Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution

by Peter Fitzsimons

  Hear, hear!

  Hear, HEAR!

  Sunday, 25 June 1854, Ballarat takes an alternative view, not for the last time

  This is not quite the way we see it on the diggings. Up here, Melbourne is a faraway place, and the arrival of such a personage as Sir Charles does not occasion enormous excitement, most particularly when there are things of more moment happening on the goldfields. On this day, digger Thomas Pierson carefully writes in his diary:

  This morning as is our Sundays wont to do we got the weekly Argus Newspaper price 3/4 we learn from it that our new governor Sir Charles Hotham has arrived — our old Governor La Trobe left here for England in the Golden age on 5th of May after filling the office 15 years — before the Gold diggings the Governor salary was PS4000. It now is PS15,000 annually and PS5,000 for travel expenses. I see from the papers they are giving him a grand reception at Sandridge of Melbourne — with Arches flags, songs etc etc — last week a hole caved in on a man and broke his shin — when they brought him up out of the hole his shin bone protruded 2 inches through his stocking.20

  12 July 1854, on the Eureka, there are wild celebrations

  It is a big day on the diggings. For it is the day that, amid much fanfare, James and Catherine Bentley’s Eureka Hotel is opened for business. And what a wonder to behold it is! The whole thing, standing proud on Eureka Street, covers an entire half-acre. Over the front door it has a beautiful lamp to light the way for all who would cross its portals and tread its boards. You can certainly see where the rumoured PS30,000 to build it went, though there remains speculation on how Bentley raised such an amount.

  One rumour, and there is a fair bit to back it, is that local Magistrate John Dewes, the one who has signed off on the license for Bentley to have this bar, is a silent partner, though in what manner is not obvious. What is certain around the diggings is that Dewes is notorious - though nothing has ever been proved - for demanding bribes from sly-grog sellers, hoteliers and victuallers in return for looking the other way while they break the law. And it is in this way, it is presumed, that Dewes may have earned the capital he needs to invest. The most intriguing, and therefore the most popular, rumour is that because of the license he has granted, the money he has put in and the favours he is expected to do, Bentley has given Dewes a quarter share in the Eureka Hotel.

  From the beginning the bar is a great favourite of all the Joes, with police, troopers and magistrates all seen to drink there regularly. One constant customer is Magistrate Dewes himself, and he is personally involved enough to later exult in the fact that ‘PS350 were received over the bar counter in payment for liquors on the first day of its opening’.21 Oh, yes, it is noted alright - it is all so out of the ordinary. For the most part, those who are based in the Government Camp up on the hill, well above those of us on the lowly diggings, live in a world unto themselves. They live well, dine well, socialise with each other, receive distinguished visitors such as squatters and government officials, and allow no free access to their Camp for such as us. And yet, here they are now, frequently venturing out and spending time on the diggings in Bentley’s Eureka Hotel. It is all very strange. And we don’t like it …

  17 July 1854, Ballarat, teaching’s loss is journalism’s gain

  John Manning has just about had enough. For the last six months he has been teaching at the makeshift Catholic school in the chapel that lies at the foot of Bakery Hill, in the company of Anastasia Hayes, who teaches the girls, and in all that time they have had next to no support from the government. When he had taken over in April, there had been just 15 students, and he and the worthy Anastasia now have 89 between them.

  It is with all this in mind that the small but ever-feisty Irishman writes to the Secretary of the Denominational Schools Board, pointing out just how dire things are: ‘One very ungainly table of about twelve feet long serves as a writing desk for as many as can crowd around it - all who cannot must kneel on the wet floor along the seats and write thereon. But description is almost impossible - in one word, sir, the school I have the honour of conducting is emphatically more like the [churlish] seminary of a hedge schoolmaster than anything I can compare it to.’22

  Not only that, but in all the time he has been here, he has had not the slightest correspondence with the Board - not even a school inspector has visited. The result is that many of the students are leaving to go to the National School, and while he would be inclined to try to stop them, that would be ‘tantamount to an assassination of the scholars’ time.’23

  A nice turn of phrase? Manning rather thinks so himself.

