by Clare Wright
Her letter continues: We ought to congratulate ourselves in possessing so admirable a vent as your paper for the spleen.
That estimable organ, the Ballarat Times, was about to get a good workout.
TONGUES WAG
While Ellen Young waxed lyrical, tales of mutiny were being spread on the streets by gossip and rumour. Gossip can be malicious and judgmental, or simply informative about comings and goings central to the community’s wellbeing. Either way, it has always been a powerful tool for people with no formal voice or influence. And, traditionally, gossip was women’s work.
The public record of Ballarat’s rumourmongers is surprisingly resilient. Ellen Clacy described the interior of your average shop on the diggings:
Pork and currants, saddles and frocks, baby linen and tallow, all are heaped indiscriminately together…added to which, there are children bawling, men swearing, storekeeper sulky, and last, not least, women’s tongues going nineteen to the dozen.
Raffaello Carboni begins his account of the Catholic servant affair this way: The following story was going the rounds of the Eureka. The Times revealed that prior to the destruction of the Eureka Hotel, rumours had been flying thick and fast. Rumours such as: Police Magistrate D’Ewes was a partner in Bentley’s business. Bentley had paid thousands of pounds to be exonerated. The licensing bench was bribed. And the ultimate tall story: Catherine Bentley was in fact James Scobie’s wife!
On 19 October, James and Catherine Bentley, along with Hance and Farrell, were re-arrested to stand trial in Melbourne for Scobie’s murder.
On 21 October, two miners, 24-year-old Scot Andrew McIntyre and Charles Evans’ business partner, Thomas Fletcher, were named at random, out of thousands of rioters, and charged with the arson of the Eureka Hotel (a third, John Westoby, would later be added).
Here is Henry Seekamp’s Ballarat Times editorial on 21 October:
In all the history of Australia…never has there been a more eventful period than the present of Ballarat. Public feeling is so great that no rumour, however absurd, but what gains credence—everything is believed and everything is expected. The people have, for once…begun to feel their own strength…the first taste of liberty and self-government.
Seekamp saw the cascade of events that October as an inevitable step towards freedom: a child beginning to walk, in a little time the child will be able to stand alone. But although 26-year-old Henry was now stepfather to Clara’s children, he had never brought up babies. He was not in the best position to know about infant development. When children separate themselves from the domination of their parents there is always defiance and turmoil. Doors slammed. Names called. Boats rocked.
Surely some malignant spell, surmised the Argus, must blind the Captain, that he cannot see the rocks a-head.
On 24 October, the Age reported an eventful week at Ballarat: Monday, a bank robbery; Tuesday, rioting; Wednesday and Thursday taken up guessing at what might be next looked for, including speculation about simultaneous uprisings at Avoca, Maryborough and Creswick Creek; Friday, arrest of the manager of the Bank of NSW; and Sunday, a meeting of the Irish regarding the Reverend Smyth and James Johnston incident.
The Age’s Ballarat correspondent revealed rumours that the Avoca Camp had been burned down, the Maryborough Camp was under siege by diggers, that the unemployed of Melbourne had risen up at the news of the Ballarat riot, and that the Bank of Victoria was broke. Added to the talk about such matters, wrote the correspondent, was an interminable controversy as to the pros and cons of Bentley’s case. You didn’t need a soapbox to be heard in Ballarat. A person could not blow her nose without drawing around them a crowd of sympathisers.
This tittle-tattle was all good clean fun. But when James Bentley fled from the flames of his ruined empire to the protection of the commissioners, a genuinely damaging rumour started doing the rounds.
The government compound was going to be attacked! The diggers were going to come that night. Vengeful miners were going to drag Bentley out of his refuge and back to his smoking lair. Justice would be done, even if it meant a mob lynching.
Government spies brought the news from the diggings to the Camp. The garrison was put under arms. No one was allowed to enter or leave. The night, according to Camp resident Samuel Huyghue, passed alert in expectation of an attack.
The next day, 18 October, the females were ordered to leave the Camp, as it was considered that at such a time they would be safer anywhere than with us. Families split up. Anxious wives abandoned their husbands to the fury of the mob. Some poor souls, said Huyghue, were ultimately permitted to remain on the plea that they had no home or protectors elsewhere. (Was Maggie Johnston one of them? She certainly had no family in Victoria apart from her dear Jamie. Again, Maggie’s diary says nothing about her movements.) These women and children took refuge in the commissariat store whenever there was an alarm. The walls of the store were partly bulletproof, being formed of roughly hewn slabs. But you could still insert a finger between them, worried Huyghue.
And rumours could slide under doors like shape-shifting vapours in the night. They could waft between slabs. Seep beneath skin. Penetrate the soundest of minds. Gossip and rumour could fuel a fire as surely as any kindling and flame.
Shaken to its core by the power of an idea, the Camp would never recover.
