Chapter 2 - Miners

    If George intended to mine for gold, he would have taken out a Licence Fee of three pounds per month before he left Geelong. (His family always said that, when they first arrived, he mined for gold.) This fee entitled a man to have an eight-foot square claim, or eight feet by sixteen feet for a party.
    In 1854, travellers from Melbourne or Geelong going to Ballarat either trudged along pushing a wheelbarrow containing their worldly possessions, or walking with knapsack on back, or riding in an uncomfortable coach which stopped overnight at Bacchus Marsh, and paying seven pounds for the privilege. It was another two years before Cobb & Co. coaches made the trip to Ballarat.
    Cobb & Co. coaches were American and well sprung, whereas the English type of coach had rigid springs and were very uncomfortable. It was common for both types of coach to get bogged in potholes and for passengers to get out and push the coach.
    In the circumstances, George had no alternative but to travel to Ballarat by coach, as he couldn't expect a woman with a young baby to walk while he pushed a barrow load of goods. Regardless of expense, his savings would soon disappear. So it is probable that his first job was as a goldminer.
    There were hundreds of people who had the same idea. There were at least six or seven hundred masts of ships to be seen in the port of Melbourne. In his book, "The Lucky City" Weston Bates said that it was the biggest migration until after the second world war migration to Melbourne.
    John Sadleir, in his book "Recollections of a Victorian Policeman" thought that every scoundrel in the southern states found his way to the goldfields. "The scum of the earth" he called them.
    New arrivals from British villages were greeted with a shanty town, akin to a Bombay bazaar, someone said; narrow private lanes badly maintained with potholes filling with water, and their first sight of the Main St. reminded them that only the courageous and not the fainthearted would survive.
    On the outskirts of the Main Street numbers of Chinese shuffled along with baskets slung from poles across their shoulders as they hawked their fruit and vegetables to the people. One-tenth of the traders had European names - there were French, Polish Jew, Scandinavians, Germans, Americans, Swiss, Italians and Canadians, according to the historian, Weston Bates.
    The road from Geelong to Ballarat was thronged with miners. The main street leading from Geelong paid scant attention of the traders whose shop fronts jostled with mining shafts which threatened to overwhelm the little space left for merchants and other shopkeepers.
    Despite this, in higgledy piggledy ways hotels, theatres, restaurants and bakers managed to maintain a foothold against the inroads of the miners. Roads and footpaths were unmade in 1854 - lowlying land was subject to floods in this part of East Ballarat, and the flimsy materials used in erecting what was in effect a shanty town resulted in sudden fires which destroyed everything in its path.
    Whirling dust, or a quagmire of mud, made life a misery. A small dam had been built in 1852, which was the water supply for Ballarat. Government buildings were equally as flimsy as the shops. They were hastily erected canvas shelters.
    As there was no gaol in Ballarat until 1856, newcomers would be greeted with the sight of miscreants chained to trees and logs by the police.
    Were Emma and George were in Ballarat before the Eureka rebellion? If they were, an English village seemed very civilised compared with the chaos surrounding them. Miners chained to trees without benefit of trial by jury denied a right taken for granted by Englishmen. The police force seemed to be controlled by the military, whereas in England Peel's Act of Parliament in 1823 divorced the military from the police force.
    Migrants were not to know that, when gold was discovered in Ballarat, shopkeepers deserted their Melbourne shops - police and public servants downed tools in their frantic dash to find gold nuggets which were said to abound, or that Governor LaTrobe wrote to the Governor-General in Sydney asking for an increase to the military force, when he felt a curb should be placed on events which seemed to be running away with the wits and bodies of the populace.
    He wrote: "I must have an increase to the small military force stationed here, sufficient, I trust ... to place the stockades, gaols and banks in safety." He also advised Earl Grey in the London Home Office of his predicament.
    If the Licence Fee was increased, he thought that the goldfields might be less attractive to many of the people ready to down tools in their search for gold. When surface gold was drying up, men had to dig shafts, and some claims did not yield enough gold to warrant paying the monthly licence fee, and, when an official came more than once a day asking to see their licence, they resented having to come to the surface again.
    The position of a policeman was seen as a very inferior occupation on the social scale, whereas the military in Sydney had always occupied a high status. Trial by jury had been a right, not a privilege, back in Britain, but in the colonies that right appeared to have been forgotten when a police magistrate presided over a bench with power vested in the magistrate's opinion.

