberate act of armed defiance was to be played out before the stockade defenders finally conceded. Irishman Patrick Curtain’s pikemen had been previously posted in the upper part of the stockade facing the Melbourne Road. They had held their ground when those diggers who fled had rushed out of the stockade. As the soldiers came up to and then began to cross the palisade, Curtain’s men moved towards the Redcoats. Private John Neill of the 40th Regiment recalled that the pikemen ‘fought well and fierce, not a word spoken on either side until all was over.’ 145 Casualties among the pikemen were severe with one source claiming that they were the hardest hit of all the groups within the stockade.146

By this time the soldiers and the foot police were now among the tents, pits and detritus of battle littering the interior of the stockade. Having met stiffer resistance than expected, and with numerous casualties among their comrades as well as two officers, the Redcoats’ blood was up and their killing instincts for the moment went unchecked. Those defenders who had not managed to run quickly enough, or who had stood their ground to fight it out fell under the thrusting, stabbing tide. Numerous accounts attested to the fury of the onslaught laying the

142 Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.60; Lalor to the Argus 10 April 1855, p.7. 143 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.101. 144 Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.60. Another Eureka myth is that Ross was shot ten minutes after he had surrendered. This was not the case; see Blake, G.,To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp. 167-8. 145 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.98 146 Ibid.

40 foundation for the massacre paradigm. This interpretation fundamentally fails to appreciate the military context in which it occurred. There are many examples of what could be expected in such circumstances. At the battle of Fuentes D’Onoro in 1811, the soldiers of the 79th Highland Regiment, having lost their colonel in a desperate charge against the French, showed no mercy to their enemy when the melee began. One senior officer sent to investigate after the incident concluded that such ‘was the fury of the 79th that they literally destroyed every man they could catch’.147 A private soldier during the First Sikh War, only nine years before Eureka, observed that shedding blood in battle was simply self- preservation, which he reasoned was the first law of nature.148 Commenting in his memoirs of his experiences during the American Civil War, an officer of volunteers observed that men ‘can, in the enthusiasm of battle, see and take part in the murderous work without realising how horrible it is’.149 Such behaviour is a constant of warfare. German soldier, essayist, and novelist Ernst Junger, a highly decorated First World War veteran, when explaining what was to be expected from soldiers who were storming a defended enemy position, wrote that:

the defending force, after driving their bullets into the attacking one at five paces distance, must take the consequences. A man cannot change his feelings again during the last rush with a veil of blood before his eyes. He does not want to take prisoners but to kill.150

Australian soldiers during the First World War expressed similar sentiments. One, writing of his experience of hand-to-hand combat at Gallipoli, wrote that ‘a soldier does not want any sentiment … the lust for killing seems very strong’. Another reflected that ‘the lust to kill is on us, we see red’.151 One Australian, describing his time fighting the Germans in France, wrote ‘[s]trike me pink the square heads are dead mongrels. They will keep firing until you are two yards off them & then drop their rifle and ask for mercy. They get it too right where the

147 Urban, M., Rifles – Six Years with Wellington’s Legendary Sharpshooters, Faber and Faber, London, 2003, p.20. 148 Baldwin, J.W., A Norfolk Soldier in the First Sikh War, Experiences of a Private From H.M. 9th Regiment of Foot in the Battles for the Punjab, India 1845-6, Leonaur Ltd, London, 2005, p.37. 149 Nosworthy, The Bloody Crucible of Courage, Fighting Methods and Combat Experience of the Civil War, Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, 2003, p.252. 150 Holmes, R., Firing Line, Pimlico – Random House, London, 1985, p.381. 151 Gammage, B., The Broken Years, Penguin Books, Ringwood Victoria, 1982, p.97.

41 chicken gets the axe’.152 The parallel here to the circumstances facing the Redcoats at Eureka, in which insurgents were still firing at six paces distance from their attackers, is obvious.153

The stockade had fallen. Those defenders who had not fled had been captured, shot, bayoneted or put to the sword. All about lay corpses and wounded men, many horribly scarred and pierced numerous times. Officers began reasserting control over the soldiery and set the troops to rounding up prisoners before handing them over to the police.154 Among the carnage, a number of women had by now come into the stockade looking for their menfolk. Some threw themselves over the wounded to prevent further harm to them. Diggers, women and most probably some children who had hidden inside their tents were roused out, although at least one, the pregnant Mary Faulds, was let be.155 The soldiers and police then set fire to some tents and many slabs charring some bodies, the genesis of later unfounded stories that the soldiers and police has deliberately burned men alive.156 The bugle sounded “Assembly”. Discipline was reimposed. The Redcoats formed their ranks outside the stockade and marched away, dragging the Southern Cross flag as a trophy of war behind them.157

152 Ibid., p.259. 153 State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria, Queen v. Joseph, p.24, Private O’Keefe recalled how the Eureka diggers were still firing when he was six paces from the stockade. 154 In Charles Pasley, ‘letters to his father’, 1853-1861 SLV MS 6167 Box 94/4 (b), Captain Pasley describes using the threat of his pistol to restrain excited soldiery from mistreating prisoners in the immediate post battle environment. 155 See Johnson, L., Women of Eureka, Historic Montrose Cottage and Eureka Museum, Ballarat, 2002, pp.18 and 30 and 34 and 36, for details of the experience of women who were inside the stockade during the conflict. See also: Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, p.283; State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria Queen v Hayes, p.86 and Argus 12 December 1854 p.4 for accounts of other non-combatants caught up in the fighting for the stockade. It is pleasing to note that at this moment Dr. Clare Wright’s scholarly treatise on the role and influence of women during events at Eureka is close to publication. See also Wright C., ‘’New Brooms They can Sweep Clean’: Women’s Political Activism on the Ballarat Goldfields, 1854’, Australian Historical Studies, Volume 39, Issue 3, 2008, pp.305-21. 156 Such stories can only be viewed with scepticism. Carboni Eureka Stockade p.100 makes specific mention of Thomas treating him honourably when he met him in the aftermath of the battle. Given this and the respected service record of Thomas, it most unlikely that such an officer would have not tolerated for one moment the deliberate murder of diggers by burning them alive. For Thomas’s service record in Afghanistan and India see: Smythies, R.H., Historical Records of the 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment now 1st Battalion The Prince of Wales’s Volunteers (South Lancashire Regiment) From its Formation, 1717, to 1893, A.H. Swiss, Devonport, 1894. For a critical examination of the Eureka massacre myth see: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, Chapter 9 ‘Joe is Dead Now’ pp.186-203. 157 Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’ SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9.

In such a manner the reality of war had manifested itself at Eureka. The battle for the stockade was a deliberately contested act of armed conflict by two parties equally resolved to prevail over their adversary by force of arms. Two mutually antagonistic protagonists, armed organised and equipped for war had clashed. The conflict had been hard fought with distinctively recognisable acts of determined armed resistance by the stockade’s defenders. The tactics employed by the attackers, which they were compelled to adopt because of the resistance they encountered, were standard fare for military conflicts of the era. The carnage that ensued was the natural consequence of the combat and completely consistent with the military mores of the time. This was not the massacre of innocents of Eureka myth and legend. The deliberately contested armed resistance that characterised the battle for the Eureka Stockade remains unparalleled in the context of Australian civil protest. This was, as will become apparent later in this thesis, not at all surprising considering the circumstances and environment in which the event occurred and the convictions and character of those who were so challenged. It is with the connections to this broader perspective that the following chapters of this thesis will be concerned.

CHAPTER 2 ‘To be bullied by the bayonet’ - The foundational ideology for armed resistance at Eureka

Nothing within the British or Australian civil protest experience of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries parallels the contested armed resistance of the civilian diggers at Eureka. Neither the armed displays of the British Chartists, including as will be discussed in the next chapter, the uprising at Newport in 1839, or any other British civil protest event exhibited any of the characteristics of the sustained contested armed resistance as did Eureka. The armed uprising by convicts at Castle Hill New South Wales in 1804 was different in the respect that it was not a civilian armed uprising and there was no contest of arms with the matter being decided by a few volleys of musketry from the soldiers present.1 During the gold rush era arms were displayed by aggrieved miners at Sofala and Bendigo in 1853, but nothing came of it.2 Arms were displayed during the Queensland Shearers’ strike in 1890 but once again nothing came of it.3 The battle for the Eureka stockade was a unique event in Australia. As will be discussed in Chapter 5, however, when considered alongside the widespread international practice of armed civilian resistance to oppression the battle for the stockade is not unique. It was also not isolated from a stream of consciousness that provided a conceptual framework which justified the taking up of arms by civilians to resist oppression. This concept of the right to resist oppression with arms was acknowledged and actioned internationally and, even though it never manifested itself in the same manner in Britain, equally understood and advocated there. For several days prior to the battle for the Eureka Stockade armed companies of diggers openly drilled at the Eureka lead on the Ballarat gold field.4 A leader styled as Commander in Chief and Captains for each company had been elected from among the ranks of the diggers.5 Arms, ammunition, saddles and

1 For a detailed account of the 1804 convict uprising see Ramsay, L.R., The Battle of Vinegar Hill - Australia's Irish rebellion 1804, Doubleday, Sydney, 1989. 2 For a reference to the display of arms at Sofala see Sydney Morning Herald, 12 February 1853, p.1; a detailed description of the display of arms by the aggrieved diggers of Bendigo can be found in Cusack, Bendigo a History pp.94-9. 3 See: O’Neill, E., On the whipping side: a story of the 1891 Queensland Shearers' Strike, Playlab Press, Brisbane, 1991. 4 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, pp.69 and 77 and 81 and 86; Argus 4 December 1854, p.5. 5 Lalor to the Argus 10 April 1855, p.7; Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, pp.65 and 69.

44 horses were voluntarily collected as well as forcibly requisitioned.6 A significant defensive structure had been erected directly across the main access route to Melbourne threatening the government camp’s supply and communications with the outside world.7 A flag, indigenous in design and inspiration, was raised.8 Armed men gathered beneath it and swore earnestly to defend each other’s rights and liberties.9 Why did ordinary people willingly put aside their peaceful pursuits, take up arms, organise themselves into companies, comply with a degree of military discipline, and parade openly under arms? What thoughts, assumptions and sensibilities inspired the diggers to behave in such a manner? How do these challenge the traditional historical narrative of Eureka? It is upon such questions that the following pages will focus. In particular the aim of this chapter is to unravel and analyse the various threads of not only domestic but also, and most significantly, the influence of long standing British protest ideology and convictions behind events at the Eureka Stockade.

It has been established in previous chapter that Eureka was a contested armed conflict and as such was unique in the context of Anglo-Australian civil protest. While the traditional historical narrative of Eureka acknowledges the loss of life that occurred at the stockade, and makes mention of the involvement of the military in the affair, it does so only in the sense that it makes the retelling of the story of Eureka (from the perspective of outraged innocence and wanton massacre) more compelling. Carboni The Eureka Stockade, Hocking Eureka Stockade – the events leading up to the attack in the pre-dawn of 3 December 1854 and O’Brien Massacre at Eureka are only a few of the multitude of sources that follow this line.10 This concentration on the bloody aftermath of the event, and persistent repetition of the massacre paradigm, rather than examining the actual character of the conflict, has limited the understanding of the event. Prominent among these limitations has been an examination of what led the Eureka diggers to take up arms, as opposed to continue their ongoing boisterous

6 Lalor to the Argus 10 April 1855, p.7; Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.89. 7 See Chapter 1 of this monograph for an account of the building of the stockade, and the nature and purpose of the stockade. 8 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.67. 9 Ibid., p.68. 10 See: Carboni, The Eureka Stockade; Hocking, Eureka Stockade; O’Brien, Massacre at Eureka.

45 protests, and behave in the manner that they did during the conflict. This chapter will address the heart of this problem.

Traditional interpretations and popular explanations of digger motivations at Eureka are characterised by two strands of thought. The first of these focuses on essentially local domestic issues, specific to Ballarat, the second acknowledges higher order motives considered within the limited context of the Eureka diggers’ immediate experience. When both strands have been considered together, it has never been as complementary parts of a whole, but as distinctly separate and exclusive entities. There is no dispute of the challenges faced by the gold seeking population at Ballarat prior to Eureka. The corruption of local authorities, the tactless enforcement of unpopular laws and the failure to ‘unlock’ farm land for diggers to acquire were all sources of grievance. Appreciation of the importance of these factors was apparent very soon after the event. In November 1855 prominent and militant digger Frederick Vern, reviewing the reasons for the uprising wrote that the diggers had been slaves to, ‘official insolence and petty authority.’11 The official Commission on the gold fields reporting in March 1855 identified the licence fee, land issue and denial of political rights as the prime causes for the uprising.12 The press of the day ran a similar line; with newspapers such as the Argus determining that,

The riot – so far as the majority were concerned – appears to have been a local affair, directed against locally obnoxious persons, engendered by local grievance and contemplating no more than their removal. The flag and the speeches about independence can scarcely be insisted upon as proving anything to the contrary.13

Similarly, the Empire in an article entitled ‘Causes of the Insurrection at Ballaarat’, identified those causes as, ‘the peculiar evils of the licence fee’, the estrangement from the people of government functionaries and the, ‘partial

11 Pearce, H. H., 1897-1984, papers [manuscript], SLV MS 9370 MSB 567/1-2, p.20. 12 Anderson, H., Report from the commission appointed to inquire into the condition of the goldfields to His Excellency Sir Charles Hotham, K.C.B. Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Victoria, Red Rooster Press, Melbourne, 1978. 13 Argus, 24 December 1855, p.4

46 suspension of the common law of England.’14 Such themes became firmly entrenched in the mainstream historical narrative of Eureka echoing across the generations. At a meeting of the Historical Society of Victoria in 1923 a paper was presented which cited the principal factors that led to the uprising at Eureka as, ‘the licence question and the miscarriage of justice in the case of the Scobie murder.’15 Such a domestic, limited focus has not diminished with time. A story which appeared in the Age newspaper of 26 December 2003 entitled ‘The Unromantic Truth of Eureka’ identifies the chief causes of the uprising as grievances associated with the mining tax and the means with which it was collected.16 Historians have generally concurred that the reasons for the uprising were opposition to the mining tax and as a response to the arbitrary treatment of the diggers by gold field officials. Historian Les Blake concluded that the reasons for the Eureka uprising were that the local authorities had ‘despicable characteristics’.17 Geoffrey Blainey’s analysis of the uprising acknowledges the corruption and arbitrary nature of the enforcement of the miners licence laws. Blainey also emphasises the unique economic physical and demographic character of the Ballarat diggings, which kept miners on site for longer periods than at other diggings and allowed them to form associations over time, as a major contributing factor to the causes for the uprising.18 This last point is made by British historian William Morrell who in ascribing causes for the uprising deduces that, ‘the deep shafts and long waits for returns made the licence hunts particularly hard to bear.’19

14 Empire, 27 February 1855, p.4 15 Argus, 25 September 1923, p.22. The Scobie murder referred to relates to the murder of James Scobie near the Eureka Hotel 6 October 1854. The diggers blamed the hotel owner James Bentley for the murder and after Bentley was exonerated by a judicial inquest that was heavily influenced by his cronies and acquaintances, the diggers burned the Eureka Hotel to the ground and Bentley escaped to Melbourne where he was later arrested and convicted of manslaughter. This incident highlighted how the relationship between the digger population and their trust in the fair administration of law on the Ballarat gold field had deteriorated. 16 ‘The Unromantic Truth about the Eureka Stockade’, Age 26 December 2003, , accessed 22 October 2010. 17 Blake, L., Peter Lalor, p.40. 18 Blainey, G., The Rush that Never Ended, p.19 points out that because they worked deep mine shafts the Ballarat diggers remained in place much longer than gold seekers on alluvial gold fields elsewhere. This created a less transient population, thus making it easier for collective grievances to fester and evolve into resistance. Blainey has acknowledged in conversation with the author in November 2009 that his earlier analysis of the uprising may have been limited in its scope. 19 Morrell, W., The Gold Rushes, London, Adam & Charles Black, 1968, p.242.

Sometimes accompanying these commonplace local explanations is a strand of argument that recognizes some of the higher order motivations among the Eureka diggers. Once again such ideas surfaced very soon after the event. Raffello Carboni in his 1855 book Eureka Stockade, identified ‘the hated Austrian rule, which was now attempted, in defiance of God and man, to be transplanted into this colony.’20 Carboni’s appeal to resist Austrian despotism would not have been an unfamiliar one to the British ear. In August 1850 the Austrian Field Marshal Julius Jacob von Haynau visited London. Von Haynau’s harsh suppression of Italian and Hungarian rebels in 1848 has earned him the moniker ‘the Hyena’. Incited by the radical Chartist George Harney to protest against the visit working men attacked Haynau when he visited a brewery on the south bank of the Thames. So violent was the protest that Haynau had to be escorted to safety across coal barges to the other side of the Thames by the police. Despite the London Times ascribing the violence to ‘some foreigners resident in London’ Harney later celebrated the actions of the working men as examples of their, ‘uncorrupted love of justice, and their intense hatred of tyranny and cruelty.’21 The theme of liberty denied was continued by a number of enthusiastic amateur historians. For example, the inexhaustible Ballarat historian Nathan Spielvogel, in his 1928 monograph The Affair at Eureka observed that,

The Police commissioner and his troopers (“Joes” in digger parlance) were all powerful, and often used their power with harshness and brutality. But these diggers were not the same class of men who worked in the convict gangs. They were free men, drawn from the best of the Old World. Many had fought in the Chartist campaign in England or in the ’48 fight for freedom in Europe.22

Echoing Spielvogel, Bert and Bon Strange in their Eureka Gold - Graft and Grievances considered that the cause of the ‘inevitable clash’ was that the diggers’ response to their mistreatment by the gold field authorities.23 Professional historians have also made a limited contribution to acknowledging

20 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.66. 21 Argus, 21 December 1850, p.4; Sydney Morning Herald, 25 December 1850, p.2; Colonial Times, 10 January 1851, p.3; ‘Down with the Austrian Butcher’, , accessed March 2010. 22 Spielvogel, N.F., A Thrilling Story The Affair at Eureka, John Fraser & Sons, Ballarat, 1928, p.6. 23 Strange, B. and Strange, B., Gold-Graft and Grievances, p.9.

48 higher order motivations. Les Blake in Peter Lalor invokes the spectre of tyranny in his description of the gold field authorities attempting to, ‘rule the goldfields with supreme authority.’24 Historian Weston Bate in Lucky City observed that, ‘Eureka merely regained for the goldfields British civil liberties that three years of makeshift and often arbitrary rule had denied.’25 Bate does not elaborate just what these ‘civil liberties’ are although his contention that liberty was denied to the diggers is clear. He goes on to state that, ‘tragedies like Eureka have occurred and will be repeated across time and throughout the world when governments fail to heed the voice of the people and ignore their needs and rights.’26 In Eureka John Molony determined the key reason for the uprising was the denial to the diggers of their right to be treated with respect.27 Geoffrey Serle in The Golden Years identified both democratic protest against arbitrary government and the fight for freedom as the ‘fundamental irritant’ that motivated the diggers.28 Historian Clare Wright, points out that, ‘Eureka’s ideals are hard to impugn for their integrity and bipartisan appeal. Independence. Unity. Hope.’29 Even though both strands of this traditional narrative successfully identify undeniable causes of grievance of varying degrees of importance to Eureka, the key point is that they do nothing to explain why the event manifested itself as a contested armed conflict, the primary and unique characteristic of Eureka. This is a historiographical shortcoming long overdue for correction.

At the time of Eureka all gold fields in Victoria were subject to the same laws and the unpredictable capriciousness of local gold field authorities. The outrage expressed, and reactions by the gold seeking populations were not solely confined to Ballarat. Creative avoidance of the miner’s licence law and occasional boisterous collective remonstrance was a common occurrence. The Bendigo ‘Red Ribbon’ rebellion and Bendigo petition of 1853; disturbances at Sofala and Goulburn in New South Wales as well as the Ovens district in Victoria; mass

24 Blake, L., Peter Lalor, p.40. 25 Bate, Lucky City, p.46. 26 Eureka Centre Website, , accessed 20 March 2008. 27 Molony, Eureka, p.108. 28 Serle, The Golden Age, p.181. 29 ‘Meaning of Eureka’, Age, 3 December 2004 (no page number).

49 meetings of diggers at Mount Alexander Castlemaine, Forest Creek and other places were all typical of digger responses at the time. In some of these cases, notably Sofala and Bendigo, arms were displayed by the aggrieved diggers and soldiers deployed.30 Unlike at Ballarat nothing, however, came of these armed displays. What then was it about events at Ballarat, unlike those other places, that led to the bloody conflagration at the Eureka Stockade?

Two avenues of explanation help explain why this came about. The first of these is to examine the character and nature of the diggers who played the central role in events, and the influence upon their actions of their personal convictions, which stemmed from their individual assumptions and perceptions of what might be required of them to maintain dignity and independence in extreme situations. The second, complementary to the first and fundamental to explaining why the event took on the character that it did, is to examine the unique nature of the government’s military response to events at Ballarat and the consequences of this response.

The general demeanour and attitude of the gold seekers at Ballarat was consistent with those of diggers working the gold fields throughout colonial Victoria and New South Wales. In January 1852 the distressed property owner Alfred Burchett summed up this demeanour when he wrote, ‘You cannot imagine the state of things here. Men who have been servants all their lives are now, after a few weeks work at the diggings, independent.’31 Such men, now in a land offering unbounded opportunity and half a world away from the constraints of their previous lives, exhibited a new found independence of spirit and attitude. That this was the case at Ballarat was confirmed by Henry Mundy, a wagon driver from Geelong, who frequently visited the Ballarat gold fields. In 1854 he described those diggers he encountered there as,

coming from all parts of the earth principally from Europe and America as fine a class of men as anyone

30 For a reference to the display of arms at Sofala see Sydney Morning Herald, 12 February 1853, p.1; a detailed description of the display of arms by the aggrieved diggers of Bendigo can be found in Cusack, Bendigo an History pp.94-9. 31 Carrodus, G., Gold, Gamblers & Sly Grog: Life on the Gold Fields 1851 – 1900, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1981, p.16.

could wish to see, many of them well educated, doctors, lawyers, merchants sons, in fact of all trades and professions, men of pluck and spirit and intolerant of injustice, indignant at the imperious and corrupt administration of the law32

Wedded to this characteristic intolerance of ‘injustice’ and ‘imperious and corrupt administration of the law’, was the expectation among the diggers that they enjoyed the individual rights of ‘Englishmen’. This was the case even if, as many were, they were not themselves ‘English’. In the 1850s the terms respectable and Englishman were held by many to be synonymous. The comfortable complacency enjoyed by a mid-nineteenth century British subjects rested upon several factors. The first was the assumption that he was a free man, with certain rights understood to be inalienable and protected by long standing tradition and convention. In October 1854 the Argus considering what could be done with the now quadrupled numbers in the colony of Victoria reflected on, ‘the healthy English spirit of our new arrivals, fresh from English scenes, and still imbued with English vigor, English purity and English conceptions of the rights of genuine freedom?’33

Ambiguous as such rights might often seem in a culture of rigid social conformity, they were recognised nonetheless. The 1689 Act, Defining the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown of the English, colloquially known as The English Bill of Rights, quantifies in clear statutory law just what those rights are. The right to petition, to expect bail and fines to be appropriate and reasonable, and to ensure punishments were neither cruel nor unusual were all rights granted by the English Bill of Rights.34 Events at Ballarat would put many of the rights guaranteed by the Bill to the test. Of particular concern was the nature of the diggers’ treatment at the hands of the law - especially the practice of being chained to logs in the open air for failing to pay a fine if caught without a miner’s licence. Given the degrading and harsh treatment metered out to convicts in British prisons at the time the simple

32 ‘The Reminiscences of Henry Mundy 1831-1912’, SLV MS 10416 MSB 607, p.523. 33 Argus, 14 October 1854, p.4. 34 The Avalon Project – Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, English Bill of Rights 1689, Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Library, , accessed 19 February 2013.

51 chaining of miners to logs may not have seemed like a particularly onerous punishment to the police tasked with administering the law on the gold fields.35 Yet, the reaction from the diggers was vehement. Peter Lalor, the leader of the Eureka rebels, wrote a year after Eureka that, ‘The diggers were subjected to the most unheard of insults and cruelties in the collection of this tax, being in many instances chained to logs if they could not produce their licence.’36 John Bird, a digger at Ballarat in 1854 expressing his sense of outrage at the practice wrote, ‘manly men of noble mien, in their shirts rolled up with bare and brawny arms, and with sashes round their waists, marched like bushrangers between troopers with loaded carbines, bearing insult as only Britons could bear it.’37 Recalling the events of Eureka the digger John Stewart described the strength of feeling against the practice of chaining men to logs and lamented the lack of trust exhibited towards the digger population by such actions.38 Even the Victorian Police Commissioner Charles MacMahon lamented that, ‘The system of securing to trees, men who had been arrested for non payment of the licence fee, was a disgrace to any civilized community.’39 The so called ‘Digger Hunts’, carried out by mounted and armed police troopers in search of licence evaders, was an equally infuriating practice for the diggers. Thomas Pierson, an American digger who lived and worked on the Ballarat diggings at the time of Eureka thought that the diggers there were being hunted like game.40 Rafaello Carboni describing ‘hunts’ that then led to the arrests which resulted in men being chained to logs lamented, ‘Are diggers dogs or savages, that they are to be hunted on the diggings.’41 Californian Charles Ferguson echoed Carboni’s cry when he wrote that the diggers were treated, ‘more like dogs than Christian Gentlemen’.42

In early October the Argus, warning of the dangerous passions being aroused among the diggers reported that, ‘there is a vast amount of silent resentment at the

35 For descriptions of the British penal system of the era including the treatment of convicts see: James, D.W., Crime and punishment in nineteenth century England, Arnold, London , 1975. 36 Lalor to Argus 10 April 1855, p.7. 37 Eureka Reminiscences, p.21. 38 Ibid., p.61. 39 Eureka, Victorian Parliamentary Papers, Votes and Proceedings 1854-1867, Red Rooster Press, Ascot Vale, 1999, p.158. 40 ‘The diaries of Thomas Pierson’ SLV MS 11646 BOX 2178/4-5. 41 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.17. 42 Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner, p.52.

52 wrongs inflicted and systematic ill-treatment under the name of the law, smouldering in the bosoms of the gold diggers’.43 In a summation, some days after the tragedy at Eureka the newspaper went on to observe, ‘What else could have been expected from the exposure of freemen to the daily and hourly insult from a demoralised, but almost absolute, police force?’44 The notion of ‘what else could have been expected’ identifies a deeply ingrained presumption among ‘Englishmen’ that they indeed had the right to respond in kind to any serious threat to their personal or collective well being. The concept that people, when confronted by an unjust law, had the right to civil disobedience was proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas during the thirteenth century.45 In the seventeenth century the philosopher John Locke, emphasising the right of a people to challenge and change a government that had shown disregard for the law or its people’s well being wrote, ‘Must men alone be debarred the common privilege of opposing force with force, which nature allows so freely to all other creatures for their preservation from injury? I answer: self defence is a part of the law of nature, nor can it be denied the community, even against the king himself.’46

The tradition of thought in this regard had a long pedigree that continued into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Cato’s Letters arguing the right for private men to defend themselves and, ‘repel injuries and to punish those who commit them’, were widely read in London during the years 1720-1723 and reprinted over the next twenty five years.47 During the early eighteenth century the philosopher Frances Hutcheson, while acknowledging the authority of the master, parent and ruler reserved a right of defence against private and public tyranny. The influential tutor Henry Grove taught that when a ruler menaced public safety, ‘At such times resistance might free the people.’48 Such opinions

43 Argus 2 October 1854, p.6. 44 Argus 8 December 1854, p.5. 45 See; Scholz, S.J., ‘Civil Disobedience in the Social Theory of Thomas Aquinas’, in Inglis, J., (ed), Thomas Aquinas, Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hampshire and Vermont, 2006. 46 Locke, J and Laslett, P., Two treatises of government / John Locke ; a critical edition with an introduction and apparatus criticus by Peter Laslett, Cambridge University Press, London, 1967. 47 Robbins, C., The Eighteenth Century Commonwealth – Studies in the Transmission, Development and Circumstance of English Liberal Thought from the Restoration of Charles II until the War with the Thirteen Colonies, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1961, p.124. 48 Robbins, The Eighteenth Century Commonwealth, p.188. Francis (or Frances) Hutcheson was a professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow University 1729-1746, an early utilitarian thinker and

53 were reinforced during the eighteenth century by legal opinion. Between 1765- 1769 Judge, jurist and politician Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England observed that it was, ‘the natural right of resistance and self- preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression’. 49 Thomas Paine during the 1760s championed very much the same thing, while John Stuart Mill during the 1850s reiterated the prerogatives of the common people over that of government.50 Further legal opinion following the 1832 riots in Bristol confirmed that the right to defend oneself was an extension of English Common Law, the ancient law of the land. In his charge to the Bristol Grand Jury following the riots, Justice Tindal sanctioned the right for Englishmen to defend themselves stating that, ‘When violence occurs, every subject has the common law right to use force against force’.51

Such opinions were vociferously advocated during the early nineteenth century. Following the military repression and killings of the ‘Peterloo Massacre’ in 1819, the crowd cried out for firearms to resist any further military moves against them.52 In the same year radicals in Leeds proclaimed on their banners, ‘arm yourselves against Tyrants: Unite and be Free.’ 53 A song printed in the radical newspaper Medusa in June 1819 appealed to the common people, ‘Let no tyrant you alarm, And if refus’d, then let us arm, And fight for liberty.’54 The dangerous mood of the times was captured in an address given to a gathering outside a public house in London in May 1832, ‘Tomorrow will be your day of

one of the leaders of the Scottish Enlightenment. Adam Smith was one of his students; see: Robbins The Eighteenth Century Commonwealth p.254 for reference to Henry Grove 1684-1738, an influential dissenting tutor and ethical writer at Taunton Academy. 49 Commentaries on the Laws of England, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Library, The Avalon Project – Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, , accessed 6 May 2009. 50 See: Paine, T. and Allen, J.S., Thomas Paine, selections from his writings - with an introduction, by James S. Allen, International publishers, New York, 1937; Rees, J. C. and Williams, G., John Stuart Mill's On liberty, Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985. 51 Keir D.L., Lawson F.H Cases in Constitutional Law, Oxford Clarendon Press, London, 1928, p.371. 52 Brooke, A. and Kipling, L., Liberty or Death : radicals, republicans and Luddites c. 1793-1823, Workers History Publications, Honley, 1993., p.70. 53 Ibid., p.71. 54 The Medusa, or, Penny Politician – a Political Publication, Volume 1, Issue 3, from Feb. 20th, 1819, to Jan. 7th, 1820, Thomas Davidson, London, 1820, p.127.

54 glory. Let every man resist the oppressors to the death. Everyone of you must go armed. Rally to the flag – Liberty or Death – you and your families have endured starvation long enough. Arm, arm against the foe.’55

During the serious disturbances that occurred throughout Britain in 1831 and 1832 following the House of Lords’ refusal to pass the Reform Bill radical school teacher George Edmonds proclaimed, ‘I am not a house holder. - I can, on a push be a musket holder.’56 The People’s Charter of July 1839 declared that;

The constitution permits every man to possess arms, and wherefore, let us inquire? To hang over the chimney piece by way of ornament? No, to be taken thence by way of use when the occasion shall require.…in the last resort, when all constitutional means, through the medium of the legislature, have been adopted, to awaken a government to a sense of their duty, to a recollection of public rights withheld, although recognised; those means failing, we say, that the people are justified in taking up arms and compelling such a government to yield.57

The 1830s and 1840s saw the burgeoning of the political phenomena of Chartism in Britain. Chartism was a mass movement of working class people who sought to ameliorate their social circumstances by gaining political rights. Among the proposed ‘Ulterior Measures’ of the Chartists at the time was a question to the people which asked, ‘Whether, according to their old constitutional right, they have prepared themselves with arms of free men to defend the laws and constitutional privileges their ancestors bequeathed to them?’ 58A Lancashire Cotton worker named Hartley during the Plug Riots of 1842 disarmed a soldier and pointing the weapon at another soldier declared, ‘You fire that musket and I will run you through. You take my life and I will take yours. A fair days pay for a fair days work.’59 Such opinions were not confined to the radical fringes of

55 Stevenson, J., Popular Disturbances in England 1700-1870, Longman, London, 1979, p.298. 56 Thompson, E.P, The Making of the English Working Class, p.892. 57 Baxter, Armed Resistance and Insurrection: The Early Chartist Experience, p.8. 58 Hollis, P., (ed), Class and Conflict in Nineteenth Century England 1815-1850, Rotledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1973, p.228. 59 BBC Home: Local History – The Plug Drawing Riots, , accessed 20 May 2009.

British politics as evidenced by Justice Tindal’s comments following the Bristol riots of 1832.

There was, however, one right enjoyed by Englishmen, and a right clearly guaranteed by law within the English Bill of Rights, which was to have perhaps the most decisive influence on the very nature of events at Eureka; this was the right to bear arms. While from a modern perspective this may seem like a peculiarly American prerogative it does, in fact have its genesis in the distant past of British tradition and was clearly defined as an Englishman’s right, albeit qualified, in the 1689 Bill of Rights. Examples of this right can be found in the English social mores of pre modern times. Early English Wapentakes were a subdivision of land equivalent to the Hundred but importantly also denoted the requirement for the inhabitants of the Wapentake to arm themselves or provide arms to selected individuals among them.60 The clashing of arms by people assembled in court as a mark of assent for a ruling in early medieval times in those regions of England under Norse influence indicated an acceptance of arms as a tool of public acclamation.61 During the medieval era the Assize of Arms [1181] made it obligatory for the loyal subjects of the realm to equip themselves with arms according to their social station.62 During the reign of Henry VIII and through the period of the Commonwealth [1649-1660], reign of King Charles II [1660-1685] and King James II [1685-1688] attempts were made to impose restrictions on the private possession of firearms, but never entirely abolished it. In response to action of Charles II and James II the era of the Glorious Revolution [1688-1689] breathed new life into the concept of the right of every Englishman to bear arms with the. Even though this right was limited to Protestant Subjects and only as allowed by law it nevertheless acknowledged that bearing arms for one’s own protection, including protection from one’s own government, was an essential component of an Englishman’s liberty.63

60 Lavelle, R., Alfred’s Wars – Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2012, p.66. 61 Encyclopaedia Britannica, , accessed 3 November 2009. 62 Sources of English Constitutional History, , accessed 6 May 2009. 63 English Bill of Rights, , accessed 6 May 2009; see also Schwoerer, L.G., ‘To Hold and Bear Arms: The English Perspective’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 23, No.3 (Spring 1990), pp.553-74.

Through the eighteenth century progressively restrictive Parliamentary legislation was enacted aimed at disarming groups within British society thought to pose a threat to the established order, namely Jacobite Scots and the Irish, but the right for the common people to bear arms was never entirely rescinded. English jurist Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England 1765-1769 observed that, ‘The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law.’64 British people exhibited by their actions during the early nineteenth century that they were certainly not oblivious to their right to bear arms. Arms were displayed by protestors during the Luddite disturbances of 1812, and the Pentrich Revolution of 1817.65 Reports of men forming companies, arming and drilling were commonplace in places such as Leeds and Liverpool in 1819.66 In October of the same year the striking linen weavers of Barnsley paraded in the town in military order.67 The forging of pikes and incidents of politically active individuals being apprehended with firearms in their possession occurred in the northern industrial towns of Yorkshire throughout 1820.68

The tradition was well illustrated during the 1830s. In 1831 the people of Merthyr in Wales, rebelling against the economic and social misery imposed upon them, made pikes and forcibly requestioned firearms, three to four hundred being collected in one day.69 The public distribution, including its printing in full in the Poor Man’s Guardian in 1832 of Colonel Maceroni’s pamphlet Defensive Instructions for the People; an instructional tactical manual for armed resistance, and talk in the same year of a ‘General Johnstone’ and a ‘Count Chopski’ as

64 Commentaries on the Laws of England, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Library, The Avalon Project – Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, , accessed 6 May 2009. 65 For Luddites see: Brooke, A. and Kipling, L., Liberty or death: radicals, republicans and Luddites c. 1793-1823, Workers History Publications, Honley, 1993, p.23; for the Pentrich Revolution see White, R.J., Waterloo to Peterloo, Penguin Books, Hammondsworth, 1968. 66 Leeds Mercury, 18 December 1819, Issue 2845; Liverpool Mercury, 31 December 1819, Issue 445. 67 Brooke and Kipling, Liberty or death, p.67. 68 See ‘Melancholy Yorkshire – Your Reformers Stand True, the Uprising of 1820’, in Brooke and Kipling Liberty or death, pp.75-90. 69 Williams, G.A., The Merthyr Rising, Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1988, pp.149 -150.

57 potential Generals for an insurrectionary army indicated the infatuation among some of the public with the potential for armed resistance.70 In November 1838 frequent discharges of firearms accompanied speeches made at Hyde in Cheshire accompanied cries from the crowd of ‘we are ready now’.71 During 1839 the newspaper Northern Star supporting the right of Englishmen to bear arms wrote that it was, “constitutionally valid for the defence of the poor man’s castle against all home and domestic enemies.”72 Other newspapers in the same year such as the Brighton Patriot, South of England Free Press and Derby Mercury reported the illegal drilling of armed men.73 The Stockport Advertiser of 19 April 1839 reported that, ‘in our Market Place, on Saturday, warlike weapons of every description were openly disposed of, by two individuals, after the manner of a Dutch Auction.’74 In the same year Chartist firebrand Henry Vincent recited what a crowd of angry working people has shouted back at him when he asked them what they would do if the government moved against them in force; ‘WE ARE ARMED — WE WILL RESIST THEM BY FORCE!’75 The display of arms by the aggrieved was certainly a deeply embedded element of the repertoire of British protest during these years. To focus a little more closely on the Chartists, during 1839 in the time leading up to a general strike which the Chartist leadership had called the Sacred Month workers were arming themselves for self protection against what they imagined was to come.76 Bludgeons were brandished at Newport on 20 April 1839. Chartists ‘borrowed’ muskets from local farmers at Llandidloes in the same month. The armed demonstration and subsequent bloodshed at Newport in November of 1839 certainly emphasised the earnestness

70 For Maceroni see Stevenson, J., Popular Disturbances in England 1700-1870, Longman, London, 1979, p.298 and Napier, W., The Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles Napier G.C.B, Vol. 1, John Murray, London, 1857, p.18; for General Johnstone and Count Chopinski see Stevenson, Popular Disturbances in England 1700-1870, p.296. 71 Baxter, Armed Resistance and Insurrection: The Early Chartist Experience, p.8. 72 Ibid., p.13. 73 Brighton Patriot and South of England Free Press, 7 May 7 1839, Issue 220; Derby Mercury, 12 June, 1839, Issue 5579; for citations of articles supporting the right to bear arms from the Northern Liberator, Northern Star, London Democrat, Champion, Charter, Operative, Western Vindicator and The London Times see: Baxter, Armed Resistance and Insurrection: The Early Chartist Experience, p.13. 74Mather, F.C., Public Order in the Age of the Chartists, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1959, pp.18-19. 75 Henry Vincent, 'Life and Rambles', in the Western Vindicator , no.3, 9 March 1839, p.3, , accessed 7 August 2010. The capitalisation is as per the original document. 76Thomis, M.I. and Holt, P., Threats of Revolution in Britain, 1789-1848, London. MacMillan, 1977, p.107.

