Blood on The Southern Cross

Friday: ITA weekend in Ballarat. That is the International Teachers' Association consisting of many teachers who have been on exchanges over the last thirty years. They organise weekends for us and host us for free. It is great to meet upo as a group and to be able to share with each other and at the same time to tap in to the experiences of those who have gone before us.

I booked the sound and light show (with meal) which told the story of a rebellion in Ballarat at the height of the gold rush.

The population of the Victorian goldfields peaked in 1858 at 150,000. Between 1851 and 1860, an estimated 300,000 people came to Australian colonies from England and Wales, with another 100,000 from Scotland and 84,000 from Ireland. During this period, the colony of Victoria received 60% of all immigrants to Australia.
In 1854 there were about 25,000 diggers of many nationalities on the Ballarat goldfields.

Law and order on the goldfields was enforced by the Gold Commission's police force which was later reinforced by a garrison of soldiers.The diggers, in protest to injustices held a public meeting (10,000 attended)and decided to publicly burn their mining licences. At this meeting the famous Southern Cross flag, which was to become known as the Eureka Flag, was displayed. They build a stockade on a hill where many of them lived which became known as The Eureka Stockade. The stockade itself was a makeshift wooden barricade enclosing about an acre of the goldfields. Inside the stockade some 500 diggers took an oath on the Southern Cross flag, and over the following two days gathered firearms and forged pikes to defend the stockade.

Early in the morning of Sunday 3 December the authorities launched an attack on the stockade. The diggers were outnumbered and the battle was over in twenty minutes. Twenty-two diggers and five troops were killed. Plenty of Irish involved who were not afraid to stand up to the establishment. If only so many of them were not gone to the pub when the redcoats attacked the stockade, there might have been a different outcome and we could be looking at a different Australia today.

Good meal and a great show.