Escalating tensions

The meeting at Bentley's hotel could be said to mark a turning-point in the relationship between government and diggers on the Ballarat goldfields. Against the background of the Melbourne trials of Bentley and those accused of burning down his establishment, and the investigations of the Board of Enquiry into the conduct of the local magistracy, the Resident Commissioner, Robert Rede pursued more obstinately a program of licence hunting. Also putting on a bold front, the diggers began to organise and protest on a grander scale. What began as open air meetings would by the end of the month come to the arming of volunteers and the construction of a stockade.

The Ballarat Reform League
The arming of the Government camp
The Southern Cross
Documents

The Ballarat Reform League
The Charter of the Ballarat Reform League, a document produced after the first large diggers meeting on 11 November, and taken to an interview with Lieutenant Governor Hotham on 27 November, was perhaps the major production of this group. Enlarging on the committee for the defence of the Eureka Hotel rioters - McIntyre, Westerby and Fletcher, it had the input of two diggers-cum-newspaper proprietors, J.B. Humffray (The Leader) and George Black (The Diggers Advocate), as well as others of a communal turn of mind. The principles endorsed by the meeting marked a shift of emphasis on the part of the diggers from complaints about immediate grievances to suggestions of more general remedies.

The November 11 meeting, attended, it was claimed, by 10, 000 miners, elected Humffray as President of the League, and Black as its Secretary. In this capacity, together with George Kennedy, they presented the document to Hotham with a demand for the release of the Eureka Hotel rioters, gaoled on 20 November.

Demands, of course were an entirely inappropriate method of communication as far as the government was concerned. This point can be appreciated if one compares the wording of the Charter to that of any of the other petitions on the site. The interview with Lieutenant Governor Hotham never really got past this point.

The delegation communicated the news of the unproductive interview at another large open-air meeting on Bakery Hill on 29 November. The later discusion concerned the future direction of the Reform League, as the advocates of direct action, such as the burning of licences as a first step, came to the fore. A further meeting was scheduled for the afternoon of 3 December to elect a new central committee. This meeting never happened.

The arming of the Government camp
What had helped to inflame emotions at the 29 November meeting was a skirmish that had broken out the night before between troops of the 12th Regiment on their way to the Government camp and miners in the Gravel Pits area immediately below the camp, through which the troops had to pass. The regimental drummer boy was wounded in the affray.

All of this provided grist for another despatch to Melbourne by Resident Commissioner Rede, who had been growing increasingly uneasy in his position. His fears could only have been made worse by the sort of information he was receiving - even before the Monster meeting - about what was happening on the goldfields. His response to the agitation on the fields was first of all to muster troops and make plans for the defence of the camp. By 30 November, Rede had available a force of over 400 men under the command of Captain John Thomas.

Alongside these plans, however, was an insistence by the camp that licence hunts should be prosecuted as a sign of the government's resolve. In this spirit, a hunt was conducted in the Gravel Pits on the morning of 30 November. Bolsterd by the declaration of resistance the day before, the miners turned out in numbers, and the ensuing riot saw some minor injuries and several arrests. In the fullness of time those arrested: Benjamin Ewins, George Goddard, Duncan McIntyre, William Bryan, Donald Campbell and John Chapman; were tried, and acquitted. They were charged under the Riot Act, and the prosecution was concerned to show that the Act had been read, signalling that a riot formally existed, before arrests were made.

The Southern Cross
However, in the immediate sense, the clash pushed both sides to points of no return. After the riot a second meeting was called on Bakery Hill, and the Southern Cross flag was raised. After some discussion, calls were made for volunteers, and Peter Lalor administered an oath to "stand truly by each other and fight to defend [your] rights and liberties". The meeting adjourned to the Eureka diggings, where the flag was set up again, and on the afternoon of the following day, 1 November, a stockade was constructed. These events are described in an open letter Lalor later (10 April 1855) sent to the Argus newspaper. Lalor is concerned to establish the somewhat symbolic point that the final step to rebellion was taken only after the Govenment forces present had demonstrated their own lawlessness by firing before the Riot Act had been read. It was this demonstraton, Lalor concludes, that led the diggers to adopt measures for their own defense.

Whether or not these niceties were actually being observed in the Gravel Pits on the day, the documents show that by now both sides had developed the language to describe their opposing causes and defend them against the other. Hotham's final few despatches to the Governor before the Sunday are increasingly strident in their determination to crush the incipient revolt as the only method of dealing with it, matching perfectly the diggers' own determination to resist whatever force was thrown at them.

Documents