GETTING AHEAD
Going ahead—getting ahead—became the motto of the mid-1850s. It was as if the old
world was an enormous bog, dragging people down and suffocating their dreams—but
now there was an empty land far from home where you could break free from the sticky
mud of tradition and economic stagnation.
Charles Evans, aged 25 when he arrived in Victoria, was typical. On learning of
the discovery of gold, Charles and his older brother George were eager to go. They
hoped, as George recorded in his diary, to make their mother independent of others’
assistance.
CHARLES EVANS
THE SPECTATOR
DIDN’T TAKE SIDES BUT WROTE EVERYTHING DOWN
BORN Ironbridge, Shropshire, 1827
DIED Melbourne, 1881
ARRIVED September 1853, on the Mobile
AGE AT EUREKA 27
CHILDREN Unmarried at Eureka; later a father of twelve.
FAQ British lower middle-class, migrated to Victoria with brother George.
ROLE Established printing and auction house in Ballarat late 1853. Kept a detailed
diary, including events at Eureka. Recorded death of woman at Eureka.
ARCHIVE Diary, SLV MS 13518 (formerly known as the Lazarus Diary)
Twenty-two-year-old Dan Calwell left New York to come to Victoria with his brother
in April 1853. He told his sisters back home in Ohio that they could not imagine
how our hearts bounded in anxious anticipation of soon overstepping the long limited
boundaries. Even in America, the Land of the Free, the Calwell brothers felt the
weight of family expectation and middle-class convention. We are young, reasoned
Dan, and must do something to give ourselves a start in the world. We have human
hearts. Alexander Dick, a seventeen-year-old Scotsman, sought a new, free and better
life and deliverance from what I regarded as servile bondage.
Englishwoman May Howell saw her chance to escape the narrow expectations of home.
She looked forward to:
An independent life, trusting to yourself, putting forth all your energy, no leaning
on others, no one to control, or dictate to you, going where you like, doing what
you like, no relation laying down the law, and chalking out your path in life.
And it was not only single people looking to flee from lives bounded by rules and
routines. Irish couple Anastasia and Timothy Hayes already had five children when
they decided to try their luck on the diggings of Victoria. They were educated,
and devout Irish Catholics. They had already moved to England to further Timothy’s
career as an engineer when the Hayes family joined many other large tribes uprooting
to follow their dreams.
ANASTASIA HAYES (NEE BUTLER)
THE RED RAGGER EUREKA FLAGGER
RABBLE-ROUSER AND MULTITASKER, ABLE TO BREASTFEED AND SEW A FLAG AT THE SAME TIME
BORN Kilkenny, Ireland, 1818
DIED Ballarat, 1892
ARRIVED October 1852, on the Mobile
AGE AT EUREKA 36
CHILDREN Five children on arrival, sixth born on Ballarat diggings in 1854.
FAQ Irish Catholic aristocracy from County Clare. Married Timothy Hayes, oil merchant/engineer,
in September 1841. Teacher at Catholic school, sewed Eureka flag, husband was Chairman
of Ballarat Reform League. Allegedly involved in amputation of Lalor’s arm.
Victoria welcomed all youth of energy, adventure and courage. A restless generation
of young men and women united by one great notion: liberty.
If repression was the lock, gold was the key.