We Are the Rebels (20 page)

And conditions weren't just crowded, they were squalid:
unfit for the men to reside
in
, wrote Sub-Inspector Taylor to his Melbourne superiors in August. The canvas tents
were
for the most part perfectly rotten
, proof against neither rain nor sun, as they
had been in use for over two years. Taylor was inspired to alert HQ to the situation
after the tents were torn to shreds in a fierce storm.
The rain of last night completely
saturated the beds and blankets
, he wrote in July,
so much so that the men were all
huddled together in one tent
.

The third sibling squabbling over its share of the puny pie with the civil service
and the police was the military. By the winter of 1854, the members of the 40th Regiment
stationed at Ballarat, and in some cases their wives and children, were also housed
in leaky, draughty tents.

Corporal John Neill, an Irishman, lived in the Camp with his wife Ellen and their
baby. Ellen Neill was certainly not the only military wife in the Camp, but since
the army didn't keep records of its wives, there is no information about any others.
Still, her experiences and those of her husband were probably common. Corporal Neill
kept a diary that speaks poignantly of the conflict between his family duties and
his military role. He writes of having to coax his daughter to sleep in her cot on
the hill,
only to have her awaken screaming
as gunshots rang out on the flats each
night.

The tents were mouldy, the stables were falling apart, the men were unhappy about
the quality of the uniforms (itchy, expensive and badly made—and the men had to buy
their
own), the married officers had no privacy and no one was getting a good night's
sleep. If that wasn't enough to make a grown man cry, the force as a whole seemed
to be perpetually plastered.

Police constable John Reagan was suspended for being
not shaved, dirty, and having
all the appearance of an habitual drunkard
. Daniel Wright was
discharged with bad
character as he was frequently under the influence of liquor
. Trooper James Butler
was transferred to the foot police due to being a
very slovenly man who knows nothing
of horses
. Arthur Shirvington was imprisoned in the Camp lockup for two days after
he went absent without leave all night and
returned home drunk and fighting in public
houses
. Acting Sergeant John Dougherty was found in Canadian Gully
lying in a state
of stupidity from the effects of drink
. Thomas Milne was sentenced to three days'
imprisonment for being drunk on guard. Constable William Thompson was sentenced
to three months' imprisonment for habitual drunkenness. He was said to be
presently
labouring under a very severe attack of Delirium tremens
. In August the lockup keeper
requested the sub-inspector to accompany him to the prison
to see the state of the
Sentry posted there…the sentry was lying on his face and hands insensibly drunk,
his arms were placed by the side of the door…the man was in such a state that he
was obliged to be carried away on the shoulders of another man
.

By late August the police chief, Inspector Gordon Evans, was asked to explain what
he intended to do about his force's appalling behaviour and morale. He responded
that he couldn't discharge everyone guilty of
inveterate habitual drunkenness
or
he wouldn't have enough men to do the job. The number of commissioned officers was
already below its authorised number and those who were in the Camp
frequently complain
of their
duties being rendered more arduous in consequence of this insufficiency
.
Guards on night shift were forced to perform on the following day various backbreaking
tasks (including carting wood and water, which should have been the job of a paid
labourer)
and frequently that of searching for unlicensed miners
.

Many men had either applied for discharges, committed some heinous act in the hope
of being discharged or simply deserted. In July, one brave and uncommonly literate
constable, L. H. Webb, wrote directly to the Chief Commissioner of Police requesting
a discharge. He knew the proper procedure was to go through Ballarat's inspector,
but he was unwilling to do so because of Evans' past form in taunting and bullying
his men.

I am not a drunken soldier
, wrote Webb,
I can pluck up spirit to complain of oppression…petty
tyranny should be restrained and the advantages of position should not be a vantage
ground wherein the officer may insult and wound the feelings of an inferior with
impunity
.

Was this a trap or a digger speaking? Between those on the hill and those on the
flats, the language they used to express grievance was eerily similar.

