Eureka Stockade

On 29 November 1854, independent gold miners (or "diggers") at the Eureka goldfield in Ballarat, Victoria, gathered to protest fees and licence requirements imposed on them by the Victorian government. They also constructed a stockade to block off their mines from government access. On 3 December, Victorian police and soldiers, called into service by the Victorian lieutenant-governor, attacked and destroyed the stockade, violently engaging the diggers. The attack, which pitted soldiers armed with muskets and bayonets against civilians armed with nothing more than makeshift spears, was over in fifteen minutes and left more than twenty-two diggers dead and a dozen more badly wounded. The public outcry over the troops' use of force fostered the expansion of democracy in Australia.

Background

In February 1851, Edward Hargraves made the landmark discovery of gold by Bathurst, New South Wales. The discovery sent shockwaves through the New South Wales community, leading would-be prospectors to leave their jobs to go in search of their own fortunes. Hargraves's discovery had a significant impact in Melbourne (then part of New South Wales), where the bustling city's economy suffered after labourers left their jobs en masse to go north. That July, Victoria officially became a separate colony. Its lieutenant-governor, Charles La Trobe, sought to counter the exodus from Melbourne by actively promoting gold mining in Victoria, including offering a reward for anyone who found the precious metal in the colony.

One year before Hargraves's discovery, however, William Campbell had already found gold while working at a station in Clunes, Victoria. Fearing that the droves of gold prospectors would descend on Clunes as well, the station operator, Donald Cameron, withheld announcing his discovery until it became apparent that Victoria needed to attract home its residents. When Cameron did make known the discovery, Victoria also saw a tremendous spike in its population—not just from fellow Australian colonists, but from a surge in continental European, Asian and North American immigrants who also looked to strike a fortune.

However, the population explosion in Victoria did not translate to economic success. Melbourne remained quiet, as able-bodied citizens poured their own resources into independent mining operations outside of the city. Prospectors had few tools: a simple tin pan, cradle and puddling trough was used to extract small amounts of surface gold. Others dug deep makeshift mines, cutting down nearby trees to build wood slabs that helped keep open the mines. Miners did not own the land they worked, and the work was hard and dangerous. Yet the incentive—finding a large deposit—was too tempting for diggers to return to their regular jobs (even when wages increased due to the growing labour shortage). La Trobe, fearing economic collapse, decided to impose a monthly licence fee on gold miners. His hope was that the fee would both slow the influx of miners to the region as well as generate much-needed revenues to right the economy.

Opposition to the imposition of fees was exacerbated by the manner in which they were collected. Victorian police held twice-monthly licence checks (also known as "digger hunts"), during which they would go to goldfields in search of diggers who had not paid their fees and arrest them. Police corruption became rampant, and fewer finds were made. In June 1854, a new lieutenant-governor, Charles Hotham, took office and within months increased the digger hunts to twice weekly in an effort to bolster the colonial revenues, thereby antagonising the diggers.

The Road to Rebellion

In October, thousands of diggers organised to discuss a case in which a Scottish miner in Eureka was killed in an altercation with a politically connected hotelier, who was exonerated. The hotelier's business was set ablaze; those who started the fire were quickly arrested and prosecuted. In response, the diggers in November sent delegates to Hotham to insist on the release of the imprisoned diggers, an end to the licence fee and universal male suffrage (only the wealthy could vote for the Legislative Council members then). Hotham refused and instead sent police, backed by two army regiments, to Ballarat. The commissioner of the Ballarat goldfields, Robert Rede, then ordered more digger hunts—a public show of force to identify and detain the opposition and salvage his reputation after the hotel fire.

With the increased security presence at Ballarat, a diggers' group called the Ballarat Reform League, on 29 November, held another massive meeting. Rallying under a new flag featuring the Southern Cross emblem (which would become known as the Eureka Flag), the group agreed to burn licences and selected Irishman Peter Lalor as their leader the following day. Under Lalor's direction, the diggers pulled the timbers out of the nearby mines and used them to build a stockade to keep out the Victorian security forces. For two days, inside the stockade, diggers prepared for a confrontation.

In the early morning hours of 3 December, three hundred troops, armed with muskets and bayonets, quickly tore down the stockade. The force was far superior to that of the diggers, some of whom only had wooden pikes to defend themselves. Within about fifteen minutes, the "rebellion" had been put down—125 diggers (many of whom were badly wounded) were arrested; at least twenty-two were dead. In contrast, only six troops were killed. The stockade itself completely disappeared—the wooden slabs used for its construction were taken to other mines. For well over a century, the exact location of the stockade was a mystery, although in 1884, a monument was constructed at the site many believed to be the location of the structure. In the early twenty-first century, researchers using geographic information systems technology were able to confirm that the monument's location was indeed accurate.

Impact

The show of force by the Victorian government did not have the effect intended, as the rule of law was almost immediately questioned. The public, seeing what for many amounted to little more than a massacre, quickly became sympathetic to the diggers and their cause. Within a few months, twelve of the thirteen diggers arrested at the stockade were acquitted. Moreover, attempts by government officials to rally public support for Hotham failed as scores of pro-digger citizens came to the events.

Meanwhile, Hotham ordered the creation of a royal commission to investigate wages and other issues pertaining to such sites as Ballarat. One of the commission's subsequent recommendations was an end to the licence fees and instead impose a modest tax on any gold that the diggers unearthed. Additionally—in an attempt to gain favour among the pro-diggers, Victoria wrote a new constitution and formed a two-chamber parliament, including the Legislative Assembly, for which diggers with mining rights could vote. Lalor, who was wounded in the clash at the Eureka stockade, was among those elected in 1855. Two years later, near-universal male suffrage was approved in Victoria, enabling greater public participation in the Victorian government.

Bibliography

"Eureka Stockade." Ergo, State Library of Victoria, 2024, ergo.slv.vic.gov.au/explore-history/golden-victoria/impact-society/eureka-stockade. Accessed 18 June 2024.

"Eureka Stockade." National Museum Australia, 26 May 2023, www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/eureka-stockade. Accessed 18 June 2024.

Harvey, J. T. "Locating the Eureka Stockade: Use of a Geographical Information System (GIS) in a Historiographical Research Context." Computers & the Humanities, vol. 37, no. 2, 2003, pp. 229–34. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30204893. Accessed 18 June 2024.

Vyas, Karishma. "Gold in Victoria." SBS Gold!, Victorian Cultural Collaboration, 2024, www.sbs.com.au/gold/story.php?storyid=29. Accessed 18 June 2024.