58 of some Chartists’ attachment to arms. Arms collecting occurred in the North Staffordshire Potteries district throughout 1839.77 Many individuals withdrew funds from friendly societies and banks to finance the purchase of arms. A penny a week arms club, for example, was established by Chartists in Loughborough.78 During the revival of their campaign for political reforms in Britain in 1848, only six years before Eureka, the Chartists wrote to Lord Russell, the Home Secretary, demanding the issuing of 10,000 stands of arms to defend themselves against armed members of the Anti Corn Law League who they claimed had been given arms by the government.79 In the same year Chartists were seen to be drilling on Tong Moor and Francis Looney, the Secretary to the Ladies' Chartist Club, addressed a gathering calling on the Chartists there to buy pikes which he added might be purchased for 1s/3d each. It was also reported that Chartists in Bradford had armed and enrolled in what they called ‘Life and Property Societies, or National Guards’ and ‘regularly assembled to be drilled in military evolutions, especially in the use of the pike’.80

Modern historians have certainly acknowledged Chartists arming. John Baxter in his Armed Resistance and Insurrection: The Early Chartist Experience, offers a detailed and methodical examination of the influence of the traditional right to bear arms among Chartists during the early nineteenth century.81 Julian Epstein in The Rhetoric of Violence and the Right to Arm demonstrates how integral the language and impetus to arm was to Chartism during its formative years.82 Malcolm Chase in The Spectre of Insurrection highlights the deep seated Chartist infatuation for weapons.83 History, practice and example had shown that the right to bear arms was understood by the common people of Britain. Given the Chartist passion for arming, and the distinct likelihood of significant numbers of former Chartists being among the ranks of the aggrieved Ballarat miners, the influence of

77 Epstein, J. and Thompson, D. (ed)., The Chartist Experience: Studies in Working Class Radicalism and Culture 1830-1860, The MacMillan press, London, 1982, p.201. 78 Chase, M., Chartism a New History, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2007, p.69. 79 Mather, Public Order in the Age of the Chartists, p. 93. 80 For Chartists drilling see the Leeds Mercury, 23 December, 1848, Issue 6003; for the report of Francis Looney and the enrolling of Life and Property Societies-National Guards see Courier Hobart, 11 October 1848, p. 2. 81 See: Baxter, Armed Resistance and Insurrection: The Early Chartist Experience. 82 Epstein, J., The Lion of Freedom: Feargus O’Connor and the Chartist Movement, 1832-1842, Croom Helm, London, 1982, pp.116-123. 83 Chase, Chartism a New History, pp.68-77.

59 the British Chartist experience of making use of arms, even if only for display, would have had an unquestionable influence on what occurred in the lead up to the conflict at Eureka.

All of this ideological tradition occurred within Britain, home for the overwhelming numbers of gold seekers at Ballarat. Little wonder then that echoes of such sentiments resonated in the colony in the weeks and days leading up to Eureka. Early in November 1854 the Argus observed that,

no selfish rulers can convince me that it is right to drive men to desperation by oppression and misgovernment, and a deprivation of the dearest rights of British citizens, and then to turn upon them with fire and sword when they take the law.84

Later in the same month in a leading article sympathetic to the miners of Ballarat entitled ‘Government by Artillery’ the Argus pronounced that; ‘the feeling became general that redress was hopeless indeed, or only to be found in their own right arms. It was a lamentable conclusion to come to; but it was a natural one.’85 The public’s passion for the rhetoric of defending their rights and liberties by force if necessary was well entrenched, even when not motivated by events on the gold fields. At the end of October 1854 a mass meeting was held in Geelong to protest the failure of the colonial Governor General William Denison to prevent the immigration of ex convicts from Van Diemens land to Victoria. The Argus reported the proceedings as,

The public meeting called for yesterday afternoon, to consider the Convict Question, was certainly a triumph of its kind. Out of the vast number assembled, there was not one who thought the resolutions adopted unnecessary or too severe. The speakers generally went much farther than the resolutions themselves, and declared themselves ready and willing to spill their blood in defence of their- rights and liberties, the safety of their families, and of their properties. There was not much useless bluster, but rather a settled resolve to resist to the death the Infringement by the Crown of the people's prerogative; the cruel tyranny of Downing street; and the base treachery of the

84 Argus, 2 November 1854, p.6 85 Argus 28 November 1854, p.4.

detestable tyrant Denison…. Half measures are of no use with such a man as Denison and self preservation is the first law of nature. If we are not to be trampled upon and humiliated like serfs, we must be allowed to adopt measures suited to our circumstances.86

References to the willingness to spill blood in defence of rights and liberties, the Crown’s infringement on the prerogative of the people and the refusal to be treated as serfs would be echoed at Ballarat in a very different context in the weeks to come.

Shortly before the fatal clash at Eureka, leading Ballarat Reform League personalities John Humffray and Thomas Kennedy, warned the gold field authorities that if the army or police continued to threaten the people without reading the Riot Act then the people could be expected to defend themselves.87 The reading of the Riot Act by the authorities prior to the initiation of any violent action to restore order by the authorities was thought by Humffray and Kennedy to be a requirement of correct legal practice. They were, in fact mistaken, but nevertheless their conviction that this was so was genuine. 88 The Australian and New Zealand Gazette observed that the actions of the government at Ballarat were challenging the people to fight, which as Englishmen they would do regardless of what it called the fearful odds against them.89 Following Eureka the Age of Melbourne reinforced the ideal that in the cause of protecting British law violence

86 Argus, 1 November 1854, p.5. 87 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.96. 88 Although Humffray and Kennedy presumed the Riot Act must be read before any violence could be enacted against civilians by the authorities this was not necessarily the case. Keir D.L., Lawson F.H., Cases in Constitutional Law, Oxford Clarendon Press, London, 1928, pp.360-361 records how in charging the Grand Jury at the 1832 Bristol Special Commission following the Reform Bill Riots of 1831, Justice Tindal stated that the military authorities were bound to do their utmost, on their own responsibility if necessary, to put down any situation of a riotous and tumultuous nature. In a footnote, Tindal stated that a riot or illegal meeting was no less riotous or illegal because the Riot Act had not been read, and all parties that did not disperse were still committing a capital offence. On page 383 there is an account of how in 1838 the then British Attorney General, Sir John Campbell, and the Solicitor General, Sir R. M. Rolfe, ruled that a governor of a district could, without declaration of martial law, put down any insurrection or rebellion by force of arms, and lawfully put to death any person engaged in resisting such actions. In neither of the cases ruled on by Tindal or Campbell and Rolfe was the presence of magistrates deemed essential, or the reading of the Riot Act considered obligatory. This interpretation of the law related to the suppression of riots and disorder remained current until 1928. 89 Quaife, G., Gold and Colonial Society 1851-1870, Carsell Australia Ltd, Melbourne, 1975, p.79.

61 might be necessary, ‘at the hazard of our lives.’90 As has been noted in an earlier chapter firebrands such as Thomas Kennedy were constantly preaching the virtues of ‘physical force’.

With such convictions held by many diggers it only needed a spark to ignite the conflagration at Eureka. This was provided by the military. The use of the military to quell unrest on the gold fields was an established practice of the colonial authorities. Soldiers had already been deployed to Sofala and Bendigo in response to disturbances in both those places by the respective colonial governments of New South Wales and Victoria. At both places diggers had displayed arms. 91 Yet, unlike at Ballarat no conflict occurred. As discussed in the following chapter the deployment and reinforcement of soldiers to control civil unrest was not at all an unprecedented response for British authorities, and as such the colonial authorities were merely acting in concert with established practice. Unlike at both Sofala and Bendigo where the tactful handling of the unrest by local authorities had managed the situation without recourse to conflict the Ballarat authorities chose the path of direct confrontation. Genuinely fearing an attack by the diggers against the Government Camp at Ballarat during the last days of November, military orders were issued forbidding lights to be shown anywhere within the diggings near the camp, which was at best unhelpful to moving about the diggings at night and at worst extremely dangerous if attempting to do so.92 All police and army personnel were concentrated within the fortified perimeter of the Government Camp, thus signalling not only distrust but also a very real physical division between the general population of the Ballarat diggings and those meant to maintain law and order. With the police and military living effectively in a state of siege, tensions between them and those outside heightened accordingly.93

Further deliberate actions by the military continued to inflame passions. On 28 November Captain Henry Wise arrived on the Ballarat diggings at the head of his

90 Turner, Our Own Little Rebellion, p.95. 91 Sydney Morning Herald, 12 February 1853, p.1; Cusack, Bendigo a History, pp.94-9. 92 For the order to not show lights see Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.95, for the dangers moving about the unlit gold field at night see Blake.G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.111-12. 93 Anderson, Parliamentary Papers, p.41.

62 company of infantry from the 40th Regiment. Disdaining any sense of prudence or making any attempt to lessen tensions, Wise decided to march his soldiers through the diggings with bayonets fixed, muskets loaded and cartridge boxes unfastened.94 Such a display of threatened force did not go unnoticed by the diggers. That same evening another company of infantry from the 12th Regiment arrived in a much less militaristic manner, their muskets being unloaded and carried in carts. This company was set upon by angry diggers and the hapless soldiers were beaten with at least one, a drummer boy, shot and wounded. Mounted police with swords drawn had to be despatched to rescue the soldiers of the 12th Regiment. By the last week in November the military garrison of Ballarat had been increased to more than 400 men.95 It remained only for a spark to ignite serious conflict.

Just such a spark occurred on 30 November. On that day in an act of such insensitivity that it has persuaded some that it was a deliberate provocation intended to ignite armed insurrection, the Ballarat gold field authorities ordered out mounted armed police to conduct a licence hunt.96 The police had got no further than the Gravel Pit diggings, still within site of the Government Camp, when they were set upon by an angry crowd of diggers brandishing improvised weapons, including some firearms. Caught in a maelstrom of abuse and chaos the Resident Gold Fields Commissioner Robert Reid read the Riot Act, accounts vary as to how effectively he managed to do this.97 When this had no effect, he called for infantry reinforcements from the Camp which arrived, quickly, with bayonets fixed. Deploying into line the soldiers moved through the Gravel Pits routing out at bayonet point any who stood to oppose them. Already a couple of shots had been fired (sources conflict as to who fired them) and some diggers were wounded. Some accounts then have the infantry firing over the crowds head but

94 Charles Pasley, ‘letters to his father’, 1853-1861’, SLV MS 6167 Box 94/4 (b). 95 Ibid. 96 It is the firm conviction of believers in deep and dark Eureka conspiracies that Robert Rede was acting under direct orders from Hotham to deliberately bring on a conflict so that blood could be shed and the diggers taught a lesson. For an example of this misrepresentation refer to O’Brien, B., Massacre at Eureka. 97 Reid to Lt. Governor PROV 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162 Enclosure no. 4 claims he read the Riot Act, the Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 2 December 1854, p.4 states that Reid began to read the Riot Act but did not ‘read through’.

63 this is not corroborated by any of the participants.98 Nevertheless, rightly or wrongly the word went out like wildfire that the soldiers had fired on the diggers. In a letter to Alicia Dunn written on 30 November Peter Lalor stated unambiguously that self-defence following the firing on the diggers by soldiers at the Gravel Pits was the reason for taking up arms.99 There was no argument here from Lalor over licence tax, arbitrary arrest, corruption or general dissent at the manner in which their affairs were being managed by the governing authorities. Lalor remains silent on the standard ‘causes’ for the armed uprising so favoured by the traditional historical narrative of Eureka. This movement of the military against the diggers, muskets loaded and bayonets to the fore was the key catalyst for all that would follow in the next few days leading up to the battle for the Eureka Stockade.

The particular hatred among the diggers of overt military coercion, especially at the point of the bayonet, should not to be underestimated. Among the diggers the bayonet was regarded as the iconic weapon of the despot. Raffaello Carboni, describing the character of the ‘Englishmen’ around him at Ballarat wrote, ‘John Bull … he hates the bayonet: I mean of course that he does not want to be bullied by the bayonet.’100 Peter Lalor called the threat of the bayonet against the diggers, ‘an insult to their manhood.’101 The Australian and New Zealand Gazette wrote of what it deemed to be the undoubted right of every Englishman to resist demands made upon him, ‘with a fixed bayonet at his breast.’102 When in January 1855 John Humffray and C.F. Nicholls presented a petition from the diggers related to events at Eureka to Hotham they specifically condemned, ‘the conduct of the Ballarat officials in collecting a tax at the bayonet’s point.’103 One radical supporter of the digger cause wrote on 28 October 1854, ‘It is not fines, imprisonment, taxation and bayonets that is required to keep a people tranquil and content.’104 Such resolve against military intimidation was of course nothing new. In 1647 the imposition of the military against the people had been chastised in

98 Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, p.132. 99 Blake, L., Peter Lalor the Man from Eureka, pp.67-8. 100 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.6. 101 Ibid., p.65. 102 Quaife, Gold and Colonial Society 1851-1870, p.78. 103 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, pp.129-131. 104 Anderson, Eureka, Victorian Parliamentary Papers, Votes and Proceedings 1854-1867, p.vii.

Britain as the, ‘height of arbitrarie tyrannie, injustice and oppression’.105 Douglas Edward Leach in Roots of Conflict – British Armed Forces and the Colonial Americans 1677-1763, and Robert A. Gross The Minutemen and Their World, give compelling accounts, for example, of crucial tensions created by the imposition of the British military on the American colonies in the decades leading up to the outbreak of rebellion in 1775.106 Echoes of this very irritant are obvious in the warnings from leading Reform League diggers such as Humffray, Kennedy and Carboni who it has been noted all identified armed coercion as a trigger for a response in kind from the diggers.

The threat of actual military violence against the civil population that confronted the diggers on 30 November presented a fundamental challenge to not only their personal well being, but also, importantly, as to their very core sense of what it was to be an individual ‘independent’ and free. Their passions inflamed the diggers, rejecting the conciliatory blandishments of their Chartist leaders, fell back on well established British protest ideology of opposing force with force. Such a determination, when fused with the equally well established right to bear arms, the liberal availability of firearms to the diggers, and as examined in Chapter 4 the presence inside the stockade of those whose experience predisposed them to use firearms, created an explosive mix which resulted in the bloody conflagration at the Eureka Stockade. Incited with a righteous fury a significant minority of Ballarat diggers took up arms and flocked to the site on Bakery Hill where the Southern Cross flag of the Reform Movement had been raised on a pole. There is no certainly just how many among the population at Ballarat shared such sympathies, but it was nonetheless a significant number.107 In acting as they did those diggers were following a long established precedent of protest.

After waiting for their now conspicuously absent leaders, many of who were Chartists who true to their creed had been prepared to push matters to the brink but go no further, the diggers looked to Peter Lalor. Lalor was born in Queen’s

105 Schwoerer, L.G., ‘No Standing Armies’ – The Anti Army Ideology of Seventeenth Century England, Baltimore and London, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974, p.53. 106 See: Leach, D.E., Roots of Conflict – British Armed Forces and the Colonial Americans 1677- 1763, Chapel Hill and London, The University of North Carolina Press, 1986; Gross, R.A., The Minutemen and Their World, New York, Hill and Wang, 2001. 107 Morrell, W., The Gold Rushes, Adam & Charles Black, London, 1968, p.244.

County (now County Laois) Ireland. He had arrived in Victoria in 1852 and worked for a while in Melbourne and then as a civil engineer on the Geelong Melbourne railway. He then went to the Ovens gold diggings to try his luck and then made his way to Ballarat. Lalor’s family history included an older brother who had been active in the Young Ireland movement, but Peter foreswore any such political affiliations. Peter had been active, although in no way prominent in the events leading up to Eureka.108 Nevertheless when the moment came and no other leaders were present Peter stepped forward and took charge of the gathering. Historian William Morrell in The Gold Rushes, argues that the overwhelming number of diggers at Ballarat did not share the violent sentiments of the diggers who gathered under arms at Bakery Hill. Morrell claims that the great majority of the population ‘were opposed to revolutionary violence’. In hindsight such assertions seem perfectly reasonable, but they do not take into account the potential for widespread insurrection if the Eureka diggers or perhaps more likely those diggers waiting in ambush for the army at Warrenheip had been successful. Captain Pasley certainly recognised this danger.109 Hotham alluded to it in his warming of a riot transforming into a revolution.110 Emphasising this point a letter written by a young Englishman to Governor Hotham in the days after Eureka, mentions the great number of diggers at Ballarat who were, in the manner of all such insurrections, waiting and watching before committing themselves.111 Perhaps such a claim by the young man was exaggerated, but maybe not. Passions on the diggings were certainly inflamed, and if so it poses the very real question of what was the unspoken attitude of many among the Ballarat population before it became simply too dangerous to contemplate such thoughts. Standing on a stump, the muzzle of his rifle in his left hand, Lalor had those who wished to do so kneel and raise their right hand to swear allegiance to each other with the words, ‘We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties’, he then added, ‘Bless these men that go to fight for their rights and liberties.’112 This was not shallow bravado. Historian Anne

108 See Blake, L., Peter Lalor the Man from Eureka. 109 Charles Pasley, ‘‘letters to his father’’, 1853-1861, SLV MS 6167 Box 94/4 (b). 110 Hotham to the Secretary of State, 20 December 1854, PROV 1085/P0, Duplicate Despatches from the Governor to the Secretary of State, Unit 8, Duplicate Despatch no. 162. 111 ‘A letter from a Young Englishman to Hotham’, PROV 4066/P Unit 1, December 1854 no. 55. 112 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.68 describes Lalor standing on a stump his left hand holding the muzzle of his rifle; Great Rural Speeches – Peter Lalor, Peter Lalor’s Bakery Hill Speech,

Beggs-Sunter, recognising this described the oath as a, ‘virtual declaration of war against the British authority that had trespassed on their rights and liberties’, and, ‘a cry for action in the face of tyranny.”113 To her credit Beggs-Sunter reinforces an aspect of Eureka’s historiography that has at best only been alluded to without any attempt at analysis by other historians such as Bate, Molony, Serle and Wright. The values Lalor evoked and Beggs-Sunter indentifies were indeed core convictions for the Eureka diggers, as evidenced by their determination to resist and the manner in which they contested their ground during the battle for the stockade. There was a certainty of purpose among the Eureka diggers that drew from a deep well spring of English tradition and transcended the narrow parochial economic and social concerns that have traditionally been the primary focus of explanation for the events that transpired at Eureka.

Caleb Cuff and Anne Beggs-Sunter, , accessed 20 August 2011. 113 Great Rural Speeches – Peter Lalor, Peter Lalor’s Bakery Hill Speech, Caleb Cuff and Anne Beggs-Sunter, , accessed 20 August 2011.

CHAPTER 3 ‘At the hazard of our lives’ - The British protest model of the early nineteenth century and Eureka.

In Chapter 1 it was demonstrated that the battle for the Eureka Stockade was fought as a military engagement between opponents who were mutually prepared, materially and psychologically for armed conflict. It was a hard fought battle during which the defenders of the stockade both initiated the conflict and then contested the issue with resolve. The military and contested nature of this event makes the battle for the stockade an exceptional and unparalleled historical episode in the context of Australian and British civil protest from the period of the late eighteenth century until the present day. Acknowledging and explaining this exceptionality is the central purpose of this chapter. To achieve its aims this chapter compares and contrasts the general British protest model of the era generally contemporary to Eureka with events occurring at Ballarat. There were indeed many facets of the British protest model that were analogous with what occurred at Ballarat prior to the battle. At the same time it will make clear just how radically the character of the period which included the building of the stockade until and the battle for the stockade diverged from that model. Moreover, properly situating Eureka within the British protest model of the early 19th Century is not only an important unique historiographical contribution in its own right, but once again it provides somewhat of a ‘corrective’ to dominant historical narrative. That narrative sees the relationship between Eureka and the British protest model, when it is considered at all, as being one reflecting behaviours and attitudes principally dominated and guided by British Chartist ideology and practice. Ernest Scott in his 1920 A Short History of Australia pointed out that that the programme of the Ballarat reform league was, ‘that of English Chartism adapted to local circumstance.’1 Clive Turnbull, in Eureka, states that the programme of the Ballarat Reform League was, ‘almost identical to that of the Chartists.’2 C.H. Curry in The Irish at Eureka clearly indentifies the presence and influence of those with Chartist sympathies in

1 Scott, E., A Short History of Australia, Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1920, p.213. 2 Turnbull, Eureka The Story of Peter Lalor, p.19.

68 colonial Australia and in particular on the Victorian gold fields.3 Geoffrey Serle The Golden Years recognises that in colonial Victoria at the time of the Gold Rushes that, ‘The Chartist influence is plain.’4 R.D. Walshe in The Eureka Stockade, 1854-1954 acknowledges the influence of Chartists on events at Ballarat.5 Weston Bate in Lucky City mentions the important role played by the Chartists in the massed meetings of diggers held at Ballarat.6 Les Blake in Peter Lalor the Man from Eureka observed that the Ballarat Reform League was established with Chartist objectives.7 John Molony in Eureka discusses the influence of Chartism on the opinions of leading digger’s advocate John Humffray.8 Paul Pickering in ‘Ripe for a Republic’ looks into the activities of various Chartist individuals in relation to events at Eureka, although his main concern is with the response to Eureka from radicals, many of who were Chartists, in Britain.9

A central purpose of this chapter is to correct this presumption of Chartist influence playing a significant role in the armed uprising at Eureka and the battle for the stockade. This Chapter will establish that while Chartists were indeed the intellectual driving force behind the digger’s dissent in the time leading up to the taking up of arms at Eureka, this was not at all so in the days immediately prior to or during the battle itself. This chapter will establish that the episode of the battle represented an entirely unique paradigm of protest substantially different to the British or Chartist experience.

In the second half of 1854 the Ballarat gold fields were a seething cauldron of individual and collective discontent. Continuous resentment at the miners licence tax, the arbitrary manner in which it was enforced, the perceived corruption of various gold field officials and police and a government seemingly unsympathetic to the grievances of the gold seeking population fuelled outrage

3 Currey, C.H., The Irish at Eureka, Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1954. 4 Serle, The Golden Years, p.113. 5 Walshe, R.D., The Eureka Stockade, 1854-1954, Current Book Distributors, Sydney, 1954. 6 Bate, Lucky City, p.61. 7 Blake, L., Peter Lalor the Man from Eureka, p.48. 8 Molony, Eureka, p.31. 9 Pickering, P., ‘‘Ripe for a Republic’: British radical responses to the Eureka Stockade’, Australian Historical Studies, 34:121, pp.69-90.

69 and anger. All of this was exacerbated by the specific circumstances of the Ballarat gold fields in which the work was hard and dangerous in deep underground shafts. Geoffrey Blainey in The Rush that Never Ended observed that associations between miners at Ballarat were longer lasting than elsewhere thus enabling the fermenting of entrenched collective grievances, and financial returns from all their efforts more often than not unrewarding.10 Importantly in relation to the potential influence of British protest practises the population of the Australian gold fields was overwhelmingly British. Carrodus in Gamblers and Sly Grog-Life on the Goldfields 1851-1900, gives the figure of 82.3% of the gold field population being of British decent.11 Presented with such challenges and frustrations it was not surprising that the models of protest which evolved were recognisably British. The chief elements of British protest; remonstrance, petition, mass meetings, a radical press, violent riot and the implied threat of physical force including the display of arms were at one time or another all practiced with gusto at Ballarat leading up to Eureka.

British society during the early decades of the nineteenth century was no stranger to social and political unrest. It was a time of unprecedented social and economic change in which the disenfranchised and marginalised majority of the population sought to find a voice and the mechanisms with which to provoke social and political change favourable to them. During this era the nature and practice of British protest evolved from local style traditional patterns into protests organised on a national scale. Local style protest was generally underpinned by reactions to specific local issues such as food, living conditions, industrial grievances or dissatisfaction with domestic political and policing processes.12 This type of protest offered the least politically menacing form of dissent for the governing authorities.13 It was only when significantly wider and

10 Blainey, The Rush that Never Ended, p.50. 11 Carrodus, G., Gold, Gamblers and Sly Grog-Life on the Goldfields 1851-1900, p.53. 12 Innumerable food riots; the machine breaking of the Luddites; the activities of “Captain Swing” in southern England; the Rebecca and Scotch Cattle movements of Wales, the ‘Plug’ riots of 1842 are all illustrative of this form of protest; see: Archer, J.E., Social Unrest and Popular Protest in England 1780-1840, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000. 13 Gurr, T.R., Why Men Rebel, Princeton University Press, Princeton N.J, 1970, p.11 lists a hierarchy of political violence beginning with Turmoil which he defines as: Relatively spontaneous, unorganised political violence with substantial popular participation, including

70 diverse elements of British society in general felt themselves to be unreasonably denied their rights or aspirations that nationwide protests with the potential to challenge the established political order eventuated. Three paradigms stand out as exemplars of such large scale campaigns, all three of which contributed to a heritage of protest tradition from which the events at Ballarat drew their inspiration.

The first of these was the movement spawned by the Reform Bill crisis of 1831-1832. During the protests that characterised this era mass gatherings, sometimes numbering 100,000 or more, went hand in hand with widespread, smaller but nonetheless passionately motivated meetings in cities, towns and parishes.14 Occasional extreme but uncoordinated examples of mass violence, such as the Bristol riots of 1831, added a sense of gravitas and urgency. What eventually transpired as a result of this nationwide continuous campaign of organised dissent was that a besieged government pushed open the doors of privilege ever so slightly and welcomed the aspiring middle classes into the political nation. It was a great, yet limited achievement by the protestors, with concessions granting suffrage to less than 2% of the population.15 The working people who constituted the vast majority of the population thus remained excluded by its outcomes.

The second important example of organised nationwide protest in Britain during the era was the movement to repeal the Corn Laws conducted by the Anti Corn Law League (ACLL) from 1839-1846.16 Engaging the Industrial middle classes and led by the reforming parliamentarian Richard Cobden the ACLL’s political and organisational acumen, sheer tenacity and ultimate achievement in forcing the government to concede its entrenched position were remarkable achievements. Yet despite wider implications for the maturation and inclusiveness of British society and politics the immediate achievements of the

violent political strokes, riots, political clashes and localised rebellions. Conspiracy and Internal War with commensurately more serious criteria constitute the next two tiers of his hierarchy. 14 Thompson, E.P. The making of the English working class, p.889. 15 Ibid., p.900. 16 See: Pickering P.A. and Tyrell, A., The People’s Bread A History of the Anti Corn Law League, Leicester University Press, London, 2000.

ACLL did not comprehensively address the concerns of the working people whose aspirations were more focussed on their daily struggle to survive, and the desire to be granted political enfranchisement as a means to improve their situation.

Britain in the early nineteenth century was ‘two nations’. The first was that of ‘Blood and Gold’; the aristocracy and middle class bourgeoisie who enjoyed economic and political ascendancy.17 The second was overwhelmingly composed of what the Poor Man’s Guardian of October 1831 called the ‘poor and despised millions’18, the working and labouring classes who possessed neither significant political rights nor much economic hope. The outcomes of the Reform Bill or Anti Corn Law campaigns left the aspirations of this second nation largely unfulfilled. Chartism stepped forward to champion their cause as a mass working class movement unlike any seen previously in Britain. It was the first clear expression of proletarian consciousness.19 At its peak the movement could consistently generate mass protests that were among the largest ever seen in Britain. Espousing a nascent modern democratic agenda that championed an egalitarian vision for British politics, Chartism organised and advocated at a national level. The Chartist vision was to achieve, ‘complete mastery, by all people over all the laws and institutions in the country.’20 The winning of universal male suffrage was an essential first step for this to occur.

The People’s Charter of 1838, from whence the Chartists derived their name, was in fact a continuation of an earlier tradition of demanding the vote for all men. 21 In its Chartist form the call was accompanied by demands for other

17 Thompson, The making of the English working class, p.902. 18 Ibid., p.890. 19 Pickering, P.A., ‘A Wider Field in a New Country: Chartism in Colonial Australia’, in Sawer M., (ed), Elections Full Free and Fair, The Federation Press, Sydney, 2001, p.33. 20 Hollis P., (ed), Class and Conflict in Nineteenth Century England 1815-1850, Rotledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1973, p.216. 21 For vociferous calls to broaden suffrage in the years 1815 to 1819 see: Cash, A.H., John Wilkes – The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty, Yale University Press, London, 2007; for the Spa Fields Petition of 1816 which called for among other reforms universal male suffrage, a secret ballot and annual general elections see: White, R.J., Waterloo to Peterloo, Penguin Books, Hammondsworth, 1968 and Thompson, The making of the English working class p.658; for the Hampden Clubs of 1826 see: Hollis, P (ed)., Class and Conflict in Nineteenth Century England 1815-1850, Rotledge & Kegan Paul, London, 197, p.99; for the Great Radical Association of

72 significant egalitarian reforms to parliament. Demonstrating their formidable organisational skill the Chartists sent three grand petitions to parliament in 1839, 1842 and 1848; this was despite laws passed in 1830 to discourage such initiatives. The Chartist press was very active, often in the form of illegal unstamped newspapers.22 The so-called ‘Monster Meeting’ harangued by inspirational stump orators was a well established feature of Chartist protests. Gatherings of 150,000 at Glasgow, 200,000 at Birmingham, 250,000 at Kersal Moor in Manchester, and 300,000 at Peep Green in West Yorkshire emphasised the ability of Chartism to attract and engage the multitudes.23 Chartism is of fundamental importance to Eureka. The Chartist mechanisms of protest; organisational acumen, the language of dissent, collective ‘constitutional’ remonstrance, and egalitarian ideals and demands were a consistent facet of the protests that engulfed the Ballarat gold field in the time leading up to Eureka.

Naturally among the great flood of gold seeking Britons who flocked to the Antipodes during the early 1850s there were those who harboured attitudes born of the political and social struggles that had occurred at home. Frederick Vern, a major player in the Eureka uprising, writing in the November 1855 edition of the Melbourne Monthly Magazine of Original Literature observed that, ‘Among the migrants who were day by day pouring in from every quarter, there were no doubt many a Chartist, many a democrat, escaped from the

Marylebourne in 1835 which had proposed universal male suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, equal representation and no property qualifications for members of parliament see: Pickering, P.A., Feargus O’Connor - A Political Life, Merlin Press, Monmouth, 2008, p.68; see also: ‘The People's charter: being an act to provide for the just representation of the people of Great Britain and Ireland in the Commons' House of Parliament, A. Heywood, Manchester, 1843, series Goldsmiths'-Kress library of economic literature, National Library of Australia (NLA) [microform] no. 33473. 22 Chartist papers such as the Gazette of the National Association published for brief time in 1842, the outspoken Western Vindicator published for only ten months until its suppression in December 1839, the Cause of the People which survived for two months in 1848, and the Political Letters which earned its owner a term in prison, were examples of only a few of the many Chartist newspapers that propagated the cause. Chartist papers had been preceded by earlier radical papers such as Weekly Political Register, Black Dwarf, Republican and New Model World. For an interesting contemporary account of the travails of the Chartist press see: Chapter V, ‘The People’s Charter Union’ in Collett, C.D., A History of the Taxes on Knowledge, The Thinkers Library, London, 1933 reprint of the 1899 original London edition published by Fisher and Unwin. For a modern scholarly account of the Chartist press see Allen, J. and Aston, O.R., (ed), Papers for the People – A Study of the Chartist Press, The Merlin Press, London, 2005. 23 Pickering, Feargus O’Connor – A Political Life, p.78.

73 thraldom of aristocratic England.’24 One cannot therefore discount or understate the influence upon the individual conscience of the gold seeking population of Ballarat of the Reform Bill and Anti Corn Law protest campaigns of the 1830s and 1840s.

Historians have long acknowledged that Chartists were an active social force in colonial Australia. For example H.C. Harris did so in The influence of Chartism in Victoria published in 1926.25 Likewise Brian Fitzpatrick in The Australian People, 1788-1945 included Chartist influences in his narrative as did Russell Ward in The Australian Legend, and Noel McLachlan in Waiting For Revolution. 26 Suzanne Hunt in Vegetable Plots and Pleasure Gardens of the Victorian Goldfields, and Paul Pickering in The Finger of God and A Wider Field in a New Country: Chartism in Colonial Australia both point out the important role played by Chartists in Australia. 27 Manning Clark in A History of Australia Vol. III and Vol. IV acknowledges the presence of Chartists in Australia and their participation in the political life of the colony, and in his Short History of Australia acknowledges a significant Chartist presence in colonial Victoria. In both cases he does not directly mention the role played by Chartists on the gold fields of Victoria or at Eureka, but in a rather backhanded manner warns against what he terms the myth of undue Chartist influence on the gold fields.28 R.M. Younger in A Concise History of Australia and the Australians identifies radical elements in colonial Victoria that followed Chartist principles as a significant challenge to the landed interests in the colony. Younger also identifies the

24 Pearce, H.H., 1897-1984, papers [manuscript], SLV MS 9370 MSB 567/1-2, p.20. 25 Harris, H.C., ‘The influence of Chartism in Victoria’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, vol.2, 1926, pp. 351-379. 26 See: Fitzpatrick, B., The British Empire in Australia, An Economic History 1834 – 1939, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1949; Ward, R., The Australian Legend, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1958; McLachlan, N., Waiting For Revolution - A History of Australian Nationalism, Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood Victoria, 1989, p.51. 27 Hunt, S., ‘Vegetable Plots and Pleasure Gardens of the Victorian Goldfields’; in McCalman and Cook and Reeves (ed.), p.269; Pickering, P., ‘The Finger of God; gold’s impact on New South Wales’ in McCalman, I. and Cook, A. and Reeves, A., (ed.) Gold Forgotten Histories and Lost Objects of Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001, p.46. 28 Clark, M., A History of Australia, Vol.III, The Beginning of Australian Civilization 1824-1851, Melbourne University Press, 1978, p.188 and 191 and 192; Clark, M., A History of Australia, Vol.IV, The Earth Abideth Forever 1851-1888, pp. 68-79; McCalman, Cook, Reeves (ed.), Gold Forgotten Histories and Lost Objects of Australia, Introduction, see also: Clark, M., Short History of Australia, Ringwood, Penguin Books, 1992.

74 newspaper The Empire in colonial New South Wales as one which expressed Chartist principles and claims that the influential Melbourne newspaper the Age followed policies that were broadly Chartist in principle. Younger also points out that Chartists were central to the establishment of organised trade unionism in colonial Victoria and that members of the Victorian colonial legislature who had been elected following granting of universal male suffrage gained at least some of their objectives in terms of the original Chartist demands.29 While these later events occurred shortly after Eureka they are illustrative of Younger’s well founded assertion that there was a, ‘Chartist spirit of reform in the colonies.’30

This was definitely the case at Ballarat where some of the most politically active individuals boasted distinguished Chartist pedigrees. Among them were George Black, a delegate to the founding conference of the British National Charter Association in 1840, and later an itinerant Chartist lecturer. George and his brother Alfred, another Chartist who played an important role during the mustering of armed companies prior to the battle at Eureka, established the Gold Fields Advocate newspaper at Ballarat.31 Henry Richard Nicholls, a London Chartist and journalist, worked for George Black and was for a while counted among the armed insurgents at Eureka.32 Charles Nicholls, the brother of Henry and another Chartist, was also active prior to Eureka. Thomas Kennedy, a Scots Chartist was an outspoken advocate of taking up arms at Ballarat and Creswick in the days immediately before Eureka, as well as a founding member of the Ballarat Reform League, a frequent speaker at Ballarat rallies and a delegate for the diggers to the colonial Governor Charles Hotham.33 Henry Holyoake, the brother of the last secretary of the British National Charter

29 Younger, R.M., A Concise History of Australia and the Australians, The Hutchison Group (Australia), Richmond Victoria, 1982, pp.250 and 265 and 279 and 311 and 348. 30 Ibid. 31 Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, p.57 relates how Alfred Black drew up a list of the Captains of the diggers companies when they were formed and how he was also the Secretary of War for the diggers at Eureka. There is also a claim he drew up a declaration of independence modelled on the American declaration of Independence but this is denied in Carboni The Eureka Stockade p.88. 32 Nicholls left the stockade the night before the battle and was therefore absent during the battle. He wrote a very critical and somewhat self serving appraisal of the state of defence within the stockade after the event. See: Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni The Eureka Encyclopaedia, pp.395- 396. 33 Quaife, G.R., (ed), Gold and Colonial Society 1851-1870, pp.165-9.

Association, was active in gold field politics in Bendigo and Ballarat where he was a founding member of the Ballarat Reform League. Of lesser political note, but destined to play an important role, was Stephen Cumming, a known Chartist, who with his wife, sheltered the gravely wounded Peter Lalor in the immediate aftermath of the battle for the stockade.34 The most prominent Chartist at Ballarat, however, was the Welshman John Basson Humffray, who was secretary then president of the Ballarat Reform League. Humffray was the principal stump orator for the diggers’ cause in the weeks before the battle.

There is no record of how many among the general digger population were or had been Chartists. Of the 400,000 people who came into Victoria in the six years after 1851, however, it is estimated that two thirds were farm laborers, domestic servants, and ‘country mechanics’; social classes from which the Chartists drew many of their adherents.35 Significant numbers of these people would have found their way to the diggings at one time or another. It is safe to assume that the influence of Chartism was profound within the circle of dissent at Ballarat in the lead up to Eureka.