  Perhaps he should try another line of work, start writing for one of the many papers now flourishing on the diggings? It is not a bad idea, and Manning does indeed leave shortly afterwards to take up a position with Henry Seekamp’s Ballarat Times.

  26 July 1854, Government House, Toorac, the spectre of penury looms

  It has been something of a long haul, but after carefully going through all the accounts left by his predecessor, Lieutenant-Governor Hotham and his senior staff are getting a clearer idea of the financial situation faced by the newly established colony of Victoria. And it is grim.

  As extraordinary as it seems, the deficit is just over PS1,000,000, and the colony is teetering on the edge of outright bankruptcy. The police bills alone are staggering, even for such poor police as they have. In 1851, policing had cost Victoria just PS25,000. But with the explosion of the goldfields it had blown out to PS300,000 in just two years and, with the rising goldfields population and continued agitations, it is ever on the increase.

  Of all the problems Lieutenant-Governor Hotham faces, this draining of the government coffers is the most severe as his mandate from London to balance the budget has always been paramount.

  After examining the many reports he has requested over the past few months on comparative annual payment of license fees, the most obvious problem Sir Charles can see is that only half the diggers (and storekeepers) are actually paying the tax.

  The quarter ending 30 June had shown 43,700 licenses issued and PS87,800 raised, representing a decrease of 78,000 licenses on the preceding year and PS100,000 in revenue, despite the fact that the goldfields’ male adult population had increased by over 20,000. The preceding quarter, ending 31 March 1853, appeared as bad if not worse. Although the male adult population had increased by over 10,000 on 1853 figures, it was down 88,800 licenses and showed a decrease of PS104,000. No matter which way Hotham looks at it, the extremely frustrating truth is that goldfields license revenue has fallen away by nearly half even though the goldfields’ population has gone up every month and has never been higher.24

  Of course, Hotham’s first response is to hold his underlings accountable, and he begins by haranguing his Chief Gold Commissioner endlessly and often over these appalling figures. Despite Wright’s protestations that the license fee is ‘being paid as well as at any other time’, 25 the new Lieutenant-Governor is convinced ‘that the evasion of the license was from right to left throughout the goldfields’, and it could be explained by nothing other than ‘laxity on the part of the commissioners’.26

  Well, they would just have to see about that. For Sir Charles, the law is the law is the law, and it must be administered by the authorities whether they like it or not and obeyed by the people - double the ditto and the diggers be damned.

  Meantime, in an effort to work out just how bad the situation is, on this day he makes a snap decision and charges the Auditor-General to further scrutinise all of the colony’s finances and submit a report.

  6 August 1854, Melbourne, the Redcoats gather with intent

  It is a move that delights the Melbourne establishment, every bit as much as it horrifies Sydney. Steaming through the heads of Port Phillip Bay comes the Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the colonies, Sir Robert Nickle, a highly decorated and gloriously bewhiskered 67-year-old career army officer of enormous distinction, who has served his Sovereigns for the last 55 years in
uprisings and wars everywhere from the Irish Rebellion to the Peninsular War, from South America to America, the West Indies, the Canadian Rebellion and, since July 1853, here in Australia.

  Given the growing unrest in Victoria and the increasing demand for soldiers on Victoria’s goldfields, the decision had been taken in London that the proper place for Her Majesty’s military headquarters in the colonies is Melbourne, not Sydney - and today Sir Robert arrives with 20 of his senior officers, ready to join the 611 soldiers of the 40th Regiment who are already here in Victoria.