    Murder! Arson! Never in their wildest dreams had people like George and Emma imagined that, on arrival, they would be confronted with a nightmare situation. Chaotic conditions ere to be expected in a makeshift tent city which was struggling with mud, floods and fires. But they expected British laws to prevail.
    It is possible that their arrival coincided with the excitement and agitation over the murder of a digger named James Scobie, who was killed in a scuffle at the Eureka hotel, which was owned by a man named Bentley, whom the diggers considered had participated in Scobie's murder. Bentley was arrested, but was acquitted by the police magistrate, Mr. Dewes.
    The populace was aroused, believing that the police magistrate was under pecuniary obligations to the prisoner, and he corruptly urged the acquittal. In October 1854 an angry miners' meeting resulted in the burning of Bentley's hotel, and men who said they were innocent were charged with burning the hotel to the ground.
    Men clamoured for trial by jury, and let it be known that they also resented the aggressive way officials demanded miners show their licences. They were also concerned with not having a vote. In Britain the franchise had been extended by the Reform Bill of 1832, but in Australia someone said that they had no more rights than the native population.
    Agitation was widespread over the goldfields - at Bendigo, Clunes, Cresswick as well as Ballarat. As 1854 drew to a close, dissatisfaction became more evident. When the three men charged with setting fire to Bentley's hotel were convicted, everyone felt it was a miscarriage of justice.
    A mob was rising without a leader. Hundreds of individuals, all with their own opinions, but agreed upon their antagonism against the authorities, proved dangerous. Peter Lalor, son of an Irish member of Parliament in the House of Commons, tried to channel the anger of the mob through Parliament; so did W. Humffray, a Welshman whose views were moderate. They suggested a Reform League through which miners' grievances could be taken to Parliament in Melbourne.
    The consensus of opinion was that the Legislative Council as the only House of Parliament was not acquainted with the problems of the ordinary man. If miners' rights were to be activated, they needed representation within the Parliamentary system, therefore another House of Parliament should be instituted. Two Houses of Parliament should be their aim, with the common man given the vote.
    Unfortunately, two Commissioners on the goldfields. Rede and Johnston, directed another of the digger hunts on 30th November 1854. The military rode in, swords unsheathed from their scabbards, scattering men as they rushed for shelter towards their tents. Shots were fired after them, and indignation was high when women and children were in those tents.
    Although troops had been pelted as they approached Ballarat on the 27th November, a monster meeting had been held the next day urging moderation. Humffray and the delegates of the newly formed Reform League had given a resume of the conference with the Governor and their presentation of a petition regarding the conviction of the men charged with burning Bentleys's hotel. Humffray had told them that he had seen Ebenezer Syme, then of the "Argus" (later editor of the "Age") and Peter Lalor had urged the crowd not to be hotheads or blockheads but had moved that the League should meet the following Sunday to elect a central committee.
    It seemed ridiculous that, after that meeting on the 29th November, when the mob's anger had been calmed and urged to channel that anger into more sophisticated objectives of parliamentary reform through electing a central committee to further their aims, that the authorities would launch another digger hunt, firing on tents. The moderate voices were ignored after this, and a stockade was hastily erected, diggers drilled, and a crude flag flown.
    On Saturday night, 1st December, it was wet. Many returned home, including Humffray and a priest who tried to calm the mob. Peter Lalor remained, as did a German, Vern, who had earlier urged the diggers to burn their licences, and an Italian, Raeffelo who volunteered to act as interpreter.
    My grandmother, Louisa Briant, Emma's fourth living child, had a daughter whom we knew as Aunty Vern. It is probable that George Briant told Louisa about the events at Eureka and Emma's sheer terror. Her terror might have caused George to think: "When my ship comes in, I'll get the land to build a large house and farm for us, Emma."
    Many diggers had similar ideas. They wanted land, and gold was a means to an end. On Sunday, 2nd December, the stockade was stormed by troopers, mounted and foot police. Volleys of shots were fired, troops rushed in with fixed bayonets, tents were burned, and Peter Lalor escaped but with a shattered arm. The prisoners taken were sent to Melbourne to be tried for treason.
    Humffray told people that on Monday he would go to Melbourne to see Ebenezer Syme, and that he hoped the "Argus" newspaper might explain to the people that military force and digger hunting had brought matters to a head, not any intention of overturning the government.
    He also addressed a meeting in the grounds of St. Paul’s church. In an upstairs room opposite the Church grounds was a policeman, John Sadleir, who wrote in his "Recollections" that he watched the crowd with a contingent of police, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. He was puzzled why so many well dressed people stood and listened to the speaker, then quietly dispersed. When Humffray returned to Ballarat, he found the district of Buninyong was under martial law.
    Buninyong had been the government headquarters until 1853, when Ballarat was made the official centre of the district. Buninyong was five to six miles from Ballarat, and prisoners were held in gaol there, until the erection of a gaol in Ballarat in 1856.
    Humffray addressed a large meeting on his return, and the crowd passed a resolution regretting the proceedings of the previous week, and the fact that martial law had been proclaimed. The meeting pledged to use every constitutional means to restore order on the goldfields, and voted to bring their grievances to the Legislative Council.
    Humffray moved that a copy of the resolution should be forwarded to Sir Charles Hotham and a deputation appointed to see his representatives at Ballarat to present the copy. The Governor's representatives, Captain Pasley and Commissioner Rede received the deputation coldly, and arrested Humffray.
    The "Argus" newspaper reported about the monster meeting held in the St. Paul’s Reserve in Melbourne, at which the people called for a commission of inquiry to be appointed by the government to report on gold-field grievances. The mood on the goldfields was ugly. Without the vote, British subjects were no longer free - Humffray's arrest proved this.     Next day, Humffray was released.

    On the 1st April, 1855, Melbourne streets rang with cheers when the diggers charged with treason were released, and there were to be two Houses of Parliament, as in Britain. Here in Victoria it would not be a House of Commons but the Legislative Assembly, where the common man could vote for his representative in Parliament.
    Men had the vote if they were native born or naturalised Australian; were over twentyone; had a freehold estate valued at one hundred pounds above all charges or encumbrances, and had been in possession of ownership six months prior to the date of registration. Or else they could be a householder occupying a dwelling house to the value of ten pounds per annum, being a resident six months prior to registration.

Page last updated - 18 Jan 2006