The key role played by Chartists such as Humffray, Kennedy and George Black in establishing the Ballarat Reform League in early November 1854 indicates their importance to events at Ballarat. Other manifestations of Chartism were also evident at Ballarat. Members of the Reform League for example were to carry cards. The League was to have elected delegates, there was to be a central committee.36 All of these were features and characteristics of Chartism. While not

34 Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, pp.135- 6, it is pointed out that Cumming was also spelt Cuming at various times; Pearce, H.H., 1897-1984, papers [manuscript], SLV MS 9370 MSB 567/1-2pp.35-36. 35 Fitzpatrick, B., The Australian People 1788-1954, p.159. 36 In Britain National Charter Association (NCA) membership cards were issued widely. The website displays three surviving NCA membership cards and explains that such cards were distributed freely to crowds of people during the excitement of rallies. Argus 1 December 1854 p.5 reports many ‘tickets’ being issued to those who wished to join the reform league and that the cost of these was 5 shillings. The Ballarat Reform League Charter of 11 November 1854 states that ‘Cards of membership will be issued in a few days’ see: PROV VPRS 4066/P Unit 1, November no.69. The Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 1 December 1854, p.4 reports a Ballarat Reform League resolution of 29 November stating that non card carrying miners would receive no support from the League. Hollis, p.270 cites British Chartist Bronterre O’Brien in 1841 summarizing the ‘proper business’ of Chartists to be ‘to combine together as one man’ offering mutual support to the membership. The Chartist concept of mutually supportive

76 exclusively Chartist in their origins mass meetings, ‘Monster Meetings’ exactly like those in Britain were a common feature of gold field politics. A procession of such meetings with Chartist speakers playing a prominent role occurred in Ballarat during the last months of 1854. The first of these on 23 October saw the creation of a ‘Digger’s Rights Society’.37 This was followed on 1 November by a meeting which was addressed by Kennedy, Holyoake and George Black. The meeting of 11 November chaired and addressed by Humffray, Kennedy, George Black and Holyoake and a number of other prominent diggers promulgated the Reform League Charter which signposted a shift in the diggers’ aspirations (discussed in Chapter 2) and demands to a more egalitarian radical political agenda of a Chartist model.38 The debt owed to Chartistm by the Reform League Charter was indisputable. Addressing collective grievances in the form of written charters and petitions was a core component of the Chartist vernacular.39 The Reform League Charter with one exception; voting by ballot, echoed all of the demands of the original British Charter.40

The synchronicity between the British and Ballarat protest models was further evidenced when the colonial Governor of Victoria Charles Hotham received the Reform League Charter and simply scrawled in one corner of it ‘put away’ and it was slid out of sight.41 His dismissive response mirrored exactly that of the British government to all of the British Chartists grand petitions. The final solidarity for members would also seem to be the case for the Ballarat miners who were members of the Reform League. 37 Molony, Eureka, p.89. 38 The other speakers at the meeting of 29 November were non-Chartists Timothy Hayes, Frederick Vern, Peter Lalor and Charles (Henry) Ross. 39 Such tactics inspired by Chartist ideology and activists had been used before on the Victorian goldfields, the great Bendigo petition of 1853 being a case in point. See: Hocking, G., The Red Ribbon Rebellion, The Bendigo Petition 3rd – 27th August 1853, new Chum Press, Castlemaine Victoria, 2001 and Cusack, F., Bendigo: a History, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1973. 40 Listed in order these were; full and fair representation; Manhood suffrage; no property qualification for Members for the Legislative Council; payment of Members; short duration of Parliament. More ominously for the colonial authorities in Melbourne the Charter also identified the people, not the crown, as the basis of political sovereignty, see: PROV VPRS 4066/p Unit 1; for the British People’s Charter see The People's Charter; with the address to the Radical reformers of Great Britain and Ireland, and a brief sketch of its origin, Library University of California, , accessed 26 June 2009. 41 Hotham’s pencil scrawl ‘put away’ is clearly visible in the upper corner of the original Reform League Charter, see: PROV VA 466, Governor, VPRS 4066/PO Inward Correspondence, Unit 1, No 69.

77 great meeting at Ballarat before the battle occurred on 29 November. The demeanour of the crowd and the conduct of the meeting, if somewhat more angry than previous gatherings, followed the well established Chartist form. Commenting on the mood and behaviour at the meeting, Carboni was moved to observe that, ‘No one who was not present at that monster meeting, or never saw any Chartist meeting in Copenhagen-fields, London, can possibly form an idea of the enthusiasm of the miners of Ballarat on that 29th of November.’42 As was discussed in Chapter 2 the Chartists, by this time, were beginning to lose influence with the diggers many of who were seeking a more active ‘physical’ response to their grievances. Nevertheless among the chief speakers that day were Kennedy, George Black and Humffray, who played a prominent role even though many in the crowd had grown disillusioned with him.

Another feature of Chartist politics in both Britain and at Ballarat were the tactics used to secure their goals. The Chartist credo was, “Peaceably if we may, forcibly if we must”.43 The tactic implicit in this was threatening violence to force concessions, or what Paul Pickering has identified as ‘wholesome terrorism’, a fundamental ingredient of the British political repertoire of the era.44 Violence and violent uprisings in response to social, economic and sometimes political grievances were nothing new to British society.45 The Chartists merely refined the process to one of insinuating potential consequences if concessions were not achieved. Incitement to violence was not therefore an uncommon feature of British Chartist stump politics. In 1839 George Julian Harney, a noted Chartist firebrand, predicted a, ‘vast howling wilderness of

42 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.55. 43 Chase, Chartism a New History, p.46. 44 Pickering, P., Chapter 7 ‘Peaceably if We Can, Forcibly if We Must – Political Violence and Insurrection in Early Victorian Britain’ in Bowden, B, T. and Davis, M.T (ed) Terror From Tyrannicide to Terrorism, Queensland University Press, St Lucia, 2008., p.115. 45 The Gordon riots of 1780; Luddite disturbances of the first two decades of the nineteenth century; the “Peterloo Massacre” of 1819; activities of Captain Swing during the 1830s; Rebecca and Scotch Cattle insurgencies of the 1830s; Merthyr uprising of 1831; Bristol riot of 1832; Bosseden Woods rising of 1836 and Plug Riots of 1842 are all examples. There was a strand throughout the era of threatened or feared revolutionary violence. The Spa Fields Petition of 1816, the Pentrich Revolution of 1817; the march of the Blanketeers 1817; the Bonny Muir insurrection of 1820; The Cato Street conspiracy 1820, the Newport Rising of 1839 are all examples of such revolutionary sentiment and action.

78 desolation and destruction’ if the government continued to resist change.46 Scottish Chartist, Doctor John Taylor, viewed the government of Britain as ‘apostate traitors’ and saw no answer to the challenges facing the working people other than, ‘brute force is now the order of the day with your enemies.’47 Similarly, Bradford Political League man Joseph Brook, warned that, ‘if the day of blood was ordained to come…that the sooner it come the better.’48 Chartist handbills were equally adamant proclaiming, ‘By pike and sword, your freedom strive to gain’.49Another simply stated, ‘nothing can convince tyrants of their folly but gunpowder and steel.’50 Chartist poems and songs reflected the tendency to threaten violence. Our Warning, written in 1845 by Ernest Jones included the verse,

But, if ye falsely play us, And if ye but possess The poor daring to betray us, Not the courage to redress; Then your armies shall be scattered,— If at us their steel be thrust,— And your fortresses be battered, Like atoms in the dust’51

Unsurprisingly Ballarat Chartists behaved in the same manner. In the days before Eureka Thomas Kennedy took an active part in encouraging the diggers of Ballarat and Creswick to take up arms. It was Kennedy who made the boast, often repeated as his own in numerous retellings the Eureka story but actually borrowed by Kennedy from an earlier Scots Chartist that, ‘moral force is all humbug, nothing convinces like a lick i’ the lug’.52 Having raised an armed company at Creswick, Kennedy led them out of that place waving a sword above his head and

46 Cole, G.D.H., Chartist Portraits, Cassell Publishers Ltd, London, 1941, p.274. 47 Fraser, W.H., Dr John Taylor, Chartist Ayrshire Revolutionary, Ayrshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Ayr, 2006, p.66. 48 Baxter, Armed Resistance and Insurrection, p.11. 49 Napier, W., The Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles Napier, G.C.B, John Murray, London, 1857, Vol. II, p.30. 50 Ibid., p.29. 51 Ernest Jones Poetry 2, accessed 10 October 2009. 52 Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, p.302; Kennedy’s sentiment was an echo of the words of Scottish Chartist Donald Mackay who in 1848 had extolled ‘Moral force was all humbug.’ See: Chase, Chartism a New History, p.316. 52 Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, p.282.

79 accompanied by a band playing the Marsellaise.53 Humffray at the meeting of 29 November moved that,

That this meeting protests against the common practice of bodies of military marching into peaceable districts with fixed bayonets; and also against any force, police or otherwise, firing on the people without the previous reading of the Riot Act; and if the Government officials continue to act thus unconstitutionally, we cannot be responsible for similar or worse deeds from the people.54

Humffray and Kennedy also warned that if the army or police continued to threaten the people without reading the Riot Act then the people could be expected to defend themselves.55

Historians Malcolm Thomis and Peter Holt observed that everything the Chartists ever said or did was subject to inescapable ambiguity.56 Julian Epstien noted that stump oratory, in which Chartist speakers would often indulge, was replete with both moral and physical force rhetoric and was inherently ambiguous.57 It was not at all unusual that bloodcurdling prose and print could and did frequently emanate from the same source that at other times would be calmly preaching constitutional process. Some leading British Chartists, such as Thomas Attwood, Henry Vincent, George Julian Harney and Feargus O’Connor were masters of such double talk. The Chartist National Convention of May 1839 preaching peaceful constitutional change also threatened qualified violence when it promised, “to meet force with force, and repel assassination by justifiable homicide.” 58 Other equally influential Chartists such as William Lovett, Henry Hetherington, and Feargus O’Connor again and again expressed

53 Pearce, H.H., 1897-1984, papers [manuscript], SLV MS 9370 MSB 567/1-, p.18. 54 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.96. 55 Ibid., p.96. 56 Thomis, M.I. and Holt, P., Threats of Revolution in Britain, 1789-1848, London. MacMillan, 1977, p.101. 57 Epstein, J., The Lion of Freedom: Feargus O’Connor and the Chartist Movement, 1832-1842, pp.116-23. 58 Gammage, R.G., History of the Chartist Movement 1937-1854, reprint of the 1894 second edition, Augustus M. Kelley, New York, 1969, p.112.

80 abhorrence at the notion of direct physical action.59 Despite the mixed message there was a type of method and logic for such ambiguity; for it kept alive ‘whispers of barricades and pikes on the streets of London, Birmingham and Manchester’ and acted as, ‘the weight to the shadow of the moral force.’60 The important point to note here, however, is the significance to the Chartists of the coercive power of threats – not the actuality of violence. Inciting and threatening violence served the purpose of rallying the masses and frightening political elites, but this strategy stopped short of carrying out such threats.

At Ballarat the ambiguity of the Chartist message replicated the British practice. Humffray, who warned of violence if the people continued to be harassed, was described by one digger as an, ‘apostle of peace ‘par excellence’’, and was known to the press as one of the ‘respectable’ members of the Reform League.61 Despite his earlier warnings of violence Humffray’s determined non- belligerent language and actions in the days before the battle confirmed these opinions.62 True to his moral convictions he withdrew totally from events immediately prior to the battle for the stockade and took no part at all in the fighting. In doing so Humffray mirrored the actions of Feargus O’Connor who in November 1839 was conveniently absent during the Newport Uprising.63 Another

59 Wiener, J., William Lovett, Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 1989; for Hetherington see Hollis, Class and Conflict in Nineteenth Century England 1815-1850, p.230; for O’Connor see Epstein, The Lion of Freedom: Feargus O’Connor and the Chartist Movement, 1832-1842. Feargus O’Connor’s frequent excursions along the rhetorical path of physical force angered leading Chartists such as William Lovett. Lovett advocated moral persuasion over physical force as the way to secure reform. In 1842 he acrimoniously split with Feargus O’Connor and transferred his energies towards education for the working classes, a cause he pursued throughout the remainder of his life. 60 Bowden, B, T. and Davis, M.T (ed) Terror From Tyrannicide to Terrorism, Queensland University Press, St Lucia, 2008, p.116; Baxter, Armed Resistance and Insurrection, p.7. 61 The ‘apostle of peace’ can be found in Pearce, H.H., 1897-1984, papers [manuscript], SLV MS 9370 MSB 567/1-2p.40.G, the word ‘respectable’ in Argus 4 December 1854, page 5. 62 In Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni The Eureka Encyclopaedia, p.282 we find an account of Humffray in the days before the battle at the stockade when he was accosted by four armed diggers brandishing revolvers who demanded that he take on the role of leader of the uprising. Humffray declined stating that they should put down their weapons for the government was more afraid of a newspaper than it was of revolvers. Carboni The Eureka Stockade, p.43 recounts how on the day before the battle fearing an armed clash between the diggers and military was imminent he sent a handwritten letter of introduction to the Ballarat authorities via the American Doctor Charles Kenworthy. The content and purpose of that letter is unclear. 63 Feargus O’Connor’s absence during the time of the Newport uprising in 1839 equates nicely with Humffray’s absence from the stockade at the moment of crisis. O’Connor whose speeches continually evoked the people’s right to take armed action against oppressors, as did Humffray’s 29 November resolution, took it upon himself to go to Ireland at the exact time the Newport affair

81 leading Ballarat Chartist who demonstrated typically Chartist ambiguity of intent was Thomas Kennedy. Kennedy who on the Friday had been raising an armed company at Creswick, only a day later on the Saturday morning of 1 December joined Ballarat Roman Catholic priest Father Patrick Smyth and George Black to argue passionately and successfully to persuade the Eureka diggers not to attack the government camp.64 Despite his earlier ‘heroic’ blandishment of a sword, as he led the Creswick men to Ballarat and enjoying a public persona as, ‘one of the most revolutionary spirits of the times’, Kennedy was nowhere to be found during the actual battle for the stockade.65 George Black was recognised as a man of peace and described by one who met him as a man who, ‘preached too much, and pitched his ideas of duty on too high a plane.’66 As has been noted Black did enter the stockade in company with Kennedy and Father Smyth to persuade the diggers to abandon their plan to attack the government camp but again, understandably for a man of his convictions, was not there during the battle. This, however, did not protect him from government reprisal when following the uprising he was considered by the colonial government to be equally culpable with the insurgent’s commander in chief Peter Lalor and a reward of £200 was offered for the apprehension of each man.67

George Black’s brother Alfred, another avowed Chartist, appeared to possess a much more martial spirit. Alfred’s role prior to the battle was in his being present at the meeting on Bakery Hill on 30 November during which armed volunteers were called for and the oath was sworn beneath the flag of the Southern Cross. At that meeting Alfred recorded the names of those diggers who

erupted. Gammage in his History of the Chartist Movement pp.265-267 discusses this and poses questions related to O’Connor’s possible motivations for doing so. 64 See: ‘The diaries of Thomas Pierson’, SLV MS 11646 BOX 2178/4-5. This plan and George Black’s visit to the stockade is mentioned in Withers History of Ballarat, p.105. Police spy Andrew Peters in PROV 5527/P Unit 2, Item 3 reports a plan to attack the camp. In a series of letters found at PROV 1189 Box 92 J54/11826, J54/11.896, J54/12.107 Resident Gold Commissioner Robert Rede expressed his concerns that the camp would be attacked. See Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.95-96 for a description of the intense preparations for the defence of the Camp which in itself was clear evidence of the very real fears entertained by the authorities that just such an attack was imminent. See Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp. 84-94, for a discussion about the intentions of the Eureka diggers. 65 Pearce, H.H., 1897-1984, papers [manuscript], SLV MS 9370 MSB 567/1-2, p.40.D. 66 Ibid., p.40.I. 67 The Victorian Government Gazette, Tuesday January 16 1855, p.140 , , accessed 20 July 2011.

82 answered the call to arms and the companies to which they belonged.68 Black took on the role of the insurgent’s ‘Secretary of War’ and in some sources was accused of styling himself the insurgent’s ‘Minister of War’.69 It was claimed that a declaration of independence was drawn up in his tent in the days before the battle.70 Like his brother and all the other notable Chartists, Alfred Black was not inside the stockade during the battle. Henry Holyoake, who had been very active addressing meetings of Diggers at Ballarat in the buildup to Eureka, was also absent from Ballarat when the battle for the stockade occurred. He had been in Bendigo making speeches to elicit support and was returning when the news of Eureka reached him. It is apparent that in line with their British counterparts the Ballarat Chartists resolve to actually deliver a lick i’ the lug to their foes failed to match their rhetoric.

The apparent Chartist unwillingness to shift from rhetorical incitement of violence to a resolve to actively resist in the face of armed provocation from the authorities diminished their influence among many diggers in the days immediately prior to the battle at Eureka. As this occurred, the leadership of the diggers’ reform movement shifted inexorably away from the Chartists to men for whom notions of armed resistance had very real meaning above and beyond a rhetorical gambit. In response to this transition Humffray resigned his position within the Reform League on 29 November, outraging many diggers.71 One bitter fellow summed up the mood by accusing Humffray of cowardice for doing more than any other to stir up the diggers and then abandoning them when, ‘they were about to bring the matter to an issue’.72 A woman identifying herself only as ‘A female of ‘54’ emphasised the fury of the diggers and the physical danger Humffray was in, ‘I would believe had Mr H., been persuaded to enter the stockade, and if any firing had taken place, Mr H.,

68 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.59. No trace of the Eureka muster rolls have ever been found, understandable in the circumstances of the day when destroying the rolls would have prevented any person whose name appeared on the list running the risk of being apprehended and charged with treason. 69 Argus 8 December 1854, page 5. 70 Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, p.57. No evidence of any such document has ever been found. Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.88 specifically mentions that such a declaration was in the words of Californian James McGill a ‘gratuitous falsehood’. 71 Argus 4 December 1854, page 5. 72 Pearce, H.H., 1897-1984, papers [manuscript], SLV MS 9370 MSB 567/1-2, p.40.G.

83 would have been shot in the back.’73 Such was the cost the Chartists paid for leading the diggers to the brink of violence but baulking at the precipice.

As the battle itself loomed, it would seem that the British Chartist model of protest was being pushed aside. At one level this was perfectly true in that a resolve to prepare for actual rather than potential conflict was the order of the day. There was, however, one aspect of the British protest model that still held true. Just as in Britain, it was in fact, the second rank of protest leadership that took up the cudgel to initiate armed resistance. This was what historian John Baxter identified as the grassroots appeal of ‘physical force’.74 It was at this level that violent outbursts in Britain did occur. For example the Birmingham Birdcage riot of July 1839 when Chartists in Birmingham rioted against the imposition of police from London was incited by local grassroots Chartists. In the same manner conspiracies to violence like those of the aborted West Riding Rising of 1840 were the work of local rather than national Chartist leaders.75 Even the armed uprising at Newport in 1839, the largest, most organised, and most violent armed Chartist event of the era, may have owed much of its instigation and bloody outcome to grassroots Chartist leaders rather than nationally prominent Chartist John Frost, who suffered the consequences of being assumed to be the leader of the uprising.76 In Ballarat men from the grassroots of the diggers’ movement such

73 Ballarat Star, 3 December 1884 (no page number). 74 Baxter, Armed Resistance and Insurrection, p.6. 75 Thomis, Holt, Threats of Revolution in Britain, 1789-1848, p.101; Peacock, A.J., Bradford Chartism 1838-1840, St Anthony’s Press, York, 1969, p.32. 76 Frost was tried for treason, found guilty and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. The sentence was later commuted to transportation for life and Frost along with other Newport leaders was despatched to Van Diemens Land. See: chapter V, ‘John Frost’ in Cole, G.D.H., Chartist Portraits, MacMillan, London, 1941 in which Cole puts forward his case that Frost may have been forced into acting to prevent even more radical individuals seizing the initiative. See also: Gurney, J. and Gurney, T., The Trial of John Frost for High Treason - Under Special Commission - Held at Monmouth – In December 1839 and January 1840, Saunders & Benning, Law Bookmakers, London, 1840. The transcript reveals a great deal of detail on participants of the uprising at Newport. Of particular interest in relation to just how much control Frost had of events at Newport was the role played by one John Rees known as ‘Jack the Fifer’. Rees commanded a well drilled company of men who were in the lead of those who descended on the Westgate Hotel in Newport. Rees was described by Daniel Evans an eyewitness on p.228 as being the ‘first man’, and was seen by Henry Evans another eyewitness p.224 to be prominently armed and out the front of the column. Another man named John Lovell was also prominent p.229. Just how much Rees, Lovell along with others like him and how little John Frost contributed to the rising and the violence that occurred on the day remains a speculative but fascinating question. For indications of the role played by John Rees ‘Jack the Fifer’ see the transcript of the Trial of John Frost, testimony of John Rees pp.204-209; testimony of James Coles p.210. Rees was a man who had firsthand

84 as Lalor, Vern, Ross, Thonen and McGill, all of who played significant roles in events concerned with the battle for the stockade, stepped forward to fill the void left by Humffray, Kennedy, George Black and Holyoake. Other notable individuals in the diggers’ movement such as Carboni and Timothy Hayes, a gifted public speaker, also adopted prominent roles.77 None of these new leaders were Chartists. The leadership of the diggers’ movement had shifted away from its Chartist antecedents. By the actions of these new leaders in the next few days it was evident that there was a shared consensus among the majority of them that Chartist rhetoric did not go far enough towards protecting the diggers from government agents who were resorting more and more to coercion at the point of the sword and bayonet.

Even in the days preceding the battle at Eureka, and despite the transition from Chartist leadership and tactics, it is still possible to argue that events at Ballarat continued to cling to some recognisable elements of the British model. A case in point is the role played by a sympathetic press. For example the fiercely partisan Ballarat Times published on the Ballarat gold field championed the diggers’ cause in print.78, The Melbourne newspaper the Age in the same manner as the Chartist press in Britain printed, ‘Let us at the hazard of our lives, if necessary, protect law and order, but let that law we protect be the genuine constitutional law of the land of our fathers.’79

experience of armed revolution in Texas during 1835-1836. For an account of Rees’s exploits there see Humphries, J., The Man from the Alamo: why the Welsh Chartist uprising of 1839 ended in a massacre, Glyndwr Publishing, Cowbridge, 2004. 76 Kennedy at this time was still playing the role of firebrand. Alfred Black actively helped in organising the armed companies of diggers, in this he diverged markedly from the pacifist convictions of his brother George. Alfred, however, was very much a second level or ‘grassroots’ personality among the Ballarat Chartist hierarchy. 77 Timothy Hayes, native of Kilkenny Ireland, elected Chairman of the 29 November meeting, an advocate for diggers’ rights. Hayes, who was not present at the stockade during the battle, was arrested after the battle and charged with treason. He was one of the thirteen diggers who were so charged. He was acquitted. See: Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, p.261; see also: State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria, Queen v. Hayes. 78 Henry Seekamp, the editor of the Ballarat Times was the only person sentenced to a term of imprisonment after the battle for the stockade. Seekamp was sentenced to six months imprisonment for sedition. No original copies of the Ballarat Times now exist; John Manning a correspondent with the Ballarat Times played a prominent role in the defence of the stockade. 79 Age 6 December 1854 (no page number).

Another echo of the British pattern of protest was the organising of the diggers into armed companies with elected captains. At Ballarat this muster occurred following an aggressive use by the gold field authorities of the military to restore order among the diggers on 30 November. The mustering of armed companies and drilling of the same was a common feature of Chartist protests in Britain during the late 1830s and into the 1840s.80 The diggers of Ballarat were thus still conforming to well-established precedent in doing so. A further example of the affinity between the situation at Ballarat and the British model on the eve of the battle was the reaction of the colonial government of Victoria which, as the tensions at Ballarat intensified, responded in exactly the same manner that the British government had reacted to Chartist activities in 1839 and 1848; by significantly reinforcing military and police numbers within the affected district.81 On 28 November two additional companies of infantry arrived in Ballarat, not without incident, and 800 soldiers and sailors accompanied by four artillery pieces were mustered in Melbourne where a few days later they began their march northwards.82

Yet there was a fundamental difference between what had occurred in Britain and what was happening in Ballarat. The difference lay in the purpose and resolve of the diggers compared to the masses who had indulged in similar behaviour in Britain. As has been demonstrated the battle for the stockade was fought with determination by the stockade’s defenders. Such was not the case in any incident of armed civil protest in Britain (excluding Ireland) during the entire era from the late eighteenth century up until the time of Eureka. There was not one incident in Britain during this time in which British protesters engaged in a

80 See: Baxter, J., Armed Resistance and Insurrection: The Early Chartist Experience. Our History, Pamphlet 76, The Communist Party, London, 1984. 81 See: Thomis, Holt, Threats of Revolution in Britain, 1789-1848; Thompson, D., The Chartists, Pantheon Books, New York, 1984, p.71; Chase, Chartism a New History, p.61; for an excellent first-hand account of the 1839-40 military operations to secure the affected parts of northern England against any outbreak of armed rebellion by Chartists see: Napier, The Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles Napier G.C.B, Vol. 1; Thomis, Holt, Threats of Revolution in Britain, 1789-1848, p.115 explain how in 1848, only six years before Eureka, in response to Chartist demonstrations in London 8000 regular soldiers, 4000 police, 1500 Chelsea Pensioners and 150,000 special constables were mobilised to confront the Chartist crowds; see: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.95-109 for an analysis of the colonial government’s interpretation of events at Ballarat and their reaction to it. 82 Macfarlane, Eureka from the Official Records, p.91.

86 deliberate and sustained armed contest with the military.83 Spontaneous moments of violence such as the Birmingham Birdcage Riot, The Plug Rots or even the so called ‘Battle’ of Bossenden Woods of 1836 in which the military scattered a gathering of religious fanatics and killed their messiah were more typical of the clashes which occurred. Incidents such as the rising at the Welsh town of Merthyr in 1831, during which the local people organised themselves, flew the red flag and succeeded in driving away those few soldiers who initially responded by using improvised weapons, ceased their resistance when the military reappeared in deliberate force.84 In the final analysis such comparisons lacked the characteristic of contested battle for the stockade.

The British Chartist protest closest in comparison to Eureka was the Newport Uprising of November 1839. It is worth while examining this event in some detail to establish why in the final analysis it is not analogous to the battle for the Eureka Stockade. In November 1839 thousands of Welsh miners and steel workers inspired by Chartist rhetoric armed themselves with pikes and firearms and organised into companies like those at Eureka. The men, 3000-4000 of them, angered by the reported incarceration of Chartists, marched into Newport. They kept in good order and appear to have indulged in no mischief, such as looting or vandalism, along the way.85 On entering Newport they marched down Commercial Street from Stowe Hill, their lead elements seven or eight abreast, holding noticeably orderly ranks.86 Most of the forward elements were armed with pikes, but a man with a gun occupied the flank position of every second line.

83 In this case Ireland is excluded from the Anglo-centric English-Scots-Welsh domain of ‘Britain’. The great uprising of 1798 in Ireland did indeed involve pitched battles between organised military formations. By its very nature this intensely nationalist Irish event, motivated by a desire from its more politically astute members for a republic along French lines, traditional politico-ethnic aspirations, religious animosity and cultural resentment is not therefore an example of British ‘civil’ protest. The young Ireland movement of the 1840s was a similar example of an expression of Irish national aspirations and despite it culminating in a ‘conflict’ at Ballingarry in July 1848 that event reflected little of the character of what occurred at Eureka. For an account of the Young Ireland movement see: Sloan, R., William Smith O’Brien and the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848, Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2000. Despite the involvement of many Irish in the conflict at Eureka it was, as shall be seen in future chapters, an event that also involved significant numbers from nationalities other than the Irish and was inspired by the thoughts, assumptions and motivations from a much wider spectrum of ideas and participants than the Irish perspective. 84 See: Williams, G.A., The Merthyr Rising, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1988. 85 Gurney, Gurney, The Trial of John Frost for High Treason, p.149 states that the total claims for damages to property from the Rising came to less than 100 Pounds. 86 Ibid., pp.214 and 223 and 237 and 333-9 and 378-381.

John Frost, the leader of the insurgency, wearing a red cravat walked on the footpath alongside the column.87 On reaching the Westgate Hotel, where the Chartist prisoners were being held, the column halted for a moment as an unidentified insurgent armed with a gun who had been recognised as being prominent in the crowd went to the carriage gates at the side of the hotel.88 Finding the gates locked, the attention of the crowd turned back to the front of the hotel. Frost told the men to, ‘Turn around and show your appearance to the front’ a manoeuvre that they apparently accomplished in orderly ranks.89

It was then, with armed and expectant men facing the open front door of the hotel and special constables blocking entrance to that door that confrontation occurred. A group of armed men left the ranks and approached the door demanding that the Chartist prisoners inside the hotel be surrendered. At least one of the special constables inside the doorway misinterpreted this as a demand for them to surrender. A cry of ‘No never’ was heard by one or two present and a special constable reached out to seize the pike of the insurgent closest to the doorway. A scuffle ensued in which a firearm discharged. As at Eureka and understandably given the tumultuous nature of events there is some confusion as to how this first shot at the Westgate was fired. Special constable Thomas Oliver recalled the incident described how he, ‘caught hold of the door and it struck the gun on one side, and the gun went off about three inches from my head; it stunned me.’90 Matthew Williams who was with the crowd claimed he had heard the word ‘fire’ shouted before any firing began.91 Henry Evans, a saddler whose shop was directly opposite the Westgate claimed to see a man who had moved ahead of the crowd and was armed with a gun fire into the room in which were the soldiers, implying that this occurred before any other firing.92 Those inside the hotel claimed that before any firing had come from those inside the Westgate a volley of shots erupted from the crowd outside the Westgate and that a great many shots hit the ceiling and shutters of the room inside which the soldiers and the mayor

87 Ibid., p.224. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid., pp.171 and 248. 90 Ibid., p.269. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid, p.225.

88 were.93 Special constable Moses Scard recalled quite clearly that before the soldiers fired, ‘I saw several balls come in, and one passed very near to my arm; I heard it go by my arm.’94 Bank Manager John Frazer, who lived immediately opposite the Westgate stated that, ‘The mob almost immediately discharged a volley of small arms into the windows; that was almost immediately after I heard the word “halt”, and saw the men turn around.’95 With the eruption of gunfire the crowd set upon the windows and shutters of the hotel smashing them with pikes. Men jumped in through the broken frames.96 One account credited John Lovell, a local Chartist, with shouting, ‘In my men’ or ‘In my boys’.97 Shots were heard to be fired inside the hotel.98 A great deal of confused commotion occurred in the confined spaces of the hotel’s hall with many Special Constables pushing each other in their panic to escape.99 The insurgents stormed into the hall thrusting their pikes at everything in their way.100

Inside the hotel the soldiers were ordered to load their muskets and the shutters on the upstairs windows were removed affording an unobstructed view of those in the street. The soldiers moved three at a time to the window and fired into the crowd below. The soldiers’ fire quickly had an effect. One man fell by a corner; one fell on the steps his arm in the doorway, one jumped out of the window near the corner.101 Another man fell on the steps of the hotel and another on the far side of the building. Many lay scattered about wounded.102 Then suddenly the boisterous seething throng dissolved with the insurgents, including their leaders, fleeing in all directions. Weapons were cast aside and in a few moments the street outside the hotel was clear with nothing remaining of the throng who had been there a few moments before.

93 Ibid., p.249. 94 Monmouthshire Beacon, 9 November 1839, p.2. 95 Ibid. 96 Gurney, Gurney, The Trial of John Frost for High Treason, p.227. 97 Ibid., p.2. 98 Ibid., p.237, Monmouthshire Beacon, 9 November 1839, p.2. 99 Ibid., p.502. 100 Ibid., p.528. 101 Ibid., p.228. 102 Monmouthshire Beacon, 9 November 1839, p.2.

With the threat from outside the Westgate neutralized, the fight turned to dealing with those few insurgents who had pushed their way inside the Westgate. Opening the doors from their room into the hall passage the soldiers fired repeatedly. Smoke filled the confined space making it difficult to see the insurgents as they moved back and forth. The body of one man killed by the fire fell across the passage.103 Some of those insurgents in the passage made repeated attempts to get at the soldiers, but to no avail. Eventually those who could do so retreated.

The whole event had lasted about twenty minutes with the firing, presumably mostly by the military at those inside the hotel, going on for less than ten minutes.104 The dead, all from the Chartist ranks, numbered something like twenty. Nine lay inside the hotel itself.105 Many more were wounded and dragged themselves away. Even though there were still several thousand insurgents under arms in or near Newport, nothing was done to carry on the fight and the armed hosts melted away into the hills from whence they had come.

There are superficial similarities between what occurred at Newport and Eureka. In a similar way to Eureka at Newport working men, driven to desperation by the harshness of their economic circumstances, denied any form of remonstrance or succour from their government and inspired by Chartist rhetoric organised themselves into armed companies, elected Captains, and marched to confront the authorities.106 It is at this point that the similarities end and the fundamental difference between the two events, the failure to contest for dominance in any significant manner, emerges. A handful of Welsh insurgents, who found themselves more by chance than design trapped inside the hotel, were

103 Gurney, Gurney, The Trial of John Frost for High Treason, p.249 104 Ibid., p.195 in testimony given at the trial Special constable Richard Walters estimated the firing lasted seven minutes; p.249 Lieutenant Basil Gray observed it lasted for ‘less than ten minutes’; p.239 Mayor Thomas Phillips stated that according to his judgement the firing ‘could not have been more than ten minutes’. For comprehensive accounts of the uprising also see Jones, D., The Last Rising: the Newport insurrection of 1839, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985; Wilks, I., South Wales and the Rising of 1839, Gomer Press, Llandysul, 1989. 105 Gurney, Gurney, The Trial of John Frost for High Treason, p.418 106 For a detailed account of the conditions endured by the workers of South Wales prior to the Newport Uprising see: Jones, D., The Last Rising : the Newport insurrection of 1839 and Wilks, I., South Wales and the Rising of 1839.

90 forced to fight for their lives and from all accounts did so courageously, but in an individualistic desperate manner.107 This was in no way like the deliberate confrontation of organised bodies of insurgents that occurred at Eureka. Unlike at Eureka where the diggers’ leaders, with exception of Vern who at least stood his ground for some time, remained at their posts until killed, wounded or captured, the leaders at Newport fled at the same time as their men. Unlike at Eureka where the diggers contested their ground until overwhelmed by superior numbers and firepower the vast majority of the insurgents at Newport, with the exception of those very few who through chance were trapped inside the hotel, offered no such resistance.

The role the Chartists played and the influence they had on events at Ballarat links the Ballarat reform movement to the British legacy of protest. Until the last days of November 1854 the Ballarat Chartists constituted a prominent part of the diggers’ protest movement against the impositions imposed on them by the government of the day. They took leading public roles in championing the diggers cause and raising the digger’s expectations of reform. It was they who inspired the core political demands expressed in the Reform League Charter, a document of unmistakeably British Chartist antecedence. By enthusiastically evoking an Australian colonial rendition of ‘whispers of barricades and pikes’, Chartists like Kennedy (and when required to even Humffray) hoped to intimidate the colonial authorities into conceding the reforms they demanded. In so doing, they did nothing more than adhere to their British Chartist heritage.

With the Chartist influence pushed aside the course the diggers embarked on took on a character that was decidedly not that of the British protest tradition. In its place another tradition, one influenced by an assertive transnational dimension of its own, came into play. It is this transnational dimension, and the elemental influence it had upon providing the catalyst that set the very character and dynamics of the battle for the Eureka stockade, that will be the focus of the next chapter.

107 See: Jones, The last Rising and Wilks, South Wales and the Rising of 1839.

CHAPTER 4 ‘I’ll die before I run!’ The Americans and Germans at the Eureka Stockade

One aspect of the Eureka narrative that has remained conspicuously absent from the mainstream historiography has been any real analysis of the role played by non-British participants in the battle for the Eureka Stockade. Whilst it is commonly acknowledged that there were significant numbers of non-British diggers within the stockade during the battle, the traditional historical treatment of those individuals has been to present them as curiosities, embellishments or comic opera actors. While acknowledgments of the cosmopolitan demography of the Eureka diggers has also been used by past authors to highlight the multinational character of Eureka when it has been convenient to do so, the issue is generally explored in no further depth. There has been at no time any systematic attempt to investigate or analyse the contributions of the non-British national groups present within the stockade. Such a failing reinforces the parochial focus of the traditional Eureka narrative and contributes to the persistent failure of that narrative to consider Eureka in a broader transnational context.1

The sun had yet to rise fully on the morning of 3 December 1854, but even so British soldiers could be seen moving about in the grey half light about one hundred meters distant. Robert Burnette, an American digger, who together with his fellow countryman Bill Melody had been amongst the first of the stockade’s defenders to take their posts at the fortifications rough palisade could clearly see a soldier who appeared to be giving orders.2 Burnette lifted his rifle, took aim and fired, hitting the soldier. A fusillade of fire from the stockade’s defenders immediately followed wounding several more soldiers, some severely.3 Confronted by the deliberate and intense fire of the insurgent diggers, and with numerous casualties, Captain J.W. Thomas, the commander of the military forces

1 The most noteworthy attempts at this have been Churchward, L.G., ‘Americans and Other Foreigners at Eureka’, Historical Studies, Eureka Supplement, December 1954, pp.43-49 and Currey, The Irish at Eureka. Whilst both are interesting in their own right they either fail in the case of Churchward to add anything new to the traditional Eureka narrative, or as with Currey fail by virtue of its subject matter to stretch our understanding of Eureka beyond the traditional boundaries of the British/Irish domain. 2 Ferguson, The Experiences of a Forty Niner during a Third of a Century in the Gold Fields, p.60. 3 Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, p.134. 96 confronting the stockade, ordered his bugler to sound ‘Commence Fire’. A volley of musketry erupted from the military and the battle for the Eureka Stockade had begun. In that one instant the protest at Eureka passed completely beyond the experience of British civil protest and became an event that was for the British people, ‘happily as rare as they are disgraceful.’4 Why was this so?

Previous chapters have shown that the British practice of armed civil protest in the decades leading up to Eureka was very much one of whispers of barricades and pikes. Even though there was in Britain during the era frequent displays of arms and much rhetoric as to their use, there was at no time any example of a contested clash of arms between protesters and the governing authorities like that which occurred at Eureka. The traditional historiography of Eureka, whilst acknowledging that there was an armed clash, depicts it more often than not as a massacre of innocents rather than a battle. In contrast this thesis has thus far shown that there was indeed a battle for the Eureka stockade and that it was a contested clash between two armed groups mutually determined to overcome the other by force of arms. It has also been established that such a clash occurred in accord with an ideology of armed resistance which was deeply rooted in British tradition. Yet even so this does not explain why the battle developed the character and dynamics of a contested conflict of arms. The carnage that was the consequence of this contest provides the very core historical narrative power for the pervading Australian memory of Eureka, so understanding why this occurred is central to our understanding the event. The historiography of Eureka has made no attempt to deduce the contribution of non-British groups within the stockade towards defining the nature of the battle that occurred. The Chartists dominated the organisation and shaping of the dissident Ballarat diggers towards a clash with the authorities – before disappearing when the threat of violence looked like it would become a reality. When Chartist influence melted away it was replaced by a leadership amongst who there were individuals who had no qualms about physically confronting the authorities with arms. It was this new leadership who by their actions shaped what had been the rhetoric of battle into a concrete reality. It is to these men that this study now turns.

4 Anderson, H., (ed), The Goldfield Commission Report, Red Rooster Press, Ascot Vale, Melbourne, 1978, p. 45. 97

The defenders of the Eureka stockade were a multi-national lot. This has been generally acknowledged.5 While the overwhelming majority of those present were from the British Isles (including Ireland), Anne Beggs-Sunter lists twenty nationalities being represented amongst the defenders of the stockade.6 Amongst the approximately 30 non British/Irish diggers inside the stockade two national groups present, the Americans and Germans are especially noteworthy.7 In the case of the American presence at Eureka their contribution has long been discounted or maligned, if not simply ignored all together. American anthropologist John Greenway, when discussing Eureka, astutely observed that Australians, have ‘purified the incident’ by removing Americans from the story.8 The power of heroic national mythologies stems from their intensely parochial nature; Greenway reminds us that it just would not do to have to concede that an important component of that myth owed a great deal to the significant involvement of outsiders.