  ‘We denounce it as unjust,’ The Sydney Morning Herald had growled, ‘because it is not only giving to Melbourne what she has no claim to, but taking from Sydney that which is her own inherent right.’27

  Yes, there are those who think the reasons are justified, but in reality those reasons ‘are of little weight, and derive what shallow plausibility they possess from bugbears which exist only in ignorant minds or distempered imaginations’.28 In short, those living in Melbourne …

  For where might it end? There had even been talk in The Sydney Morning Herald that Victoria’s Lieutenant-General, Sir Charles Hotham, would replace New South Wales’s Sir Charles FitzRoy as Governor-General, ‘a step which there is every reason to believe has been for some time contemplated’.29

  And it really has. Shortly after Sir Charles FitzRoy had arrived in Australia with his wife, Lady Mary, and one of their two adult sons, she was killed when a carriage the Governor was driving overturned in the grounds of Government House at Parramatta. As a widower, he seemed to have lost his way soon thereafter. For Sir Charles’s problems had grown in tandem with the belly of the young woman he had lain with in Berrima one night in early 1849, and his illegitimate son was born later in the year.30 Not that Sir Charles was alone at Government House in his wild ways, for all that. When the young Berrima woman’s outraged father had presented himself to the Governor’s secretary - who was also one of His Excellency’s sons - that gentleman had begun his reply by saying, ‘How can you be sure it was the Governor, for we all …’31 That son is even more active than his father with ladies of the night and, among people in the know, Government House is oft referred to as the ‘FitzRoy stud’.

  It is a disgrace, I tell you. But also useful fodder for those who want a republic.

  The People’s Advocate even goes so far as to print an assertion from the Provisional Committee of the Australian League, claiming of the particularly riotous son, George FitzRoy, that no-one could help bring about faster a republic than he. For after he and his friends, along with prostitutes, had been thrown out of the Windsor Inn, he needs to be thanked for ‘bringing the whole system of British Government in the Colonies into utter contempt, and proving to the satisfaction of all reputable and candid persons, that it ought to be put an end to, with all convenient speed, as being thoroughly unprincipled, discreditable, and intolerable’.32

  All that aside, Sir Charles Hotham is extremely heartened to now have crack military leadership and troops on call in Victoria. These men are not clapped-out military pensioners from Van Diemen’s Land - men who had proven to be drunken nightmares on the diggings. These are serious, well-trained troops - Redcoats, come to bolster his all-too-meagre force. Melbourne now has no fewer than 700 soldiers in the Victoria Barracks in St Kilda Road. With two companies of the 12th Regiment from England also due to land in Melbourne in three months, and a force of English police due to arrive shortly after that, Victoria will at last have a substantial armed force to preserve the Queen’s peace.

  Mid-August 1854, Ballarat, trouble brews

  One morning in his tent, just before dawn, Raffaello Carboni is suddenly awoken by the sound of thundering hooves just outside, as are all his companions in nearby tents. What on earth is going on?

  Popping his head through the flaps, he instantly has his answer. Just up from where they are situated there is a sly-grog seller at the top of the hill, and just next to his store - nominally to sell other things - is a tent crammed as full as a goog with brandy and other spirits, newly arrived from Melbourne. The goldfields are overrun with spies - operatives from Government Camp who look like diggers, dress like diggers and sound like diggers but who are in fact no more than scurvy rats whose real job in life is to report to their bosses on whatever ‘illegal’ activities they can spot. Obviously, one of these spies has caught wind of this brandy and reported it, and now the mounted troopers, closely followed by their lesser species, the plodding government traps, go straight to the store.

  ‘Whose tent is that?’ asks the Commissioner to the storekeeper, pointing to the small tent in question.

  ‘I don’t know,’ comes the nervous reply.

  ‘Who lives in it? Who owns it?’ demands the Commissioner, bristling. ‘Is anybody in?’33

  ‘An old man owns it, but he is gone to town on business and left it to the care of his mate who is on the night shift,’ replies the storekeeper miserably, surely knowing what is coming.

  ‘I won’t peck up that chaff of yours, sir,’ roars the Commissioner. ‘Halloo! Who is in? Open the tent!’34

  Still there is no answer, and so comes the order that was always going to come.

