Eureka - The Unfinished Revolution (2 page)

And early on, to my shame, I realised I knew more about that Boston Tea Party than I did about this seminal episode in our own history. I had no idea, for example, that on the eve of the Eureka battle, an Australian ‘Declaration of Independence’ had been written and enunciated; that diggers from other goldfields had marched to the aid of the men on Ballarat behind a man brandishing a sword as the lightning cracked, while they all sang
‘La Marseillaise’!
I simply didn’t know that for the first part of the actual battle the rebels gave at least as good as they got; that Karl Marx himself had followed the Eureka uprising and written about it; and that the court cases after the battle, as they put 13 of the rebels on trial for High Treason, had been the seminal court cases in Australian history and nothing less than a triumph of Australian justice. How exciting I found it that, far from being an isolated ‘local tax revolt’ as some of its deriders would have it, the Eureka rebellion was nothing less than the flowering of a broad international movement towards democracy, a flowering that put Australia at the very prow of democratic change around the world.

In short, I soon became obsessed with the whole story, and determined to blow the dust off the saga and try to bring it to life using every resource I had and could access.

In terms of making it accurate, the bad news was that there are so many layers of mythology surrounding what actually occurred, and even conflicting contemporary accounts, that it was frequently difficult to separate fact from fiction. However, the good news was that the source material – diaries, letters and newspapers – Was bountiful beyond belief and rich in wonderful detail.

Of course, it will be for you, the reader, to judge whether or not I have managed to pull it off, but my aim at the outset was to take that rich detail and place it at the service of making this book feel like a novel – to take the thousand points of light represented by footnoted fact and place the reader in the moment, rather than in the 21st century looking back with a telescope on events long ago. It is the approach I have employed in my books since coming under the influence of the American writer Gary Smith in 2000, most particularly in
Kokoda, Tobruk
,
The Ballad of Les Darcy, Charles Kingsford Smith, Batavia
and
Mawson
– but only with Sir Douglas Mawson have I been as blessed with as much fine detail as was available on this book. For the sake of that novel-like feel, for the sake of the storytelling, I have very occasionally created a direct quote from reported speech in a newspaper, diary or letter. For the same reason, I have stayed with the imperial form of measurement and used the spelling of the day, as in ‘Toorac’, as opposed to ‘Toorak’. In instances where two spellings were used at the time – i.e. ‘Ballarat’ and ‘Ballaarat’ – to avoid confusion I have chosen the modern version. And finally, in my attempts to make the story live and breathe, when no positive determination can be made as to which of many versions of the truth is correct – who designed and sewed the original Eureka flag, for example – I have put my reasons for choosing the version I did in the endnotes, rather than interrupt the narrative flow.

In terms of researching the book, it was, if you’ll forgive the laboured metaphor, like finding myself in an entire goldfield of information, and I learnt very quickly where the most fertile fields, bearing the most valuable nuggets, were to be found.

As I note in my dedication, the most valuable of the accounts from the time that I drew upon, and certainly the most colourful memoir, is the one written by Raffaello Carboni, despite its oft-maddening chronological contradictions. I also cite the diaries of Samuel Huyghue, Samuel Lazarus, John Lynch and the later personal accounts of Godfrey Howitt, Ellen Clacy, Antoine Fauchery, Henry Nicholls, Charles D. Ferguson and the aforementioned William Craig. The letters of Charles Pasley to his father were invaluable, as were the government official reports to their superiors, for example, those written by both Commissioner Robert Rede and Lieutenant-Governor Sir Charles Hotham. A compilation of contemporary accounts,
Eureka: From the Official Records,
assembled and edited by Ian MacFarlane, was a wonderful resource. Similarly, I would not have completed this book to the standard I desired without the Victorian Government’s collected papers – ‘Correspondence Relative to the Recent Discovery of Gold in Australia (1852-1856)’ which allowed me to gain better insight into the government’s side of the story. As an addendum,
Historical Studies: Eureka Supplement,
a collection of significant academic articles published on the centenary of Eureka in 1954, was invaluable.

