The Eureka Rebellion

On the 2nd December 1854 Peter Lalor and a band of diggers marched to the Eureka gold lead. Here they erected a roughly built slab stockade. The goldfields Commissioner Robert Rede believed the police camp to be in danger and sent for reinforcements. Tensions mounted throughout the day and the stockade was fortified with over 1000 men. By midnight only about 120 diggers remained at the barricade.

Norman Lindsay
Peter Lalor (n.d)
watercolour, chalk
Collection: Ballarat Fine Art Gallery

At around 3.30am on Sunday 3rd December at least 290 well armed troops attacked the stockade. Shots were fired and a bloody battle ensued;

... coarse cries and oaths came from the police, soldiers and rebels alike- cries of fear, of pain; shouts of rage, threats and... screams of horses, the crackling roar of weapon fire. Men fell, bleeding...

(Transcript of incidents at Eureka derived from evidence at Eureka trials, February - March 1855 in B.O’Brein, Massacre at Eureka, Melbourne, 1992, p.89)

Charles A. Doudiet
Eureka Slaughter 3rd December 1854 (1854)
watercolour
Collection: Ballarat Fine Art Gallery

J.W. Thomas, the Commanding Officer of the government forces in his official report of the rebellion noted;

We... advanced quietly towards the intrenchments where the revolutionary flag was flying... we were received by a rather sharp and well directed fire from the rebels.. [and]. for about ten minutes a heavy fire was kept up by the troops advancing... the intrenchment was then carried and I ordered the firing to cease. All persons found within the intrenchment were taken prisoner...

(J. Harvey, Eureka Rediscovered, Ballarat, 1994, p.26)

S.D.S Huyghue
Plan of Attack, Eureka Stockade 1870
watercolour
Collection: Ballarat Fine Art Gallery

Agnes Frank who arrived in Ballarat in 1854 was an eyewitness to the rebellion. In a later interview she recollects;

My father was aroused on the Sunday morning by the soldiers firing and quickly called us...From our tent door we could see the redcoats as they knelt on the ground and fired... We returned home after the military had marched the prisoners away and visited the stockade and saw a number of dead bodies and some of the pikes the blacksmiths had made..

(J.Harvey, Eureka Rediscovered , Ballarat, 1994, p.37)

S.D.S Huyghue
Eureka Stockade 1882
watercolour
Collection: Ballarat Fine Art Gallery

The Italian miner who participated in the Eureka uprising, Raffello Carboni, also described the attack;

... another discharge of musketry was sharply kept on by the red-coats (some 300 strong) advancing on the gully west of the stockade, for a couple of minutes. The shots whizzed by my tent...

(J.Harvey, Eureka Rediscovered, Ballarat, 1994, p.31)

Of all of the stories and accounts surrounding the Eureka rebellion one of the most interesting is the tale of the Pikeman’s Dog. The dog belonged to a band of pikeman who stood their ground against the Government troops during the uprising.When his owner, a pikeman who sustained fifteen bullet and bayonet wounds, was killed, the faithful dog took up a protective position on his dead master’s chest. Howling with grief ,the dog was removed by onlookers but returned to again sit on his master’s chest. The body of the unclaimed pikeman was carted away with the dog sitting on his chest. An official at the Eureka camp noted that the dog

Through the ordeal of fire that morning had kept its post beside its stricken friend with a devotion that softened the beholder...

The fate of the little dog remains unknown

Over thirty diggers, soldiers and bystanders were killed at Eureka. It was all over in a matter of minutes.

Last revised: March 04, 1999.

...................