Ballarat, the state of Victoria’s biggest inland
town, might seem sleepy now, but back in
the 1850s it was legendary! The city was at
the centre of one of the biggest gold rushes
the world has ever seen. Ballarat’s fine
Victorian buildings, neat botanical gardens
and wide streets hint at the riches that once
passed through the gold miners’ hands.
Gold!
Edward Hargraves, who’d been in California for the
gold rush of 1849, was the first man to discover gold in Australia.
As he walked through the bush near Bathurst in New South Wales,
it suddenly occurred to him that the landscape looked a lot like
California. Hargraves
grabbed a spade,
struck gold and changed
history. Soon, gold was
discovered further south,
in Victoria. The Rush
was on!
Tent City
News travelled slowly in the 1850s, but it was
fast enough to send the magic ‘gold’ word all around
the world. Hundreds of thousands of prospectors
raced to Victoria. There were no houses available for
the huge new populations that sprung up around the
digging sites. When gold was found at Poverty Point
in 1851, what had once been the sheep farm
of ‘Ballaarat’ suddenly became, almost overnight,
a tent city instead.
Trouble Brewing
Life was hard for most of the arrivals in the
‘Golden City’. Few struck it rich. The surface gold quickly
ran out and most had to sweat long days panning in rivers
instead. Others dug deep shafts in the hope of finding a
few nuggets buried in the earth. To make matters worse, the
men were forced to buy expensive mining licences from the
authorities. Soldiers would scour their diggings two or three
times a week, arresting anyone without the right paperwork.
Eureka!
When a digger was killed at the Eureka
Hotel, and the presumed killer wasn’t brought to
justice, things turned violent. Men grabbed their
guns and built a stockade, making a circle out
of wooden stakes and horse-carts. The miners
swore allegiance to the Eureka flag – a white
cross and stars on a blue background. On 3
December 1854, the government forces overran
the stockade in a quick and bloody battle. In ten
minutes, as many as 34 miners were left dead or
wounded. The rebellion was over.
SOVEREIGN HILL
Ballarat was so shaped by its glittering past, in 1970 it
decided to build a full-scale replica Gold Rush town
complete with shops, schools and underground mines.
Sovereign Hill is an amazing outdoor museum, offering
a glimpse of city life in those crazy, strike-it-rich-quick
days. Visitors can pan for real gold, explore the dusty
streets, or take a ride in a horse-drawn coach.
All that for Nothing?
The Eureka stockade deaths weren’t
completely in vain, however. Three years later
the Victorian Parliament gave the vote to all white
men in the colony, a move that could have been a
direct result of the uprising. Today the Museum of
Australian Democracy (MADE) stands on the site of
Eureka Rebellion. It looks back at the rebellion as an
inspiring example of people bravely taking matters
into their own hands when they felt that justice
wasn’t being done.
Ballarat NOW
Modern Ballarat is a peaceful, provincial city.
Although the gold is long gone, there are still
many signs of those dramatic early days. The
centre of town is lined with grand, Victorian
buildings and there are monuments and
memorials all across Ballarat that honour the
bravery of the rebels. Even now, the
Eureka flag is still flown.