The Eureka Rebellion was a series of events involving gold miners who revolted against the British administration of the colony of Victoria, Australia during the Victorian gold rush. It culminated in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which took place on 3 December 1854 at Ballarat between the rebels and the colonial forces of Australia. The fighting left at least 27 dead and many injured, most of the casualties being rebels. There was a preceding period beginning in 1851 of peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience on the Victorian goldfields. The miners had various grievances, chiefly the cost of mining permits and the officious way the system was enforced.
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia, approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony, and an influx of population growth and financial capital for Melbourne, which was dubbed "Marvellous Melbourne" as a result of the procurement of wealth.
The Eureka Flag was flown at the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which took place on 3 December 1854 at Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. It was the culmination of the 1851–1854 Eureka Rebellion on the Victorian goldfields. Gold miners protested the cost of mining permits, the officious way the colonial authorities enforced the system, and other grievances. An estimated crowd of over 10,000 demonstrators swore allegiance to the flag as a symbol of defiance at Bakery Hill on 29 November 1854. It was then flown over the Eureka Stockade during the battle that resulted in at least 27 deaths. Around 120 miners were arrested, and many others were badly wounded.
John Basson Humffray was a leading advocate in the movement of miner reform process in the British colony of Victoria, and later a member of parliament.
James William Esmond was an Irish-Australian gold prospector and miner, and was one of the first people to discover gold in Australia.
The Bendigo Petition was an attempt by miners in the colony of Victoria to demand reasonable limits to taxation and improved access to land from Governor La Trobe, a representative of the British Government. In particular the miners requested reform of license fees applicable to miners on the gold fields. The Bendigo Petition built on the earlier demands enunciated by miners at the Forest Creek Monster Meeting of 1851.
The Ballarat Reform League came into being in October 1853 and was officially constituted on 11 November 1854 at a mass meeting of miners in Ballarat, Victoria to protest against the Victorian government's mining policy and administration of the goldfields.
The Miner's Right was introduced in 1855 in the colony of Victoria, replacing the Miner's Licence. Protests in 1853 at Bendigo with the formation of the Anti-Gold Licence Association and the rebellion of Eureka Stockade in December 1854 at Ballarat led to reform of the system with a lower annual fee of five shillings for the right to mine gold, the right to vote, and the right to own land. Previously, the mining licence cost eight pounds a year.
Ballarat Heritage Services, also known as BHS Publishing, is an Australian publisher in Ballarat, Victoria. It was founded in 1998 by Clare Gervasoni, Dorothy Wickham and Wayne Phillipson, to promote Victorian local and family history in historical gold mining towns of the Victorian gold rush. It also distributes historical and specialist publications which are difficult to locate.
William Bramwell Withers was a journalist and novelist best known for writing the first history of Ballarat, Victoria. Born in England, Withers moved to Natal, South Africa, in 1949 and contributed to local newspapers. He moved to Victoria in 1952, working odd jobs before becoming a reporter for the Argus and the Herald in Melbourne.
The Battle of the Eureka Stockade was fought in Ballarat, Victoria, on 3 December 1854, between gold miners and the colonial forces of Australia. It was the culmination of the 1851-1854 Eureka Rebellion during the Victorian gold rush. The fighting resulted in at least 27 deaths and many injuries, the majority of casualties being rebels. The miners had various grievances, chiefly the cost of mining permits and the officious way the system was enforced.
Ellen Francis Young was an early proto feminist poet living in the time of the Australian Gold Rush.
The following bibliography includes notable sources concerning the Eureka Rebellion. This article is currently being expanded and revised.
Edward Thonen was a German emigrant to Australia, and one of the miners involved in the Eureka Rebellion in Ballarat, Victoria. He was captain of one of the miners' divisions. When soldiers stormed the Stockade on 3 December 1854, Thonen was one of the first to be killed in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade.
The 1854 mining revolt in Australia, Eureka Rebellion inspired numerous novels, poems, films, songs, plays and artworks. Much of Eureka folklore relies heavily on Raffaello Carboni's 1855 book, The Eureka Stockade, which was the first and only comprehensive eyewitness account of the Eureka rebellion. The poet Henry Lawson wrote about Eureka, as have many novelists.
The following is a timeline of the Eureka Rebellion.
There were key people involved in the Eureka Rebellion who subscribed to the ideals of Chartism and saw the struggle on the Victorian goldfields as a continuation of the activism in Britain in the 1840s and "the centuries of heroic struggles in England which preceded the Australian Federation" such as the 1688 Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the enactment of the English Bill of Rights. From 1837 to 1848, 129,607 incomers to Australia arrived from the British mainland, with at least 80 "physical force" chartists sentenced to penal servitude in Van Diemens Land. Currey agrees that the population at the time would have been sufficiently politically awake such that: "it may be fairly assumed that the aims of the Anti-Corn-Law League and the Chartists were very familiar to many of the Victorian miners."
The Eureka Stockade was a crude battlement built and garrisoned by rebel gold miners at Ballarat in Australia during the Eureka Rebellion of 1854. It stood from 30 November until 3 December. The exact location of the stockade is unknown and is a matter of debate among scholars.
The Eureka Stockade Monument is situated at the presumed site of the Battle of the Eureka Stockade. It is located on the Eureka Stockade Memorial Park in Ballarat, Victoria. A public meeting was held on 16 April 1884 to discuss the construction of a permanent monument in honour of the event. A. T. Morrison was the founding honorary secretary and treasurer. It was reported on 31 May that 200 pounds had been raised and four 64-pounder cannons were supplied by the defence minister, Sir Fredrick Sargood.
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