by Clare Wright
Sarah Hanmer now had the Adelphi on her own terms, and soon advertised its imminent opening with herself as its lessee and directress. She placed an ad for a leading man and light comedian, declaring without false modesty: Applications from ladies will be unnecessary, as the Press have declared, without hesitation, she [Sarah] possesses the best female talent in the country.
The troupe included young Julia and several other American actors and actresses. By early June, Ballarat finally had a first-rate theatre company, the Adelphi Players. The Ballarat correspondent to the Geelong Advertiser reported in the first week of winter: The Adelphi, under this lady’s superintendence, has achieved a position hardly, if anything, inferior to any theatre in Victoria.
Once established as its indisputable boss, and pulling in rapturous crowds, Sarah Hanmer regularly offered her theatre to hold charity events, such as benefits for the Miners’ Hospital. Mrs Hanmer and her daughter are immense favourites on the diggings, said the Ballarat Times, and we do not wonder at it, for there are none here who have more earnestly strove to gain the good-will of the digging community…her endeavours to please deserve every success.
Sarah wasn’t afraid, however, to risk her reputation for feminine benevolence by going after someone who had offended her. At the end of winter, she wrote a letter to the editor of the Ballarat Times defending herself against some slight—we don’t know what, because it was not aired in the papers. Signing herself off as the Public’s Obedient Servant, Sarah took the fight up to her accuser, a former employee called Bartlett who has been cowardly enough to insinuate what he dares not speak out openly about—my character. Showing no such spinelessness herself, Sarah went public with her moral indignation, daring Bartlett to be man enough to do the same.
If anyone was concerned that Sarah Hanmer was playing the gender card—bending the rules to suit her own maverick ends—you don’t get a whiff of it in the local press or at the licensing bench. Official records show she was never denied a theatrical licence, despite allegations from her male rivals that she was not of fit character to hold one. There was no bureaucratic obstruction. Only gratitude that her theatrical offerings, and (suitably feminine) charitable works, had raised Ballarat’s intellectual and moral standard.
In other matters she was not yet inclined to rock the boat. In that muddy winter of 1854 she kept her purse open and her politics to herself. In a matter of months she had converted herself from an actress and single mother into a respectable businesswoman and civic identity. Sarah was getting ahead and that was enough.
For now.
SPRING
They didn’t call this Bentley’s Hill for nothing. Catherine Bentley had a commanding view of the Ballarat diggings from the second-storey bedroom of her new hotel. From there she could watch her neighbours emerge from their calico cocoons as the warm breezes of spring began to replace lashing rain and wind. Spring had only just arrived and already the whole vast tent city was dry and thirsty, the ground parched. A month ago, Catherine’s lad Thomas could chip ice from the water pail in the morning; now she would have to chase him to put his sun bonnet on.
Even though the building was not quite finished, the Bentleys’ Eureka Hotel was doing well. By September 1854 she and James were raking it in. They took £350 on their first night alone!
Now that the weather had fined up, the last stages of construction could gather pace. The bowling alley was finally operational but there were still seven bedrooms upstairs to be finished and the new concert rooms out the back. And of course there were bills to pay, massive ones: £230 for paint; £320 to five contractors for the stables and concert room; £96 to the sawyer. Rutherford and Tingman, the wine and spirit merchants, would get £596 for 25 dozen bottles of champagne, 20 dozen sherry, 20 dozen port, 2000 cigars, 56 dozen bottles of four different types of ale, 68 dozen porter, 22 gallons of whisky. Fifty single beds, ten double beds and 100 pillows also had to be paid for.
Some people might have called the Eureka Hotel the slaughterhouse, due to the raucous fun times to be had there, but James Bentley enjoyed a reputation as a fair dealer: upright, well mannered, a good businessman. He could borrow money without too much trouble.
As a wealthy and influential man, he must have attracted the usual amount of envy and resentment. In addition, as magistrate John D’Ewes later said, Bentley had made the enmity of a large class in the diggings, the sly grog sellers, whose trade had been ruined by the licensed houses, of which Bentley’s was the largest.
The Eureka Hotel was not just a business, it was also a home—to Catherine, who was expecting a new baby in the summer, and James and little Thomas. James was just an ex-convict and Catherine a Sligo girl, only 22, but they had built themselves a fine home. Practically a palace. The hotel was also home to Catherine’s sister Mary and her husband, and to a long list of staff.
Nineteen residents in all. It was quite a compound. Those who lived in a hotel were, by Victorian law, called inmates. But the hundreds of people who flocked to drink and gamble and bowl and dance there each night were hardly outsiders. It was Catherine and James’s job to make everyone feel welcome: to offer hospitality. They did it well.
And then, just as the spring flowers were beginning to bloom, disaster struck.
MURDER MOST FOUL
The night of 6 October was crowned by a full moon and James Scobie, a young Scottish miner, was in the mood to party. Scobie was already drunk when he bumped into his mate, Peter Martin, and the two proceeded to the Eureka Hotel to try their luck at getting an after-hours drink.