  ‘I say,’ says the Commissioner to two rough and swarthy troopers, ‘cut down this tent, and we’ll see who is in.’35

  These two ruffians in uniform instantly step forward and, just as a duck alights naturally on a pond and paddles happily, so too do they do what comes entirely natural to them. That is, after taking their swords and lifting them on high, they thrash about with savage joy and total disregard for private property, cutting the tent to ribbons. And there, just as the spy had told them, are the boxes of brandy and other assorted spirits.

  But look there - wouldn’t you know it - the troopers just happen to have a horse and cart handy! That cart is brought forward and in no more than five minutes flat all of the precious, high-priced alcohol is loaded and taken off to the Camp.

  There are few things that could have aroused the diggers to greater indignation. The infamy of it! The gross unfairness! The high-handed manner in which the whole exercise is carried out!

  It is with this in mind that the diggers now gather around the triumphant troopers, roaring, ‘Shame! Shame!’36

  And maybe they would have taken it further and physically intervened, but two things stop them. Firstly, this particular sly-grog seller is a bit of a brute and many of the onlookers are not sorry to see his noisy establishment taken apart. And secondly, as Carboni characterises it, ‘The plunderers were such Vandemonian-looking traps and troopers, that we were not encouraged to say much, because it would have been of no use.’37

  So, for the moment, all the diggers are left with is their festering discontent, a feeling that grows as the day progresses and they reflect on what has occurred. The Government Camp has not made this raid to prevent sly-grog selling. That is impossible and everyone knows it. The demand on the goldfields for grog at the end of both bitter and joyous days is so strong that the profits are huge for those who can provide it, even at outrageous prices marked up by as much as 150 per cent. And, yes, the diggers could go if necessary to the government-licensed, official establishments that stand by the main roads just a mile or two away, but why bother when there is a shop near-handy right here at the diggings?

  So who really profits by closing down the sly-grog sellers? Why, the official grog sellers, of course, who have their competitors eliminated. What’s in it for the government officials to close down the sly ones, beyond nominal enforcement of the law? The fact that many of them - particularly, it is said, Police Magistrate John Dewes - are in cahoots with the official establishments’ owners.

  For the difference between the sly-grog sellers and the official grog sellers is certainly not one of class or education. Take James and Catherine Bentley’s Eureka Hotel, for example. She’s alright, I guess, but there isn’t a badder bastard on the entire goldfields than him, nor a rougher man. And yet their hotel is where many o
f the Joes and the Commissioners gather to drink every night. Many of the diggers know the hotel as the ‘Slaughterhouse’ because in the lesser bars, well away from where the Joes drink, all kinds of assaults, atrocities and acts of ill-repute are notoriously common. One Ballarat pioneer, William Carroll, would later say of it, ‘It was generally remarked it was a wonder Bentley did not lose his license; the house was of infamous repute. As one of the oldest residents in the Colony, I can say I never knew so shamefully conducted a house. The worst characters lived about his place; midnight robberies were frequent, and life and property were not safe.’38

  19 August 1854, the Victorian goldfields tense and tighten

  Things are tightening on the goldfields, particularly at Ballarat. In days of yore - which is to say mere weeks ago - there would be the regular cries of exultation as one group or another would find a nugget or a jeweller’s shop. Lately, though, the shafts are more likely to be shicers as the last of the easy finds seem gone. All that is left is hard, hard work to mine down deeper in the hope that the gold will come again. So tight have things been on the Eureka that Carboni notes it as a ‘Nugety Eldorado for a few, a ruinous Field of hard labour for many, a profound ditch of perdition for Body and Soul to all’.39

  While March to April of this year produced 135,000 ounces of gold under escort, and May to June 121,000 ounces, July to August is now on track to produce just 88,000 ounces - less than two-thirds of what it had been just five months earlier.

  And, of course, with that tightening of the gold supply, many diggers are finding it harder to come up with the license fee month by month, and the resistance to it grows - all the more so since La Trobe had mooted its possible abolition. And the diggers certainly have the local press behind them, with one lead writer for The Diggers’ Advocate putting it particularly well.