Chapter 3 - Business Enterprise

When the people of Ballarat heard they had the vote, there was a return of confidence. Frustrating inaction ceased and action began. The Main St. of Ballarat was alive and bustling.
    In 1854, George and Emma had wondered why they'd come to Ballarat when the stink of putrefying rubbish from foul gutters assailed their nostrils, but from 1855 people set out to remedy the problem.
    George's name doesn't seem to be on the voting register at this time. He wasn't on the electors' roll. Emily Ann Bryant was born on 3rd December 1857 at Ballarat; her father, George, is listed as a carpenter, and Emma signed her name on the certificate as Emma Bryant. There was plenty of work for carpenters; bakers and restaurants expanded.
    Perhaps George worked as a carpenter with miners whose claims were tunnelled underground when surface gold proved elusive. Gone were the days when a small claim was pegged for surface gold. Tunnels eight to sixteen feet deep needed an experienced carpenter to frame and roof it so that an imminent collapse of soil didn't spell disaster for the miner working below.
    Hession and calico buildings were replaced with wooden structures. During the hey-day of 1855-1857 Main St. greeted newcomers with shops, theatres, fire and floods, as well as the sight of loose hens scratching in paddocks; of narrow private lanes badly maintained, with potholes filling with water. Children stood wide-eyed, watching coaches pulled by ten horses galloping into Ballarat.
    Miners thronged to hotel/theatre complexes in the Main Street, to restaurants bakers' and butchers' shops. Floods and fires were common. Too often the air would be filled with a crackling sound of burning and the crash of collapsing houses. Showers of sparks fell like burning rain, and roofs fell in with a great shower of sparks.
    By 1859, Ballarat was transformed. Shops were on the move to West Ballarat, which would be closest to the main station when the railway line was completed in 1862. Hotels now outnumbered restaurants and bakers. Temperance Houses and Coffee Palaces were built to counter the numerous hotels.
    Churches, schools, benevolent societies, hospitals were built; Yuille's swamp was drained, and plans made that Lake Wendourie with adjoining botanical gardens would provide beauty for future generations. During the 1860's miles of footpaths and streets were made; shops and houses built; a free Public Library was established in 1862.
    Private enterprise outstripped public or government services. Local granite stone was used for many services. The Gas Company, established in 1858, was a private corporation which eventually laid over fifty miles of mains over Ballarat.
    Within a few short years, Ballarat was no longer a tent city. When Julia Victoria Briant was born on 9th August 1859 at Ballarat West, Emma signed her name Briant not Bryant, as it was spelt on the ship they sailed on when they set out for Geelong.
    George is no longer a carpenter, but his occupation is listed on the birth certificate as a baker. It now becomes easier to trace the history of the Briant family. The first record is in the Port Phillip directory 1839 - 1867 which lists the names and occupations of people in Seymour St., travelling from the west to the east.
    Three streets intersect north - Armstrong St., Lydiard St. and Ligar St. There is no mention of Neil Street, which was probably built later. Between Lydiard and Ligar streets there is a dispensary (Brown), plumber (Balmain) Naylor (carpenter) a coachdriver named Cameron, Geo. Briant, baker - three miners and a store-keeper named Corbett. Briant's bakery was on the corner of Seymour St. and Neil street - Neil street was obviously built after the miners left.
    This must have been an early period when the miners were encroaching on the shops, as happened in early Main St., and also before the North Star Hotel was built in the late 1850's or early 1860. There is a photo (said to be taken in 1861) of the North Star Hotel on the corner of Lydiard St. and Seymour St., with the Hope Bakery a few doors away. By 1865 George Briant was listed as the sole proprietor of the Hope Bakery, according to the Ballarat District Trade directory.
    On 14th October, 1859, the Ballarat Star notes that Lovitt & Briant bought the site of the bakery on Soldiers Hill, Seymour St., and that a son was born to G. Lovitt at the Hope Bakery, Seymour St., on 12th August 1860.
    A photograph taken in 1861 shows the Hope Bakery and a baker's cart with two horses outside. On the cart are the words "Lovitt & Briant (prop.) Hope Bakery."
    In Birtchnell's directory for 1862, Lovitt & Briant, bakers, corner Seymour and Neil St. Soldiers' Hill, Ballarat, advertised their bakery. This indicates that Neil St. was built between 1860 and 1862. This is their advertisement:

    HOPE BAKERY
     Balls, suppers, pic-nics, etc., contracted for.