LYING IN A STATE OF STUPIDITY
To the diggers and storekeepers, the Government Camp was a hive of treachery and deceit: a bastion of vested interests, arrogance and inconsistency. But how did the Camp’s inhabitants feel? Were they sitting pretty up on their hill? Enjoying a room with an enchanting view? Living the high life?
Sadly, no. Even before the exoneration of James Bentley made the government compound a target, its residents were far from being happy campers.
A series of letters from the top dogs of the Ballarat Camp to their Melbourne superiors written in the autumn and winter of that year reveals the sort of discomfort that the inmates of the Camp experienced: overcrowding, poor sanitation, disintegrating tents, makeshift offices. Even the post office was a dark, dirty tent open to the elements at both ends. The mail was sorted on a stretcher. On a blustery day, noted the Geelong Advertiser, letters were distributed on the wind to a grateful public.
Each of the Camp’s three independent factions—the Gold Fields Department, the police and the military—had its own chain of command and its own internal codes of conduct. As we have seen, this could cause paralysing confusion in a crisis. But on a day-to-day basis, the main problem was that some had better facilities than others. The bickering was fierce and continuous.
The Gold Commission had the biggest slice of the pie. It occupied the lion’s share of the Camp grounds—about twice as much space as the police. Most of the police grounds were taken up by the tents of the married non-commissioned officers. There was not enough room for the foot and mounted constables—generally young, poorly paid single men—to be accommodated.
And conditions weren’t just crowded, they were squalid: unfit for the men to reside in, wrote Sub-Inspector Taylor to his Melbourne superiors in August. The canvas tents were for the most part perfectly rotten, proof against neither rain nor sun, as they had been in use for over two years. Taylor was inspired to alert HQ to the situation after the
tents were torn to shreds in a fierce storm. The rain of last night completely saturated the beds and blankets, he wrote in July, so much so that the men were all huddled together in one tent.
The third sibling squabbling over its share of the puny pie with the civil service and the police was the military. By the winter of 1854, the members of the 40th Regiment stationed at Ballarat, and in some cases their wives and children, were also housed in leaky, draughty tents.
Corporal John Neill, an Irishman, lived in the Camp with his wife Ellen and their baby. Ellen Neill was certainly not the only military wife in the Camp, but since the army didn’t keep records of its wives, there is no information about any others. Still, her experiences and those of her husband were probably common. Corporal Neill kept a diary that speaks poignantly of the conflict between his family duties and his military role. He writes of having to coax his daughter to sleep in her cot on the hill, only to have her awaken screaming as gunshots rang out on the flats each night.
The tents were mouldy, the stables were falling apart, the men were unhappy about the quality of the uniforms (itchy, expensive and badly made—and the men had to buy their own), the married officers had no privacy and no one was getting a good night’s sleep. If that wasn’t enough to make a grown man cry, the force as a whole seemed to be perpetually plastered.
Police constable John Reagan was suspended for being not shaved, dirty, and having all the appearance of an habitual drunkard. Daniel Wright was discharged with bad character as he was frequently under the influence of liquor. Trooper James Butler was transferred to the foot police due to being a very slovenly man who knows nothing of horses. Arthur Shirvington was imprisoned in the Camp lockup for two days after he went absent without leave all night and returned home drunk and fighting in public houses. Acting Sergeant John Dougherty was found in Canadian Gully lying in a state of stupidity from the effects of drink. Thomas Milne was sentenced to three days’ imprisonment for being drunk on guard. Constable William Thompson was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for habitual drunkenness. He was said to be presently labouring under a very severe attack of Delirium tremens. In August the lockup keeper requested the sub-inspector to accompany him to the prison to see the state of the Sentry posted there…the sentry was lying on his face and hands insensibly drunk, his arms were placed by the side of the door…the man was in such a state that he was obliged to be carried away on the shoulders of another man.
By late August the police chief, Inspector Gordon Evans, was asked to explain what he intended to do about his force’s appalling behaviour and morale. He responded that he couldn’t discharge everyone guilty of inveterate habitual drunkenness or he wouldn’t have enough men to do the job. The number of commissioned officers was already below its authorised number and those who were in the Camp frequently complain of their duties being rendered more arduous in consequence of this insufficiency. Guards on night shift were forced to perform on the following day various backbreaking tasks (including carting wood and water, which should have been the job of a paid labourer) and frequently that of searching for unlicensed miners.
Many men had either applied for discharges, committed some heinous act in the hope of being discharged or simply deserted. In July, one brave and uncommonly literate constable, L. H. Webb, wrote directly to the Chief Commissioner of Police requesting a discharge. He knew the proper procedure was to go through Ballarat’s inspector, but he was unwilling to do so because of Evans’ past form in taunting and bullying his men.
I am not a drunken soldier, wrote Webb, I can pluck up spirit to complain of oppression…petty tyranny should be restrained and the advantages of position should not be a vantage ground wherein the officer may insult and wound the feelings of an inferior with impunity.