Scobie knocked loudly on the door. Catherine and James had gone to bed but Michael Walsh, the waiter, was still in the bar. He told Scobie and Martin to nick off. Scobie continued to make his presence felt, kicking at the door and smashing a pane of glass. Catherine came downstairs to the bar and she too told him to go away. Scobie then called Catherine a whore, or so Michael Walsh testified later. William Hance, the watchman, who had joined the group in the bar, said that was not language to use to any woman. James Bentley entered the bar in his trousers and shirtsleeves, as did watchman Farrell and William Duncan, the barman. Scobie and Martin ran off towards a cluster of tents about 70 metres away.
There are many versions of what happened next. The story has been told and retold, and become a rats’ nest of speculation, hearsay, sworn testimony and myth. The following version is taken from what was said and written at the time, but even then, it is a tricky job trying to work out what really happened.
After their property was damaged and Catherine was insulted the Bentleys, with Hance and Farrell, pursued the drunken, staggering Scobie. When they caught up with him, a fight broke out. Witnesses said they saw or heard a handful of men and maybe a woman; perhaps Mr and Mrs Bentley were among them but the witnesses could not be sure. One of the men was said to have picked up a spade. There was a scuffle, and Scobie received a blow to the head.
Martin ran to fetch help and returned with a doctor called Alfred Carr, who could find no signs of life. Scobie’s body was taken back to the Eureka Hotel. (The Victorian licensing law required that hotels also serve as morgues and sites of coronial enquiries.) There Dr Carr conducted a post-mortem on the deceased and concluded the cause of death was ruptured blood vessels in the brain caused in all probability by a blow. His final conclusion was crucial: I think the injury wa
s inflicted by a kick and not by the spade now produced.
A coronial inquest was held the following day, Saturday 7 October. Many more details—possible fact and scurrilous fiction—emerged later, at the trials in Ballarat and Melbourne of the Bentleys and two of their employees. But at the inquest no one mentioned the alleged slur to Mrs Bentley’s good name that became the centrepiece of the subsequent Melbourne murder trial. Carr’s autopsy conclusion ruled the day: that the death was caused by a blow to the head from a scuffle, most likely from a fist or kick, not a spade.
A BUSY WEEK
On 7 October, inflammatory gossip zipped around the diggings: a poor young Irish miner had been murdered by a rich, well-connected English publican. And not just any publican but the most successful liquor distributor on the diggings.
On the 8th, a deputation of miners visited the Camp.
On the 9th, James Bentley and his employees Farrell and Hance were arrested, then bailed while the case was remanded for three days. During this time, the accused men and their supporters, including the numerous residents at the hotel, were able to get their stories straight. That fact was not lost on the grieving relatives and aggrieved countrymen of James Scobie.
Bentley was also spotted at the Camp, where it was assumed he was communicating with Police Magistrate John D’Ewes. There had long been a rumour that D’Ewes owed Bentley money.
On Thursday 12 October, an enquiry into Scobie’s murder was held before D’Ewes, Robert Rede and James Johnston. (Maggie Johnston’s diary mysteriously stops between 11 September and 22 November, so we don’t know what she thought of this dramatic week’s events.)
The decision of the bench that day saw a family’s dreams go up in smoke. No one could have predicted that the verdict would also be the wayward spark that would set a wildfire raging.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
Another match was struck in the three days between Bentley’s arrest and his appearance before the magistrates. This incident had nothing to do with James, or Catherine, or the hotel, or even alcohol, but it would add fuel to the mounting bonfire.
On Tuesday 10 October, an Armenian named Johannes Gregorius was visiting a sick man in his tent on the Gravel Pits. Gregorius was the servant of Father Patrick Smyth, the priest for Ballarat’s nine thousand (mostly Irish) Catholics who congregated at St Alipius Church, where Anastasia Hayes was schoolmistress and queen bee. The servant was also, in the language of the time, a cripple, with a disability that made walking difficult.
Gregorius had no reason to fear licence hunters. Ministers of religion and their live-in servants were not required to hold a miner’s licence. On this day, however, a young policeman stopped Gregorius and demanded to see his licence. In faltering English, Gregorius attempted to explain that he was exempt.
But the trooper was in no mood to listen. Damn you and your priest, the trooper spat, an unprovoked and unforgivable insult. The trooper then dismounted to assault the man. Horrified onlookers watched as the horse, unrestrained by his master, proceeded to trample Gregorius.
As luck would have it, Assistant Commissioner James Johnston was nearby. The crowd expected he would discipline the policeman, who was so clearly out of line. Johnston, however, decreed the ‘missing’ licence had to be dealt with and ordered Gregorius to attend court the following day. Father Smyth arrived on the scene and gave Johnston £5 as bail, so he would be allowed to take his injured servant home.
