List of notable public officials in the Eureka Rebellion
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This is an incomplete list of notable public officials in the 1851-1854 Eureka Rebellion on the Victorian goldfields. The article is presently being expanded and revised.
Background[edit]
The Port Phillip District was partitioned on 1 July 1851 by the Australian Constitutions Act 1850, as Victoria gained autonomy within the British Empire after a decade of de facto independence from New South Wales.[1] Approval of the Victorian constitution by the Imperial parliament was pending, with an election held for a provisional legislative council consisting of 20 elected and ten appointed members subject to property-based franchise and membership requirements.[2]
Gold prospectors were offered 200 guineas for making discoveries within 320 kilometres (200 mi) of Melbourne.[3] In August 1851, the news was received around the world that, on top of several earlier finds, Thomas Hiscock had found still more deposits 3 kilometres (2 mi) west of Buninyong.[4] This led to gold fever taking hold as the colony's population increased from 77,000 in 1851 to 198,496 in 1853.[5] In three years, the total number of people living in and around the Victorian goldfields stood at a 12-month average of 100,351. In 1851, the Australian population was 430,000. In 1871, it was 1.7 million.[6] Among this number was "a heavy sprinkling of ex-convicts, gamblers, thieves, rogues and vagabonds of all kinds".[7] The local authorities soon found themselves with fewer police and lacked the infrastructure needed to support the expansion of the mining industry. The number of public servants, factory and farm workers leaving for the goldfields to seek their fortune made for chronic labour shortages that needed to be resolved.[8]
On 16 August 1851, just days after Hiscock's lucky strike, Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe issued two proclamations that reserved to the crown all land rights to the goldfields and introduced a mining licence (tax) of 30 shillings per month, effective 1 September.[9][10] The universal mining tax was based on time stayed rather than what was seen as the more equitable option, an export duty levied only on gold found, meaning it was always designed to make life unprofitable for most prospectors.[8][11]
There were several mass public meetings and miners' delegations in the years leading up to the armed revolt. The earliest rally was held on 26 August 1851 at Hiscock's Gully in Buninyong and attracted 40–50 miners protesting the new mining regulations, and four resolutions to this end were passed.[12] From the outset, there was a division between the "moral force" activists who favoured lawful, peaceful and democratic means and those who advocated "physical force", with some in attendance suggesting that the miners take up arms against the lieutenant governor, who was irreverently viewed as a feather-wearing, effeminate fop.[13] This first meeting was followed by ongoing protests across all the colony's mining settlements in the years leading up to the 1854 armed uprising at Ballarat.
Lieutenant governors[edit]
| Name | Period of service in the rank, promotions and previous military experience. Termination of service | Commentary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Joseph La Trobe | La Trobe served as the first lieutenant governor of Victoria from 1851 to 1854.[14] | ||
|
Charles Hotham | Hotham served as lieutenant governor and, later, governor of Victoria, Australia, from 22 June 1854 to 31 December 1855.[15] | He feared that the "network of rabbit burrows" on the goldfields would prove readily defensible as his forces "on the rough pot-holed ground would be unable to advance in regular formation and would be picked off easily by snipers," which led to the decision to move into position in the early morning for a surprise attack on the Eureka Stockade.[16] |
Colonial secretary[edit]
| Name | Period of service in the rank, promotions and previous military experience. Termination of service | Commentary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Leslie Fitzgerald Vesey Foster | Foster was first elected as the representative of Port Phillip in June 1846, at which time was a constituency in the New South Wales Legislative Council. In 1853 Foster was appointed as the colonial secretary of Victoria, which by then had separated from New South Wales. He served from 20 July 1853 to 4 December 1854. Foster was nominated member of the Victorian Legislative Council from August 1853 to December 1854.[17] | He enforced the mining licence fee with an iron fist, later resigning as the scapegoat for the armed uprising in Ballarat.[17] |
Attorney General[edit]
| Name | Period of service in the rank, promotions and previous military experience. Termination of service | Commentary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| William Stawell |
Victorian goldfields commission[edit]
Chief commissioner[edit]
| Name | Period of service in the rank, promotions and previous military experience. Termination of service | Commentary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| William Henry Wright | Wright was appointed as the chief commissioner of the gold department in May 1852.[18] |
Ballarat resident commissioners[edit]
| Name | Period of service in the rank, promotions and previous military experience. Termination of service | Commentary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| D.C. Doveton | In mid-September 1851, he was appointed by La Trobe as the first local gold commissioner for the Ballarat goldfields.[19] | ||
|
Robert William Rede | Rede was appointed to the Victorian goldfields commission in October 1852. From June 1854 to January 1855, he was posted to Ballarat and had responsibility for the government camp during the Battle of the Eureka Stockade.[20] | Following the armed uprising, Rede was recalled from Ballarat and kept on full pay until 1855. Rede served as the sheriff at Geelong (1857), Ballarat (1868), and Melbourne (1877) and was the Commandant of the Volunteer Rifles, being the second-in-command at Port Phillip. In 1880, he was sheriff at the trial of Ned Kelly and an official witness to his execution.[21] |
| James Johnston | Johnston was appointed as a magistrate and the assistant gold commissioner for the gravel pits on the Ballarat goldfields in November 1853.[22] | His responsibilities included organising licence inspections and hearing relatively minor infringements. Johnston was on the bench that presided over the inquest into the death of James Scobie, which sparked the armed uprising. He dissented from the other members of the panel and found that James Bentley and others should not be honourably discharged.[22] |
See also[edit]
- List of colonial forces in the Eureka Rebellion
- List of detainees at the Eureka Stockade
- List of Eureka Stockade defenders
- List of military leaders in the Eureka Rebellion
- List of notable civilians in the Eureka Rebellion
- List of Victorian police in the Eureka Rebellion
Notes[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Barnard 1962, p. 321.
- ↑ "The Victoria Electoral Act of 1851 No 3a". Act of 1851. New South Wales. Search this book on
- ↑ Barnard 1962, pp. 254-255.
- ↑ "MORE GOLD". Geelong Advertiser. Geelong. 12 August 1851. p. 2. Retrieved 11 December 2020 – via Trove.
- ↑ Barnard 1962, p. 255.
- ↑ Anderson 1978, p. 102.
- ↑ The Defence of the Eureka Stockade 1970, p. 6.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Barnard 1962, p. 261.
- ↑ Supplement to the Victorian Government Gazette, No 6, 13 August 1851, 209.
- ↑ Victorian Government Gazette, No. 8, 27 August 1851, 307.
- ↑ Blainey 1983, p. 158.
- ↑ "GOLD". The Argus. Melbourne. 30 August 1851. p. 2. Retrieved 19 May 2022 – via Trove.
- ↑ Clark 1987, p. 14.
- ↑ Corfield, Wickham & Gervasoni 2004, pp. 323-325.
- ↑ Corfield, Wickham & Gervasoni 2004, pp. 275-278.
- ↑ Three Despatches From Sir Charles Hotham 1978, p. 2.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Corfield, Wickham & Gervasoni 2004, p. 210.
- ↑ Corfield, Wickham & Gervasoni 2004, p. 554-555.
- ↑ MacFarlane 1995, p. 187.
- ↑ Corfield, Wickham & Gervasoni 2004, pp. 422-423.
- ↑ Corfield, Wickham & Gervasoni 2004, p. 443.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 Corfield, Wickham & Gervasoni 2004, p. 292.
Bibliography[edit]
- Corfield, Justin; Wickham, Dorothy; Gervasoni, Clare (2004). The Eureka Encyclopedia. Ballarat: Ballarat Heritage Services. ISBN 978-1-87-647861-2. Search this book on
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