    A constant supply of first-class Adelaide and Victorian
                  flour at Mill prices.
   NB   Bread, flour, biscuits, etc., delivered daily
          within three miles of the Post Office.

    Withers, in his book "The History of Ballarat" published in 1870, tells of the first sales of land auctioned in 1856, one of which, the Hope Restaurant, Mason & Dana advertised in the Main St., and which the bakery owner bought on 16th December 1856 for the upset price of seventy eight pounds.
    There is another record which details the auction of a Hope Bakery, corner Barkly and Main St. on 10th March, 1858; upset price one hundred and thirty pounds,, valuation one thousand two hundred pounds, bought by P. Mason.
    By 1859 the Main St. was declining as business moved west or in a northerly direction. By 1861 a Hope Bakery was on Soldiers' Hill, but whether it had any connection with the earlier Hope Bakery is a mystery; or whether George Briant ever worked at the Main St. bakery as a baker is also a mystery.
    In 1861 on 21st July my grandmother, Louisa, was born. In that same year, Julia Victoria died of scarlatina. In the earlier records of births, Emma Briant's handwriting is shaky when she signed the certificate, but from this time onwards her writing becomes very strong and steady. Her earlier fears had been overcome, it seems, and life was becoming more normal in Ballarat.
    In 1863 George Briant was granted a block of land on the corner of Lydiard and Howard St. for the sum of nine pounds eight shillings, but this was later sold. In 1865 George Briant is listed as the sole proprietor of the Hope Bakery, Seymour & Neil Streets.
    The photograph in our possession of the Hope Bakery in 1861 highlights an imposing Martin's North Star Hotel with a gas light in front and curtained windows on the top floor. The hotel is on the corner of Lydiard and Seymour St. Today it is much the same as in the old photo, except that there is now a verandah, and no gas light.
    A few doors down Seymour St. is the Hope Bakery with a family group standing outside. It, too, was brick. It remained a small but permanent bakery business until 1912, when many small bakers incorporated into a Co-operative.
    Neil St. had taken over the miners' land. By 1859 Ballarat had extinguished all traces of its rough origins - gas lighting lit the town; roads and streets were made; and, from 1859 onwards, Withers comments:

    "The auctioneers also reported on that day (18th December 1855) an improvement in the building business and a number of stores and neat Gothic-looking houses in course of erection." By 1859 there was an air of permanency around Ballarat.
    George's occupation was shown as a baker when Julia Victoria was born in 1859; on 21st July 1861 Louisa was born, but in that year Julia died; Charles Joseph was born in 1863; Alfred Henry in 1866; and another girl named Julia Victoria was born in 1870.
    Life was settling down, and they felt happy watching their young family grow. Ann, David's widow, married a Joseph Pateman, born in 1835 at Wendy Cambridgeshire. They lived at Tarnagulla, where Joseph worked at the "Jim Crow" mine, and had five children.
    George, baker, was established in his profession. Like many of the diggers who had arrived in 1854 in time for the gold rush, he wanted to go on the land. His aim was to build a family farm. Many other settlers had the same idea.
    Only Louisa remembered his longing and the difficult days which settlers on the land faced. The other family members knew nothing of this venture. So, after my grandmother's death, I became consumed with curiosity to find out more about the Briants who hopefully became settlers. Land files from the Lands Dept. kept at the Public Records office of Victoria provided the answer.

Page last updated - 18 Jan 2006