The literature of Eureka reflects this. Withers, in his 1882 classic The History of Ballarat, an important source for many who study the events at Eureka, does not mention the Americans at all in his account of the stockade. Turner in Our Own Little Rebellion makes only one indirect reference to Californians but does not mention their role in the battle.9 The same author’s A History of the Colony of Victoria does mention that the Californians at Eureka provided the ‘sentinels’ on the Saturday night and were responsible for numerous false alarms,

5 Prior to it becoming the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka what was the Eureka Centre at Ballarat devoted a hall to commemorating the different nationalities amongst the Eureka diggers; Dorothy Wickham and Clare Gervasoni of Ballarat Heritage Services list various nationalities on both sides of the conflict at , trawling through the same authors Eureka Encyclopaedia reveals individuals from many lands. 6 Beggs-Sunter, A.B., ‘Eureka: Gathering the Oppressed of all Nations’, Journal of Australian History, Vol.10 Issue 1, 2008, p.21. 7 Sunter, A.B., ‘Birth of a Nation? ‘Constructing and Deconstructing the Eureka Legend’, PhD University of Melbourne, 2000, pp.287-288 gives a number of 27 recognizably non-British/Irish defenders of the stockade. Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.96 refers to 20-30 Californians occupying shepherds holes in the lower part of the stockade. From combining the totals of both sources, some of which inevitably overlap, and assuming that perhaps some of Carboni’s ‘Californians’ were in fact British/Irish it is reasonable to assume that there were approximately 30 non British/Irish diggers inside the stockade during the battle. 8 Greenway, J., The Last Frontier – A Study of the Development of the Last Frontiers of America and Australia. Lothian Publishing Company Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 1972, p.24. 9 Turner, Our Own Little Rebellion, p.73. 98 but does not mention them again in relation to the battle itself.10 In Lucky City, The First Generation at Ballarat 1851-1901 Bate ignores the American presence inside the stockade going so far as to incorrectly allocate the location they occupied to the diggers under the command of the Canadian Ross and German Thonen.11 Serle’s The Golden Age – The History of the Colony of Victoria 1851- 1861 mentions only ‘one or two’ Americans were prominent in the Stockade.12 To his credit Molony in Eureka at least concedes that the Californians gave a good account of themselves during the battle although he makes no attempt to analyse just what that contribution was. Unfortunately Molony then returns to a more traditional dismissive interpretation of the Americans’ role at Eureka by describing their overall role as a minor and negative one due to their small numbers.13 Churchward’s essay Americans and Other Foreigners at Eureka and Potts and Potts Young America and Australian Gold – Americans and the Gold Rush of the 1850s discuss the Americans at Eureka in some detail but again make no attempt in either case to analyse their contribution to the battle.14 O’Brien’s Massacre at Eureka on the other hand claims that the Americans under arms outside the stockade, of whom there were many, deliberately refused to rally to the stockade when it was under attack.15 Populist histories and public presentations referring to Eureka follow these patterns and either ignore the presence of the Americans all together or acknowledge them in dismissive or conspiratorial terms.16 A panel prominently displayed in the American Gallery of the National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour, Sydney indicates the pervasiveness of the denigration of the American contribution to Eureka. The text of this panel is worded in such a way as to imply that the most prominent American at Eureka, James McGill, in a cowardly fashion dressed as a woman and ignominiously fled from Ballarat at the time of the battle for the stockade. In

10 Turner, H.G., A History of the Colony of Victoria Vol. II. A.D. 1854-1900, first published Longmans, Green and Co. 1904. Re-published, Heritage Publications, Melbourne 1973, p.40. 11 Bate, The Lucky City, p.70. 12 Serle, The Golden Years, p.181. 13 Molony, Eureka, pp.167 and 186. 14 Churchward, ‘Americans and Other Foreigners at Eureka’, pp.43-49; Potts, E.D and Potts, A., Young America and Australian Gold – Americans and the Gold Rush of the 1850s, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1974. 15 O’Brien, Massacre at Eureka, pp.63 and 142. 16 Two examples amongst many such derogatory assessments of the American contribution to Eureka can be found in; Gold, G., Eureka – Rebellion Beneath the Southern Cross and Hocking, G., Eureka Stockade a Pictorial History. 99 truth while McGill did disguise himself as a woman to make his escape seeking to avoid arrest following the battle, as did at least one other prominent leader of the Eureka diggers, he left Ballarat two days after the battle, not during it.17

The reasons for this persistent denigration of the American contribution to Eureka has, as Greenway identified, much to do with the creation of a Eureka mythology based on exclusive Australian nationalism. In the case of the Americans at Eureka there were also practical reasons for this attitude. Following the battle for the stockade three Americans were taken prisoner inside the stockade.18 Two were released without charge, while the African American John Joseph was detained and charged with treason.19 Following Eureka James McGill the leader of the Californian Rangers was granted amnesty by Governor Hotham.20 This favourable preferential treatment meted out to Americans generated resentment in the wider population the Argus writing that, ‘the evidence that the Americans have been so favoured is sufficiently strong to be most painful to those who wish well to the Government.’21 When grafted onto what was the traditional condescending and often mockingly derogatory caricature of Americans by British popular culture at the time, such resentment established the

17 While it is reputed that McGill did evade capture by dressing as a woman, he was not the only one to do so. The report of police Inspector Evans to Chief Commissioner of Police PROV 937/P Unit 10, Item 1 states that leading Eureka digger Frederick Vern was seen disguised in female attire in Buninyong on 8 December 1854, five days after the battle at the stockade. The Evening Echo 1904 (no page number) and Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni The Eureka Encyclopedia, p.349 state that McGill left Ballarat on 5 December. This was two days after the battle thus disproving any deliberately premature, and by implication cowardly, departure by McGill as claimed by the National Maritime Museum. 18 Corfield, Wickham and Gevasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, p.13. 19 Ibid; Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.120 mentions how the Americans were given new clothes to confuse witnesses against them and how the American Charles Ferguson, alongside who Carboni was hobbled, was released following the intervention of the American Doctor Kenworthy. John Joseph was not included in this amnesty most likely because he as an African American who, unlike the white Americans, did not enjoy unequivocal rights as a US citizen and thus presumably could be overlooked in any consideration of the fate of ‘American’ citizens taken at Eureka. Prior to the Dred Scott case of 1857, which stipulated that African-Americans slave or not were not US citizens, granting ‘citizenship’ for African-Americans was the preserve of individual states not the nation, see: Missouri State Archives, Missouri Digital Heritage, ‘Missouri’s Dred Scott Case 1846-1857’, , accessed 18 February 2013. 20 Molony in Eureka pp.185-6 discusses the possible motives for the authorities to grant amnesty to McGill and other Americans. 21 Argus, 23 January 1855, p.4. 100 foundations for what would become a denigration of the role played by Americans at the Eureka Stockade that has persisted until the current day.22

Contrary to popular belief some Americans at Ballarat had in fact been involved with the gathering unrest from the very beginning. Sarah Hanmer, the American owner of Ballarat’s Adelphi Theatre, was certainly sympathetic to the diggers cause. Hanmer made the Adelphi available as a venue for public meetings of fellow American diggers for discussion and debate. In the days leading up to the battle she had allowed the insurgents to make use of swords from the Adelphi’s store of props.23 On the Friday evening before the battle the Adelphi was the venue for a meeting of American diggers to debate whether or not they would become involved in the insurgency.24 The Adelphi was also selected as the venue for the meeting to elect a new central committee for the Ballarat Reform League following the resignations of the moral force Chartists on 29 November.25 This meeting was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, but never did occur for as fate would have it the time for the meeting would fall on the day of the battle for the stockade. Certainly Hanmer’s countrymen were an obvious presence on the Victorian goldfields with some six hundred of them present at Ballarat.26 American businessmen such as George Train were also prominent in the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce. Train as well as enthusing over the events at Ballarat, which he likened to, ‘shaking the thrones of the old world’, actively assisted McGill to escape from the law in the days following the battle at the stockade.27 An American doctor, Charles Kenworthy, was present at times inside the stockade before the battle and very active immediately after when he assisted Americans who had been captured.28 Certainly Ballarat Gold Commissioner Robert Rede, suspicious of American involvement in the disturbances at Ballarat, questioned there was not some dark game to incite American style democracy

22 For an examination for why the memory of the Americans at Eureka was at the time and has continued to be treated in this manner see Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.145-150. 23 Wright, ‘‘New Brooms They Say Sweep Clean’: Women’s Political Activism on the Ballarat Goldfields, 1854’. Australian Historical Studies, 39, 2008, pp.305-21. 24 Ferguson, C. D., The Experiences of a Forty Niner during a Third of a Century in the Gold Fields, First Edition 1888, Reprinted by H.A. Garson, Chico California, 1923, p.55. 25 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.51. 26 Churchward, ‘Americans and Other Foreigners’, p.49. 27 Potts, E. and Potts, A., A Yankee Merchant in Gold Rush Australia, Heinmann, London- Melbourne, 1970, p.160. 28 Ibid. 101 within the colony being played by the Americans behind the scenes.29 The dispatches for the period November-December 1854 for the US Consul to the Colony of Victoria, however, make no mention of unrest at Ballarat or the Eureka Stockade implying no official American interest in events there at all.30 Nevertheless, Rede’s suspicions were, for him at least, very real.

The numbers of Americans amongst those diggers who took up arms on 30 November is not specifically recorded, yet it was substantial. An account written some time after the battle makes mention of an American carpenter named Nelson, or Nealson in some sources, who commanded a company of Californian riflemen who were present amongst the armed muster of diggers from the beginning. Nelson’s formation was said to include in its ranks many veterans of the Mexican War and was openly acknowledged as being the best military formation in the diggers’ army.31 The Californian James McGill, the most significant American player within the Eureka story, appeared for the first time on Saturday 2 December.32 His arrival at the stockade accompanied by several hundred armed fellow Californians marked a significant shift in the demeanour of the diggers. On McGill’s arrival Peter Lalor immediately appointed him to be the effective ‘military commander’ of the insurgent army, supplanting Frederick Vern in that capacity. McGill enjoyed a reputation as a man with military experience, although just exactly what this experience was remains nebulous.33 Having been appointed as military leader he took up the role without hesitation issuing directives including an order to intercept anticipated military reinforcements,

29 Rede to the Chief Commissioner, 28 November 1854, PROV 1189/P Unit 92, J54/14459. 30 See: SLV, Despatches from United States Consul in Melbourne 1852-1906, The National Archives National Archives and Records Service General Services Administration: 1957, M323 Reel 1-16, Vol.1, T102-1 July 16 1852 – Dec 31 1857. 31 Allan, p.16. 32 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, pp.84-5. 33 Potts, Potts in A Yankee Merchant in Gold Rush Australia, p.166 presents a letter written by George Train American merchant in Melbourne during 1854-1855. In this letter Train states that McGill had been a cadet at the US Military Academy West Point in the class of 1850, but on investigating Potts and Potts failed to find any record of McGill having attended the academy. Further speculation by Potts and Potts suggested that McGill may have served as an officer in the US Army during the Mexican War but once again there is no direct evidence to indicate that this was so. Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart p.50 reveals that there was a James McGill who served in Company E of the New York Volunteers in Californian during the Mexican War era, and that McGill’s age and conditions of enlistment for the New York Volunteers could indicate that this McGill may have been the Eureka McGill, but that there is no way of knowing if this was so. 102 posting sentries and changing the password at the stockade.34 As fate would have it McGill and Nelson along with their majority of the men their commands would not be inside the stockade when the battle occurred. They would instead be at Warrenheip several kilometres distant waiting to ambush government military reinforcements coming up from Melbourne.35 One persistent feature of the traditional Eureka narrative has been to remind history that the Americans were not present in any significant way at the Eureka stockade during the battle.

In fact, the largest national group under arms on the Ballarat diggings the morning of battle, albeit not inside the stockade, were Americans. This is a fact persistently ignored in the traditional historiography of Eureka. Identifiably American contingents included Nelson’s company of Californian Rifles and McGill’s Californian Rangers. McGill was said to have some 200 men with him, whilst Nelson’s company was at least numerous enough to be formed as a company and be noticed.36 Californian digger Charles Ferguson states that 300 men went out with McGill on the Saturday night.37 McGill was accompanied by Nelson. Twenty to thirty Californians remained inside the stockade.38 The only other diggers under arms on the morning of the battle were the 100 or so of other nationalities inside the stockade. Therefore the single nationality with the most insurgents under arms on the morning of 3 December was the Americans. On the Friday night before the battle Nelson and the Canadian Charles Ross deployed their companies to Warrenheip in anticipation of the arrival of military reinforcements.39 This was repeated again on the Saturday night with Nelson and McGill standing vigil during the night in the bush at Warrenheip.40 On both nights it was North Americans, Ross and Nelson, McGill and Nelson, who provided the

34 Argus, 10 April 1855, p.7; Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.88 describes McGill issuing orders on the Saturday including the order to ‘intercept’ the military reinforcements. 35 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, pp.88 and 94. 36 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.84 describes the arrival of the Californians at the Stockade in his inimitable style; Allan, p.16 mentions Nelson’s Californian company. It is acknowledged that such ‘American’ contingents would have included some members who were known somewhat derisively as ‘whitewashed Yankees’ these being those not born in the United States but who had lived there and assimilated decidedly American traits and attitudes. 37 Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.58. 38 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.96. It is safe to assume that most of these ‘Californians’ were either Americans or men who had an association with California and could this be assumed to have a more than passing association with Americans. 39 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.83. 40 Ibid, p.94. 103 leadership and significant manpower to enable these actions to take place – emphasising the resolute militancy of the North American contribution to the Eureka insurgency.

It is amongst the Americans, alone amongst the defenders of the Stockade, that we find the only evidence of collective military competence and skill at arms under battle conditions. A search of the names said to have been those of the defenders of the stockade reveal, as far as it is possible to do so, that it was only the Americans that were credited as a group with having any military experience.41 This fact is critically important to understanding how one group amongst the defenders, was able to provide the crucial catalyst for the contest of arms that eventuated, and all that would eventuate from that. Even with the companies absent at Warrenheip there were twenty to thirty Californians inside the stockade on the morning of the attack.42 That many amongst them were military veterans was well known to their peers.43 Perhaps this would not have meant that much for what was about to happen but for a quirk of fate that would place those Californians in positions directly in line with the axis of the main government assault.44 This convergence would have a decisive influence on all that followed. When the British soldiers were revealed in the pre-dawn light deploying before the stockade, their presence posed a direct challenge to the defenders of the stockade. Would those defenders react in face of such a challenge with a repetition of the flight in the face of a military show of force which was, as illustrated in Chapter 3, the common contemporary British armed protest response to such a challenge? The answer when it came was decisive and unambiguous. When Robert Burnette’s shot killed Private Roney it incited a

41 Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, list a great many of those named as being present at some time inside the Eureka Stockade. In many cases they give a brief biography. In only one case do they mention an individual having any military experience and that was Thomas Allen a veteran of the British Army who was adamantly opposed to the course the Eureka diggers were taking. 42 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.96. 43 Allan, The Eureka Uprising, p.16 and Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, p.58 attest to the former military experience of many of the Californians who rallied to the digger’s cause at Eureka. Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.85, describes McGill’s men as looking ‘Californian enough, armed with a Colt’s revolver of large size, and many had a Mexican knife at the hip.’ 44 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.96. Thomas had chosen an axis of advance against the north west sector of the stockade which was, unbeknown to Thomas, where the Californians were posted. For a detailed analysis of Captain Thomas’s plan to move on the Stockade see Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.110-24. 104 fusillade of shots from the stockade. With that the scene was irrefutably set for armed conflict. By doing so the Americans injected a radically different spirit (or model) of civil protest into Eureka to anything in the previous British and Australian experience.

The practical consequences of the deployment of government forces advancing primarily against the north west corner of the stockade, which was held by the Californians, and the Californian decision to contest their ground was that in the opening stages of the conflict it would be predominately American fire which greeted the main thrust of the military assault. The effect of that fire was profound, signalling to all concerned that the struggle for possession of the stockade would be seriously contested and has previously been demonstrated compelling the military to adopt serious military procedures to overcome the resistance. The quality of that resistance set the tone for all that followed. Captain Thomas referred to the fire coming from the stockade as ‘sharp and well directed’.45 By sharp Thomas meant accurate, by well directed he meant that the fire was delivered in a controlled and not random manner. Thomas, an experienced soldier, who has seen active service in India and Afghanistan, had deliberately chosen the axis of his advance to take advantage of lower ground.46 The idiosyncrasies of smoothbore arms, such as those the majority of the stockade’s defenders were using, would have meant Thomas no doubt hoped his axis would make accurate fire from the stockade less likely.47 That this did not occur indicates clearly that those doing the firing possessed sufficient competence and experience to be aware of how to compensate for the difficulties of plunging fire.

45 Thomas to Nickle, 3 December 1854, PROV 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162 Enclosure No. 7. 46 For Thomas’s service see: Smythies, R.H., Historical Records of the 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment now 1st Battalion The Prince of Wales’s Volunteers (South Lancashire Regiment) From its Formation, 1717, to 1893, A.H. Swiss, Devonport, 1894. For an examination of the plans Thomas made for his move against the stockade see: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart , pp.110-24, Chapter 6 ‘Into Battle’. 47 Muzzle loaded smoothbore firearms tended to throw their balls high in the early arc of their trajectory. For a detailed discussion of this characteristic of smoothbore black powder fire arms see Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.215-16. 105

Accuracy may be one thing, but well directed fire is even more important. Directed fire is controlled fire in which the firing party act together directing their fire at essentially the same point. This was important in an era of single shot weapons to ensure maximum effectiveness.48 Thomas’s comments on the fire coming from the stockade indicate that this is what was happening. Carboni mentions an American digger who during the battle directed the fire of the Californians and continued to ‘fight like a tiger’ despite being wounded in the thigh.49 From Carboni’s description and Thomas’s report of the quality of the fire coming from the stockade at the time this American ‘tiger’ was capable of issuing orders which could produce ‘sharp and well directed fire’. Presumably he and the men he commanded were experienced in doing so. Thomas, who made no mention of this American or any other Americans, certainly noticed the controlled nature of the firing coming from the stockade and in so doing indirectly acknowledged that there was some agent directing that fire. The impact of these volleys was significant, as the leading elements of the British infantry line wavered under fire and had to be rallied by an officer and sergeant. That such a thing could happen to regular British infantry, many with years of service and harsh campaigns behind them is significant for two reasons.50 The first was that it emphasised the contribution being made by the Americans to the defence of the stockade, the second was that it reinforced the realisation by the military that what faced them was quite obviously not a ramshackle collection of enthusiastic amateurs blazing away in wild abandon with their firearms. It was, to the contrary, a defence capable of delivering disciplined and accurate fire, while themselves under that fire. Such a resolute defence would by therefore of necessity have to be overcome by a deliberate application of firepower and brute force. Hence the unmistakeably determined military character of the conflict, with its attendant brutality and carnage, was dictated in those opening moments when the British infantrymen confronted the Americans.

48 See: Adkin, M., The Gettysburg Companion, Arum Press, London, 2008, pp.106-8 for a discussion about firing drills and fire control in the era of single shot muzzle loading muskets. 49 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.97. 50 Huyghue, S.D.S., ‘The Ballarat Riots 1854’ SLV MS 7725 Box 646/9, made claims that the soldiers who wavered were all young and inexperienced troops. This was not the case, see: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.138-39. 106

What made the Americans within the stockade behave as they did? Why did they not bolt for safety the moment the military moved against them or fired the first shots, as was the precedent in Britain with similar armed gatherings? What persuaded the Americans to hit back at the soldiers with, ‘like effect, as deadly as theirs’?51 Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth century Americans and American society were commonly acknowledged to possess a distinctive sort of character. This was despite deep and intimate language, ethnic, cultural, religious, historical and commercial associations with Britain. This distinctiveness owed much to the physical environment which imposed its own influences upon those who ventured out into it. America was vast and wild land that had to be won from its original inhabitants, to be cleared, and then transformed to be viable self sustaining and prosperous by relentless independent endeavour. It was a land in which one’s personal worth was determined by, ‘qualification rather than property; a sound moral character, amiable manners, and firmness in principle.’52 The independent social personality thus created was ‘itself a form of power’.53 These distinctive American qualities were articulated for all when in 1776 the American colonies then in open rebellion against the British Crown declared their independence and proclaimed that, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’54 By the early nineteenth century American virtues had for many folk come to be personified by the caricature Brother Jonathan celebrated in cartoon, word and song. Brother Jonathan was the stereotypical Yankee everyman who despite his peaceable nature and awkward homespun

51 Ferguson, The Experiences of a Forty Niner during a Third of a Century in the Gold Fields, p. 60. 52 Bailyn, B., The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1967, p. 51. 53 Isaac, R., The Transformation of Virginia 1740-1790, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, p. 343. 54 The Declaration of Independence, The Want, The Will, and Hopes of the People, , accessed 24 October 2009. The declaration of independence was composed in the context of its times; realities regarding the enslavement of Afro-Americans, and forcible dispossession of Native Americans being obvious exceptions to the ideals of equality, liberty and happiness expressed. Nonetheless, the proclamations of individual liberty were genuinely felt by those Americans for who those ideals applied. 107 appearance was both a shrewd and a formidable foe when pushed to anger.55 Alexis de Tocqueville, during his tour of the United States in the 1830s had recognised this characteristic commenting that Americans, ‘look upon all authority with a jealous eye.’56 De Tocqueville went on to add that Americans, ‘hardly ever forget an offence … their resentment is slow to kindle as it is to abate.’57 John Hope Franklin in The Militant South 1860-1861 characterised the assertive adversarial qualities nurtured by this sense of self amongst American males, particularly those from Southern states, as contributing to a profound sense of personal sovereignty that was manifested in a belief that each individual was a ruler of his own destiny and charged with the defence of his own person and honour.58 So much was this the case that one foreign traveller to the United States during the 1840s noted that Americans were prone to resist any imputations against them, ‘at the expense of their life or that of those who venture to insult them .’59 This quality and self image and the extent to which many American males would go to ensure its maintenance, assists a great deal to explain actions and motivations most likely to be found amongst those Americans inside the Eureka Stockade, whose very presence there bespoke of such convictions. The divergence of an identifiable American temperament from the mainstream of the British cultural domain did not go unnoticed or unremarked by the British. It was this divergence, the British response to it, and echoes of that response found within the Australian historiographical and popular narrative, that in many ways set the foundations for how the American contribution to Eureka was to be remembered.

55 Hector Bull-us., The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan, Early American Imprints, 2nd Series, 1812, NLA Bib 3757120. 56 De Heffner, R., Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, New York, Mentor Books-New American Library, 1961, p.289. 57 Ibid., p.223 58 Franklin, J.H., The Militant South 1860-1861, University of Illinois Press by arrangement with Harvard University Press, Champaign, 2000, p.36; In addition to Franklin for further reading on the subject of the importance for American males of assertively maintaining their individual sovereignty see: Bowan, J., Honor A History, New York, Encounter Books, 2006; Ayers, E.L., Vengeance and Justice – Crime and Punishment in the 19th-Century American South, New York, Oxford University Press, 1984; Botkin, B.A(ed)., A Treasury of Southern Folklore – Stories, Ballads, Traditions, and Folkways of the People of the South, New York, Crown Publishers, 1949; Seitnz, D.C., Famous American Duels – With Some Account of the Causes That Led Up to Them and the Men Engaged, New York, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1929; Williams, J.K., Dueling in the Old South, College Station, Texas A&M University, 1980. 59 Ayers, E.L., Vengeance and Justice – Crime and Punishment in the 19th-Century American South, Oxford University Press, New York, 1984, p.15. 108

British books, plays, newspapers and cartoons continually cast a wry and often disapproving eye over American manners and mores. Disparaging things American was common place in British popular culture during the early nineteenth century. Frances Trollope’s 1832 Domestic Manners of Americans offered such gems as,

The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is so remarkable, that I was constantly endeavouring to account for it … There is always something either in the expression or the accent that jars the feelings and shocks the taste.… in America that polish which removes the coarser rougher parts of our nature is unknown and undreamed of.60

Trollope continued her criticism of American mores in her The Life and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitelaw of 1836. Another popular work of the era pronounced that it was well that the St Lawrence River divided Canada from the United States because, ‘On the British side they are more respectful and civilized.’61 Other works such as the anonymously penned 1841 The Playfair Papers – Brother Jonathan, The Smartest Nation in all Creation and Jonathan Sharp; or the Adventures of a Kentuckian, reinforced what Winfred Morgan in American Icon Brother Jonathan and American Identity, identifies as, ‘the moral and ethical inferiority of Americans, as scrutinised in light of the social codes assumed by genteel British writers.’62

At the same time reviews of stage plays portraying Americans were equally supercilious. On 20 September 1838 the Caledonian Mercury declared that, ‘We always predicted that the acting of our great favourite would be too refined a nature for the Yankees to understand.’63 American humour,

60 Trollope, F., Domestic Manners of Americans, Alfred A. Knopf Inc, New York, 1949, pp.45 and 46. 61 Mortimer, F.L., Far Off, Part II, Australia, Africa and America Described: with anecdotes and numerous illustrations, Hatchard & Co, London, 1864, p.182. 62 Morgan, W., American Icon Brother Jonathan and American Identity, University of Delaware Press, Newark, 1988, p.157. 63 The Caledonian Mercury, Thursday, September 20, 1838; Issue 18518. 109 dependability and natural strengths were ignored in favour of making him the butt of ridicule and humour.64 British cartoons relished pointing out the supposed absurdities and hypocrisies of the American way. Plate 1 (Appendix A) which appeared in an 1847 edition of the magazine Punch, depicts one such graphic denunciation. Ironically entitled The Land of Liberty America in the guise Brother Jonathan depicted lounging back in a disdainful manner, a grin on his face and a cheroot in his mouth. Jonathan’s propensity for violence is emphasised by a revolver and knife firmly wedged in his belt with his right hand resting on the butt of the revolver. Beneath Jonathan are documents labelled Oregon and Texas, two territories annexed by the United States in the 1830s and 1840s. These documents rest on a chest of dollars providing a not unsubtle clue as to the motivation of what lay behind these territorial acquisitions. On the chest sits a goblet implying Jonathan’s dissolute habits. From Jonathan’s cheroot wafts a cloud of smoke from within which is revealed a multitude of images included amongst which are the brutalities of slavery; a cheeky Jonathan picking the pocket of an erstwhile John Bull; images of Lynch law, duelling and a demonic figure hovering over a scene of carnage from the Mexican War. Jonathan’s outstretched booted left foot rests upon the upturned bust of George Washington to signify no doubt just how Americans had degenerated from the noble ideals of their founding father. The existence of slavery in America, more often than not portrayed in its most lurid form, was consistently offered as the proof that exposed the hypocrisy of the American political system supposedly built upon the ideals of liberty and equality. The widespread popularity at the time of Eureka of such anti-slavery polemics as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852, and widely read as well as performed as a play in many theatres added further fuel to such British, and subsequently Australian, preconceptions.65

Understandably, the overwhelming British population of the Australian gold fields, shared the long established British ambivalence to things American.

64 Morgan, W., American Icon Brother Jonathan and American Identity, p. 56. 65 As an indicator of the popularity of Uncle Tom’s cabin in colonial Australia see: Argus, 25 January 1854, p.4; Sydney Morning Herald, 11 September 1854, p.5; Empire, 27 November 1854, p.4 for references to performances of the play; The Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 11 November 1854, p.5 alludes to the rapidity of sales for Uncle Tom’s cabin; Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer, 4 March 1854, p.2 gives notice announcing an art panorama illustrative of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 110

Those who knew the Americans on the diggings acknowledged that they possessed a collective character that was recognisably American. In 1858 Edward Charles Moore penned in neat copperplate script, on the reverse of an illustration of a Typical Yankee, a verbal caricature which read,

If a downcast Yankee you would be Chew a quid + wear a “poatee”(sic) Say “Yes Sir” + “Yes Siree” Its not at all Colonial All colored people you must hate An mother Beecher Stowe dilate Talk of Virginny + New York State Saugarus (sic), crcktails(sic) + “brandy straight” Freely --- , whenever you talk Hands in pockets when you walk And I calculate by many a chalk You won’t appear Colonial!66

Moore’s poetic ‘Yankee’ portrays a definite sense of autonomous individuality, oblivious to taunts or reprimands, but tempered by barbs directed at the American treatment of coloured people. This supposed American attitude to race, especially in regards to slavery, was, as it was in Britain, used to criticise Americans in Australia with, for example, the Hobart Daily Courier declaring that Uncle Tom’s Cabin offered a, ‘withering exposure of the infidelity of a nation to its own political creed of liberty and equality.’67 Those who knew Americans on the diggings had no illusions about the type of individuals they were. Writing of Americans at Ballarat in 1853 Commissioner C. Rudston Read described them as men who if angered were, ‘awkward customers to deal with.’68 Insightfully an American merchant at Ballarat in the early 1850s explained that his countrymen were, ‘dreaded more than any other class of men on the diggings, not because they are much disposed to fight, but when they fight they fight with a purpose.’ 69 G.H. Dawson describing those Americans he met at the Bendigo diggings noted

66 NLA Nla.pic.an 3726691-2-V. The idiosyncratic spelling of the original handwritten document is reproduced here, with the result that mysterious words such as Poatee, Saugarus and Crcktails appear as written. One word which was indecipherable has been omitted and represented by dotted lines. 67 Monaghan, J., Australians and the Gold Rush – California and Down Under, 1849 – 1854, p.232. 68 Potts, Potts, Young America and Australian Gold – Americans and the Gold Rush of the 1850s, p.163. 69 Ibid. 111 how they, ‘would lay down their lives for a mate.’70 Policeman John Sadleir recalled that the Americans he met on the Ballarat diggings were, ‘perhaps not liking restraint overmuch, certainly not bearing it with the quiet patience of the ordinary Britisher.’71 American digger Thomas Pierson lived in a tent near Bakery Hill during 1854. His diary entries very much highlighted that in his mind he saw a difference between the attitudes of American and what he called ‘Colonial’ diggers. In March 1854 he wrote,

mark the independance (sic) of Englishmen and then Compare (sic) them with Americans – would Americans quietly submit to illegal taxes injustice and imposition … English + Colonials talk about freedom + Indpendance (sic) [nonsense] they must first let Brother Jonathan teach them.72

Another trait that was notably American was the relationship between individual Americans and their personal weaponry. So common was the use of the firearm, knife and whip to settle personal scores amongst Americans that it prompted one English observer to quip, ‘Yankee logic – as it stands at present – has three propositions – the bowie knife, the cowhide and the pistol.’73 There was an intense interest amongst the American public in the use of such items to settle matters of conscience and honour with violent exhibitions of individual courage and fighting prowess. During the 1820s knife fighters such as James Bowie achieved cult celebrity status.74 Newspapers as arbiters and mirrors of public opinion pandered to such notions, the Mississippi Bulletin of Grenada Mississippi, for example, changing its title to the Bowie-knife in 1839. 75 During the Gold Rush era the association of Americans with their personal weaponry was certainly noticed by their contemporaries in Australia. Lord Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury and a future Prime Minister of Britain, who whilst visiting Victoria described an American with who he shared a coach ride as having, ‘a pair of

70 Cusack, Bendigo a History, p.60. 71 Sadleir, J., Recollections of a Victorian Police Officer, First published by George Robertson & Company 1913, published in facsimile edition, Penguin Books, Blackburn, 1973, p.58. 72 ‘The diaries of Thomas Pierson’, SLV MS 11646 BOX 2178/4-5. 73 Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 12 April 12, 1857, Issue 751. 74 See: Davis,W.C., Three Roads to the Alamo, New York, Harper Collins, 1999 for an informed and insightful account of the life of James Bowie. 75 Wyatt-Brown, B., Honor and Violence in the Old South, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986, p.189. 112 pistols in his belt.’76 British traveller and writer William Kelly recalled those Americans he met on the Ballarat diggings in 1854 as being, ‘girthed above the hips by a red sash, that was stuck round with knives, daggers, and revolvers.’77 The carriage of other weapons such as knives earned a rebuke from Judge Redmond Barry when he chastised an Afro-American hotel cook who had used a knife to attack and intruder for ‘un-English’ behaviour that was, ‘unknown amongst British subjects.’78 Another judge advised two Americans who had pulled their knives on each other during a dispute but not drawn blood that their actions did not meet with the approval of English law.79 Prominent member of the Victorian Legislative Council during the early 1850s, John Pascoe Fawkner, when writing to the Argus in 1852 chastised Americans for carrying the Bowie knife, a weapon he characterised as ‘murderous’.80 The carriage of arms in itself was not of course an immediate precursor to the use of those arms. As a group Americans were no more violent or murderous on the diggings than anyone else. What is significant was the American heritage of using those arms against what they considered to be oppressive authority, especially government authority. Whilst the use of personal arms for self defence was (even under British law) an established right, the actual use of those arms to resist governing authorities was not. This was not, however, a custom in line with the American experience, which would have profound consequences at Eureka.

By the time of Eureka employing arms as a response to government misrule had been an established American practice for some 280 years. This was so, be they colonial subjects, citizens in their own right, or resident in a foreign land. In 1676 Nathaniel Bacon led an armed rebellion against the Royal Governor of the colony of Virginia. Similar events occurred in Boston in 1688 and New

76 Goodman, D., Gold Seeking Victoria and California in the 1850s, Allen and Unwin Pty Ltd, St Leonards NSW, 1994, p.69. 77 Kelly, W., Life in Victoria or Victoria in 1853 and Victoria in 1858, reprint of 1859 original, No 6 Historical Reprint Series, Lowden Publishing Company, Kilmore Australia, 1977, p.180. 78 Potts, Potts, Young America and Australian Gold – Americans and the Gold Rush of the 1850s, p.164. The unfortunate cook was sentenced to ten years hard labour. 79 Ibid., p.164. 80 Argus 25 June 1852, page 4. 113

York in 1689.81 The armed resistance of colonists against the British military in 1775 at Lexington and Concord sparked the War of Independence. The winning of independence from Britain did not diminish the American predisposition for armed insurrection. Shay’s rebellion of 1787 against the State Government of Massachusetts and the so called Whisky Rebellion of 1789 against Federal Government taxes all underscore a long pre Eureka history of Americans resisting authority with firearms.82 The penchant for using firearms in this manner and for this purpose should not be underestimated. William Emerson, the Pastor at Concord Massachusetts in 1775 declared from his pulpit, ‘Arise my injured Countrymen, and plead even with the Sword, the Firelock and the Bayonet, plead with your Arms the birthright of Englishmen …’83 The reference to English rights emphasizes how the right to bear arms of Englishmen discussed Chapter 2 had been transplanted into America and there assumed a robust life of its own. These passions certainly did not diminish during the nineteenth century, especially in the decades leading up to the time of Eureka. In 1835 North American colonists in what was then the Mexican territory of Texas took up arms to oppose, then throw off what they considered to be the overbearing imposition of the military authority of the Mexican state. Arms were also frequently used by elements of the abolitionist cause and their opponents in the 1850s. In the same manner the descent into fratricidal civil war that soon followed confirmed this pattern of behavior. When in 1791 the second amendment to the United States Constitution stated, ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’ it was merely codifying a pattern of behavior that had been practiced for generations in America.84

81 For an insightful account of Bacon’s Rebellion, the Massachusetts Bay Rebellion and New York Rebellion of 1689 see: Leach, D.E., Roots of Conflict – British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677 – 1763, The University of North Carolina Press, Raleigh, 1986. 82 For Shay’s Rebellion see: Richards, L. L., Shay’s Rebellion – The American Revolution’s Final Battle, University of Philadelphia Press, Philadelphia, 2002. For the Whisky Rebellion see: Hogeland, W., The Whiskey Rebellion - George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s New Found Sovereignty, New York, A Lisa Drew Book/Scribner, 2006. 83 Gross, R.A., The Minutemen and Their World, Hill and Wang, New York, 2001, p.108. 84 The United States Constitution, US Constitution online, , accessed 28 August 2011. The right to bear arms was enshrined into legislation in December 1791 as the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, one of the rights constituting the U.S. Bill of Rights. This remains a distinctive feature of Americans concept of how to protect and preserve individual 114

Of even more direct relevance to Eureka were the collective and individual social presumptions that Californians would have brought with them to Victoria. The gold rush in California in the last two years of the 1840s and into the early 1850s had created a place of ‘vaulting ambition’ where people, ‘ breathed quicker and moved faster.’85 It was a place where the rawest form of practical equality in which wealth, social status, profession nor intelligence, determined one’s social status. It was according to one visitor from New York, ‘the most democratic country in the world.’86 It was a society in which 92 per cent of the population was male and where those who lived and worked were bonded in a, ‘kind of masculine brotherhood.’ 87 Individual sovereignty was paramount and there was a universal resentment of any impositions upon the right to exploit, accumulate and expand.88 Herbert Howe Bancroft in his History of California, Vol. VI. 1848-1859, identified the development of ‘Individual Faith’, by which he means belief in one’s own dignity and integrity rather than any religious persuasion, as the consequence for miners confronted with a society in which well-established government did not exist.89 California was a society in which the carriage of firearms was universal and due to an almost total lack of effective agencies of law enforcement, violence using those weapons either in defence of one’s property or slighted personal honour was endemic.90 Gesture, demeanour

liberty. The Second Amendment right was recently reconfirmed albeit with qualifications by the US Supreme Court in 07-290 District of Columbia v. Heller, September 2008. 85 Bancroft, H.H., The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol XX1 History of California Vol IV, 1840-1845, A.L. Bancroft and Company Publishers, San Francisco, 1886, p.225. 86 Johnson, D.A., ‘Vigilance and the Law: The Moral Authority of Popular Justice in the Far West’, American Quarterly, Vol.33, No 5, Special Issue: American Culture and the American Frontier (Winter, 1981), p.562. 87 Carter,S. and Gartner, S. and Haines, M. and Olmsted, A. and Sutch, R. and Wright, G., Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition, ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. , accessed 26 October 2010. 88 Roberts, B., American Alchemy, The California Gold Rush and Middle Class Culture, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2000, p.275. 89 Bancroft, H.H., History of California, Vol. VI. 1848-1859, Santa Barbara, Wallace Herbert, 1970, p. 228. 90 Bancroft History of California, Vol. VI. 1848-1859 p.230 n.22, states that there were 4200 murders, 1,400 suicides and ca.10,000 ‘miserable deaths’ in California since the opening of the mines up until 1854. The US Census Bureau records the population of California in 1850 as 92,597 see: , accessed 13 July 2008. This gives a ratio of approximately 132 murders per 100,000. The extraordinarily dangerous environment in gold rush era California is readily apparent when compared to the worst case of modern 2003 murder rates being that of Columbia at 63 per 100,000; see Death by Murder, , accessed 13 July 2008. Reflecting on the 115 and dress can be instructive signposts for determining the codes by which those who share in a culture convey meanings and significance to each other.91 This is readily apparent in the visual record left by American males of the early nineteenth century, especially those who ventured to California. Plates 2 and 3 (Appendix A) depict formal portraits, overt public announcements of the values by which the subjects defined themselves, and by which they contrived to convey very specific meanings. In both plates the demeanour of each man bespeaks forthright democratic demeanour, sturdy masculinity and self confidence. The prominent display of weaponry emphasises the assertive adversarial qualities earlier identified as a fundamental ingredients of the American sense of individual personal sovereignty. It could well be argued that such images are merely bravado and posturing designed to present a manufactured image for the gullible. Brian Roberts in American Alchemy - The California Gold Rush and Middle Class Culture argues this very point. Yet, importantly, Roberts also acknowledges that the evidence supports the fact that Californian society in particular was at the time certainly demanding and confronting.92 Such images are therefore not unrepresentative of a dominant persona typical of Californians during the era of Eureka.