THE STRANGER

After the arrests of Andrew McIntyre and Thomas Fletcher for the burning of the Bentleys'
hotel, a ‘monster meeting' was called for 22 October. Over ten thousand people gathered
at
Bakery Hill to hear rousing speeches about the infringement of rights occurring
daily.
We are worse off than either Russian serf or American slave!!
fumed the Ballarat
Times. The Camp officials who so blatantly abused their offices must be removed!
The speakers called on the government to muck out their own stables before the people
of Ballarat were forced to make a clean sweep themselves.

There was no doubting the anger of the people. The ashes of the Eureka Hotel fire
were barely cold. But still, at this stage, the Times predicted that it would all
settle down into
a quiet constitutional agitation
, argued out—not fought out—on the
twin issues of taxation and representation.

A Diggers Rights Society was thereby established to keep the Camp honest, and the
Diggers Defence Fund called for subscriptions to help pay for the legal defence of
McIntyre and Fletcher. Down at the Adelphi, Sarah Hanmer threw her considerable
energies behind this cause, announcing a benefit to be held at her theatre. At the
end of the monster meeting there were
three cheers and one more for the kindness
of Mrs Hanmer
. While the presses at Clara Duval Seekamp's home were printing the
newspaper that gave voice to the people, Sarah Hanmer's business was providing the
stage for action, as well as filling the war chest.

The arbitrary nature of the arrests left the thousands of bystanders with the certain
knowledge that it could have been them. Many people believed Andrew McIntyre was
one of the few present at the riot who were actually trying to save the hotel property
and its inhabitants. Even Assistant Commissioner Amos, who was stationed at Eureka
and knew its diggers better than anyone, testified in McIntyre's defence. Thomas
Fletcher
,
wrote Charles Evans in his diary,
is about the
last man I should have thought
likely to take part in such a proceeding and besides this I knew from several circumstances
that he was like myself nothing more than a passive spectator.

Apart from natural justice, there was another reason to pass the hat around for those
unfairly fingered for the Eureka Hotel fire. McIntyre's 26-year-old wife, Christina,
was heavily pregnant with their second child, which would have contributed to the
communal outrage over his arrest. It was common practice—almost a point of honour—for
diggers to rally around the impoverished wife of a fellow miner after he was jailed
for being unlicensed.

The Eureka population was starting to come together over its sense of grievance and
Sarah Hanmer had the capital, resources and heart to mobilise the community. Christina
McIntyre reaped the advantage of this unwritten social contract in a way that Catherine
Bentley, who was also pregnant, and now homeless to boot, would not. Whether it was
true or just malicious rumour, Catherine was seen as having crossed over to the dark
side: as being involved in bureaucratic corruption and the privileges it bought.
In the moral economy of gold seeking, this would not do. It was acceptable to get
rich through hard work and luck, but not through graft and influence.

At the Adelphi, Sarah hung out her star-spangled flag for the disenfranchised miners.
Her benefit for the Diggers Defence Fund was a corker. The event was
of literally
great benefit to the fund
, reported the Geelong Advertiser.

Sarah and her troupe played to
a respectable and crowded house
. Charles Evans was
present and noted the animating effect the event had on the community.
Mrs Hanmer
,
Charles wrote,
gave up her theatre for their benefit and
[the play]
was
performed
to a crowded house, and in fact throughout the diggings there seemed to be but one
feeling, a warm sympathy for Fletcher & McIntyre and deep indignation at the
conduct of the Authorities.

Sarah's benefit raised over £70. The success of the event, and no doubt the amount
of press it garnered, prompted other theatre managers—Mr Hetherington at the Royal
and Mr Clarke at the Queens—to follow suit. Sarah Hanmer held several more benefits
for the diggers' cause during November. By the time it was all over, she had contributed
more money to the popular rights movement than any other citizen.

If the miners were the damsels in distress in the melodrama of Ballarat, then Sarah
Hanmer was the discreet sugar daddy.