Of the historians who tackled the subject, William Bramwell Withers is the obvious stand-out in the 19th century, due to the fact that he lived at Ballarat and was able to draw on the memories and direct correspondence of many of the key players, who trusted him enough to tell him what they knew.

Of the modern writers, the book to which I most constantly referred was John Molony’s
Eureka.
As to other books, the most valuable to me were Weston Bate’s
Lucky City,
H. J. Stacpoole’s
Gold at Ballarat
and, for a strong, clear overview of the whole story and excellent images, Geoff Hocking’s
Eureka Stockade.
Gregory Blake’s book,
To Pierce the Tyrant’s Heart
was vital for the wonderfully colourful and accurate details it provided for the actual assault on the Stockade. As a man who worked for four years compiling that book, I was grateful when Greg agreed to work with me to ensure that my own detail was well founded. As it turns out, we did not agree on all things, as I drew different conclusions from the evidence presented on a couple of issues, but he remained a fantastic source of advice and detailed information on the whole Eureka saga, and I thank him warmly. Similarly, David Hill’s book
The Gold Rush
provided a great overview of the history of gold digging in this country, including Eureka, and I am thankful that David was also a great source of advice throughout my writing of this book. Both Thomas Keneally and David Day have also covered Eureka in their own writings and were generous with their counsel, from which I profited, and I am in their debt. Beyond the aforementioned Craig brothers, I was contacted by many proud descendants of Eureka figures and they were universally helpful. But I particularly acknowledge the Noyce family, descended from Samuel Perry; Trevor Carroll, descended from Patrick Carroll; and Hazel Brombey, descended from Barnard Welch.

In all of my historical books since
Kokoda,
I have called on my friend Dr Michael Cooper’s twin passions for medicine and history to help inform me on the medical aspects of the story, and in this book he was as valuable as ever, giving me detailed advice on everything from what a fresh bayonet wound would look like to how they amputated arms in Australia in 1854. I thank him warmly for his input, once again. I am indebted also to Dr Stephen Gale from the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney for his expertise on matters geological, most particularly how gold was formed. Dr John Waugh of the University of Melbourne was wonderfully generous in lending his expertise on Australian constitutional history, as was my quasi-cousin, the former NSW Liberal parliamentarian Andrew Tink. I warmly thank them both. I am indebted to both Graham Fricke – the former County Court judge who practised at the Victorian Bar for 21 years before becoming an author on legal history – and Julian Burnside QC for their input on my chapter concerning the Eureka trials. James Phillips, the noted heritage architect from Melbourne, provided useful information on architectural details from Melbourne at the time of Eureka, and I thank him. So, too, the noted vexillologist (a student of flags) Ralph Kelly – who is also on the board of Ausflag with me – was more than helpful putting his expertise at the service of this book, which I deeply appreciate. John Vaughn of Australiana Flags also gave me valuable input, and I very much appreciated being able to call on the knowledge of two Eureka experts in Dr Joseph Toscano of the Anarchist Media Institute and Dr Chris McConville of Victoria University. In London, Catherine Pope’s input on the English angles was very useful. Both Mark Latham and Gerard Henderson were useful and knowledgeable sounding boards on the political angles of the story, and I thank them.

Way back when I wrote my first book in 1990,
Basking in Beirut,
my dear friend at
The Sydney Morning Herald
,
Harriet Veitch, gave me wise counsel on every part of it and did the preliminary editing. Well, now 22 years and 25 books later, she still is, and I value more than ever her input into all things to do with the form and texture of this book. Similarly, I met my long-time researcher Sonja Goernitz at the Sydney Writers’ Festival seven years ago, and when I found she was German-born I thought I could probably use her talents for, perhaps, a day or two as I researched and wrote
Tobruk.
She, too, has worked for me on every book since and has been invaluable in terms of general research for
Eureka,
most particularly on the parts of the story set in New South Wales.