That such images were not simple pretentiousness was highlighted by the behaviour of the Californians defending the stockade. In the closing moments of the battle, when all hope of a successful defence has passed, a number of Californians rushed forward directly at the soldiers then storming over the

reasons for this Bancroft p.229 wrote that ‘Disregard for life was fostered by an excitable temperament, the frequency of drunken brawls, the universal habit of carrying weapons, and the nomadic and isolated position of individuals….’ The preference amongst many Californians to settle matters of honour by duelling was common enough for it to be addressed when the State wrote its Constitution in 1849 in which Article XI. Sec.2. reads, ‘Any citizen of this State who shall, after the adoption of this Constitution, fight a duel with deadly weapons, or send, or accept a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, either within this State or out of it; or who shall act as second, or knowingly aid or assist in any manner those thus offending, shall not be allowed to hold any office of profit, or to enjoy the right of suffrage under this Constitution’, California State Archives, accessed 14 July 2008. Boessenecker, J., Gold Dust and Gunsmoke, John Wiley & Sons Inc, New York, 1999, recounts the endemic violence to be found on the Californian gold fields and, on pp. 204-5, describes how duelling was made a criminal offence in 1854 by the Californian legislature, but the law was not enforced as many of the lawmakers themselves were duellists. 91 For a theoretical discussion see Isaac, R., The Transformation of Virginia 1740-1790, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1999, p.325. 92 Roberts, B., American Alchemy, The California Gold Rush and Middle Class Culture, pp.272-3. 116 stockade’s palisade with bayonets fixed, their motives for doing so to presumably to get a clear shot at their foe with their revolvers.93 ‘I’ll die before I run’ were the words of a ballad popular in California during the gold rush era.94 Some of the Eureka Californians, embodying the very words of the ballad and incensed to the point of martyrdom, threw themselves into the face of certain death.95 Such was the world of the Californians at Eureka. Such was the world which would have tempered the thoughts, assumptions and sensibilities they brought with them to Eureka. Little wonder, given his heritage and the circumstances with which he was confronted, that Robert Burnette deliberately took aim and fired the shot which began the battle for the stockade. Little wonder also that once the battle had begun the Americans inside the stockade quickly imposed their uncompromising convictions of what was needed to resist oppression and by so doing established the dynamic for the conflict.

Importantly alone amongst the stockade’s defenders it was the Americans who possessed a recognised collective military competence. Finding themselves challenged with arms by an authority they despised, these individuals fell back on distinctively American practices of armed contested resistance. The consequence of that was that their foe was met by deadly force and was compelled to adopt a determined military response. This transformed the very nature of the conflict for the stockade from an armed display to a pitched battle. Thus was set the fundamental character for the event which followed from which was generated all the chaos, carnage and pathos that constitute the core elements of our collective remembrance of Eureka.

Whilst the Americans provided the primary military capability inside the stockade during the battle, the importance of the Germans to the armed muster of diggers at Eureka was in many ways equally important. The Germans at Eureka

93 Argus, 5 December 1854, p.4. 94 Boessenecker, J., Gold Dust and Gunsmoke, John Wiley & Sons Inc, New York, 1999, p.179. 95 No Americans were recorded as being killed at Eureka. Macfarlane Eureka, From the Official Records p.104 indicates that twenty one unidentified bodies were buried following Eureka. Given their action in charging into close quarters with the soldiers during the climax of the battle it is highly likely that there were Americans amongst these unidentified casualties. In a front page article the Daily Alta California 20 February 1855 claims that ten Americans were killed. For an examination of the possible numbers of Americans killed at Eureka see: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.165-166. 117 provided attributes of military acumen, leadership and inspiration disproportionate to their numbers. Six Germans were known by name to have been at the Stockade.96 Of these the actions of three, Frederick Vern, Edmund ‘Teddy’ Thonen and Johan Hafele, are specifically recorded.

Frederick Vern promised the best hope amongst the insurgent diggers for military leadership, at least in the initial stages of the uprising. What is known of Vern is indefinite and contradictory. Even his origins in Germany are uncertain. The most prominent account of him is that left by Carboni who detested Vern and left a depiction of him distorted by relentless mockery and denigration.97 Carboni’s depiction has formed the basis for the dominant depiction of Vern within the traditional historical narrative of Eureka and this has been how posterity has remembered him. Such remembrance, however, does Vern a disservice. The reality was that Vern was in fact well read on military subjects with some of his peers to describing him as, one who, ‘comprehended the whole system of warfare, every mode of attack and defence’, and as an, ‘old military man’.98 When the diggers were called to arms Vern was appointed second-in- command of the digger’s ‘army’.99 The overall leader Peter Lalor freely admitted he understood nothing of military affairs and delegated all such matters to Vern. It was in this capacity that Vern went to work. Vern’s energetic contribution to the organisation of the digger’s army was real and significant. He could be seen

96 Sunter, A.B., ‘Birth of a Nation? Constructing and Deconstructing the Eureka Legend’, p.288. 97 Even a cursory perusal of Carboni The Eureka Stockade reveals his numerous derogatory references regarding Vern. 98 Lynch, The Story of the Eureka Stockade, pp.11-12; Allan, Eureka Uprising, p.15. 99 Lalor to Argus, 10 April 1855, p.7. Allan Eureka Uprising, p.15 makes the point that Vern was more qualified to be the commander in chief but that because he was a foreigner it was thought to be a more sensible political choice to make Lalor the commander in chief. Vern rejected the appointment of second in command at first apparently not wanting to play second fiddle to anyone, but eventually reconciled himself to the task. He held the post of second in command until the arrival of James McGill and the Californians on Saturday 2 December. The veracity of Vern’s military past is something of a mystery. He does seem to have had a good knowledge of theoretical military matters and signed himself at the bottom of his detailed plan of organisation for the digger army held at the Gold Museum Ballarat as the ‘former aide to General Miller’. Extensive searches for a General Miller contemporary to Vern have revealed only one; a British soldier of fortune then residing in Bolivia who had fought for Bolivar during the 1820s. Whilst this General Miller certainly operated in an environment of revolution and social reform in Bolivia that could have provided Vern with a training ground for similar activity, connections between Vern and the British-Bolivian Miller remain purely speculative. Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.62 cryptically refers to Vern being seen as having too much of the Mexico-Peruvian in him as well as being an ‘Illuminated Cosmopolitan’. Whatever Carboni was alluding to with these remarks remains a mystery. 118 everywhere exhibiting a ‘martial mien’ trailing a long sword after him.100 Vern threw himself wholeheartedly into the formation of the digger’s army. In so doing he penned very detailed instructions for the organisation of that force. Vern’s original hand drafted letter written in a clear flowing hand reads:

Plan of Organisation for the Diggers of Ballarat. Let every 7 men select a trust or sub officer, who will be responsible for the immediate appearance if wanted of the 6 men under his comand (sic), 7 of those little detachements (sic) to form a company, and to select a captain. The captain to be responsible for his company, and to keep the muster rolls. 8./ companies to form a brigade. Every company to select 3 members for the electione (sic) of a military commissione (sic) and a commader in chief of the Ballarat forces. The captaine (sic) of every company to appoint a meeting place for the company, every trust officer to appoint a place of meeting for his six men. The commander in chief to appoint a meeting place for the united forces, and to errect (sic) a flagstaff for giving signal to the assemble. F.Vern late aide de camp to Gen Miller. (Scribbled in the top left hand corner) every company to pay 10sh a week to their military commission.101

No other digger attempted anything remotely like this level of organisation or planning. Vern personally supervised the construction of the stockade and ordered its extension across the Melbourne road and into Warrenheip Gully, a decisive move that cut government access from the outside world to the diggings.102 Furthermore his prominence saw the Colonial Government immediately after the battle mistakenly identify Vern as the leading insurrectionist and offer the highest initial individual reward of £500 for his arrest.103 Vern was inside the stockade during the battle but apparently, and uncharacteristically, left no account of his own about the experience.104 It is Carboni’s image of Vern, the blustering

100 Lynch, The Story of the Eureka Stockade, p.12. 101 Frederick Vern’s plan for the military organisation of the diggers of Ballarat, Gold Museum Sovereign Hill, accession number 78.972. 102 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.80. 103 A copy of the reward poster for Frederick Vern can be seen in Withers, History of Ballarat, pp.128-129. 104 Vern went into hiding at Mount Egerton for three days immediately following the battle and reappeared at his tent on 7 December. He was reported as disguised as a woman in both December 1854 and January 1855. He left Ballarat for Melbourne in February 1855. In March 1855 the reward for Vern was revoked and he returned to Ballarat, where he had a disagreement with the Californian Eureka personality James McGill. A duel between the two was arranged but Vern failed to appear. Vern wrote an article for the Melbourne Monthly Magazine in November 1855 119 braggart, military buffoon and craven coward who fled at the first shot of the battle, which dominates the domestic memory of him. This is a memory in need of correction. It is open to dispute as to when Vern did actually flee from the stockade. Even though it is a fact that he did flee it is mistaken to characterize Vern solely according to Carboni’s damning account.105 Ferguson also accuses Vern of being the first to flee, but like Carboni there was bad blood between Ferguson and Vern and Ferguson’s recollections regarding Vern need to be tempered with this fact.106 In any case the status of Vern as a primary player in the Eureka uprising cannot be underrated. Vern was an outspoken, albeit bombastic and blustering, advocate for direct action. It was he who stepped forward onto the stage and proposed the burning of licences at the great meeting of diggers on 29 November.107 In an address to the miners at Bakery Hill in the days prior to the battle at Eureka digger W.H. Bendell recounted Vern’s address to the assembly,

Verne (sic) was not a master of the English language at that date. After Kennedy and others had talked constitutionally Verne electrified the mass thus: - “Yentlemens, - Go vere you vill, you meet mit der tyrann. Ze only way to meet tyrann ish mit der pistole in der handt.” Drawing two revolvers out of his belt, he fired off all the barrels in the air.“To Arms! To Arms!” shouted hundreds of voices, and so the crisis rapidly developed.108

Vern brought with him to the diggers’ cause organisational energy, an assertive commanding militaristic presence and a passion for the uncompromising rhetoric of insurrection that echoed the language of the European revolutions of the era. In and in that year stood as a candidate in the first local court at Buninyong, but was not elected. He married in Ballarat in 1859. He was involved in a dispute over mining claims at Pickpocket near Yandoit in Victoria in 1861. By October 1862 Vern was in Forbes New South Wales (NSW) offering his services to the NSW government to catch bushrangers. In 1863 he wrote seeking a return of references to the NSW government, claiming in that correspondence that he was shortly going to Queensland. Records of Vern cease at this time. It is presumed he left Australia in 1864. Despite Withers History of Ballarat p.150 claiming Vern was involved in a riot and was sentenced to 3 months imprisonment there are no records that can be found that show Vern was either arrested or imprisoned. PROV has no court records or prison records which verify this story. This author wishes to express thanks to Gerald Jenzen of Ballarat for this resume of Vern’s post Eureka life. 105 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.96; see: Blake, G., To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart, pp.45-46 for an examination of just when Vern did flee from the stockade. 106 Ferguson, Experiences of a Forty Niner in Australia and New Zealand, pp.58 and 60. 107 Carboni, Eureka Stockade, p.54 relates how Vern proposed at the meeting of 29 November to burn licences. 108 Argus December 7 1854, p.4. 120 this he personified the influence of a European heritage of protest that owed little to the British tradition, but which had an important influence on the course of the Eureka uprising.

Another German who had a significant role to play at Eureka was Edmund ‘Teddy’ Thonen. Thonen’s story can only be pieced together from a tantalising array of scattered fragments. Thonen was a Prussian Jew from the town of Elberfeld who by 1851 had made his way to Britain and from there to the gold fields of Australia. Nothing is known of his life in Elberfeld but he was there as a young man during the years 1848-1849 when the city was a hotbed of revolutionary activity.109 In the 1851 British census, Thonen then a twenty three year old teacher of languages, lived in a coffee house in Middlesex.110 Old Bailey records for the same year record a William or Edward Thonen, described as a young German man, being charged with theft but he was released without a conviction being recorded. The description given by the newspapers of the court case are definitely for one Edmund Thonen yet the court records are for a William Thonen. Perhaps young Thonen used different names at different times.111 By 1854 Thonen had emigrated to Australia. Carboni, who knew and liked Thonen, remembered him as a proud and intelligent fellow, who spoke several languages, played a good game of chess and belonged to, ‘… that cast of men whose word is their bond.’112 Thonen was the only Jew recorded to be at the Stockade. There is no record of Thonen in the archives of the Ballarat Hebrew community or Melbourne Hebrew community at the time, nor can a death certificate for him be found.113 What is certain is that Thonen was at the battle, took a prominent part in

109 For an account of the revolutionary activities in Elberfeld during 1848-1849 see: Sperber, J., Rhineland Radicals – The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848 – 1849, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991, p.358. 110 TNA, H.O. 107 153. There is no explanation of why Thonen was in England. 111 Old Bailey Proceedings, 12th May 1851. Reference Number: t18510512, reference t18510512- 1136, 1135 William Thonen at , accessed 23 September 2012; see also The News of the World, 11 May 1851, p.7. The old Bailey records refer to William Thonen while newspaper reports of the case refer to Edward Thonen. 112 Ibid., pp.61-62. 113 See: ‘Archives of the Ballarat Hebrew Congregation’, SLV A1387 Series 6, 6/1 AJHSV MS 9352A, 6/4 6/1 AJHSV MS 9352A; ‘Archives of the Melbourne Jewish Congregation’ SLV Section 1 Letter Books Correspondence, Indexes, Box I Jewish Congregation of Melbourne and Port Phillip 26 Jan 1844 – 2 Sept 1859, Box II Melbourne Hebrew Congregation 1 Feb 1855 -12 dec 1869, A1532, A1533a, A1649 Series 075; Searches of the Victorian Register of Births Deaths and Marriages reveal no record for the death of an Edmund Thonen at or about the time of Eureka. 121 it and was killed during the fighting.114 Thonen commanded one of the rifle companies of diggers, which alone in an army where the officers were elected by the rank and file, indicates the respect in which he was held by his peers as well as a presumed degree of military expertise above and beyond that which was to be expected from a young digger. Thonen also organised a supply of meat and bread for the newly arrived and famished diggers who had marched from Creswick to Eureka, thus providing an essential logistical service to the Eureka cause.115 Thonen’s presence in Elberfeld during 1848-1849 and his obvious commitment to the digger’s armed resistance suggests a connection between his earlier experiences and fervour for revolutionary direct action he brought with him to Eureka. Accounts of Thonen’s death vary. Turner has Thonen leaping onto the palisade and encouraging his men before he is struck down by musket fire.116 The journal of the Australian Jewish History Society describes how Thonen stood in front of the Southern Cross flag calling out in his native German before he was shot in the mouth (at which he attempted to spit the bullet out) but then dropped dead.117 An account in the Argus misidentifies Thonen as an Italian boy, a seller of lemonade and describes how being wounded he lay on the ground and fired off all the barrels of his revolver before he succumbed.118 Carboni found Thonen’s body amidst the dead inside the stockade after the battle and described how his mouth was, ‘literally choked with bullets’.119

The third of the notable Germans at Eureka was Johann Hafele. Hafele was mentioned by Carboni for ostentatiously making pikes for the diggers at a forge inside the stockade in the days leading up to the battle.120 Carboni alludes to previous military service for Hafele when he refers to the ‘German blacksmith’ as, ‘praising the while his past valour in the wars of Mexico.’121 He is further

114 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.101 recounts finding Thonen’s corpse inside the stockade after the battle. 115 Ibid., p.79. 116 Turner, Our Own Little Rebellion, p.73. 117 Journal of the Australian Jewish History Society, Vol 4. Part 7. 1958. p.480. 118 Argus 8 December 1854, p.5; Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.61; Lalor to the Argus 10 April 1855, p.7 confirms that Thonen sold lemonade. 119 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.101. 120 Ibid., p.78. 121 Ibid. Reference to Hafele’s participation in wars in Mexico is quite possible as many soldiers within the United States army who fought in the Mexican War of 1846-1848 were German immigrants. Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.78 makes mention of the German blacksmith, 122 noted by others for the manner in which he died. Confronted by Lieutenant Richardson who was mounted with sword drawn, Hafele struck out courageously with a pike but was killed by Richardson. Private Neill of the 40th Regiment saw Hafele die and said he did so bravely and with honour. Later accounts of a mutilated corpse identified as that of a blacksmith, which may have been Hafele, frequently feature in Eureka literature. In the same manner the often repeated but questionable reference to the top of Hafele’s skull being severed by a blow from Richardson’s sword features in many retellings of the Eureka story.122 Importantly Hafele’s fate is most often treated very much as a curiosity, a footnote within the traditional narrative. This once again, as with the Americans, conveniently marginalises the non-British influence on what occurred at Eureka and reinforces the provincial character of the event. Hafele, in fact, fulfilled a vital logistical role at Eureka by arming the diggers prior to the conflict. No doubt the diggers could have procured their pikes elsewhere, but it was Hafele who delivered that service and was noted for doing so.

The German contribution to the formation of the ‘digger army’ at Eureka was noteworthy. Frederick Vern provided the organisational energy to muster and put in order the digger’s armed companies and oversaw the construction of the stockade. Edmund Thonen provided the leadership and inspiration for one of those companies as well as logistical organisational skill at a crucial time and Johan Hafele provided vital materiel support by arming the diggers. There were only a handful of Germans present at Eureka, yet that small handful contributed to the diggers’ cause far and beyond anything expected from their numbers. Even more significantly the active German presence at Eureka personified a transnational heritage of direct uncompromising action against tyrannical oppression that had flourished in Europe from 1848-1849 which, through the German presence, manifested once again at Eureka. The organisational, leadership and logistical influence this heritage inspired amongst the Germans helps further explain why events at Eureka took on the character that they did.

‘making money as fast as any Yankee’, which may be an allusion to the Hafele having an American connection; See: Winders, R.B., Mr. Polk’s Army – The American Military Experience in the Mexican War, Texas A&M University Press, College Station, 1997 for a description of the demographic makeup of the US Army of the Mexican War era. 122 See: fn.21 Chapter 1 of this Monograph. 123

The decisive role of the two non-British groups, Americans and Germans, in the battle for the stockade reveals the core significance to Eureka of its transnational dimension. Because of the failure within the traditional historiography to understand the battle for the Eureka Stockade was a conflict of contested armed resistance, there has been a general unawareness of the necessity to investigate the importance of the role played by those participants who shaped the fundamental character of that contest. The military proficiency and competent assertive use of firearms to defend the stockade by the Americans, and the formative organisational administration as well as logistical support and battlefield leadership provided by the Germans were decisive elements in establishing the framework and dynamics which characterised the battle for the stockade. Acknowledging this makes it possible to revise the dominant understanding and depictions of Eureka from what has been an unreservedly narrow one to an interpretation that includes the influences on Eureka of those transnational contributions and heritages. Doing so also allows the event to begin to be placed in its proper perspective as a model of armed resistance to oppressive authority within a continuum of protests characteristic of much of the western world at the time. This is a further aspect of Eureka that has been almost universally ignored by the traditional historiography and one that is long overdue for correction. This relationship of Eureka to its place within this broader transnational community of armed protest and resistance will be further traced in the following chapter.

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APPENDIX A

Plate 1: Land of Liberty123

123 Winifred Morgan, An American Icon – Brother Jonathan and American Identity, Newark, University of Delaware Press, p.88.

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Plate 2: Two Californians124

124 Boessenecker, Gold Dust and Gunsmoke, cover and p.100. 126

Plate 3: Joseph Sharp of Sharps Flat 1850125

125 Joan L. Severa, Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion 1840-1900, Kent Ohio, Kent State University Press, 1995. p.120.

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CHAPTER 5 ‘To defend their rights and liberties’ - Eureka as a transnational exemplar of civil armed resistance.

This thesis has thus far established that the battle for the Eureka Stockade was an act of contested armed resistance inspired by motives that went beyond those of simple self interest or economic grievance. There is no question that the battle for the Eureka Stockade was a military engagement of an unprecedented nature in the context of the Anglo-Australian experience of civil protest. Yet while these points are fundamentally important for constructing a full and properly nuanced understanding of what occurred at Eureka, they do not tell the whole story. What remains to be examined is an issue of equal, if not even greater importance; how to interpret Eureka within an international transnational context. Apart from mentioning (more often than not only in passing) the participation of diverse nationalities in the Eureka uprising, the transnational aspects of Eureka have been conspicuously ignored within the traditional historiography. This chapter addresses this issue and demonstrates that Eureka, far from being little more than a parochial curiosity, was a transnational event whose character reflected an international practice of contested armed resistance to oppressive authority which was very much a feature of the contemporary western socio- political experience. The author is aware that the attempt to illustrate the links between Eureka and other like international events separated by time, location and ethnicity must of necessity be undertaken with caution. The risks inherent in choosing what may seem to be a few overly selective examples from among a mass of such events and subsequently presenting those events so that they appear to conform to a predetermined interpretation are well-recognized.

Placing Eureka within the context of the transnational experience of contested armed resistance to oppressive authority requires the exploration of three distinct avenues of investigation. The first of these involves an analysis of the physical manifestation of the stockade, juxtaposing against the well established western tradition of the insurgent barricade. The second avenue is to consider the actions and dynamics of the conflict at Eureka alongside like events elsewhere in the western world to establish shared commonalities between events

128 at Ballarat in 1854 and similar international events of the era. The third aspect is to consider Eureka as an engine of social and political change juxtaposed again to near contemporary events on the international stage.

Historian Henry Weisser in ‘Chartism in 1848, Reflections on a Non- Revolution’ examines why the barricade, unlike its frequent appearance in Europe, did not feature as a characteristic of British protest during the nineteenth century. Weisser concludes that that this was because the higher leadership of the British protest movement were uninterested in creating an environment of open conflict between the classes and thus opposed overt acts of armed insurrection represented by defended barricades.1 While he never considered Eureka within his study Weisser’s conclusions are useful because they emphasise how similar the Eureka stockade was to protest models found outside of Britain. It is in this experience of barricade protest outside Britain, in particular that of Western Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century that links to the Eureka stockade can be made. In The Insurgent Barricade Historian Mark Traugott identifies the European experience of civilian dissenters building and defending barricades with arms as a ‘routine of collective action’.2 In 1848, a mere six years before Eureka, in what Traugott characterises as, ‘the all time climax of barricade use’, European society was torn asunder by a wave of armed uprisings and revolution in which the barricade played a prominent role.3 There were 70 examples of barricades being used in civil conflict in Western Europe during 1844-1854, the ten years before Eureka. Of those with particular relevance to the nationalities of the diggers associated with Eureka 21 were in Germany, seven in Italy and two in Ireland.4 As has been noted in earlier chapters, the influence of the Germans on the militarization of the Eureka diggers, as well as the fiery revolutionary rhetoric of the Italian Carboni was obviously influenced by these. Even though Lalor disparaged what he claimed was the government’s use of the term barricade for the enclosure the diggers had built, there were some among the

1 Weisser,H., ‘Chartism in 1848, Reflections on a Non-Revolution’, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol.13, No. 1, Spring 1981, pp.12-26. 2 Traugott, M., The Insurgent Barricade, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2010, p. xi. 3 Ibid., p.238. 4 Ibid., pp.274-304.

129 diggers who made the connection between the stockade and barricade.5 Digger Michael Hanrahan describes the stockade as a ‘slab barricade’.6 Carboni recorded Vern shouting out at one time, ‘Du Baricaden bauen’.7 American digger Thomas Pierson describes the stockade as a ‘barricade’.8 A writer who preferred to use the pseudonym ‘Publicola’ wrote to the Argus offering an account of the conflict at the stockade from one of the defenders. This account makes frequent mention of the stockade as a barricade.9 The press were also given to describing the stockade as a barricade, the Argus making use of the term when describing events at Eureka on numerous occasions.10 Even though for many involved and for many watching events at Eureka the stockade was analogous to a barricade can the battle for the stockade be linked to the international barricade phenomenon?

Historian/sociologist Charles Tilly describes how protesters conform to a ‘repertoire of collective action’.11 Tilly defines this as, ‘a group of actors who chose among a restricted number of performances with which they are familiar. Their options are circumscribed by both prior experience and by material, organizational, and conceptual resources they find readily at hand.’ Traugott borrowing from Tilly shows how there was a European ‘routine of collective action’ in the form of barricade protest. Traugott defines a barricade as much an act of defiance as a physical structure and specifically as, ‘an improvised structure, built and defended by civilian insurgents as a means of laying claim to urban space, and mobilizing against military and police forces representing the constituted authority.’12 As is evident in earlier Chapters the second of Traugott’s criteria for the barricade; mobilizing against military and police forces representing the constituted authority, is unquestionably demonstrated at Eureka. It could be argued, however, that the Eureka diggers were not laying claim to an urban space. Such a view takes a narrow view of what is meant by urban space.

5 Lalor to the Argus 10 April 1855, p.7. 6 Eureka Reminiscences, p.40. 7 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.77. 8 ‘The diaries of Thomas Person’, SLV MS 11646 BOX 2178/4-5. 9 Argus, 28 December 1954, p.5. 10 See Argus reports 4 December 1854 pp.4-5, 8 December 1854 p.5, 11 December 1854 p.4, 19 December 1854 p.4, 21 December 1854 p.4. 11 See: Tilly, C., Popular Contention in Great Britain 1758-1834, Harvard University Press, 1995; see also Traugott, The Insurgent Barricade, who also discusses the ‘repertoire of collective action’, but in so doing acknowledges his debt to Tilly. 12 Traugott, Insurgent Barricade, p.21.

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The definition of urban is ‘pertaining to, or designating a city or town’.13 There were 65,763 miners in Victoria in 1854 of who 20,470 were at Ballarat in December of that year.14 Ballarat had been proclaimed a town in 1852.15 Having been proclaimed a town and boasting a significant population Ballarat was at the time of Eureka an ‘urban space’, albeit in embryonic form. Barricades reinforced their credentials as urban phenomena in the materials used to construct them and the purpose for which they were intended. Traugott characterises barricades as, ‘the purposeful products of the ingenuity of the insurgents who, appropriating found materials of every kind, adapt them to new political objectives.’16 Parisian barricades of 1830 and 1848 were constructed from materials found at hand within the local urban environment. The ubiquitous paving stones from the streets, balustrades from stairways and balconies, wrought iron gates, crates, baskets, counters from stores, cut down trees even uprooted public urinals all found their place as part of the Parisian barricades.17 In just the same manner the Eureka diggers’ utilized materials found within their local urban environment to construct their barricade. In the place of paving stones used by the Parisians the Eureka diggers used deep shaft mine slabs, an ever-present commodity at Ballarat, to construct the stockade.18 By constructing their stockade the Eureka diggers were, like their European near contemporaries laying claim to a space, both geographic and sovereign, within their own ‘urban’ environment.

Traugott identifies functions of a barricade.19 Some of Traugott’s functions relate specifically to barricades in the context of a European established urban environment. These are not useful when considering the Eureka stockade. Other functions are, however, applicable to the Eureka stockade. The first of these applicable functions is to provide protective cover. As demonstrated in Chapter 1 the Eureka stockade provided protective cover from musket fire for its defenders enabling them to stand their ground and exchange fire with the soldiers. The

13 Dictionary.com , accessed 21 January 2013. 14 Quaife, G., Gold and Colonial Society 1851-1870, p.81; Serle, The Golden Age, p.388. 15 A Brief History of Ballarat, , accessed 20 January 2013. 16 Traugott, The Insurgent Barricade, p.12. 17 Ibid., p.14. 18 Carboni The Eureka Stockade p.79; Amos in State Treason Trials Supreme Court of Victoria, Queen v. Joseph p.29; Lalor to the Argus 10 April 1855 p.7; Allan The Eureka Uprising, p.15 all attest to the stockade being made from mining slabs. 19 Traugott, The Insurgent Barricade, pp.178-220.

131 second of Traugott’s functions applicable to the stockade is to isolate social control forces and direct communication. Traugott explains that in regard to the police and military, ‘Barricades were meant to halt their movement and cut off lines of supply … to deprive the authorities of basic intelligence concerning the activities of the insurgents themselves.’20 The stockade’s location astride the Melbourne road certainly posed an impediment for wheeled transport into Ballarat, which as demonstrated elsewhere in this thesis, posed a challenge for the government camp in terms of supply and reinforcements.21 The stockade’s location across the Melbourne road also presented an obstacle for any reinforcements that would be coming from Melbourne. There was in fact a column of troops and artillery marching to Melbourne at the time the conflict at the stockade occurred.22 The stockade sat astride the only route that was easily accessible to wheeled transport, such as artillery and wagons and as such posed an obstacle for the passage of the wagons and artillery guns. The institution of passwords and posting of sentries outside the stockade by the Eureka diggers all hindered the easy collection of basic intelligence on the activities and plans of the insurgent diggers.23 Captain Charles Pasley, who was acting as Captain Thomas’s ADC, wrote that, ‘Our information with regards to their proceedings was very defective.’24 Resident Gold Commissioner Rede reported on the, ‘great difficulty of getting any information’.25 The authorities resorted to the use of police spies in an attempt to circumvent this restriction.26 The third function of the barricade relevant to the stockade was its use to mobilize the crowd and Identify new recruits. The very limited time that the stockade existed makes it difficult to assess its effectiveness in regard to this criterion.27 Nevertheless when it did exist the stockade certainly acted as a gathering place for the disaffected, enabling them to concentrate their collective energy and military display at one location. The number of insurgent diggers who gathered under arms at the stockade at any one

20 Ibid., p.182. 21 See: Chapter 1 of this monograph. 22 Hotham to the Colonial Secretary 22 December, 1854m TNA CO309/28. 23 For references to passwords and sentries see Carboni The Eureka Stockade pp.90. For reference to sentries see Lalor to the Argus 10 April 1855, p.7. 24 Charles Pasley, ‘letters to his father’, 1853-1861, SLV MS 6167 Box 94/4 (b). 25 Rede to the Colonial Secretary, 27 November 1854, PROV 1189/P Unit 92, J55/14458. 26 Macfarlane, Eureka from the Official Records, pp.74-85. 27 Depending on the sources consulted construction of the stockade began either in the evening of Thursday 30 November or on Friday 1 December. It was destroyed following the battle on Sunday 3 December.

132 time ranges from several hundred to 1500.28 Just how many there were at any one time is not important, the significance of the stockade was that just as barricades had done in the European context the stockade provided a place to rally for those determined to bear arms to defend their cause. The stockade acted as an attraction even for those not associated with the uprising. Stockade defender Richard Allan describes how ‘numbers of people came out of curiosity to the see the stockade and see the diggers drilling’.29 Such activity implies that there was interest in the wider digger community in how the stockade fared. It is not possible to establish the exact nature of this wider interest but a letter written to Governor Hotham after the conflict stated that many uncommitted diggers were in fact watching and waiting to see what occurred before deciding to join the Eureka diggers’ cause.30 The stockade in this regard was acting as an agent for actual recruitment and at potential recruitment. The last of Traugott’s functions of the stockade applicable to Eureka is to claim turf, challenge legitimacy and build solidarity. The stockade was an armed camp of those who rejected the authority of the local Residential Gold Field Commissioner. It was in fact a patch of ‘turf’ for the moment beyond the purview of government control. The very existence of the stockade challenged the legitimacy of government authority. Hotham would later write to the colonial secretary in London explaining that he was compelled to act as he did to avert a riot, ‘rapidly growing into a Revolution.31 Hotham’s observation, echoed by Pasley, reinforced just how serious was considered the challenge to the legitimacy of colonial authority by armed uprising, of which the stockade was an integral part.32 The issue of how the stockade engendered solidarity can be viewed in the immediate and long term. In the immediate sense during the three days it existed the stockade provided a venue for diggers to gather, to express by their actions solidarity for each other and for their cause. That even with the hurly burly of comings and goings and disputes regarding the direction the uprising should take as well as clashes of personality, when the moment of truth came and the battle

28 Digger John O’Brien in Eureka Reminiscences, p.56 claims that there were 500 diggers under arms at one time, Lalor to the Argus 10 April 1855 claims that on the Saturday evening 2 December there were 1500 diggers under arms. 29 Allan, The Eureka Uprising, p.17. 30 Letter from a ‘Young Englishman’ to Charles Hotham, 4 December 1854, PROV VPRS 4066/P Unit 1, December 1854, No. 55, 31 Hotham to the Colonial Secretary 22 December 1854, TNA CO309/28. 32 Charles Pasley, ‘letters to his father’, 1853-1861, SLV MS 6167 Box 94/4 (b).

133 began that solidarity was not found wanting. In the long term sense in later years as the attraction of the iconic myth surrounding the stockade evolved the subsequent legend offered an opportunity for diverse groups within society to use it as a means to generate solidarity within those groups (see Chapter 6).

The ideology inspiring the construction of barricades is diverse. Europeans built barricades for a range of reasons often connected with radical political or nationalist ideals.33 The barricade is a device that is used to provide a physical base from which its builder can issue their demands. Jill Harsin in Barricades-The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris stated that the motivation of those who built the Parisian barricades was that they, ‘believed they could change the world’.34 The Eureka diggers as a group never expressed such lofty ideals, even though the wider digger community had in their endorsement of the Reform Leagues Charter of 11 November signalled aspirations that did indeed challenge the established colonial political order (see Chapter 3). The Eureka diggers were an adjunct of this wider reform movement with many of the leading figures in mass meetings being present at the stockade.35

The barricade was a device that did not know national boundaries and whose purpose and use was widely understood within the international community. Many among the Eureka diggers were aware of or indeed representative of that international community. As such they would have appreciated the purpose and intent of the barricade as such a device. It is reasonable to conclude that in building their barricade at Eureka the insurgent diggers were conforming, even if in a subliminal way, to this international practice.

The battle for the Eureka stockade was a military engagement. It was a deliberate direct contested conflict between civilians who had armed and prepared for confrontation and the military. The history of civil armed resistance to

33 See: Roberston, P., Revolutions of 1848- A Social History, Princeton University Press, 1952. 34 Harsin, J., Barricades – The War on the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2002, p.19. 35 For a list of those ‘Eureka’ personalities present at the great meeting of 29 November 1854 see: Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 1 December 1854, p.4.

134 oppression in the Western world is replete with such examples of populations rising against established authorities. As will become apparent in this chapter this was especially so during the seventy nine years leading up to the Eureka stockade in Europe and North America, two areas from which a significant number of Eureka diggers originated. This chapter will demonstrate that Eureka was an example of this international phenomenon of civilian armed protest. This linkage has been overlooked by the traditional historical narrative of Eureka and is in need of correction. Chapter 3 of this thesis has examined the nature of British protest during the same era and how the notion of civil armed resistance was understood and even planned for, a significant factor when considering that the majority of the diggers at Eureka were British/Irish. In Europe and North America this resistance, as at Eureka, often took the form of actual armed resistance. In the European context this was not restricted by borders, language or nationality. Establishing a commonality between the Eureka stockade and this international experience of armed civilian protest can be achieved by examining the dynamics of like events and juxtaposing those to the dynamics of the Eureka stockade. By doing so, it will be demonstrated that the stockade was representative of a style of protest that was both common and international in character.

Two case studies will be examined to demonstrate the commonality of motivation, action and consequences between those events and the Eureka stockade. In each case North American exemplars will be examined. This is so because the North American experience of armed protest had its genesis in British concepts of assertively defending liberty, shared by the diggers at Eureka, and the decisive role play by North Americans in the defence of the Eureka Stockade. The first case study to be examined is the clash at Lexington-Concord 19 April 1775 between American colonial militiamen and the military forces of the Crown. This conflict was the precursor to a general rebellion by the American colonists which eventually transformed in the American War of Independence. The second case study is the armed rebellion in at Gonzales Texas in October 1835 by North American colonists against the authority of the Mexican state. It was this conflict which ignited the Texan War of Independence. Each case study is examined thematically. Borrowing from Tilly the first theme will be conceptual by which is meant investigating notions and ideas from which the motivations that inspired

135 the participants on both sides of the conflict are examined. The second theme examined is the physical dynamics of the event itself establishing by doing so the shared nature of each event as a contested armed clash between civilians and the military. The third theme is to consider the social and political changes that followed each event, and the importance of the event as a catalyst for those changes. In each case the degree of commonality, of a shared relationship with Eureka for each aspect, will be examined. Having done this the scope will then be broadened to recognise exemplars of civilian armed resistance analogous to Eureka that occurred elsewhere within Western society in the era contemporary or near contemporary to Eureka.

By 1775 there was great tension between the British Crown and many of its American colonial subjects. The use of the military to enforce Royal authority in the American colonies was increasingly resorted to and provoked long standing grievances against such use from the civilian population.36 On 19 April 1775 this conflict between civil and military authority came to a head at Lexington Massachusetts. A column of Royal troops despatched to secure a store of arms and ammunition in the town of Concord marched into the village of Lexington en route and was there met by seventy of the local civilian militia, standing under arms on their village green. There were around 700 Royal troops on the road to Concord.37 The very presence of troops in such numbers, deployed and equipped with the intention of conducting a military operation within the civilian community in times of peace, incited a response from many within the American colonial community to take up arms to resist. Historian Lois Schwoerer in No Standing Armies! The Anti Army Ideology in Seventeenth Century England demonstrates how deeply entrenched was the antipathy to military imposition among British civilian society.38 The communities of Lexington and Eureka both shared in this British heritage. Historian John Galvin observed that the militia at Lexington did as they did to, ‘maintain the honor of the company and the town

36 See: Leach, Roots of Conflict – British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677 – 1763. 37 Tourtellot, A.B., William Diamond’s Drum, Hutchison. London, 1960, p.71. 38 See: Schwoerer, L.G., No Standing Armies! The Anti Army Ideology in Seventeenth Century England, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1974; Leach, D.E., Roots of Conflict – British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677 – 1763.

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.’39 A contemporary assessment of what occurred concluded that, ‘We cannot think that the Honour, Wisdom, and Valour of Britons, will suffer them to be longer inactive Spectators of Measures (sic) … Measures highly incompatible with Justice.40 This was exactly the response of the Eureka diggers to the use of the military against them, first on the night of 28 November when a column of troops was assaulted when it marched into Ballarat, and more significantly following the Gravel Pits riot on 30 November when word went out that the diggers had been fired upon (see Chapter 1). Echoing the same sentiments some days after the battle at Eureka the Argus observed that, ‘what else could be expected from the exposure of freemen to the daily and hourly insult from a demoralised, but almost absolute police force?’41 The use of the term ‘what else could be expected’ emphasises the same sense of offended honour among the Eureka diggers as was the case at Lexington. Peter Lalor stated that the Eureka diggers took up arms in response to a direct, ‘insult to our manhood’ a clear allusion to a sense of self worth and dignity that had been affronted by the actions of the government.42 When the clash came at Lexington it was over quickly. Eight of the militia were killed and the remainder scattered many of who were wounded. There were no military casualties.43 Blood had been shed, however, and answering the call to arms militia, the ‘minutemen’ of legend, converged on the column of Royal troops and exacted revenge. Having failed to capture the military stores at Concord, which had been moved anyway, the Royal troops retreated losing in that retreat seventy three soldiers killed, 174 wounded and twenty six missing.44 Just as at Eureka the use of the military to impose the authority of the Crown, in times of peace, had incited elements within the civilian population to take up arms and confront the military. The result had been armed conflict.

