The Ballarat War broke out in the simmering goldfields of Victoria
Posted in Australia, Geology, Historical articles, History, Politics on Tuesday, 7 August 2012
This edited article about the Australian Gold Rush originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 760 published on 7th August 1976.
The count-down to catastrophe began with a murder. The Eureka Hotel at Ballarat in the heart of the Victorian goldfields was run by three ex-convicts, James Bentley, his wife, and John Farrell.
Farrell ruled the roost by tough tactics and had managed to get a liquor licence over the heads of far more worthy candidates.
One night, a much-liked Scottish miner, James Scobie, was killed in the hotel. Suspicion at once fell on the two men and they and Bentley’s wife were accused of murder and rapidly found not guilty.
Fury erupted in the goldfields. We know that the miners smarted under corrupt police and, especially, under the infamous Captain Armstrong, and resented the licensing laws that forced them to pay high fees for mining. Worse, they had had to show their certificates continually, this holding up their work. Armstrong had finally been dismissed and left laughing, having made a fortune. But the resentment continued, especially as it was becoming harder to find gold.
The miners – the “diggers” – believed in “mateship” and they hated being ruled by all-powerful authorities in distant Melbourne, where they had no say in the government. Yet it was the diggers who were making Australia boom, and especially the Victorian diggers, who had found even more gold than those in New South Wales.
And now three villains had escaped justice.
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