YANKEE HQ

In Ballarat, every group had its special meeting place. Before the synagogue was
established in 1861, the Jews of Ballarat kvetched and prayed at the Clarendon Hotel.
The Germans drank and caroused at the Prince Albert Hotel on Bakery Hill, run by
the Wiesenhaven Brothers. The Irish, including Anastasia and Timothy Hayes, hung
out at Father Smyth's tent church, St Alipius. The Chinese dined at John Alloo's
restaurant.

At the Adelphi Theatre Mrs Hanmer kept open house for the Americans. One of Sarah's
actors, Frank D'Amari, later
said that
most of the principal players in bringing
justice to Bentley
were Americans. It was the Americans, he said, who called for
Bentley's lynching. And it was Sarah Hanmer who was among the first of Ballarat's
prominent citizens to declare her allegiances in the Eureka Hotel crisis.

If the crew up at the Camp had been paying attention over the winter instead of worrying
about their itchy trousers, they would have been keeping a close eye on the Adelphi
and the formidable Mrs Hanmer.

Any government spy worth his salt would have realised that the Adelphi Theatre had
become the centre of radicalism over the winter of 1854. Digger activists could gripe
and moan and rally and plot and plan in the open air, huddled around their shafts
or the campfire at night, but it was warmer, drier and harder to be overheard in
a spacious theatre tent guarded by a trustworthy collaborator. The Adelphi was a
safe house, presided over by Mrs Hanmer, a respectable widow and acclaimed theatrical
manager. She provided a refuge for the disaffected, with whose cause she clearly
sympathised.

Back in August one Frank Carey, from Orange, New York, had been arrested on a sly-grog
charge and fined £50. Nothing unusual there. Then he was charged again a few weeks
later, on 18 September, and there were strong rumours that he had been framed. For
this second offence, Carey received a prison sentence of six months in the vermin-infested
Ballarat lockup. Now there was outrage. Mary Stevens, an actor at the Adelphi, organised
a petition for his release signed by 1700 people. Mrs Hanmer gave a benefit to raise
funds for his release.

It was tricky for the goldfields administration because the Americans in Victoria
formed a large and prosperous class of merchants and entrepreneurs with a great deal
of influence.
The American Telegraph Line of Coaches, later to be known as Cobb and
Co., was particularly important. The company ran coaches that linked all the major
goldfields with Melbourne and with each other. This transport network was crucial
to pastoral and commercial expansion in Victoria. In Melbourne, George Francis Train,
Henry Nicholls and others were prosperous merchants with links to large international
financiers.

A goldfields fracas involving an American citizen was a delicate balancing act of
diplomacy between local affairs and the bigger picture of American influence.

It was for this reason that 21-year-old Mary Stevens' petition, with its lengthy
trail of signatures, went straight to the top of the government's in-tray. It prompted
the intervention of Robert Rede's superior, Chief Commissioner McMahon, and of the
American Consul in Melbourne, James Tarleton, who approached Governor Hotham on behalf
of Frank Carey. The Americans at Ballarat were
law loving and law abiding citizens,
he insisted.

On 29 October, Carey's sentence was remitted. Mrs Hanmer's players—take a bow. Your
encore is yet to come.

A CUNNING PLAN?

Governor Hotham made two slick moves in response to the burning of Bentley's Hotel.
He empowered a Select Committee to investigate the matter, taking evidence from
any person
who wished to speak up. At the same time, he ordered the extra companies
of the 12th and 40th regiments to fill the Camp with redcoats.

It seemed a cunning plan. Give the people the chance to vent, while establishing
a very obvious military presence.

Not everyone was convinced, however, that Hotham had Ballarat's best interests at
heart.
We ask for bread and we get a stone
, wrote the Ballarat correspondent to the
Geelong Advertiser.
We demand some attention be paid to our miserable conditions
and get sent an army.

The Committee took evidence at Bath's Hotel from 2 November to 10 November. The weather
was oppressively hot during this week, and hundreds of diggers took the opportunity
to sit for a while in the lounge bar and tell the commissioners what they thought
was wrong. Women gave evidence too, although their testimony didn't make it into
the published report that was tabled in Parliament on 21 November.