39 Galvin, J. R., The Minute Men, The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution, Brasseys, Washington, 1989, p.124. 40 Nathaniel Gorham, In Provincial Congress, Watertown, April 26th, 1775, ‘To the Inhabitants of Great Britain’, Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 - THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1775, pp.42-43. accessed 18 January 2013. 41 Argus, December, 1854, p.5. 42 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.65. 43 There are a great number of sources that deal with this event, far too many to list here. One good source this author has found which deals with this event and examines the role of the American militia in the War of Independence in a broader context is Galvin, The Minute Men, The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution. 44 Galvin, The Minute Men, The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution, p.230.

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Five decades later, only eighteen years removed from events at Eureka, American civilians were again under arms in direct response to a military threat from the state. The case in point was an armed uprising by North American colonists in what was then the Mexican Territory of Texas. Mexico at the time was a confederation of states, each which enjoyed considerable autonomy from the central government. In 1835 the central government came under the domination of the military which set about forcibly reducing the autonomy of the states. Texas was a territory of Mexico, not a state, whose population was overwhelmingly made up of North American colonists, who had been invited to settle by the Mexican central government. Like the states within the Mexican confederation Texas enjoyed generous autonomy. Reflecting a general upsurge of militant dissent within the wider Mexican confederation at this threat to their state sovereignty unrest developed among some of the Texan colonists. The central government chose to enforce its authority with the military. Thus, as it had at Lexington and as it would be at Eureka, the use of the military to coerce the population sparked an assertive response from the civil population in Texas. Robert Williamson who would later play a significant part in the subsequent war for Texan independence, made an impassioned appeal at the time warning that, ‘They are coming to compel you to obedience … to compel you to support.’45 The compulsion Williamson warned of being the imposition of the military. William Travis, who would command and die at the Alamo, warned that military intervention would, ‘kindle a flame in Texas that would burn in twain the slender cords that connect us to the ill fated Mexican confederation.’46 The Committee of Safety of the Jurisdiction of the Texan town of Austin was equally forthright when it declared, ‘They have come to fasten down upon our necks the yoke, and to come to rivet upon our hands the manacles of a military servitude.’47

Echoes of similar sentiments were expressed in the days before the battle at Eureka. In an article entitled Government by Artillery the Argus of 28 November 1854 warned that, ‘it is certain that troops, police and artillery, have

45 Ibid., p.43. 46 Lack, P.D., The Texas Revolutionary Experience – A Political and Social History 1835-1836, Texas A&M University Press, College Station, p.21. 47 Barker, E.C. (ed)., The Austin Papers , Vol.3, Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1924-1928, p.165-166.

138 again been ordered to the scene of the action…. To fire rashly or inconsiderably upon such a mob would be to throw down the gauntlet of battle, and plunge the colony into the calamity of civil war.’48 A link between military action and an aggressive response from the diggers was made even by John Basson Humffray, the chief spokesman for the aggrieved diggers up until 29 November and a confirmed advocate of peaceful protest. In reply to an admonition three days prior to the battle for the stockade from Resident Gold Commissioner Rede, ‘See now the consequences of your agitation’, Humffray replied, ‘No, but see the consequences of impolitic coercion.’49 Months after the battle for the stockade Carboni was to write, ‘I came 16,000 miles in vain to get away from the rule of the sword’, his allusion to military despotism being clear.50

The Texan’s abject aversion to the imposition of unwelcome military presence among them was not lost on Mexican authorities. In March the military governor of Coahuila-Texas Domingo Urgartechea reported to his superiors that Texans were ‘arming even children’ to prevent troops being stationed among them.51 Even so not all Texans were so disposed to oppose the central government. This is most clearly seen in events at Gonzales a small rural community about 60 kilometres to the East of San Antonio de Bexar (modern San Antonio). On 7 July 1835 a meeting of the citizens of Gonzales unanimously resolved that they had, ‘full confidence in the favourable dispositions (sic) of his Excellency the President & the General Congress towards Texas’.52 The same meeting further declared that the refusal of the ‘inhabitants of Texas’ to furnish troops at the behest of the State Governor to move against central authorities, declaring that was, ‘conclusive proof of the loyalty of the inhabitants of Texas towards the nation.’53 Within only a few months, however, the citizens of Gonzales turned from expressing loyalty to the Mexican regime to taking up arms

48 Argus 28 Nov 1854, p.4 49 Argus 2 December 1854, p.5. 50 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.5. 51 Jenkins, J.H. (ed)., The Papers of the Texas Revolution, Presidial Press, Austin, 1973, vol. Vi, p.43. 52 Ibid., pp. 215-16. 53 Ibid., pp.215-16. In this case the State Governor referred to, was the federalist inclined Governor of Coahuila y Texas of which Texas was a territory.

139 to oppose it. The reasons for why this occurred reveal a direct link with events at Eureka?

The core grievance at Gonzales, just as at Eureka, was the behaviour of the Mexican military in its direct dealings with the citizens of Gonzales. In September 1835 Andrew Ponton the Alcade (Mayor) of Gonzales wrote to Colonel Ugartechea, military governor in San Antonio de Bexar, expressing his alarm at the behaviour of soldiers who had visited his village. Expressing his concerns Ponton wrote,

The facts alluded to are as follows – A party of soldiers amounting to perhaps twenty five men (including officers) arrived in this place on Thursday last and remained until the succeeding day, during which time they took up residence in a building in which Mr. Zumwalt keeps a store. A citizen Jesse McCoy without any intention of interfering or interrupting these Soldiers [sic], not knowing anything of their regulations or not thinking of their presence attempted to pass them on his way into the Store [sic] room, a Soldier [sic] met him and attempted to push him aside without as he says and thinks speaking to him; he still without noticing the movement of the cause attempted to move forward when he received a violent blow from the Soldier [sic] with his gun giving him a severe wound on id head and causing the blood to flow profusely. Desperate consequences would have followed but for the interference of some peaceable and well disposed citizens who were conscious that a small matter might produce great evil in these excited times, and they thought that an individual had better suffer injustice and outrage than the whole community should involve themselves by the acts which the excitation of the moment might occasion.’54

The response to Ponton’s letter was quick by not conciliatory. Urgatecha demanded that the people of Gonzales surrender their municipal cannon. This cannon was a small ancient piece which had been in the possession of Gonzales since it had been given to them by the Government in 1831 as a deterrent to raids by Native Americans. To reinforce his decree Urgatecha despatched a column of soldiers. The citizens of Gonzales, now thoroughly aroused responded to the military move against them by arming themselves. Reinforced by other Texans

54 Lindley, T.R., Alamo Traces, Republic of Texas Press, Lanham, 2003, p.334.

140 from surrounding districts and further afield they awaited the soldiers. When the confrontation came on 2 October it at first took on the nature of negotiations the summation of which was the pronouncement made by those in Gonzales that they would not surrender their cannon and that, ‘we will contend for what we believe to be just.’55 The Texians, as the American Colonists called themselves, then raise a white banner on which was painted a black image of the cannon and the words ‘come and take it’.56 There was a hiatus over night during which the Texans in Gonzales voted to initiate a fight with the Mexican soldiers camped outside the village. The next morning the Texans moved against the soldiers and a skirmish developed which eventually compelled the soldiers to withdraw after having lost two men killed.57

Bullying by soldiers had certainly occurred at Gonzales and once again, as at Lexington and latter at Ballarat the behaviour of the military in relation to the civilian population was the cause of major grievance. In the closing lines of his correspondence Ponton explains how the soldiers had occupied Mr. Zulwalt’s property without asking permission or offering payment of any kind. Ponton’s concern at the fate suffered by Jesse McCoy at the hands of the military is apparent. What McCoy suffered obviously angered McCoy’s peers and only the intervention of citizens who did not want the matter to escalate prevented the incident becoming a confrontation at that time.58 In this incident the potential for greater violence at Gonzales because of the behaviour of the Soldiers is significant in establishing a commonality with events at Eureka. In a rejoinder to the growing presence and assertive use of the military on the diggings leading digger spokesman George Black informed Resident Commissioner Robert Rede that Englishmen would not tolerate being challenged at the point of the bayonet, or shot down or bullied by soldiers.59Just as at Eureka where the diggers swore to ‘defend their rights and liberties’ the people of Gonzales were determined to

55 Davis, W.C., Lone Star Rising – The revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic, Free Press, New York, 2004, p.140. 56 Hardin, S.L., Texian Iliad – A Military History of the Texas Revolution, University of Texas Press, Austin, p.12. 57 Ibid., pp.12-13. 58 Lindley, T.R., Alamo Traces, p.334. 59 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, pp.73-74.

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‘contend for what we believed to be just’.60 Just as at Eureka where the resolution to defend their liberties led to the aggrieved taking up and using arms so to had it been the case at Gonzales.

The spirit that motivated the government’s representatives at Lexington and Eureka is also an example of linkage between the two. In 1775 as relations between the Massachusetts colonists and Royal authorities worsened General Thomas Gage Royal Governor of Massachusetts alarmed at the growing organisation and resolve of the colonists to resist Royal authority wrote to his superiors that, ‘A large force will terrify, and engage many to join you … a middling one will encourage resistance, and gain no friends.’61 Six weeks before Lexington Major John Pitcairn, who commanded the leading elements of the soldiers that confronted the Militia on Lexington Green wrote that dealing with the colonials in a harsh manner was absolutely necessary because, ‘this will ever convince those foolish bad people that England is in earnest.’62 Pitcairn’s resolve was echoed seventy nine years later at Eureka by Resident Gold Commissioner Robert Rede who on 27 November 1854 wrote, ‘If the Government will hold this and the other gold fields it must at once crush this movement’, advice he reinforced on 2 December with, ‘crush them … at one blow which can only done if we find them with arms in their hands and acting in direct opposition to the laws.’63 This spirit that the authority of the state should forcibly repress those who challenge was shared by the Mexican government in 1835.

In an echo of the response of the British administration to growing unrest in Massachusetts in 1775 and a precursor to the response of the Victorian colonial government to events in Ballarat in 1854 the Mexican authorities resolved early to use the military to restore order in Texas. In April 1835 Captain Antonio Tenorio the commander of the garrison at the East Texan port of Anahuac requested reinforcements and two pieces of artillery, ‘with which I may keep the

60 For a good account of the lead up to the War of Texan Independence including the conflict at Gonzales see: Hardin, S.L., Texian Illiad – A Military History of the Texas Revolution, Univeristy of Texas Press, Austin, 1998; Davis, W.C., Lone Star Rising, Free Press, New York, 2004. 61 Gross, R.A., The Minutemen and their World, Hill and Wang, New York, 2001, p.109. 62 Davis, W.C., Lone Star Rising – The revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic, p.127. 63 Rede to Colonial Secretary 27 November 1854 PROV 1085/P Unit 8, Duplicate 162 Enclosure no. 4, Rede to Colonial Secretary 2 December 1854, PROV 1189 Box 92 54/J14462.

142 neighbourhood within the bounds of respect, and show them that the Supreme Government is disposed and able to protect the frontier, as is its duty.’64 On 29 April the Mexican Secretary of War Jose Maria Tornel wrote that once the revolt in Zacatecas, another state, had been put down a large body of troops would be despatched Texas to, ‘settle the business there definitely’.65 In May General Martin Perfecto de Cos, the brother in law of President Santa Anna who was later to play a prominent role in the Texas War of Independence made his intentions towards those in Texas for whom, ‘the voice of reason is not heeded’, by stating that, ‘I shall make use of arms, to conquer the audacity of those deluded men.’66 In July Cos would add that it was necessary to, ‘repress and crush’, all enemies of public quite whose, ‘unruly and perverse minds are plotting disturbances.’67 In June Urgartecha has written to Tenorio that, ‘In a very short time, the affairs of Texas will be definitely settled, for which purpose the Government has ordered to take up the line of March [sic], a strong devision [sic] composed pf the troops which were in Zasatccas [sic], and which are now in Santillo … These Revolutionists [sic] will be ground down.’68 Rede’s request for reinforcements and avowed intention to crush the dissident diggers is an echo of this. Convinced that the unrest on the Ballarat diggings must be crushed or the contagion would spread to all the other gold fields, Rede requested that artillery and a strong force be sent up from Melbourne.69 Rede went on to determine that the best way to eliminate the political allure posed by the dissident miners at Ballarat was to crush them with arms in their hands, no doubt with the intention that by so doing it would allow the dissidents to be portrayed as dangerous radicals.70 Captain Thomas Pasley who joined Rede at Ballarat on 28 November with the express intention of volunteering his services to suppress the unrest at Ballarat wanted at all costs to avoid the dissident miners succeeding in sparking a

64 Jenkins, J.H. (ed)., The Papers of the Texas Revolution, vol. VI, pp.60-61. 65 Ibid., p.85. 66 Ibid., pp.105-6. 67 Ibid., p.214. 68 Ibid., p.156. Dissent against the Mexican central government in the State of Zacatecas was bloodily crushed by the army following a pitched battle with the state troops of Zacatecas followed by a deliberate unleashing of the vengeful soldiery on the citizens of Zacatecas, see: Hardin, Texian Iliad, pp.6-7. The troops used to do this deed were the ones Urgartecha was referring to as being despatched to Texas. 69 Rede to Foster 30 November 1854, PROV 1189 Box 92 K54/13. 510. 70 Rede to Wright, 30 November 1854, PROV 1189 Box 92 K54/13.510 PROV; Rede to Foster PROV 1189 Box 92 54/J14462.

143 rebellion that might well engulf the entire colony.71 Pasley was adamant that the, ‘disaffected must be coerced.’72 Practical steps were taken to ensure such steps could be undertaken. Two infantry companies, one each from the 12th Regiment and the 40th Regiment marched into Ballarat on 28 November to join the soldiers already there. This along with reinforcements of police and infantry brought the numbers of soldiers and police to 450 which included 130 mounted men described as, ‘very well mounted and equipped’.73

The shared thread of motivation by both dissenters and enforcers reveals an evident link between events at Lexington-Concord, Gonzales-Texas and Eureka. In each case the protagonists were operating according to a set of ideas borne from a common heritage, one of antipathy to military coercion the other of using such a force to impose their will. These ideas provided the foundation from which emerged the respective responses. The outcome in all three cases was armed conflict.

One other thread shared by Eureka to similar international events is that of the resultant consequences. Mark Twain in his 1897 recounting his international travels in Following the Equator identified a common thread linking what occurred at Lexington-Concord and Eureka when he wrote,

It was a revolution-small in size, but great politically; it was a strike for liberty, a struggle for principle, a stand against injustice and oppression. It was the Barons and John, over again; it was Hampden and the Ship Money; it was Concord and Lexington; small beginnings all of them, but all of them great in political results.74

Twain’s enthusiastic reflection cannot be dismissed out of hand. In his inimitable style Twain points out a direct link of consequences. It has been demonstrated above that there were indeed conceptual links between Lexington-Concord and Eureka as well as a synchronicity between the physical natures of conflict at each event. Twain, however, alludes to another commonality, that of the role played as

71 Charles Pasley ‘letters to his father’ 1853-1861, SLV MS6167 Box9414(b), p.50. 72 Pasley to Hotham, 30 November 1854, PROV 1189/P.J54/12058. 73Charles Pasley ‘letters to his father’ 1853-1861, SLV MS6167 Box9414(b), pp.52-3. 74 Twain, M., Following the Equator, Dover Publications Inc, New York, 1989 (first published by the American Publishing Company, Hartford, Connecticut, 1897), p.233.

144 a catalyst for change by each event. The notion that Lexington-Concord was the trigger for great things was recognised very soon after the clash. On 21 April 1775 Ezekiel Russell in the Salem Gazette, or Newbury and Marblehead Advertiser published a piece entitled ‘Bloody Butchery, by British Troops; or the Runaway Fight of the Regulars’. Russell recognised the ‘important event, on which, perhaps, may depend on the future Freedom of Greatness of the Commonwealth of America’75 Later historians such as John Fiske who in his The American Revolution (1919) wrote of the enthusiasm for taking up arms by the general population generated by Lexington.76 The recognition of Lexington- Concord as a trigger for greater events continued with Arthur Tourtellot in William Diamond’s Drum (1960) identifying the catalytic and unifying affect of Lexington-Concord,

It was the purpose of the Massachusetts delegation to the Second Continental Congress to change all this – to get the united Congress to adopt a provincial army, to stop any conciliation efforts by other colonies, to make the cause of Massachusetts the cause of all the colonies, and to make this clear to the whole civilized world….This was an ambitious set of objectives, an without Lexington it would have been utterly impossible.’77

Modern historians have continued this theme with Robert Gross in The Minutemen and Their World (2001) observing, ‘Concord played a part in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The inhabitants could think globally as well as act locally – and fire ‘a shot heard ‘round the world’’.78 The theme of a catalyst for change holds true when the armed clash at Gonzales acted as a catalyst that energised what had been simmering rebellion within Texas and transformed it into a full blown conflict, the result of which was the emergence of Texas as an Independent republic. The contemporary reaction among Texans to the news of Gonzales was visceral and immediate. Exaggerated accounts of the clash at Gonzales, one of which claimed that forty or more had been killed on each side

75 Ezekiel Russell, ‘Bloody Butchery by the British Troops’, Salem Gazette, or Newbury and Marblehead Advertiser, Friday, April 21, 1775, , accessed 25 January 2013. 76 Fiske, J., The American Revolution, Houghton Mifflin for the Educational Press, Boston, 1919, p.165. 77 Tourtellot, A.B., William Diamond’s Drum, p.168. 78 Gross, R., The Minutemen and Their World, p.204.

145 when in fact only two, both Mexicans, had fallen, quickly spread throughout the settled areas of Texas.79 Leading Texan colonist Steven Austin pronounced, ‘war has been declared’.80 William Travis declared that, ‘There are no peace-men, no parties here now. All are war men.’81 Historian William C. Davis in Lone Star Rising – The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic summarized the mood of that time when he wrote ‘Few could still waver in the cause now’.82 Others such as historian Thomas Lindley have been more forthright stating unequivocally in his Alamo Traces that, ‘The Texas Revolution started on October 2, 1835 at Gonzales.’83

Unlike in colonial Massachusetts in 1775 or Mexican ruled Texas in 1835 there certainly was not, in Victoria in 1854, any sort of widespread, organised movement to resist the authority of the state with arms. Yet there was increasingly boisterous and articulate unrest on the gold fields and it was not confined to one place. When in his report to the Colonial Secretary Governor Hotham stated that he had acted to prevent a Riot transforming into a Revolution he was alluding to his concern for the potential influence events at Eureka could have had on sparking a much more serious challenge to the colonial political status quo. This danger was echoed by others such as Pasley. That danger had, however, been crushed at Eureka or so it had seemed. Unlike at Lexington-Concord or Gonzales the catalytic effect of Eureka did not occur immediately. Eureka did not ignite a military campaign to overthrow the established political order as it did both at Lexington-Concord and Gonzales. Yet the consequences of Eureka did indeed contribute to profound change within Victorian colonial society. Within two years of Eureka there had been a total transformation of political dispensation within colonial Victoria. The influence Eureka had as a catalyst for this change cannot be underestimated.

Writing after Eureka the Age identified how the old social compact of society was giving way to a new regime characterised by, ‘the earnest and

79 Davis, W.C., Lone Star Rising – The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic, p.142. 80 Ibid., p.143. 81 Ibid., p.142. 82 Ibid. 83 Lindley, T.R., Alamo Traces, p.335.

146 intrepid assertion, common to all classes, of their right to be equal.’84 Professional historians have universally acknowledged a place for Eureka as a factor in the causes for the political changes that occurred in Victoria in the years that followed. This acknowledgement ranges from qualified concession to unambiguous endorsement. An example of the qualified concession is Geoffrey Serle in The Golden Years where Serle even though he refuses to grant Eureka any especial importance in regard to the political changes which occurred in Victoria in years that followed, nevertheless acknowledges Eureka as a factor that compelled the colonial government to pay heed to the demands for democratic reform.85 Geoffrey Blainey in the third edition of The Rush that Never Ended (1978) conceded that, ‘The Ballarat riot probably quickened political democracy in Victoria.’86 In the following decades Blainey’s ‘probable cause’ faded as he became convinced that, ‘Without doubt it [Eureka] quickened the movement towards democracy.’87 John Molony in Eureka clearly identifies Eureka as a key ingredient in provoking change, ‘For years all the talk and agitation had met with strong resistance, with even more stringent application of the law and with an almost offhand attitude to legitimate grievances. Eureka, coupled with the trials had changed all of that.’88 Molony would in later years refine his assessment of Eureka’s significance even further writing, ‘If you want to talk about the origins of constitutional democracy in this country, then there is its heartland.’89 Historian Robert Walshe in Great Australian Gold Rushes & Eureka Stockade was even more forthright in his assessment of the Eureka Stockade causing, ‘a torrent of reforms unequalled in Australian history.’90

As at Lexington-Concord and Gonzales the central element of the Eureka drama was armed conflict. It was the actual contested military nature of that conflict at Eureka, which established the framework for all that followed. The large numbers of digger casualties were a direct consequence of the contested

84 Serle, The Golden Years, p.185. 85 Ibid., p.185. 86 Blainey, G., The Rush that Never Ended, p.57. 87 Blainey, G., ‘Victoria’s Bloody Sunday’, Royal Auto, November 2004, p.20. 88 Molony, Eureka, p.204. 89 Molony, J., Eureka and the Prerogative of the People, Senate Occasional Lecture Series 23 April 2004, Papers on Parliament No. 42 December 2004. 90 Walshe, R.D., Great Australian Gold Rushes & Eureka Stockade, p.54.

147 nature of the conflict and provided endless grist for the mill of mass public outrage which followed. On Tuesday 5 December, two days after Eureka, a public meeting was called in the Melbourne Mechanics’ Institute. The purpose of the meeting was to consider the defence of Melbourne against the threat of lawlessness emanating from the goldfields following the conflict at Eureka. Some 3000 attended the gathering which soon transformed into a boisterous affair that turned the official agenda on its head, demanded the resignation of the Government, and expressed outrage at what had occurred at Eureka. The very next day another mass meeting repeated similar sentiments.91 John Foster, close adviser to Governor Hotham, was the first victim of this public fury in being compelled to offer his resignation, as something of a scapegoat, on 9 December 1854 citing the reasons given as, ‘a prejudice exists against me’ because of, ‘proceedings at public meetings, and from articles appearing in the newspaper press.’92 Public resentment in Melbourne against the government because of Eureka prompted one correspondent to observe that,

But all this weighs as nothing against the overwhelming expression of contempt towards the authorities of sympathy for the diggers -aye and admiration too- and what is still more worthy of notice, the open assertion of republican principles and the confident anticipation of speedy freedom and independence for the Australian colonies which one hears frequently expressed. There is still danger to be apprehended from the gold fields, but I am quite satisfied it is in Melbourne where the most formidable spirit of disaffection to the authorities exists and that it is in the metropolis that any great movement will be originated for revolutionising Victoria.93

At another meeting called to further the political aspirations of William Foster Stawell the Attorney General, who had prosecuted the accused Eureka diggers at the State Treason Trials, the turnout reflected the impact Eureka had had upon the mood of the public as expressed by a correspondent who was present,

a Strong political feeling with respect to Mr. Stawell, which seems to have lain smouldering since the lamentable affair at the Eureka Stockade, drew together an assemblage such as has not been often

91 Roberts, American Alchemy, The California Gold Rush and Middle Class Culture, p.155. 92 South Australian Register, 19 April 1855, p.2. 93 Argus 6 January 1855, p.5.

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seen within the walls of the theatre. Upwards of 2003 persons were present.94

Unlike at Lexington-Concord and Gonzales the Eureka stockade did not occur in a community which was already armed and prepared for rebellion. This was a difference that needs to be acknowledged. This was not, however, a difference that hampered Eureka acting as a catalyst for change. As at Lexington-Concord and Gonzales conflict at Eureka triggered a series of consequences which combined to quicken the process of political reform within society. By 1857 the franchise had been extended to all adult males in Victoria, something that did not happen in Britain until 1918.95 The gold field administration had been totally transformed for the better, and an elected lower house of parliament with salaried members established.96 Both Molony and Blainey recognise this experience of rapid change as a key consequence of the conflict at Eureka. Eureka shares with Lexington-Concord and Gonzales a common bond. Three events separated by time and place but united by shared ideals and the resolution to resist military coercion and the oppression of personal liberty took up arms to defend those principles and as a consequence acted as catalysts for profound change.

For reasons of space and focus this chapter has limited itself to examining only two events alongside Eureka. While each of these events shared many attributes with Eureka they were not of course the only examples of armed resistance by civilians to the oppressive polices of their governments that occurred internationally within the immediate two decades preceding Eureka. Rebellions in Canada in 1837-1838 by the French Canadian population of Lower Canada, and in 1837 by English Canadian radicals both evidenced similar ideals to those expressed at Eureka. Expressing sentiments not at all dissimilar to those heard in the days before the conflict at Eureka the French Canadian pro-reform newspaper Vindicator declared that government could, ‘only exist by the consent of the governed … that a government of choice is an inherent right of the

94 Argus 28 August 1856, p.5. 95 This occurred with the UK Representation of the People Act 1918. 96 Conservative interests still for a time maintained the power of legislative veto in the unelected Victorian Upper House. However, the previously exclusivist political evolution towards a wider franchise which had begun within colonial Victoria had been recast by the events that followed Eureka into a radically inclusive mould which set the agenda for political reform within the colony over the following decades.

149 people.’97 The Ballarat Reform League Charter echoed the same sentiments in 1854 with,

But that if Queen Victoria continues to act upon the ill advice of the dishonest ministers and insists upon indirectly dictating obnoxious laws for the Colony under the assumed authority of the Royal Prerogative the Reform League will endeavour to supersede such Royal Prerogative by asserting that of the People which is the most Royal of all Prerogatives, as the people are the only legitimate source of all political power.98

The conflict in Lower Canada was a sustained one and required the deployment of considerable military resources by the British Crown to suppress it.99 A second rebellion occurred in Upper Canada in 1837. Unlike the uprising in Lower Canada this affair ended quickly with little loss of life and the rapid collapse of the insurgents cause. Close investigation reveals, however, powerful similarities between the this rebellion and Eureka. The first connection is simply demographic. The population of Upper Canada, essentially modern day Ontario, was a ‘British’ community that would have shared similar convictions, aspirations, ideas and presumptions as the overwhelmingly British population of Ballarat. As at Eureka a motivation for the Upper Canadian rebels was the denial of a fair hearing from the colonial administration and above all the conviction that the government intended to use armed force against them.100 The response to this perceived threat was, as at Eureka, to take up arms to resist.101 A further link

97 Boissery, B., A Deep Sense of Wrong – The Treason Trials and Transportation to New South Wales of the Lower Canadian Rebels after the 1838 Rebellion, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards NSW, 1996, p.20. 98 ‘Ballarat Reform League Charter’, PROV 4066/P Unit 1, November no.69. 99 From among the many books that deal with the rebellion in Lower Canada the following are suggested reading: Boissery, A Deep Sense of Wrong; Greenwood, M and Wright, B., Canadian State Trials Vol. II – Rebellion and Invasion in the Canadas 1837 – 1839, Toronto, Published for the Osgoode Society for Canadian legal History by University of Toronto Press, 2002; Guillet, E. C., The Lives and Time of the Patriots – An Account of the Rebellion in Upper Canada 1837-1838 and the Patriot Agitation in the United States 1837-1842, University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1968; Mann, M., A Particular Duty, The Canadian Rebellions 1837-1839, Michael Russell, Wiltshire, 1986; Read, C and Stagg, R. J., The Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada – A Collection of Documents, The Champlain Society in cooperation with the Ontario Heritage Foundation Carlton University Press, 1985. 100 Kilbourn, W., The Firebrand - William Lyon McKenzie and the Rebellion in Upper Canada, Jonathan Cape, 1956, London, p.170; Dent, J.C., The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion – Largely Derived From Original Sources and Documents, Scholar’s Bookshelf, Cranbury NJ, first published 1885 this edition 2007, p.359. 101 See: Kilbourn, W., The Firebrand - William Lyon McKenzie and the Rebellion in Upper Canada, for a detailed account of the Upper Canadian rebellion.

150 between the Canadian rebellions and Eureka is in the influence the rebellions had upon political reform and evolution in Canada. While the actual influence of the rebellions upon the course of political change in Canada continues to be debated the consensus opinion is that, just as with Eureka, the rebellions hastened political reform within Canada with the Act of Union of 1840 bringing together the two previously separate provinces of Canada into one political entity.102

A significant indicator of the relationship of Eureka to the international heritage of civilian armed resistance to oppression can be found by simply considering those who participated. The colonial government at the time made great play of the prominence of foreigners in the Eureka uprising. A general order emanating from Military Headquarters in Melbourne prior to Eureka described events in Ballarat as the work of ‘foreign anarchists, and armed ruffians’ and in an allusion to the European tradition of barricade referred to the stockade as a ‘stronghold’.103 In part the motivation for this announcement may have been an attempt by the colonial authorities to whip up the fear of the foreign bogey man so as to obscure the role played by British participants, so as to deny the uprising legitimacy within the wider community. It was, however, ignoring the hyperbolic use of the terms anarchists and ruffians, a line of argument that in reality was not entirely without merit. The previous Chapter of this thesis examined the significant role of the Americans and Germans in the conflict. The contribution of foreigners, although not specifically addressed in terms of any specific nationality, was not lost on the colonial government. Governor Hotham was deeply critical of the supposed role played by foreigners identifying them in his post Eureka report to London as, ‘among the most active’.104 Hotham was of the firm opinion that the dissident miners held, ‘foreign democratic opinions; they are indifferent to the precise form of government to be obtained, provided the road to it lay through an overthrow of property and general havoc.’105 Despite the fact that the overwhelming number of Eureka diggers were British/Irish the official

102 See: Buckner, P.A., The Transition to Responsible Government: British Policy in British North America 1815-1850, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1985. 103 Empire, 3 January, 1855, p.5; Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser, 4 January 1855, p.2. 104 Roberts, S., Charles Hotham – A Biography, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1985, p.160. 105 Ibid., p.160.

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Gold Fields Commission report after Eureka clearly identified foreigners, as primary instigators of the troubles stating that,

The foreigners formed a larger proportion among the disaffected than among the miners generally. It seems certain that a number acted a very prominent part, in regard particularly to the drilling with fire-arms, - a lawless form of demonstration that appears to have been mainly due to this agency, if not altogether. If these persons have not been wholly chargeable with the culminating and lawless extreme of this outbreak, they have unquestionably been only too influential in drawing a body of colonists into a course that, among British people, are happily as rare as they are disgraceful, in the oft recurring differences with their authorities.106

There certainly were such individuals among the Eureka diggers. Stockade defender Richard Allan described how,

The sound of the drum attracted a few of the restless spirits of the age, resident on Ballarat; political exiles who fled the continental troubles of ’48 and ’49. Frenchmen, Germans, Italians and Greeks. The handsome side-arms worn by some of them and their appearance showed they held command in their own countries before they fled for their lives.107

Allan’s observation clearly places Eureka within the time frame of very significant European rebellions and revolutions. The bloody fighting on the French barricades during 1848, the hard fought battle for the Roman Republic of 1849, the Hungarian and Austrian revolutions of the same year and the military repression of German aspiration for political liberalism had all occurred in the six years before Eureka.108 To imagine that many of the participants in those events did not bring with them to Australia the personal legacy of their experience and

106 Article 67, The Goldfields Commission Report, in Hugh Anderson (ed), The Goldfields Commission Report, Ascot vale, Red Rooster Press, 1973. 107 Allan, R., The Eureka Uprising, p.16. 108 For accounts of the European revolutions within the decades preceding Eureka see: Harsin, J., Barricades – The War on the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2002; Marx, K., The Revolutions of 1848, penguin books, Baltimore, 1973; Price, R., 1848 in France, Cornell University Press, Ithaca New York, 1975; Randers-Pehrson, J.D., Germans and the Revolution of 1848-1849, New German-American Studies, New York, Peter Lang Publishing Inc, 1999; Robertson. P., Revolutions of 1948 – A Social History, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1971; Rude, G., The Crowd in History 1730-1848, John Wiley & Sons, New York- London, 1964; Sperber, J., Rhineland Radicals – The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848 – 1849, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991; Traugott, M., The Insurgent Barricade, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2010.

152 that when confronted by similar challenges to what they had faced in Europe they would not have acted accordingly is unreasonable. The Press were not reticence in flaunting the spectre of the foreign revolutionary at Eureka. Without any evidence to support the claims Carboni was presented as, ‘the secretary of Mazzini’ and Vern portrayed as, ‘one of the June heroes of Paris’.109 A teasing reference by Carboni to a Frenchman named Duprat presenting a plan for the construction of the stockade implies yet another transnational contribution.110 Just what role, apart from that identified for the Americans and Germans, these so called foreign revolutionaries played at the Eureka stockade remains a moot. Those records that exist which refer to them, examined throughout this thesis, are mostly anecdotal, yet do confirm their presence from which can be extrapolated whatever contributions they may have made. What does remain constant is that they were present and by their presence contributed a direct connection between Eureka and similar contemporary international events.

The conflict at Eureka did influence international events, if only limited to immediate Trans-Tasman events in New Zealand. The New Zealand the Nelson Gold Fields Occupation Bill 1857, the Nelson Gold Fields Administration of Justice Act 1858 and the Gold Fields Act of 1861 were all influenced by events at Eureka.111 The presence in New Zealand of diggers from Australia as well as the close relationship across the Tasman between the British Australasian colonies ensured that the events at Eureka, and their implications, would be widely disseminated and understood in New Zealand. Elsewhere in the world the conflict had little impact. Yet, it was not entirely ignored. In Europe newspapers in France, Italy and Germany reported Eureka, even if it was by transposing British newspaper accounts. In March 1855 the German newspaper Allgemeine Zietung reported that, ‘The news of a “revolution” in Australia telegraphed via Trieste a few days ago, and “Independence Declaration of the colony” – which news was received via Ceylon – seems in any case to have been based on an exaggeration.’112 This corrected what has apparently been an account of a

109 Moreton Bay Courier, 13 January 1855, p.2. 110 Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, p.52. 111 Oosterman, A., ‘‘The Inglorious Struggle’: A New Zealand view of the Eureka Stockade’, Australian Journalism Review, Vol.32, No.1, 2010, pp.51-65. 112 Allgemeine Zietung, 7 March 1855.

153 political revolution occurring in Australia in an earlier edition of the paper. Similar reports, taken from the British press appeared in the Italian newspaper Giornale Di Roma, and the French newspaper Le Siecle.113 Karl Marx cast an eye over what he saw were the consequences of events in Ballarat on the general politics in Victoria. Without referring to the battle for the stockade, which he may not have been aware of when he wrote his commentary, he nevertheless observes in the Neue-Oder Zeitung, March 7, 1855 that,

There are actually two big issues around which the revolutionary movement in Victoria State is revolving. The gold diggers are demanding the abolition of the gold digging licences, i.e. of a tax directly imposed on labour; secondly, they demand the abolition of the property qualification for Members of the Chamber of Representatives, in order themselves to obtain control over taxes and legislation. Here we see, in essence, motives similar to those which led to the Declaration of Independence of the United States.114

Paul Pickering in ‘Ripe for a Republic’ examines the response among English radicals to events at Eureka, where Chartists such as Ernest Jones and George Reynolds spoke out forcibly and eloquently on the subject.115 Whereas Jones and Reynolds appeal would have been to that fraction of the British public sympathetic with their views Eureka was a matter of concern for at least one member of the British House of Commons. When discussing the state of colonial affairs in the colony of Newfoundland the member of the British House of Commons for Kidderminster Robert Lowe, who had at one time lived in Sydney New South Wales, warned the British government that because of the manner in which Eureka has been dealt with,

The Government of the colony had fallen into contempt. The population at large sympathised with the diggers and held meetings to express their sympathy. In consequence of this state of things the secretary and other functionaries of the Government had withdrawn, and the colony was now almost at the

113 Giornale Di Roma, 15 March, 1855, p.244; Le Siecle 5 March 1855, p.2 and 8 March 1855, p.2. 114 Karl Marx in The Neue-Oder Zeitung 1855, News from Australia, Marx-Engels Archive, , accessed 1 December 2012. 115 Pickering, P., ‘‘Ripe for a Republic’: British radical responses to the Eureka Stockade’, Australian Historical Studies, 34:121, pp.69-90.

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mercy of the people. The only remedy that could be applied to this state of things, the only course which could prevent a recurrence of such struggles, and preserve the Queen's Government from being brought into contempt—was immediately to pass a measure to establish a new constitution for the colony, and to send it out without delay.116

Only a few days earlier Lowe had warned that failure to concede to political concessions to the Australian colonies would be, ‘sowing the seeds of endless confusion, bickering, and disturbance, which would drive them ultimately to draw the sword against their fellow-subjects, or oblige them altogether to surrender their Australian Colonies’.117

In the context of international protest the battle for the Eureka stockade was not at all a unique event. It was an Australian manifestation of armed resistance to oppression representative of a well-established European and North American repertoire of protest. The motivations, ideals, actions and behaviour of the Eureka diggers was in no significant way different, and in some cases identical, to what had generated similar international conflicts. Eureka was, like those events, an armed conflict that acted as a catalyst for change. Viewed in this context Eureka was a transnational event and one that deserves to be recognized as such. Conflicts such as Lexington-Concord, Gonzales, Lower Canada, and those of Europe in 1848-1849 are identified as and remembered as significant moments in their respective national histories. The remembrance of Eureka is in contrast one where there is no consensus of its significance and importance or indeed just how it should be remembered. The following Chapter will examine this aspect of Eureka.

116 Hansard, HC Deb 20 March 1855 Vol. 137 cc883-92, , accessed 1 December 2012. 117 Hansard, HC Deb 12 March 1855 Vol. 137 cc419-37 419, , accessed 1 December 2012.

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CHAPTER 6 ‘A Magic Pudding’ The Remembrance of Eureka

Thus far this thesis has established that the dominant representation of Eureka, both in academic historiography and popular remembrance, has been characterised by a degree of misunderstanding. In many cases the dominant memory of Eureka has been founded on that misunderstanding and much of the detail of its interpretations and understandings have reflects this shortcoming. The overall purpose of this dissertation so far has been to correct these misinterpretations. This has been addressed by examining Eureka as a contested battle; the motivations that resulted in the Eureka diggers acting as they did; Eureka’s uniqueness within the milieu of the British protest tradition; and the role of the international participants and Eureka in the context of a contemporaneous international protest tradition. It is the purpose of this final chapter to continue this process of examination and correction by addressing the misappropriation of the memory, significance, consequence and meaning of Eureka that has resulted from a narrative that has been high-jacked by agents, agencies and interest groups more concerned with fiction and myth than historical reality.