What began as a tragedy ended as a farce. In court the next day, in front of John D’Ewes with James Johnston as witness, the battered Gregorius was fined £5 for being unlicensed, despite the fact that he didn’t need a licence. As Smyth had already paid that sum, that should have been that—however unjust the fine was in the first place. But Johnston decided to flex his muscles. He charged that it was the disabled Gregorius who had in fact assaulted the mounted policeman. D’Ewes found this new indictment proved and fined Gregorius another £5.
Bad move.
AN OFFENDED PEOPLE
The Catholics of Ballarat were ropable. Autocratic and illogical miscarriages of justice were not unusual in Ballarat, but the Catholic community took this one as a direct affront to its priest. A petition was raised on behalf of the aggregate Catholic body at Ballarat.
The petition, supposedly headed up by Timothy Hayes, was probably the project of his wife Anastasia, who was the beating heart of St Alipius. Anastasia, as later events would prove, was a woman with a burning sense of justice, quick to assert her own rights and defend the rights of those she cared for. In 1854, Anastasia Hayes cared most about the Catholics of Ballarat.
SECTARIANISM
It’s hard to believe these days, but for much of its white history Australian society was bitterly divided between Catholics and Protestants. This kind of hostility between sub-groups of the same religion is known as sectarianism. In this case the enmity was the legacy of Irish history.
England had colonised Ireland in the sixteenth century and from then on the (mainly Protestant) British had formed an oppressive and hated overclass, ruling the (mainly Catholic) Irish. Periodic outbursts of Irish resistance continued until most of Ireland gained independence in 1922. (The six northern counties remained within the United Kingdom). These violent episodes ensured that the fear and hatred were not all on one side.
Anti-Catholic hostilities were alive and well during the penal settlement of Australia, manifesting in a real fear of Irish rebellion against the British authorities. In 1804, Irish convicts did in fact stage a successful, although short-lived, uprising at Castle Hill in New South Wales.
The disadvantaged Irish made many attempts to level the social and political playing field; the colonial governments always remained suspicious of them.
Her petition wanted the feelings of an offended people recognised, and these people held James Johnston personally responsible for the slight. Johnston had never been popular, but now he was even more on the nose. The petition called for the immediate removal of Johnston from Ballarat and an enquiry into his ungentlemanly and overbearing character. As if pre-empting an accusation that the victimised petitioners were just a bunch of Irish ratbags, the petition stated: The Catholics of Ballarat are a large and influential body comprising inhabitants of every recognised country under heaven. This body begged leave to observe that the constitutional means taken to obtain a redress of the wrong here complained of evinces our respect for the law.
Not just Irish. Not a mob either. Constitutional, meaning lawful. Legitimate. By the book.
Governor Hotham was alerted to the sectarian crisis brewing in Ballarat. He briefly considered transferring Johnston to another district, but decided it would be impolitic to do so. Robert Rede thought it would be unwise to undermine his deputy, and so Johnston stayed. Perhaps he was also loath to uproot his wife Maggie, who was now pregnant.
The Irish of Ballarat made plans to sew a large flag to illustrate their solidarity: a Monster national banner, reported the Argus, to fly over the disputed ground of the Eureka.
The tension was building.
SCOT FREE
The court was packed on the morning of the judicial enquiry into the murder of James Scobie. It was 12 October. James and Catherine Bentley and their servant
s, Farrell and Hance, were in the dock. D’Ewes, Rede and Johnston presided over an agitated crowd. There was no jury.
The Ballarat Times had been spitting chips about the case for days. James Bentley was characterised as exhibiting all the wiles and blandishments of a wealthy publican. Scobie’s death was described as melancholy. The newspaper detailed inconsistencies and irregularities of the coronial inquest, and proffered ‘facts’ different from the ones given at the inquest.
Over two nail-biting days, the witnesses took the stand. All the residents of the hotel testified that Mr and Mrs Bentley had not left that evening; that they remained in their bedroom together until Dr Carr arrived with Scobie’s body. Mary Gadd, Catherine’s sister, swore that she could hear every thing that passes in [their] room. A butcher who lived opposite the hotel swore that Bentley was not one of the men he saw fighting. It was moonlight so he could see clearly and [I] would know him by his general appearance and being lame.
Mary Ann Welch and her son Barnard were called last. The fatal scuffle had taken place outside their tent. Mary Ann testified that she heard Catherine Bentley say, ‘How dare you break my window.’ The voice, to the best of my belief, was Mrs Bentley’s, said Mary Ann. I live within a few yards at the back of the hotel, and often heard Mrs Bentley’s voice before.
Eleven-year-old Barnard Welch said he’d been asleep when he was woken by voices outside the tent. He peeped through a flap to see Mr and Mrs Bentley and three or four men. One of them, Barnard couldn’t say which one, picked up a spade from the corner of the Welches’ tent. The Times thought him a very intelligent boy.