Was this a trap or a digger speaking? Between those on the hill and those on the flats, the language they used to express grievance was eerily similar.
THE STRANGER
After the arrests of Andrew McIntyre and Thomas Fletcher for the burning of the Bentleys’ hotel, a ‘monster meeting’ was called for 22 October. Over ten thousand people gathered at Bakery Hill to hear rousing speeches about the infringement of rights occurring daily. We are worse off than either Russian serf or American slave!! fumed the Ballarat Times. The Camp officials who so blatantly abused their offices must be removed! The speakers called on the government to muck out their own stables before the people of Ballarat were forced to make a clean sweep themselves.
There was no doubting the anger of the people. The ashes of the Eureka Hotel fire were barely cold. But still, at this stage, the Times predicted that it would all settle down into a quiet constitutional agitation, argued out—not fought out—on the twin issues of taxation and representation.
A Diggers Rights Society was thereby established to keep the Camp honest, and the Diggers Defence Fund called for subscriptions to help pay for the legal defence of McIntyre and Fletcher. Down at the Adelphi, Sarah Hanmer threw her considerable energies behind this cause, announcing a benefit to be held at her theatre. At the end of the monster meeting there were three cheers and one more for the kindness of Mrs Hanmer. While the presses at Clara Duval Seekamp’s home were printing the newspaper that gave voice to the people, Sarah Hanmer’s business was providing the stage for action, as well as filling the war chest.
The arbitrary nature of the arrests left the thousands of bystanders with the certain knowledge that it could have been them. Many people believed Andrew McIntyre was one of the few present at the riot who were actually trying to save the hotel property and its inhabitants. Even Assistant Commissioner Amos, who was stationed at Eureka and knew its diggers better than anyone, testified in McIntyre’s defence. Thomas Fletcher, wrote Charles Evans in his diary, is about the last man I should have thought likely to take part in such a proceeding and besides this I knew from several circumstances that he was like myself nothing more than a passive spectator.
Apart from natural justice, there was another reason to pass the hat around for those unfairly fingered for the Eureka Hotel fire. McIntyre’s 26-year-old wife, Christina, was heavily pregnant with their second child, which would have contributed to the communal outrage over his arrest. It was common practice—almost a point of honour—for diggers to rally around the impoverished wife of a fellow miner after he was jailed for being unlicensed.
The Eureka population was starting to come together over its sense of grievance and Sarah Hanmer had the capital, resources and heart to mobilise the community. Christina McIntyre reaped the advantage of this unwritten social contract in a way that Catherine Bentley, who was also pregnant, and now homeless to boot, would not. Whether it was true or just malicious rumour, Catherine was seen as having crossed over to the dark side: as being involved in bureaucratic corruption and the privileges it bought. In the moral economy of gold seeking, this would not do. It was acceptable to get rich through hard work and luck, but not through graft and influence.
At the Adelphi, Sarah hung out her star-spangled flag for the disenfranchised miners. Her benefit for the Diggers Defence Fund was a corker. The event was of literally great benefit to the fund, reported the Geelong Advertiser.
Sarah and her troupe played to a respectable and crowded house. Charles Evans was present and noted the animating effect the event had on the community. Mrs Hanmer, Charles wrote, gave up her theatre for their benefit an
d [the play] was performed to a crowded house, and in fact throughout the diggings there seemed to be but one feeling, a warm sympathy for Fletcher & McIntyre and deep indignation at the conduct of the Authorities.
Sarah’s benefit raised over £70. The success of the event, and no doubt the amount of press it garnered, prompted other theatre managers—Mr Hetherington at the Royal and Mr Clarke at the Queens—to follow suit. Sarah Hanmer held several more benefits for the diggers’ cause during November. By the time it was all over, she had contributed more money to the popular rights movement than any other citizen.
If the miners were the damsels in distress in the melodrama of Ballarat, then Sarah Hanmer was the discreet sugar daddy.
YANKEE HQ
In Ballarat, every group had its special meeting place. Before the synagogue was established in 1861, the Jews of Ballarat kvetched and prayed at the Clarendon Hotel. The Germans drank and caroused at the Prince Albert Hotel on Bakery Hill, run by the Wiesenhaven Brothers. The Irish, including Anastasia and Timothy Hayes, hung out at Father Smyth’s tent church, St Alipius. The Chinese dined at John Alloo’s restaurant.
At the Adelphi Theatre Mrs Hanmer kept open house for the Americans. One of Sarah’s actors, Frank D’Amari, later said that most of the principal players in bringing justice to Bentley were Americans. It was the Americans, he said, who called for Bentley’s lynching. And it was Sarah Hanmer who was among the first of Ballarat’s prominent citizens to declare her allegiances in the Eureka Hotel crisis.
If the crew up at the Camp had been paying attention over the winter instead of worrying about their itchy trousers, they would have been keeping a close eye on the Adelphi and the formidable Mrs Hanmer.