One feature of the Eureka story that has remained consistent over the last one hundred and fifty years is the extent by which it has been characterized as a ‘contest of memories’.1 Prime Minister Whitlam, at the 1973 inauguration of the newly restored Eureka Stockade flag observed that: ‘It is a truism, perhaps, that the importance of an historical event lies not in what happened but in what later generations believe to have happened.’2 In reflecting on the distinction between memory and myth (what was believed to have happened) historian Anne Ronning stated, ‘Memory is a collective myth shared by a group…. These memories are not personal, but inherited through storytelling with its concomitant distortion of

1 Eureka Revisited - the contest of memories, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, 2004. 2 Whitlam, G. and Grassby, A., Eureka: Saga of Australian History, Department of Immigration, Canberra, 1974.

156 detail’.3 Historians Maryln Lake and Henry Reynolds when considering how historical narratives are written observed that,

Writing history is not a choice between narrative and a stew of themes … or between fact and interpretation … but it does involve a choice between narratives. Which narratives about our past gain ascendancy depends on their proponent’s material and discursive resources as well as on their rhetorical power and dramatic appeal. As historians we think it is important to distinguish between history and mythology.4

Such has been the case with the remembrance of Eureka where the inherited memory has been preferred to historical fact. Interestingly a similar process has occurred with another significant Australian legend; the First World War Anzac soldier, which has achieved its own mythologized resonance within the wider Australian community. While the memory and consequent mythologizing of Eureka may not be as broadly represented within the wider Australian community it has nonetheless become firmly entrenched within those elements of the Australian community interested in the event. Such a process in both cases suggests an continuous search within the broader Australian community for aspects of their past that offers a means of achieving ‘individual self-image and identity’.5 Jane Ross in The Myth of the Digger reflected that, ‘the truth or otherwise of the myth in any particular instance is probably irrelevant. What matters … is that an essence is expressed, a distillation of important truths’.6 Whereas the Digger’s myth reflects what Ross identifies as the remaining elements in our consumer society that seem to respond to, ‘emotive symbols provided by the returned warriors – symbols of blood, sacrifice, discipline and courage in the national cause’, the memory-myth of Eureka does much the same for those who wish to exalt and commemorate the emotive symbols associated with that event.7 The power of such a process is not to be underestimated. When crowds gather for pre-dawn ANZAC day services, or rally beneath the Southern

3 Ronning, A.H., ‘Some Reflections on Myth, History and Memory as Determinations of Narrative’, Coolabah, Vol.3, 2009, Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians, Australian Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona, p.149. 4 Lake, M and Reynolds, H., What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarization of Australian History, University of New South Wales Press Ltd, Sydney, 2010, p.138. 5 Ross, J., The Myth of the Digger, Hale & Ironmonger, Marrickville, 1985, p.11. 6 Ibid., p.13. 7 Ibid., p.205.

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Cross flag they are both expressing by their actions the allure and power of a belief. As Ross points out for such individuals, ‘the body of conventional wisdom –the myth- does constitute one truth insofar as many people believe it and still, it seems, act upon it’.8 Such memory relies upon an accepted interpretation of the past that, despite its flawed historiography presents a powerful constituency of memory. Aboriginal author and poet Oodgeroo characterised such memories as ‘tribal memories’. 9 It is this tribal memory, this truth, which stubbornly resists the imputations of historical fact but nevertheless possesses a powerful appeal. It is this appeal and the passion that it gives life to among those who possess, ‘material and discursive resources as well as … rhetorical power and dramatic appeal’, that in the case of Eureka has created a contest of memories.10

Historian Anne Beggs Sunter astutely described Eureka as, ‘the magic pudding of Australian history: everyone wants a piece of it.’11 John Molony observed in regard to historical events that once those events, ‘have flown from the nests of their creation’, those events, ‘take on their own wings’, and are, ‘are capable of more powerful interpretation than the events which nurtured them.’ 12 The remembrance of Eureka has come to be characterised by a lack of consensus within the broader Australian community. This chapter examines this contest of memories built upon a foundation of historical untruth and myth. It will do so in a chronological and thematic manner. The chronological process follows the evolution and numerous permutations of the Eureka narrative (and subsequent myth) beginning in the first hours after the battle until the present day. The thematic process will address Eureka in the context of the use to which it has been put by various Australian individuals and groups to support their own social and political agendas.

Opposing interpretations of how to remember Eureka sprouted within days of the event. One example were the disingenuous cries applying to the champions of the diggers crying ‘massacre’, in stark contrast to those unimpressed by what

8 Ibid., p.12. 9 Oodgeroo., My People, Jacaranda Wiley Ltd, Milton Queensland, 1990, p.86. 10 Lake, M and Reynolds, H., What’s Wrong with Anzac?, p.138. 11 Walshe, The Eureka Stockade, p.63. 12 Sydney Morning Herald, 27 Nov, 2004, p. 29.

158 had occurred who demeaned or trivialized the whole affair. This tradition of factional interpretation continued to evolve as the decades passed with different individuals and groups adapting the story of Eureka to suit their own agendas. Consequently, from the very beginning the collective memory of Eureka developed into a rich and diverse set of contradictory mythologies each of which assists to advocate what are often diametrically opposed political and social aspirations. The anti-Chinese gold miner’s movement at Lambing Flat in the early 1860s, for example, used a version of the Eureka flag as their rallying banner. Striking Queensland shearers made use of the Eureka flag at Barcaldine in 1891. During the mid twentieth century the Eureka Youth League of the Australian communist party not only adopted the name but carried the southern-cross flag in public displays. From the days of Barcaldine to the present day the Australian Council of Trade Unions and numerous individual trade unions display and seem to revere the Eureka flag. Modern outlaw motorcycle groups wear emblems depicting the Eureka flag attached to the jackets as a visible sign of identity. Even in a mainstream setting, Australian political parties of all types have chosen to self-identify with the symbols and mythologies of Eureka. The Communist Party of Australia and the ultra-right wing Australia First Party are two cases in point. Alternatively at a grass roots community level racist rioters on the beach at Cronulla in 2005 appropriated the Eureka flag as a symbol to suit their own ends. The multiple uses of the symbols and mythology of Eureka are symptomatic of an acceptance of those symbols and mythology as a icon of what being ‘Australian’ means to diverse groups. This continuous contest of memories characterizes much of what passes for the remembrance of Eureka.

As noted, the creation of a Eureka mythology began within hours of the battle for the stockade. ‘Massacre at Eureka…cowardly massacre’ trumpeted the correspondent for the Geelong Advertiser and Intelligence on 6 December.13 ‘Deplorable massacres’ howled speakers at a mass meeting held at the Collins

13 Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 6 December 1854, p.4. This correspondent may have been Samuel Irwin, the correspondent for the Geelong Advertiser, whom Turner Our Own Little Rebellion, p.55 credits with making a forceful man servants, maid servants, oxen and asses reply to the loyal toast at the dinner for the US Consul on 28 November. Irwin was a member of the Ballarat Reform League and a significant player in the digger’s committees leading up to Eureka. He was hardly an objective observer.

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Street Mechanics’ Institute in Melbourne on 5 December.14 On 11 December The Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser reported that what had occurred at Eureka had been a, ‘downright massacre’.15 The Gold Fields Advocate presented its readers with a scene of unambiguous desolation lamenting that: ‘This morning Eureka goldfield presents a piteous scene. Women roam the camp crying aloud for their men, their children at their skirts wailing for their fathers, and in the midst of the desolate and heartbreaking sight a lone dog epitomises tragedy with a continuous mournful howl.’16 Ballarat digger Thomas Pierson described the military and police who had perpetrated the killings at Eureka as, ‘most heathenish, Bloodthirsty (sic), disgraceful and cruel.’17 Digger leader John Basson Humffray echoed the outrage with a promise to present a true account of the massacre at Eureka.18

Such claims of massacre, one of the earliest forms of misappropriation of the Eureka memory, were understandable as a reaction from a civilian community that had in times of peace suddenly had the horrors of war visited upon it. Yet, given the context in which Eureka actually occurred, one of deliberate military contest, such interpretations were ill-informed at best and deliberately disingenuous at worst. The fact was that the outcome of the conflict at the stockade followed a well established precedent for that era in how such engagements were conducted and the character of the consequences for the defeated. The outcome at Eureka was not at all unique in this context (see: Chapter 5). In the military milieu of the era the consequences of such a combination of circumstances encountered at Eureka would inevitably result in high casualties, mostly among the overcome defenders. Michael Tuohy, one of the defenders of the stockade, observed in later years that, ‘anything was fair in wartime, and we should take what we got and bear it.’19 No doubt the resultant scene deeply appalled many observers. This would be especially so in times of peace when those who were defeated were ostensibly civilians. The facts and context of what occurred at Eureka did not, of course, matter much for those who

14 Turner, Our Own Little Rebellion, p.94. 15 Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser, 11 December 1854, p.1S. 16 Gilbert, P.F., Gold, p.26. 17 ‘The diaries of Thomas Pierson’, SLV MS 11646 Box 2178/4-5. 18 Argus, 21 December 1854, p.4. 19 Eureka Reminiscences, p.70.

160 had lost family and friends in the battle or for those who could in the highly charged political environment of colonial Victoria at that time make political capital from the fall-out of the affair. Thus the myth of massacre was repeated in the press and in public forums until it became firmly established and evolved into the centrepiece of Eureka’s dominant historiographical narrative and popular remembrance. Illustrative of this are the innumerable popular histories of Eureka, published close to the event and ever since, each of which trot out a consistent story of brutal massacre and depraved bloodlust by the soldiers and police. A foundational source for these tales is Raffaello Carboni’s The Eureka Stockade written and self-published by Carboni in 1855. 20 Carboni’s passionate, (as befitting a self-styled leading participant in events at Eureka) immensely detailed, and irredeemably idiosyncratic account is the iconic document for the legions of Eureka story re-tellers. Unfortunately it is also a document which many authors have shied away from interrogating. When critically examined Carboni’s work is weakened by his undisguised bias, his uncritical portrayal of Peter Lalor and his relentless castigation of Frederick Vern are examples of this. While his work does offer a valuable insight into the day to day details of what was occurring and the personalities involved it must be read as a very personal account and not presumed to be a necessarily entirely accurate or dispassionate one. William Bramwell Withers History of Ballarat (1887), offers a much more widely sourced account than does Carboni, but even so Withers describes the actions of some of the police and what he calls the ‘civil arm’ as barbarous excesses.21 Henry Gyles Turner in Our Own Little Rebellion (1913) relates how the police, ‘got quite out of hand, committing many acts of brutality and wanton cruelty in the hour of their triumph.’22 A great many popular histories have invariably followed the lead of these earlier works. Bob O’Brien’s Massacre at Eureka (1973) is a classic case in point.23 O’Brien’s book’s very title trumpets the author’s main contention that Eureka was nothing more than a deliberately conspired heinous massacre of innocent diggers by a tyrannical and brutal regime. Geoffrey Gold in Eureka - Rebellion Beneath the Southern Cross (1977) repeats the same litany.24 Geoffrey

20 Carboni, R., The Eureka Stockade, The Miegunyah Press, Carlton, 2004. 21 Withers, History of Ballarat, p.129. 22 Turner, Our Own Little Rebellion, p.74. 23 See: O’Brien, Massacre at Eureka. 24 See: Gold, G., Eureka – Rebellion Beneath the Southern Cross.

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Hocking’s Eureka Stockade a Pictorial History (2004), even though produced some twenty seven years after the previous two publications, is very typical of such ‘histories’ and offers no fresh interpretations or divergence from the long established tale of uncalled for brutality and massacre.25 Thomas Keneally in Australia Origins to Eureka (2010) repeats once again the story of brutality and massacre with no attempt to contextualize the actions of the protagonists to the actuality of the moment.26 Most recently Peter FitzSimons in Eureka – The Unfinished Revolution (2012) portrays the soldiers and police in the aftermath of the battle for the stockade as ‘murderers’.27

Nor have professional historians been immune to the seductive lure and imagery of depicting Eureka in this manner. Geoffrey Serle in The Golden Years (1963) describes the actions of some of the police and military as disgraceful.28 Weston Bate in Lucky City (1979) accused the police of committing murder.29 In Peter Lalor the Man from Eureka (1979) Les Blake categorically states that, ‘[t]he police went crazy with bloodlust’, and that, ‘[t]ents stores and huts were wantonly set on fire’.30 He also perpetuates the sin of omission repeated often in both academic and popular narratives of Eureka by selectively quoting from the Commission of Enquiry report on Eureka in which he relates that the Commission stated that the mounted police made, ‘needless as well as ruthless sacrifice of human life indiscriminative of innocent or guilty, and after all resistance had ceased.’31 What Blake chooses to do, and he is by no means alone in this, is to fail to conclude the quote by adding that the Commission goes on to state that these actions were, ‘the excesses rising from duty’ and that it was not in their place to judge men’s behaviour when they were caught up in circumstances for both sides of ‘ungovernable excitement’.32 John Molony in Eureka (1984) asserted that what occurred after the fall of the stockade was ‘butchery’ and that:

25 See: Hocking,G., Eureka Stockade the Events Leading up to the Attack in the pre dawn of 3 December 1854. 26 See: Keneally, T., Australians. Volume 1, Origins to Eureka, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2010. 27 FitzSimons, Eureka the Unfinished Revolution, p.479. 28 Serle, The Golden Years, p.168. 29 Bate, Lucky City, p.70. 30 Blake, L., Peter Lalor, p.82. 31 Ibid., pp.82-3. 32 Anderson, The Goldfield Commission Report, p.44.

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‘The wild scene of destruction, by burning or assault, spared nothing.’33 In such ways has the ‘massacre of Eureka’ been perpetuated to become a fundamental tenet of the Eureka narrative.

The substantial role played by foreigners in the battle for the Eureka Stockade has been investigated in the previous chapters of this thesis and needs no further elaboration here. Nevertheless, in an attempt to fabricate an explanation which blamed foreign influence and machinations for the conflict, the colonial authorities and the press pushed such a line. Some of these references were hardly complimentary, with for example the Sydney Morning Herald dismissing the Eureka diggers with the absurd claim that they were a ‘mongrel crew of German, Italian and Negro rebels’.34 Governor Hotham was clear in his not entirely unfounded accusation that the troubles at Eureka had been in no small measure due to ‘active, designing, intriguing foreigners, who also desire to bring about disorder and confusion.’35 The Argus on 26 December 1854 was, however, more circumspect and while refusing to exonerate British born diggers from responsibility still devoted considerable space to reminding their readers of the substantial contribution of foreigners to the conflict.36 The 29 December 1854 official announcement of the death of Captain Christopher Wise from wounds he had received at Eureka made specific mention of the ‘foreign anarchists and armed ruffians’ who had converted the stockade into a stronghold.37 As the immediate social need to find a scapegoat that would provide an alibi for blaming ‘locals’ diminished in the colony, the influence of non-British foreigners eventually faded as a cause célèbre. Yet, ever seeking some group to identify as the chief culprits the public consensus shifted to identifying the Irish as the principal protagonists on the digger’s side of the conflict a perception that persists to this day. The antecedents of this conviction are well entrenched. One contemporary observer stated that 863 diggers had taken up arms and that perhaps half of them were Irish.38 H.R. Nicholls, an Englishman, a Chartist and present at

33 Molony, Eureka, p.169. 34 Sydney Morning Herald, 1 Jan 1855, p.5. 35 Cornwall Chronicle, 6 January 1855, page 3. 36 Argus, 26 December 1854, p.5. 37 Courier, 29 December 1854, p.2 38 Historical Studies: Eureka Supplement, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1965, pp.49- 50.

163 the stockade until the evening before the battle, recalled that in his perception the digger’s movement had ‘seemed to have become almost an Irish one’.39 Withers History of Ballart states that one of the Eureka ‘leaders’ recalled that ‘Most of our men were Irishmen’.40 Raffaello Carboni when he heard the password ‘Vinegar Hill’, itself a reference to the final pitched battle between the rebel United Irishmen and the British army in 1798, lamented the choice of that password because it implied a preference for the Irish over the non-Irish diggers.41 The fact that Peter Lalor the titular leader of the Insurgency was an Irishman, as was Tim Hayes a prominent stump orator for the dissident diggers, and Irishmen such as Patrick Curtain, Michael Hanrahan, John Manning and James Esmond were among the more notable Eureka diggers helped to create the myth of Irish predominance at Eureka. The claim that the Irish suffered the majority of casualties at Eureka added gravitas to that assertion.42 Such perceptions have not diminished with time. C.H. Currey in The Irish at Eureka (1954) states unequivocally that, ‘It is the Irish strand in the affair on the Eureka that lends particular significance to the emeute, and gives coherence to the drama in which it was the central act.’43 The portrayal of Eureka as an Irish event continues to be reinforced in contemporary media with presentations such as The Irish at Eureka – Rebels or Rif Raff being the subject of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio feature in 2003.44 At an address entitled ‘The Irish in Australia: A Descendant’s Perspective’ delivered at Notre Dame University in 2007, Peter Sharkey the retired President of the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission stated that at Eureka, ‘The majority of the diggers killed or wounded were Irish’.45 In 2011 the National Museum of Australia presented an exhibition entitled ‘Not Just Ned’ which looked at the Irish contribution to Australian life and culture. The Eureka stockade was prominently displayed in the exhibition

39 Reminiscences of the Eureka Stockade, The Centennial Magazine: An Australian Monthly, (May 1890) (available in an annual compilation; Vol. II: August, 1889 to July, 1890), pp. 746- 750. 40 Withers, The History of Ballarat, p.109. 41Carboni, R., The Eureka Stockade, p.90. 42 Lalor’s list 34 men as killed and wounded at Eureka of which 20 are identified as being from Ireland, see: Lalor to the Argus, 10 April 1855, p.7. 43 Curry, C.H., The Irish at Eureka, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1954, p.87. 44 ‘The Irish at Eureka – Rebels or Rif Raff’, ABC Radio National, ‘Hindsight’, 13 April 2003. 45 2007 Durack Lecture, , accessed 8 October 2012.

164 reinforcing the perception that Eureka was a demonstrably Irish event.46 The significance of the Irish to the historical narrative has become, like the massacre, a centrepiece of the Eureka story.47 Such notions do not hold up to careful scrutiny.

References to there being 863 armed diggers, is merely one of a number of differing claims made for the number of diggers under arms.48 To confidently assert the nationality of so many of those diggers could only be guesswork. Nicholls’s assertion that the movement had become mostly an Irish one has to be considered in light of the fact that he made this claim some thirty six years after the event and as a man who by that time had become a well known member of the establishment. It was certainly in Nicholls interests to create his own mythology to explain away his otherwise questionable absence from the stockade at the moment of crisis.49 Interestingly, and perhaps more honestly Nicholls in the 31 March 1855 edition of his newspaper the Leader stated that English, ‘numbered nearly the same’ as the Irish.50 Withers never identifies the ‘leader’ he quotes and there is no way of knowing what was meant by ‘most of our men’, was it the ‘leaders’ immediate comrades or the wider number of diggers. Carboni, who was intimately involved with the formation of the digger’s army prior to the battle at the Stockade ‘solemnly’ declared that, ‘up to four o’clock of Saturday there was not one single division distinguished by nationality or religion.’51 Lalor was at best a figurehead leader and Hayes, while a gifted orator was only one of several such public speakers the majority of who were not Irish.52 The report of the number Irishmen killed and wounded at Eureka, on which a great deal of the Irish

46 ‘Not Just Ned – The Irish in Australia’, National Museum of Australia, March 2011-July 2011. 47 For a classic account of the Irish contribution to Eureka see Currey, C.H., The Irish at Eureka. 48 Digger John O’Brien in Eureka Reminiscences, p.56 claims that there were 500 diggers under arms at one time, Lalor to the Argus 10 April 1855 claims that on the Saturday evening 2 December there were 1500 diggers under arms. 49 Nicholls also claimed that the Eureka diggers lacked discipline, which no doubt they did, but this did not dissuade others from staying with the cause. 50 Leader, 31 March, 1855, p.298 in Pickering, P., ‘‘Ripe for a Republic’: British radical responses to the Eureka Stockade’, Australian Historical Studies, 34:121, p.90. 51 Carboni, p.85. Carboni’s time of 4 o’clock on the Saturday refers when the Californian contingent arrived. 52 Other prominent speakers were Raffello Carboni an Italian, Frederick Vern a German, Charles ‘Henry’ Ross a Canadian, Thomas Kennedy a Scot, George Black an Englishman. This is not to mention the Welshman John Basson Humffray who was a prominent spokesman for the dissenting diggers until the call to arms was made which Humffray did not support and following which Humffray’s influence evaporated only to be resurrected in the aftermath of the battle.

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Eureka legend rests, is derived only from Lalor’s account. There are 34 names on Lalor’s list, 20 of who are Irishmen. Of the total 22 are listed as being killed or dying of wounds, and 12 who were wounded. 10 of those who died were Irish as were 10 of the wounded.53 What is seldom acknowledged is that in addition to Lalor’s 22 there were 21 unidentified bodies buried after Eureka, making the death toll 43.54 No record was made of the wounded not listed by Lalor. It is not possible to determine the nationalities of the unknown dead and wounded. At best it could be claimed that the Irish represented the majority of those identified diggers who were killed and wounded, but it is untenable to claim, as the traditional narrative does, that the Irish represent the majority of those actually killed and wounded. An examination of the nationalities of those arrested inside or within the vicinity of the stockade during or immediately after the battle reveals of the 160 listed 57 were identifiably Irish constituting a tad over 35% of the total. Of the remainder 77 were British or of the British descendant Diaspora making them 48% of those present. If one includes the seven Americans among those the proportion rises to 52%. Almost 12% of the names were of diggers from distinctly foreign backgrounds. These figures are of course open to qualification and while it could be argued that the Irish constituted the single largest national contingent at Eureka they were certainly outnumbered significantly by the total number of representatives of other national groups present.55

While it is not possible to determine the exact motivation of every single participant at Eureka there is no evidence that particularly Irish grievances motivated the diggers. The Irish diggers at Ballarat were not labouring under any

53 Lalor to the Argus, 10 April 1855, p.7. 54 MacFarlane, I (ed)., Eureka, From the Official Records, Public Records Office, Arts Victoria, 1995, p.104. This does not take into account those who died from wounds in the days or weeks after the battle. The unequivocal claim that the Irish were over-represented among the casualties at Eureka cannot therefore be sustained. For Lalor’s list see: Lalor to the Argus, 10 April 1855, p.7. 55 A search of Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni., The Eureka Encyclopaedia, reveals that the nationalities arrested in the vicinity of the stockade were: Irish 57, English 43, Scots 13, Cornish 9, Welsh 1, Guernsey 2, Australian 5, Canadian 4, American 7, German 6, Italian 2, Swiss 1, French 2, Russian 1, Norwegian 1, Finland 1, Spain 1, Netherlands 2, Corsica 1, Sweden 1. When assessing these figures it must be acknowledged that there was a significant resident Irish presence on the Eureka lead where the stockade was situated perhaps explaining a noticeable number of Irish among those arrested some of who may not have been involved in the stockade at all. It is not possible to determine the actual nationality of many of those arrested who had Anglophonic names but left no other clues to their nationality. Nevertheless these figures give us a snapshot, the only one readily available, of those caught up in the immediate vicinity of the event.

166 grievances unique to themselves alone.56 The day to day discomfits, humiliations and frustrations suffered by the Irish at Ballarat were shared by the entire digger population. Lalor in fact rejected the political actions and philosophy of his elder brother James Fintan Lalor who had been a minor leader of the Irish Confederates during their abortive 1848 uprising in Ireland. He stated quite unambiguously that, ‘from what he had seen of the mode of conducting politics in [Ireland] he had … no inclination to mix himself up with them’.57 Writing to his fiancé he claimed that his motivations for his actions were,

I would be unworthy of being called a man. I would be unworthy of myself, and above all, I would be unworthy of you and your love, were I base enough to desert my companions in danger…should I fall shed but a single tear on the grave of one who has died in the cause of honour and liberty.58

He later stated he had acted only out of ‘stern necessity’ to meet the challenges of that time.59 There is no indication in any of this of an explicit Irish protest. As demonstrated in Chapter 4 of this monograph on the morning of the battle the Irish were not even the single largest national group under arms at that time. Unlike the Germans and the Americans they were not central players in the organisation of the diggers’ military force or the dynamics of the battle. Peter Lalor was the leader of the insurgency and certainly provided a focus for action

56 The case of a policeman assaulting Johannes Gregorius, the disabled servant of the Father Smyth the Catholic priest at Ballarat, is cited as an event that had a particular resonance for the Irish diggers at Ballarat and by implication played some part in their motivation for being involved in the armed uprising see: Hocking, Eureka Stockade a Pictorial History, pp.102-103. This case certainly angered the Roman Catholic Irish community of the diggings, but it also angered Roman Catholics of other nationalities as well as non Catholics. A letter written to the Colonial Secretary on behalf of the Roman Catholic’s on the Ballarat diggings stated that, ‘The Catholics of Ballarat are a large and influential body comprising inhabitants of every recognisable country under heaven’. Carboni in Eureka Stockade mentions Thomas Kennedy, who was in fact a Baptist preacher, taking a leading role in the protest against the treatment of Gregorious. Even though there were indeed many Irishmen angered by this incident it was not an exclusively Irish event. For Kennedy see: Corfield, Wickham, Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, p.302; for an account of the Gregorius case see: Macfarlane, Eureka from the Official Records, pp.34-36 and Carboni, Eureka Stockade, pp.38-40. 57 Peter Lalor, Australian Dictionary of National Biography, , accessed 10 December 2012. 58 Currey, Irish at Eureka, p.59. 59 Lalor to the Argus, 10 April 1855, p.7.

167 but he had little to do with the military preparations or conduct of the battle when it occurred.

While the Irish certainly contributed significantly to events at Eureka they did not form the ‘central act’ of the affair.

Despite the predominance of the Irish myth within the Eureka narrative the acknowledged role of foreigners within the narrative continued to rise and fall in relative influence. In Americans and Other Foreigners at Eureka (1954) LG Churchward presented a brief and reasoned account of the various nationalities who were at Eureka.60 In an effort to acknowledge the ethnic diversity of the Eureka participants and also serve his own political agenda, the Australian Foreign Minister Al Grassby travelled to Italy and Ireland in 1974 to place a plaque in the hometowns of Raffello Carboni and Peter Lalor.61 Grassby’s efforts presage the modern consensus of celebration of the ethnic diversity of Eureka without a hint of opprobrium with, for example, the Eureka Centre in Ballarat devoting the walls of one gallery to listing the different national origins of the Eureka diggers. In her PhD thesis, Birth of a Nation? Constructing and De- Constructing the Eureka Legend, Anne Beggs Sunter lists all the nationalities found among the stockade defenders and discusses their relationship within the Eureka story.62 In 2004 Victorian Premier Steve Bracks claimed, somewhat over- zealously, that Eureka was the birthplace of modern multi-cultural Australia.63 There are agendas at play in this contest of memories intertwined with modern Australia’s ever evolving perceptions of ethnicity and national character that have little to do with actual events at Eureka.

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century the character of the remembrance of Eureka continued to develop. The nature of this remembrance is characterized by its diverse, often polarised and contrary opinion. Analysing newspaper accounts of Eureka reveals

60 Historical Studies: Australia and New Zealand, Volume 6, Issue 23, 1954, pp.45-9. 61 ‘Grassby Defends Eureka Rebels’, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 January 1974, p.10. 62 Beggs-Sunter, ‘Birth of a Nation? Constructing and De-Constructing the Eureka Legend’, pp.287-8. 63 Ballarat Courier, 3 December 2004, p.3.

168 how this remembrance has, over the decades, accommodated a range of interpretations that encompassed reactions ranging from outrage, embarrassment, disinterest and adulation. Very soon after Eureka the Argus (1 January 1854) summarized the event as an understandable but regrettable exhibition by those who, ‘erred, decidedly, in taking up arms against the Government, but who erred conscientiously; - (sic) victims as they had been for so long a time, of local corruption, tyranny, oppression.’64 By 1862 the Ballarat Star was content to describe Eureka as, ‘an almost forgotten chapter in local history’ and of no more than passing parochial interest.65 By 1874, twenty years after the battle for the stockade, the newspapers were silent on Eureka and this only marginally improved in 1884 on the thirtieth anniversary of the battle when the Argus printed a single paragraph, reprinted in many other papers, mentioning that a ‘number of old identities’ visited the site of the stockade on which a monument was in the course of construction and that cheers were given for the Queen.66 In a purely descriptive piece in a longer paragraph with no editorial comment at all the Sydney Morning Herald reported some 6,000 – 7,000 people gathering to commemorate the stockade in Ballarat on Sunday 18 January 1885 as a similar gathering could not be conducted on the actual anniversary.67 Nine years later 1894, saw a flurry of uneven interest with most papers reporting the briefest details of Eureka, often only in one line comments or short paragraphs.68 An exception to this was a more comprehensive coverage was given in an article from the Age reprinted in the Brisbane Courier but once again purely descriptive with no attempt to express an opinion.69 On the contrary to the mainstream papers on the mainland the west coast Tasmanian Zeehan and Dundas Herald produced a long and detailed account of Eureka taken from Withers History of Ballarat and concluding with the observation that the ‘fight’ at Eureka was the starting point for the liberal laws and conditions enjoyed by Victorian miners today.70

64 Argus, 1 Jan 1855, p.5. 65 Star, 2 April 1862, p.4. 66 Argus, 4 December 1884, p.6. 67 Sydney Morning Herald, 21 January 1885 p.7. 68 Mercury, Wednesday 5 December 1894, page 3; Camperdown Chronicle 4 December 1894, p.2; Independent 8 December 1894, p.2. 69 Brisbane Courier, 10 December 1894, p.3. 70 Zeehan and Dundas Herald, 6 December 1894, p.3. It is of note given the relationship of Eureka to mining that Zeehan was at that time a prosperous mining town.

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At the beginning of the new century, the 1904 fiftieth anniversary of Eureka saw a flurry of commentary from the press that fluctuated between dismissive and derogatory observations, to enthusiastic acknowledgment of Eureka’s social and political significance. The Ballarat Courier, having earlier described the preparations the diggers made for conflict as a, ‘masquerade of comic opera’ went on to describe those participating as a, ‘motley a collection of humanity as could be imagined … the usual flotsam and jetsam of all nations’.71 The Argus offered a mixed bag of reports with an extensive but bland account of Eureka, while at the same time offering an acknowledgement of the social and political significance of Eureka involving reports of speeches linking the event to the ‘cultivation of a national sentiment’ and, at least for Australian radicals, being an event, ‘of national importance’.72 On the same day the Argus briefly reported that Eureka was also associated with the cause of social justice at a public rally of the Political Labour Council at which the men of Eureka were called ‘heroes’ presumably for their stand against coercive authority and vested interests, all virtues the labour movement celebrated.73 Perhaps inspired by the contemporary Gold rush then occurring in Western Australia Eureka received a more positive coverage there.74 accounts of Eureka emerged from newspapers there. Eureka was commemorated in Perth on 4 December 1904 with a parade. A report of the parade in The West Australian concludes that the importance of the parade was that of ‘sentiment’ and the spirit of camaraderie among Australian working people. Interestingly, it was noted that the absence of the West Australian Premier at the parade was ‘adversely commented on’.75 In the same edition the editorial goes to some length to downplay ideas expressed by numerous letter writers that Eureka be viewed in the same context as Bunkers Hill (sic), the iconic battle at the beginning of the American War of Independence, or as a manifestation of an Australian Republican ideal and independence from Imperial authority. Rather than act as ‘the heralds of separation’ as at Bunker Hill the West Australian goes

71 Ballarat Courier, 3 December 1904, p.2 72 Argus, 5 December 1904, p.5. 73 Ibid. 74 Gold production in West Australia reached its peak in the years 1903-1904 see: ‘An Economic History of Western Australia 175th Anniversary of Colonial Settlement Research Paper 2004’, Department of Treasury and Finance Government of Western Australia, p.8. 75 West Australian, 3 December 1904, pp.6 and 9.

170 on to claim that Eureka drew Englishmen from all parts of the Empire together.76 Extending this early twentieth century agenda of reinventing Eureka as a unifying and positive social force in 1904 the Launceston Examiner forthrightly pronounced that the miners ‘at least taught the autocrats at the head of affairs a lesson’ and the Adelaide Advertiser described Eureka as a ‘glorious and stirring event’ acknowledging the role it played in ‘forcing the Imperial Government’s hand’ and resulting in delivering ‘without delay’ representative government and manhood suffrage.77 The Advertiser went on to boldly announce that, ‘the best memorial of all is the consciousness of the present generation is primarily indebted to those gallant men for the bold stand they made for liberty and justice, and in the knowledge, that we are now enjoying the privileges for which they laid down their lives.’78 In the same city the Register reflected on the significance of Eureka as an event of importance by criticising Henry Gyles’ Turner’s recently published book A History of the Colony of Victoria (1904) in which Turner’s brief reference to the Eureka Stockade was called a ‘blemish’.79 The Register also reported a crowd gathered in Kalgoorlie to commemorate Eureka at which was passed a resolution ‘expressing grateful remembrance of those diggers who had sacrificed their lives in the cause of freedom.’80 At the same meeting it was also resolved that the government should place an ‘authentic’ account of the Eureka Stockade in school books.81

The enthusiasm for all things Eureka soon passed, and ten years later in 1914, at the sixtieth anniversary of Eureka, with war raging in Europe and patriotic feelings for the British ‘motherland’ at a peak, the diggers’ uprising ‘against the crown’ received only passing comment. For example an anecdote in the West Australian (4 December 1914) reported Michael Tuohey, a veteran of Eureka, being the victim of physical assault as the consequence of a political rally, and mention in the same paper of a resolution passed by the Perth Metropolitan Council of the Australian Labor Party expressing its, ‘admiration

76 Ibid., p.6. 77 Examiner, 3 December 1904, p.6; Advertiser 3 December 1904, pp.9 and 10. 78 Advertiser, 3 December 1904, pp.9 and 10. 79 Register, 3 December 1904, p.9. 80 Ibid., p.6 81 Ibid., 6 December 1904, p.6

171 and appreciation of the magnificent services rendered in the cause of Australian democracy by the heroes of ’54 who fought and died for their principles.’82

By 1924 Eureka had largely faded in the public imagination and the newspapers to be little more than a curiosity and an interesting place recommended visiting if one happens to be in the Ballarat region. Any lingering political significance is relegated to one liners, like that in the Healsville and Yarra Glen Guardian claiming that the Eureka stockade saw the birth of the Labor party in Victoria.83 The paucity of acknowledgement continued on the 80th anniversary in 1934. A search of Australian newspapers for the month of December 1934 records only five articles devoted to the Eureka Stockade two of which simply mention the Eureka Stockade as a place for boys and girls to visit when in Ballarat. The Argus does at least report that the 80th anniversary was celebrated in an article that is concerned with financing and developing the Eureka park reserve rather than commenting on the conflict itself.84 The Courier Mail reported the occurrence of the Eureka Stockade in a column entitled ‘Today’s Yesterdays’, but only as one of numerous events that occurred on that date.85 Similarly the West Australian notes the anniversary of Eureka as one event among many in a column devoted to commemorating anniversaries.86 The 90th anniversary in 1944 is acknowledged by only seven articles. The largest of these articles is only a minor feature on an otherwise full page and appears in Perth’s Sunday Times. This article relates the story of Eureka as well as making mention of the fate of Captain J.P. Lalor grandson of Peter Lalor and the sword he carried at Gallipoli in 1915.87 The Adelaide Mail in a brief piece makes mention of the conflict, the flag and the flying of the flag by striking Queensland shearers in 1890.88 A similarly brief but nevertheless sympathetic article appears in Broken Hill’s Barrier Miner.89 Reference in the Argus has dwindled to a minor 47 word piece, with an equally limited reference in the Army News. A cursory 18 word

82 West Australian, 4 December 1914, p.6. 83 Healesville and Yarra Glen Guardian, 16 May 1925, p.3. 84 Argus, 3 December 1934, p.8. 85 Courier Mail, 3 December 1934, p.10. 86 West Australian, 3 December 1934, p.14. 87 Sunday Times, 3 December 1944, p.5. 88 Mail, 2 December 1944, p.4. 89 Barrier Miner, 2 December 1944, p.4.

172 mention of the anniversary appears in the Border Watch.90 In an indirect reference to the stockade the Perth Daily News makes a brief note of the call by the ‘State Organiser’ of the Eureka Youth League for official acknowledge as a day of national commemoration.91 Such trends for the coverage of Eureka changed markedly, however, on its watershed one hundredth anniversary in 1954.

Eureka’s centenary in 1954 coincided with momentous events in Australian politics. At a time when the passions of factional warfare were tearing apart the Labor movement in Australia and the fears of communist subversion abounded amidst the tensions of the Cold War, Eureka provided a powerful metaphor for those who wished to bolster the appeal of their message to the public. Amidst a renewal of factual or romantic articles relating the story of Eureka there now ran a thread that drew its fervour not from the events of 1854 per se but from what those events were perceived to mean in the contemporary political context. In a long article the Brisbane newspaper, the Worker, credited the miners of Ballarat with the emergence of ‘the fighting spirit of trades unionism and a movement which has become known as Australianism’, before warning how communists ‘have sought to use the Eureka clash of arms for their own purposes.’92 The linking of Eureka to the anti-communist cause was replicated by the Ballarat Courier which reported a speech by a Father J. McInerney who spoke of Eureka’s message being ‘not one of softness’ and one that should inspire people to resist the ‘night closing around us’ by which he meant the perceived encroachment of communism.93 On 29 November 1954 Jack Schmella, the Queensland State Secretary of the Australian Labor Party writing in the Courier Mail, stated the case for Eureka’s role as a formative agent for the Australian Labor movement at the same time as he used Eureka to attack communism:

Students of Labor history believe that all significant social reforms in the next half century grew out of the happenings of Eureka, and many believe that the Labor Party sprang eventually from the Eureka encounter…. It was at Eureka that the spirit of

90 Border Watch, 5 December 1944, p.6. 91 Perth Daily News, 1 December 1944, p.8. 92 Worker, 29 November 1954, p.4. 93 Ballarat Courier, 5 Dec 1954, p.11.