I also thank Glenda Lynch of Canberra, who pursued leads in the National Archives; Megan Schlipalius of Perth, who handled the WA angles; my friend Julia Baird, who is writing her own biography on Queen Victoria and who helped me with that part of the story; and Jill Blee in Ballarat, who was a constant fount of detailed information on particular elements of the Eureka saga. Jane Macaulay designed the superb maps and illustrations in
Mawson,
and did so for this book as well – I am indebted to her. I also thank warmly Tim Sullivan, the Deputy CEO & Museums Director of The Sovereign Hill Museums Association, who went well above and beyond the call of duty in helping me out when I was in Ballarat – and also local mining historian Peter d’Auvergne.

In terms of really in-depth research on the Melbourne and Ballarat parts of the story, however – going for the rich mother lode that lay deep down below the surface – I was blessed with the best.

For this particular book, I knew I needed someone on the ground in Melbourne to trawl the archives of the State Library of Victoria and the Public Record Office Victoria to get to the primary documents that, ideally, would allow me to sort through the many previously referred to layers of legend that have wrapped themselves around Eureka, not to mention the conflicting accounts from those there at the time, and try to work out what actually happened.

In this regard, I could not have done better than PhD candidate in Sociology at Deakin University Libby Effeney, who retrieved countless treasures for me and resolved many of the aforementioned conflicting accounts. In contemplating her input, I am reminded of a line my old rugby coach Peter Fenton said after the Sydney team I had the honour to be a part of toured Europe in 1984.

‘We thought,’ he told people afterwards, ‘we would take this kid Nick Farr-Jones along with us, to give him a bit of experience. But it turned out, he took us!’

Many people from many institutions were extremely helpful to both myself and my researchers in digging out information, but I particularly thank Bob Allen from the Eureka Centre in Ballarat, Tim Hogan and Chris Wade from the State Library of Victoria, the staff of the Public Record Office Victoria, the Mitchell Library in Sydney and those of The Royal Anglican Regiment Museum in England. A special thanks, too, to Jack Roberts and the team at Reason in Revolt, who digitised many of the existing issues of
The Ballarat Times
.
Thank you, especially, to the online digital project Trove, an initiative of the National Library of Australia, which has digitised many of the historical newspapers, in partnership with state libraries, used in the research of this book. What a resource that is – and what a privilege to be able to instantly access contemporary accounts from journalists on the ground at the time, compare them, and get ever closer to the truth.

I thank all at Random House, particularly Margie Seale, Nikki Christer and, as ever, Alison Urquhart for backing the project from the first. As to my editor, Brandon VanOver, he had a great feel for the story from the moment we began discussing it, and I am indebted to the thoroughness of his approach, his professionalism and skill in spotting inconsistencies, repetitive prose, and all the rest – and suggesting ways of fixing them.

Let me, most importantly, acknowledge the highly professional work of my dear friend and principal researcher on this book, Henry Barrkman, who also coordinated the work of many of the other researchers. His dedication to pursuing the highest degree of accuracy in any given matter was unwavering (read, obsessive to the point of needing medical help). This fanatical and high-energy streak was particularly useful in this book, as the mass of material of differing value required precisely his high level of skill and deep care to get it right. I am in your debt, Henry – as is this book.

Finally, I thank my wife, Lisa, a professional editor by background, who kept me sane through the toughest part of the writing and, as ever, provided unending encouragement and strength whenever I flagged. (Still, it was always a Eureka flag, now that I come to think of it.)

All up, I hope you enjoy reading the book at least half as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Peter FitzSimons

Neutral Bay, Sydney

September 2012

Author’s Note

For the sake of good storytelling, I have very occasionally created a direct quote from an indirect quote in a newspaper. However, this has required only changes to pronouns, word endings and the like, and I have always remained faithful to the original. I have certainly not created any words or concepts that do not appear in the original source. For example, the original, ‘He protested against the whole of the proceedings; the meeting was more to enrich the rich, and oppress the poor man’, now reads, ‘I protest against the whole of the proceedings,’ he finishes his address. ‘This meeting is more to enrich the rich, and oppress the poor man.’