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Australian unionism was conceived…. The men of Eureka, and the pastoral workers of Queensland were essentially Labor men, nothing else. They were good Australians and founders of Australianism. They would be the first to repudiate the false doctrines of Communism. They had nothing in common with Communism, and they believed passionately in the cause of personal freedom, human dignity, and a complete pattern of social justice. In other words, their philosophy was entirely opposed to the Communist, philosophy.94

The Worker made a clear warning about how communists were making use of Eureka to further their agenda:

Of late years Communists have sought to use the Eureka clash of arms for their own purposes, and the Eureka League, for example, which has been declared by Labor to be under Communist influence, has not enhanced the memory of the Ballarat encounter, the use of the name ‘Eureka’ in association with Communist activities having caused an almost antipathy to develop in the minds of anti- Communists…. Ballarat outbreak to be belittled in any fashion simply because Communists and their stooges in recent years have concentrated upon making ‘Eureka’ one of their pet ‘claims’, when in fact, the leader of the Eureka Rebellion, Peter Lalor, had he been alive, would probably have been in the forefront against the tyranny of Communism of to-day as he took up arms against the tyranny of officialdom on the goldfields of Ballarat in yesteryear.95

Extending the connection between left-wing politics and the memory of Eureka further, on 6 December 1954 the Argus under a headline ‘Reds Cash in on Eureka’, reported how during the 100th anniversary Eureka Pageant in Ballarat communists had moved among the crowd selling their newspaper which ‘had made a feature of Eureka’.96 The Communist Eureka Youth League did, in fact, take part in the parade and pageant held in Ballarat to commemorate Eureka.97

Yet the diversity of this explosion of interest in 1954 is not without its own contradictions, reflecting an uncertainty (perhaps in itself) symptomatic of the confused character of the remembrance generally. A piece written in the

94 Courier-Mail, 25 November 1954, p.6. 95 Worker, 29 November 1954, page 4. 96 Argus, 6 December 1954, p.5. 97 Ballarat Courier, 5 Dec 1954, p.5.

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Adelaide Advertiser in 1954, for example, neatly illustrated this when reflecting that the Eureka legend:

has more significance than the facts themselves. The blow that was struck at Eureka came dramatically to symbolise a change in the conditions and temper of life in Australia, a change that was inevitable, certainly, yet which needed the force of some social detonator to set it in progress; and one may therefore very reasonably date the beginning of modern Australian democracy — the Australian philosophy of freedom — on the day of that miserable little fiasco. December 3. 1854.98

The indecision of just how to consider Eureka is clear here, with the event on one hand being remembered as a ‘social detonator’ and the genesis of ‘modern Australian democracy’ and then dismissed as a ‘miserable little fiasco’. 99

Having had its moment in the spotlight in 1954, Eureka receded once more and received only cursory mention during the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. This had all changed, once again, by the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Eureka in 2004. The Ballarat Courier on 3 December 2004 devoted its entire front page to Eureka and unlike its effort in 1904 did so in a complimentary and not derogatory manner. Numerous features related to Eureka were included along with the forthrightly reported comments of the Victorian Premier Steve Bracks who stated that, ‘modern multicultural Australia was born at Ballarat and blooded at Eureka. The Southern Cross flag symbolizes … the right of people to have their say in how they are governed.’100 Unlike on many earlier anniversaries when the same newspaper had reported Eureka in exceedingly cautious tones, in 2004 Bracks’s observation that equated Eureka with the right of people to stand up, ‘for the basic democratic rights we now take for granted’ and that without Eureka, ‘our democracy would not have developed as quickly and our democracy would not have been as egalitarian’ was reported enthusiastically. 101 On the same day James Button in the Age wrote at length musing that Eureka, ‘shows how people, when they choose to do so, can change

98 Advertiser, 27 November 1954, p.10. 99 Ibid. 100 Ballarat Courier, 3 Dec 2004, p.3. 101 Ibid.

175 their world.’102 As with the Ballarat Courier the Age allowed Premier Bracks considerable space to make his case that, ‘Eureka was a catalyst for the rapid evolution of democratic government in this country - and it remains a national symbol of the right of people to have a say in how they are governed.’103

This metamorphosis within the mainstream Australian media over one and a half centuries of Eureka, from the grudgingly acknowledged orphan child of an Anglo centric socio-political culture to the pin-up boy of an assertive demonstratively Australian milieu, is readily apparent. This transformation parallels much of the corresponding public battle for the memory of the event itself. It is appropriate therefore at this stage to move from surveying such changes and to investigate some of the principal agencies involved.

The role of the trade unions and left wing politics in preserving and appropriating the memory of Eureka has been fundamental in ensuring the longevity of the story; as Beggs Sunter points out it has been the political left that rescued the remembrance of Eureka from that of being merely a localised event with no wider significance.104 In the process, however, the left has stamped Eureka with its own agenda. There is no space to list every one of the multitude of examples of the how the Left-leaning individuals and groups have identified with and exploited the mythology. A resume of significant aspects of that campaign will serve illustrate the point.

The memory of Eureka has long been linked to the aspirations and agenda of the Australian trade union movement. During the great Queensland shearers’ strike of 1891 it was alleged that 3,000 miners marched beneath the Eureka flag at Barcaldine. 105 Eureka was invoked as a rallying cry in 1914 by W.G. Spence who, in addition to being Post Master General, was also a leading union

102 Age, 3 December, 2004, p.8. 103 Ibid., page 15. 104 Beggs-Sunter, A., ‘The Eureka Stockade and the Australian Republic’, an address given to the Australian Republican Movement 1 December 2007, Independent Australia Net, , accessed 20 April 2012. 105 O’Neill, E., On the whipping side: a story of the 1891 Queensland Shearers' Strike, Playlab Press, Brisbane, 1991.

176 organiser. Spence equated what he thought to be the move to establish electoral gerrymanders as stealing freedom and rights from the people that might result in similar direct action to what occurred at Eureka.106 The identification of the Labour movement with Eureka during the 1950s has been examined earlier in this chapter. In 1975 John Halfpenny, then the Victorian State Secretary of the Amalgamated Workers Union, a member of the Communist Party of Australia and one of the most influential unionists in the nation decorated his office with a wall poster depicting the Eureka stockade and displaying the words from Henry Lawson Lawson’s 1891 Poem ‘Freedom on the Wallaby’, ‘We’ll make the tyrants feel the sting of those that they would throttle. They need not say the fault is ours if blood should stain the wattle.’107 Even today the Construction Mining and Energy Union makes great show of displaying the Eureka flag in prominent place on all its worksites and in all its activities, giving its reason for doing so as celebrating ‘those brave workers who flew in the face of adversity, persecution and injustice and in the process made a stand for decency, fairness and equality. They may have lost the battle but they won the war when it came to ensuring future generations of workers were treated far better than themselves. In short, Dare to struggle, dare to win!’108 Likewise, the modern day Builders’ Labourers Federation (BLF) has adopted the Eureka flag as its official logo stating that union adopted the flag as a symbol of defiance against unjust laws, and their determination to fight for better working conditions.109 The association of the symbols of Eureka with the trade union movement is understood not just by trade unionists. In August 2007 the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), the federal regulatory body for the building industry, made the decision to ban the Eureka flag from all construction sites in Australia determining that under the Workplace Relations Act that ‘[t]he flag represents the union and gives the impression that to work on the site you need to be a union member.’110 The

106 Advertiser, 8 December 1914, p.6. Spence had lived on the Ballarat Gold Fields during the time of Eureka and marked it as a formative moment in his life. 107 ‘Workers Prepare to Man the Stockade’, Age, Friday 2 November 1975, p.2. 108 CFMEU, The Eureka Flag, < http://www.cfmeuwa.com/go/the-cfmeu/our-history/the-eureka- flag>, 21 April 2012. 109 Builders Labourers Federation, Eureka Flag, , accessed 21 April 2012. 110 ‘Eureka flag forces workers to union, says watchdog’, Age, 18 August 2007, , accessed 20 April 2012.

177 union response was fervent with a poster prepared for a protest rally declaring: ‘Our flag banned by the Government – Time to Rebel’.111 The poster went on to spell out the meaning of the Eureka flag for the union movement listing in order; the struggle for democratic rights and a fair go for all; ordinary people uniting and fighting against oppression; the equality of all people from different backgrounds, races, nationalities and religions, and Australia’s independence and sovereignty. So too under a banner bearing the Eureka flag a 2010 advertisement for a Union and Community Summer School includes a list of the participants, universally from the left of politics.112 The firm belief that Eureka belongs to the labour movement, and by extension the left of Australian politics remains strong, with Construction Trade Union official Kevin Reynolds in 2010 proclaiming the primary role of the Eureka flag as a ‘Union flag’ and as: ‘a symbol of the working-class struggle.’113 In an uncompromising example of the personal attachment to the symbols of Eureka by those in the Trade Union movement Dean Mighell the Victorian secretary of the Electrical Trade Union and an outspoken advocate for left-wing causes, whose Union, like the BLF, uses the Eureka flag as its official logo, has Eureka’s Southern Cross flag tattooed on his shoulder.114

Over time the contest for ownership of the memories of Eureka has been reflected in the discordance of just who within the left and trades union movements has claim to Eureka. For example, one letter to the editor of the Brisbane Worker in November 1954, declared that:

Many of the descendants of Eureka miners helped to establish Australia's trade unions and the Australian Labor Party; a fact which should always be held revered in- the minds of all Labor men and Women, despite the efforts of Communists and fellow

111 Eureka Rebellion Anniversary Rally, Poster, , accessed 20 April 2012. 112 Union and Community Summer School 2010, , accessed 20 April 2012. 113 ‘Eureka flag 'hijacked by racists'’, West Australian, 22 January 2010 - , accessed 20 April 2012. 114 ‘Children of rebellion maintain the rage’, Age, 27 November 2007, , accessed 21 April 2012.

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travellers to claim the event for their un -Australian 'history' books.115

Fundamental to the rationale for the Left’s embracing of Eureka is its unwavering belief that within Eureka can be found, ‘a spirit of defiance and continuing struggle by working people for democratic rights and social equality. As such the history of Eureka contains "unfinished business"’.116 This sense of struggle, the ‘unfinished business’, manifests itself repeatedly whenever the underlying principles for the adoption of the symbology of Eureka are articulated. During the first half of the twentieth century the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) adopted Eureka as its inspirational icon. Historian, teacher, environmental activist and long time member of the CPA, Robert Walshe, in his Great Australian Gold Rush & Eureka Stockade (no date) encapsulated in the title of one of his chapters (This is Eureka – calling Today!) the Left’s continuous passion for Eureka as a contemporary inspiration for its continuous struggle.117 The CPA’s Eureka Youth League (EYL-CPA) was most active during the 1940s and 1950s when it engaged in campaigns for peace and rights for young people, as well as organising camps, carnivals and sporting activities. From its inception the EYL-CPA acknowledged Eureka as one of its cardinal inspirations stating in its constitution that ‘[t]he E.Y.L struggles to keep alight the torch of liberty and progress kindled by pioneers of our country … the League honors the deeds of our ancestors who broke the convict system, who fought for liberty at Eureka.’118 The Southern Cross flag of the Eureka diggers was featured prominently by the EYL-CPA in its public activities during the 1940s.119 The CPA remained devoted to its advocacy of the symbols and mythology of Eureka throughout the following decades, despite internal divisions, factionalism and its eventual disbandment in 1991. The successor party, taking the same name, was launched in 1996 and continued the Eureka tradition. At the sesquicentenary of Eureka, a two page

115 Worker, 29 November 1954, p.4. 116 McPherson, H., ‘"To stand truly by each other" The Eureka rebellion and the continuing struggle for democracy’, Marxist Interventions, , accessed 20 April 2012. 117 Walshe, Eureka Stockade, p.65. 118 Constitution of the Eureka Youth League, , accessed 2 April 2012. 119 Sunter, A.B., ‘Remembering Eureka’, Journal of Australian Studies, December 2001, p.53.

179 article ’Reminiscences of the Eureka Stockade’ in the Guardian newspaper of the revived CPA reprinted an account of Eureka by Monty Miller, who was a fifteen year old pikeman inside the stockade during the battle and who in later life became a trade union organiser and activist as well as an outspoken advocate for left-wing causes. Accompanying the article were numerous advertisements for events to celebrate and commemorate the 150th anniversary of Eureka all with obvious left wing associations.120 In the following week the Guardian followed up with a one page article ‘CPA Celebrates Eureka’ which while ostensibly claiming to do so was in fact a litany of contemporary causes the CPA championed.121 In 2009, under the headline ‘Celebrate Eureka’ the Guardian presented a resume of left wing political causes for which the Eureka flag had been used.122 Eureka as a beacon for continuous Leftist struggle is clearly enunciated in the Vanguard newspaper (December 2010) of the confusingly named ‘Communist Party of Australia (Marxist Leninist)’, an intense rival of the previously referred to CPA, which proclaims that, ‘As the revolutionary movement with its guiding star of socialist red prepares for its ultimate tasks, the great struggles of the present for the defence of working class rights and for independence from imperialism are enjoined under the banner of the rebel flag of Eureka.’123

The history of the interpretation and exploitation of Eureka and its symbols has in fact been very much akin to Beggs Sunter’s ‘magic pudding’; with everyone wanting a piece of it. Quite removed from any Leftist agenda in 2011, there was a proposal by those protesting plans for coal-seam gas mining on agricultural land to fly a ‘green Eureka’ flag. Benjamin Wild, whose idea the green Eureka flag was explained his motivations as ‘[t]he flag was adapted so that it might be used again by the people, or by anyone wanting to reclaim the origins of its purpose to protest against a government that undermines the rights of the

120 Guardian, Communist Party of Australia, 1 December 2004 No.1209, pp.6-8. 121 Ibid., 8 December 2004 No.1210, p.5. 122 Ibid. 123 Vanguard, December 2010 Vol.47 No.11, , accessed 21 April 2012. The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist Leninist) is not to be confused with the Communist Party of Australia (CPA).

180 people’124. The modern libertarian Liberal Democratic Party has chosen the Eureka flag, albeit with a yellow field, as ‘as a symbol of the fight for civil liberties, democratic process and against excessive government interference.’125

Consistent with the tradition of the exploitation of the memory of Eureka, but from the opposite side of politics, its symbols have been equally exploited by the multitude of groups which espoused or continue to espouse racist, ultra- conservative, extreme nationalist and unapologetically xenophobic philosophies. As early as 1860 miners were employing a flag based on the Eureka flag to rally support in their campaign to evict the Chinese from the Lambing Flat Gold Fields. While not necessarily entirely contradictory to a connection with the leftist tradition of workers solidarity the Lambing Flat miners displayed a banner emblazoned with a Eureka like Southern Cross the words ‘Roll Up, Roll Up, No Chinese’.126 In 1887 Henry Lawson wrote a belligerently nationalistic poem titled ‘Flag of the Southern Cross’ in which the themes of Independence from Britain, resistance to foreign invaders, ‘traitors and toadies’ within, as well as threats to race and nation are all canvassed.127 Lawson’s poem, while paradoxically espousing sentiments of national independence and solidarity common to the leftist agenda, was in its stridency a precursor to the appeals to which radical nationalist groups co-opted Eureka in the years that followed. While the left’s consistent Eureka message is one of struggle (under their leadership) by the oppressed working classes to improve their lot, the political right in Australia has focussed its appeal to Eureka on notions of patriotism. The expression of this agenda, in support of which the Eureka flag is often held aloft, ranges from the relatively benign such as, advertisements (2012) to sell a Son of the Southern Cross silver ring emblazoned with the Eureka flag. Prospective customers are

124 ‘The Green Eureka Flag’, , accessed 13 May 2012. 125 Liberal Democratic Party, , accessed 22 April 2012. 126 Objects Through Time - 1860 Lambing Flat Roll Up Banner, Migration Heritage Centre New South Wales, , accessed 22 July 2012. 127 The Poetry of Henry Lawson – Flag of the Southern Cross, , accessed 21 April 2012.

181 encouraged to purchase by appealing to atavistic masculine and nationalistic clichés:

Now you can show the world your pride in the Eureka Spirit, with a hand-crafted sterling silver ring as bold as the legend which inspired it …. Engraved within the band are the powerful words ‘Son of the Southern Cross,’ identifying the wearer as a true blue Aussie who stands up for what he believes in, whatever the odds. 128

The reference to the ‘true blue Aussie’ hints at a darker aspect to which the Eureka legend has been put. The association of Eureka with racial exclusiveness has, in fact, long been a feature of Australian society. The Lambing Flat anti-Chinese riots of Australian miners, the poetry of Lawson, and anti- Chinese prejudices expressed by the Eureka flag flying striking Queensland shearers are all examples of groups and individuals who made use of the symbols of Eureka to support causes based on racial exclusivity.129 This agenda can be expressed in relatively subtle ways, such as ‘[t]he sight of the Eureka Flag is sure to stir the blood of any dinkum Aussie’; the use of ‘dinkum’ hinting at an Australian identity which is not to be shared.130 Such sentiments are a taste of a much more discordant interpretation of the meaning and symbolism of Eureka. During the 2005 Cronulla riots, for example, the Eureka flag was displayed by participants alongside black swastika T-Shirts, Australian flags and hand written body graffiti such as ‘save nulla, f--- Allah’.131 In a more formal political setting the openly racist Australia First Party (AFP), which proudly displays the Eureka flag as its primary logo links the event directly to the ‘soul of our country’ in its self-declared struggle against the forces of a ‘New World Order driven

128 Biker Bits Australia, , accessed 21 April 2012; Son of the Southern Cross Sterling Silver-Plate Ring Patriotic Jewellery Gift, , accessed 15 July 2012. 129 For examples of the anti-Chinese sentiments associated with the Queensland shearers see: The Brisbane Courier, 13 March, 1891, p.7; The Argus, 20 May 1891, p.5. 130 The Eureka Flag – The Flag of the Eureka Stockade, , accessed 21 April 2012. 131 ‘Racist furore as mobs riot’, Age, 12 December 2005, , accessed 20 April 2012.

182 authoritarianism and multicultural imposition.’132 It is somewhat ironic, considering the association of the name with the communist cause, that a branch of the AFP is titled: The Eureka Youth League whose main role is to work with youth to, ‘struggle to preserve their heritage and identity as Australians, to impart that heritage and articulate the quality of that unique identity and to provide a fraternal environment for young people in the globalised parody of Australia that has no place for them.’133 Significantly, Lawson’s Flag of the Southern Cross poem features prominently on one AFP website.134

In a more extreme manifestation of the misappropriation of Eureka iconography, the modern white supremacist movement Stormfront proposes that the Eureka flag take on the role of the national ‘battle flag’ in its campaign to resist the forces of multiculturalism and demographic change within Australia.135 The ultra-conservative monarchist the Next Strategy (October 2010) uses Eureka as a negative example to berate its readers with evidence of Eureka’s use to promote the, ‘dying embers of their breed of socialism and republicanism’.136

In the broader community contrasting levels of interpretation abound. The emotive power of the Eureka flag is expressed in actions such as a controversy that erupted in 2008 when fans at Australian soccer A-League matches objected to the belief that the Football Federation of Australia (FAA) had banned the flying of the Eureka flag by fans at games. The stated reason for the ‘ban’ was to ensure that ‘national or political flags are not brought into games inappropriately’.137 In this case the Eureka flag was identified by the FAA as a political flag. The FAA eventually relented from its ban saying that it was ‘unintentional’, but nonetheless the association of the Eureka flag to politics had clearly been a consideration in their initial decision to ban the flag. Ironically, considering its role as a ship of the

132 ‘Reclaiming The 'Freedom' Heritage Of Eureka Stockade’, Australia First Party, , accessed 20 April 2012. 133 Eureka Youth League, , accessed 2 April 2012. 134 Australia First Riverina, Australian Identity, , 21 accessed April 2012. 135 Stormfront, , accessed 19 April 2012. 136 Next Strategy October 2010, Vol.1 Issue 2, pp.19-24. 137 Victory fans get Eureka flag go-ahead, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 October 2008, , accessed 20 April 2012.

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‘Royal’ Australian Navy (RAN) ship HMAS Ballarat in its newsletter The Eureka Shaft displays the Eureka flag in its masthead alongside a photograph of the warship with the words ‘HMAS Ballarat Defend the Flag’ boldly displayed. In the September 2010 edition two of the newsletter’s nine pages are devoted to a history of the Eureka stockade.138 What this symbology means, exactly, to the ship’s crew and the hierarchy of the RAN, aside from the obvious reference to the city of Ballarat, can only be guessed at.

In an outstanding example of the controversially inane there was a proposal made by the city of Ballarat Art Director Roland Rocchiccoli in 2008 for a series of portraits of Ballarat personalities posing nude except for the Eureka flag. Responses from descendants of the Eureka diggers were vehemently opposed while historian John Molony described the concept as, ‘a serious error of judgment’.139 Quite obviously, each of these observations had been based on the judgement of Eureka as a sober and serious and above all significant moment in Australian history. Yet, again reflecting the contest of memories letters to the editors of newspapers have as always contested this remembrance of Eureka. For example readers of the Ballarat Courier on the 150th anniversary of Eureka expressed a diversity of opinions. One reader dismissed Eureka as, ‘just not on the list of those important moments that define a nation’, this interpretation obviously dismissing Eureka as being irrelevant to the history of the Australian nation.140 In the same place another reader pointed out that Eureka, ‘hastened reforms which were coming through – and it helps modern day tourism. But the citizens of the day regarded them more as rebels than heroes and it took 50 years before they thought they should mark the spot.’141 Offering a contrary view a third reader pointed out that, ‘[t]oday, in so many ways, we owe so much to the legacies of Eureka. At all levels of government, representatives should continue to take heed

138 The Eureka Shaft, , accessed 22 April 2012. 139 ‘Fury over Eureka Flag nude shoot’, Age, 4 September 2008, , accessed 22 April 2012. 140 Ballarat Courier, 3 Dec 2004, p.8. 141 Ibid.

184 of Eureka.’142 In the same edition of the Courier Dr Anne Hunt, Rector of the Australian Catholic University opined:

I am convinced that Eureka is an event of unparalleled significance in the Australian story, a significance that transcends any and every party political or sectional interest. It inspires each and every one of us to cherish, exercise, nurture and defend that spirit of democracy that is Eureka’s legacy.143

Eureka has often provided an angle for protest causes to use to support their causes. This was seen most recently in the proceedings of a ‘Name them and shame them’ rally in May 2011. In this rally radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch was compared to Eureka’s Peter Lalor for his defiance of court suppression orders preventing him from naming child sex offenders.144 The juxtaposition of Eureka to Hinch, no matter how insubstantial, nevertheless highlights the enduring place Eureka holds within the public imagination as an exemplar of resistance to unwelcome legal imposition. The persistent power of Eureka’s imagery was again recently shown in one contribution to an online discussion group Crikey in which the contributor, in a passionate tirade of somewhat confused analogies offered his opinion on the contemporary federal government by stating that the, ‘Eureka Stockade was the closest thing to revolution in Australia, watch out gillard (sic), you and you (sic) mob of misfits are courting a tea party of your own making. And they said George was mad?’145 So too in 2011 were the ghosts of Eureka invoked to protest the tendering process for the Ballarat Council owned but privately managed ‘Eureka’ pool with the champions of the pool proclaiming, ‘Beware Ballarat City Councillors, the diggers lost at Eureka, but within six months all their demands had been met. The Eureka Pool belongs to the community.’146

142 Ibid. 143 Ibid. 144 ‘That’s Life’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 July 2011, p.16. 145 Rope, A., Crikey, , accessed 12 May 2012. 146 ‘Eureka protests in Ballarat: from dawn vigil to pool protest’, Melbourne Indymedia, , accessed 12 May 2012.

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There have been, over the decades, a consistent stream of creative memorials to Eureka generated by amateur enthusiasts, but these have been directed at segments of the population and never the wider community. At the same time there have, however, been some significant written artistic contributions that have attempted to awaken the public to Eureka. In 1887 Henry Lawson wrote Flag of the Southern Cross, and in 1889 The Fight at Eureka Stockade, both passionate accounts. In 1954 Harry Hastings Pearce penned Thomas Kennedy’s March from Creswick Creek which depicted Kennedy leading the Creswick diggers to the stockade in grand and heroic prose.147 In 1971 Kenneth Cook wrote and produced Stockade a musical play, which while based on the ideal of government oppression at Eureka was primarily concerned with contemporary political issues.148 What is notable here is the extraordinary length of time between each of these contributions.

Eureka has always been and continues to be a subject for visual artists. In 1889 artists Thaddeus Welch and Izett Watson painted a 93 square metre cyclorama of the battle for the stockade and exhibited it in Melbourne alongside an equally impressive cyclorama of the battle of Waterloo to great acclaim. Unfortunately this work was was eventually lost. In 1948-49 the celebrated artist Sydney Nolan completed a series of Eureka Stockade drawings and in 1962 created the twenty metre Eureka Stockade mural in the foyer of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the location in itself offering some gravitas to the memory of the event. The very first attempt to take the Eureka story to the public in film was Eureka Stockade made in 1907. Only a seven minute fragment of this work remains. The surviving element shows street scenes in Ballarat. Lost reels were said to depict the remaining story of Eureka including the battle for the stockade.149 After a long hiatus the British Ealing Studios made The Eureka Stockade, a 1949 movie starring Chips Rafferty which offered a sentimentalised melodramatic tale that was at least somewhat based on historical fact.150 Several

147 Pearce, H.H., Thomas Kennedy's march from Creswick's Creek, Ram's Skull Press, Ferntree Gully, 1954. 148 Cook K. and Keneally, T., Stockade : a musical play of the Eureka Stockade, Penguin Books, Ringwood, 1975. 149 ‘Eureka Stockade’, National Film and Sound Archives (NFSA), 229621. 150 ‘The Eureka Stockade’, Ealing Studios, 1949, , accessed 18 July 2012.

186 decades later in 1984 the television mini-series Eureka Stockade aired, but despite the gushing hyperbole of its reviews, presented events in the genre of a romanticised shallow and light weight fable accompanied by a depiction of the battle that owed nothing at all to historical actuality.151 Even so the representation was entirely sympathetic to the Eureka diggers and as such marked an acceptance, even if in the minds of those who market movie products that such a depiction would be favourably received by the paying public. Eureka Stockade-The Film, a still-born project by a team of enthusiasts meant for release in 2003 never eventuated.152 A documentary titled Riot or Revolution was produced by Parham Media Productions in 2005. This work presumed to tell the tale of Eureka with what was, in reality, the misguided revelation that the conflict need never have occurred because ‘reforms’ were already occurring that would have satisfied all the diggers’ demands.153 In 2011 a well-researched and presented depiction of the State trials of the Eureka accused titled Australia on Trial – The Eureka 13 was produced and aired on television in 2012. Perhaps representing a new found interest in acknowledging Eureka as part of the national story, this was a factual and meticulous account.154 Efforts such as Riot or Revolution and Australia on Trial – The Eureka 13 offer some flickers of hope that the modern entertainment industry is endeavouring to at least re-examine in a more considered manner the public profile and memory of Eureka.

The collective memories of Eureka have indeed been complex and contradictory. Historian Clare Wright, who has a deep continuous interest in Eureka, acknowledging the complexity of its remembrance observed that, ‘[t]here is nothing easy about the Eureka legacy … We would do well as a nation, respectful of the past and hopeful for the future, to ground our collective self- awareness in multiple, complex histories.’155 They have competed with each other for 150 years and continue to do so. The one consistent thread that has emerged

151 ‘Eureka Stockade’, , accessed 18 July 2012. 152 ‘Eureka Stockade-The Film’, , accessed 18 July 2012. 153 ‘Riot or Revolution’, Parham Productions, 2005, NFSA 677529. 154 ‘Australia on Trial EP. 1, THE EUREKA 13’, NFSA 1032248. 155 ‘What about the other diggers?’ Age Opinion, 25 April 2006 , accessed 19 July 2012.

187 from this contest of memories is that Eureka is recognized as an icon of ‘resistance’ regardless of the cause that espouses it or demeans it. This has been so even though the understandings that have led to these conclusions have invariably been based upon very little actual historical fact. It is very much as Molony observed that the understanding, interpretation and remembrance of Eureka has very much taken on its own wings and has flown free oblivious to the actual historical events that inspired it all.

188

CONCLUSION

The overall purpose of this dissertation has been to help correct a number of important misunderstandings, untruths, erroneous beliefs and oversights that have plagued both the historiography and popular historical narrative of the Eureka Stockade. This thesis has also examined the contest of memory that has been a feature of that narrative since the earliest days, and scrutinized the numerous appropriations of the Eureka memory by diverse social and political groups within Australian society.

The ‘corrective’ aspect of this thesis has been facilitated by the investigation of a series of key themes. These themes have encompassed aspects of the Eureka story that have received unsatisfactory scholarly attention in the past, which has resulted in a serious misunderstanding of the nature, character and domestic-international relevance of the event. These themes include an investigation of the Eureka Stockade as a military event rather than its traditional depiction as a riot, a massacre and little more than a purely domestic upheaval and/or civil disturbance. The Eureka Stockade is also examined as a unique event within the contemporary milieu of British, (and thus 19th Century Australian), civil protest. The foundational ideology that both motivated and gave shape to the form of protest of the Eureka diggers has been traced. In this regard particular attention was paid to concepts of liberty contemporary and relevant to the participants at Eureka and the means by which the Eureka diggers presumed that liberty could be asserted. The role played by foreign participants, that is non- British/Irish, in the affair was also examined. This is especially so in the case of the role those participants played on the preparation for and conduct of the conflict itself, the very core of the Eureka story. The Eureka stockade’s place within the international-transnational milieu of armed civil resistance to obnoxious authority was investigated - paying specific attention to shared behaviours and conduct between the stockade and transnational exemplars. Finally, the contest of memory that has bedevilled the Eureka narrative since the time of the event itself and the consequent appropriation of those memories, as well as the symbols of Eureka, by a wide variety of groups and individuals within

189

Australian society were investigated. Taken together these themes and their respective chapters formed the heart of the thesis.

More specifically Chapter One examines Eureka as a military event. The central purpose of the chapter is to correct a fundamental misinterpretation in the dominant historiographical and populist narrative of the conflict at the Eureka stockade, namely that the conflict at the Eureka stockade was nothing more than a civil disturbance crushed by overwhelming military force. This fundamental misrepresentation is corrected by investigating the actions and intentions of the Eureka diggers in which their deliberate militaristic arming and training is considered alongside their assertive intentions prior to the conflict. Central to this is an examination of the military character of the preparations made by the Eureka diggers and the debate among them regarding the manner of their conduct in the days leading up to the battle. The chapter also investigates the dynamics and character of the actual armed clash at Eureka doing so from the perspective of a military analysis of the event. The battle itself is shown to demonstrate the military nature of the conflict. This process establishes that the conflict was not the shambolic riot of the traditional historiography, but a conflict fought between two mutually antagonistic protagonists, armed organised and equipped for war each of who were resolved to prevail over their adversaries by force of arms. The chapter concludes by forecasting an investigation of how Eureka thus reflected the contemporary model of British civil protest.

Chapter Two examines the foundational ideology that transformed the Eureka digger’s behaviour from a boisterous, but not atypical British protest model into contested armed resistance not at all typical of British protest. The chapter first examines the explanations for the outbreak of violence at Eureka given within the traditional historiography and by so doing identifies the limitations of what are overwhelmingly parochial and mundane explanations. The importance to the traditional narrative of essentially local domestic issues, specifically concerning Ballarat, is identified. At the same time higher order motives, but limited to the context of the Eureka digger’s immediate experience are explained. The significance to explaining the Eureka digger’s action of the character of those diggers and their concept of ‘self worth’, particularly related to

190 long standing core values, assumptions, and traditions is examined. The expectations of government and justice held by such individuals, is a key aspect in this regard. The right to assert such expectations and the right of self-defence, in particular the right to bear arms as a traditional response when confronted by government initiated military coercion is identified as a core explanation for the response of the Eureka diggers. The differences between contested and uncontested armed protest are examined, establishing by doing so the contested character of the armed protest at Eureka. The chapter concludes by posing the question of what sparked this divergence from a British Chartist protest model at Eureka.

Chapter Three places the conflict at Eureka within the context of the wider British protest tradition of the era. By doing so the chapter rejects the often repeated umbilical relationship between events at the Eureka Stockade and British Chartist ideology and behaviour. The chapter acknowledges the role of Chartism in the gold fields protest movements prior to Eureka, but at the same time demonstrates how the Chartist model was not indicative or representative of events at Eureka. Case studies investigated include the Chartist protest movements of the 1830s and later 1840s. Reference to Chartist speeches, newspaper exhortations, preparations for armed struggle and the Newport uprising of 1839 are examined. The argument is established that, unlike at Eureka, none of the British rhetoric or actions at places like Newport resembled what occurred at Eureka. The chapter also briefly scrutinizes the Reform Bill and Anti- Corn Law campaigns in Britain as an alternative to the Chartist model of protest and by so doing illustrates once again how these variations to the British protest model bore no resemblance to events at the Eureka Stockade. The chapter concludes by recognising the trans-nationalism of the motivations that inspired the Eureka diggers.

The following chapter addresses the abject failure of the traditional historiography of Eureka to identify the actual contribution of the international non-British participants at Eureka. This chapter looks at the key role played in the conflict by the Germans and most notably by Americans. The role of the former as organisers, logistics providers and leaders is examined, by so doing

191 demonstrating that despite their small numbers the Germans occupied essentially important posts within the hierarchy of the digger’s armed insurgency. The specific roles of Frederick Vern, John Hafele and Edmund Thonen receive particular attention. The role played by the Americans in the defence of the stockade is given singular attention. It is demonstrated that by their actions the Americans present in the stockade imposed the key dynamics of a contested military engagement on the event and set in train the subsequent sequence of actions that became the battle for the Eureka Stockade. This chapter corrects a long held and persistent thread of the Eureka story that relegates the role played by the Americans to insignificance or denigration. The chapter concludes by acknowledging that the significant role played by international participants enables the traditionally parochial interpretation of Eureka to be broadened so as to enable placing the event in the transnational context.

Chapter Five develops the international-transnational theme established in the previous chapter. The Eureka Stockade is examined in the context of contemporaneous and like events within the Western world by establishing commonalities between various international events and Eureka. The clashes at Lexington-Concord in 1775 and at Gonzales Texas in 1835 are two case studies that are examined to reveal shared aspects with Eureka. Reference is then made to other exemplars of armed civil resistance to government authority in Canada and Europe that exhibit links to Eureka. The importance of the barricade both as an international artefact and expression of contested armed protest is examined and linked to the physical manifestation of just such a barricade protest at Eureka. The role played by civilian armed resistance as a catalyst for social and political change in the international context contemporary with Eureka is examined with the link made to social and political change that was accelerated within the colony of Victoria as a direct consequence of the aftermath to Eureka.

The final chapter of the thesis examines how the remembrance of Eureka has been characterised by a contest of memories resulting in a diversity of interpretations representative more of specific social and political agendas that historical accuracy. This chapter investigates how that memory and the symbols associated with Eureka have been appropriated by various groups within

192

Australian society to assist them reinforce their specific world views or proselytise their cause. A broad range of Australian social forces and players are brought into focus including ethnic groups such as the Irish, trade unions, political groups, social groups, literature, the visual arts and film - all being examined for the usage of Eureka they have made. The chapter establishes how the memory of Eureka has been dominated more by self-interested agenda than historical veracity and how those agendas have contributed to creating a remembrance of Eureka that is considerably disconnected from the historical event.

There has been an enormous amount of material published about Eureka. This dissertation has demonstrated the limitations and failings of much of that work. The attempt at remedying some of these limitations provides opportunities for future scholarship. The direction of such scholarship might begin with a deeper examination of how international thoughts, perceptions and precedents influenced the character of what occurred at Eureka. Specific studies in depth of the role played by the Americans would be of immense value and go a long way to correcting a long standing oversight within the Eureka narrative. A rigorous investigation of the connection, if any, of the German participants Frederick Vern and Edmund Thonen to prior revolutionary activities in Europe and elsewhere would reinforce the transnational influences playing on Eureka. The collection and consolidation into a central repository of primary source documents related to Eureka would be a constructive scholarly step. Such a body of work would go a long way to eliminating the reliance upon questionable secondary sources and negate the very hit and miss nature that now characterises the search for primary sources that bedevils Eureka researchers interested in exploring the subject beyond the limits of the traditional narrative.

The Eureka Stockade is an iconic event in the Australian story. It is, however an event that, has since it occurred, been subject to an endless parade of misunderstanding, misappropriation and falsehoods. The collective memory of Eureka has suffered from what has been an continuous contest of memories that had never achieved a consensus. If that memory has any meaning it needs to be founded on fact not, as it often is, on deeply stylized or narrow narrative, prejudice and self-interest. Only if this occurs can a rounded historical

193 interpretation of Eureka be arrived at, and only then can a collective memory of the event that embraces its true and varied aspects be achieved. It is the author’s hope that this dissertation in some small way contributes to the process of assisting a broad ranging factual understanding of what is an immensely important event in Australian history.

194

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211 Turnbull, C., Eureka – The Story of Peter Lalor, The Hawthorn Press, Melbourne, 1946.

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212 Williams, J.K., Dueling in the Old South, College Station, Texas A&M University, 1980.

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ARTICLES

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NEWSPAPERS

Australian

Argus, 1851-1904.

Ballarat Courier, 1904-2004.

Barrier Miner, 1944.

Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer, 1854.

Border Watch, 1944.

Colonial Times, 1851.

Empire, 1854-1855.

Examiner, 1894.

Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 1854.

Healesville and Yarra Glen Guardian, 1925.

Independent, 1894.

Mount Alexander Mail, 1854-1855.

Sunday Times, 1944.

216 Advertiser – Adelaide, 1904-1914.

Age, 1855-2005.

Brisbane Courier, 1894-2004.

Brisbane Worker, 1954.

Camperdown Chronicle, 1894.

Courier Mail, 1954.

Cornwall Chronicle, 1855.

Mail, 1944.

Mercury, 1894.

Next Strategy, 2010.

Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser, 1855.

Perth Daily News, 1944.

Star – Ballarat, 1862.

Sunday Times, 1944.

Sydney Morning Herald, 1854-2004.

Vanguard, 2010.

West Australian, 1894.

Zeehan and Dundas Herald, 1894.

British

Brighton Patriot and South of England Free Press, 1839.

Caledonian Mercury – Edinburgh, 1855.

Daily News London, 1855.

217

Derby Mercury, 1839.

Hampshire Advertiser & Salisbury Guardian – Southampton, 1855.

Monmouthshire Beacon, 1839.

News of the World, 1851.

North Wales Chronicle – Bangor Wales, 1855.

Northern Star, 1839-1848.

Reynolds Newspaper London, 1855.

Aberdeen Journal – Aberdeen Scotland, 1855.

Bradford Observer – Bradford England, 1855.

Derby Mercury – Derby England, 1855.

Ipswich Journal – Ipswich England 1855.

Morning Chronicle - London 1855.

The Times - London 1851-1855.

Western Vindicator, 1839.

American

Daily Alta California, 1855.

Salem Gazette, or Newbury and Marblehead Advertiser, 1775.

European

Allgemeine Zietung – Germany, 1855.

Giornale di Roma – Rome, 1855.

Le Siecle – Paris, 1855.

Neue-Oder Zeitung, 1855.

218

VISUAL REFERENCES

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Cornwell, G. and Cornwell, A., Eureka Stockade-The Film, 1907.

Ealing Studios, 1949, The Eureka Stockade.

Fostyn, Brian, The Thin Red Line, Pimpernel Studios.

Riot or Revolution, Parham Productions, 2006.

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225