The Koori

The first inhabitants of Ballarat, and surrounding areas, were the Aborigines, who, ranging over a wide area, lived in sympathy with nature for over 30,000 years. The only disturbance to the landscape was the burning off of old grass that produced new pastures to entice game. Unlike the Europeans, who displaced them, they were happily accommodated in flimsy lean-tos and ate possums and kangaroos and what could be grubbed from the ground.

White Settlers

The white man broke into their world, fenced them off from lands associated with their gathering and hunting activities and sacred sites. The white population, that considered itself superior, regarded the Aborigines, who reacted to the European appropriation of their lands, as indolent thieves.

After crossing the Western District of Victoria, Thomas Mitchell informed pastoralists and farmers of its wealth and usefulness. Excited by the prospect of making their fortunes, many young men made their way into the area that Mitchell called "Australia's Felix". They pegged out runs on crown land, for which they paid an annual £10.00 licence fee.

The district around Ballarat was discovered by a party that left Corio Bay in August, 1837. They first sighted the area from Mt. Buninyong. While they moved further west and north-west they returned to settle in the area several months later. All of the area around Ballarat was occupied by 1840. The major pastoralists in the immediate vicinity were two Yuille cousins, Archibald and William, who settled an area encompassing the Yarrawee River, and Black Hill Basin, open ground to the west and south and the area to the north around Lake Wendouree, which was first known as Yuille's Swamp. This predominantly masculine community was made up of squatters, their managers, shepherds and bullockies.

Gold

Ballarat did not remain long undisturbed. In a very short time this "pleasant resting place" was denuded of much of its prize vegetation, pock marked by holes and disfigured by tailings that collected into sludge and polluted the delightful waters of the Yarrawee.

Gold was first discovered at Buninyong in August 1851 by Thomas Hitchcock, a self-employed blacksmith. Buninyong, the first inland township settled from Pt. Phillip, was at this time a sizeable community, boasting a Presbyterian Church, a boarding school, a public house, a smithy's store and a population of sawyers, splitters, teamsters, and itinerant bush-workers.

Shortly after the Buninyong discovery, miners announced a find at Clunes, which drew gold-seekers, not only from Melbourne, but also from Buninyong. The Clunes find was itself soon eclipsed by the discovery of rich alluvial deposits at Golden Point, where rival parties fought over the honour of being first on the scene. Other areas were opened up at Eureka, Black Hill and Canadian.

Mining progressed through various stages in Ballarat. Alluvial mining gave way to deep lead mining, which required trenches, some of them from 70 to 100 feet in depth. In time, miners reinforced trenches with saplings to prevent cave-ins. Water, from seepage, was also a problem and needed to be bucketed out. During downpours, when the Yarrawee burst its banks, the low-lying trenches were usually flooded. Eventually, miners in the area were required to purchase licences. This was a bone of contention. To cope with the increasing financial outlay required as mining became more sophisticated, partnerships were formed, sometimes with shopkeepers and others who were interested in investing in this enterprise, which, while chancy, sometimes yielded great dividends.

In time the focus shifted from East Ballarat to Ballarat West and to quartz mining, which required more capital and considerable expertise. It was at this stage that larger mining companies were formed and men began working for wages. Shafts were driven through the basalt, leads were discovered and systematically mined and the quartz was brought to the surface and crushed. Earlier methods had required it to be extracted from clay through a process called puddling.

The extent of fortunes to be made from mining fluctuated. Years of plenty were followed by lean years, when the pinch was felt alike by the miners and the storekeepers who serviced and sometimes entered into partnership with them. A distinct feature of the development of mining in Ballarat was that even larger scale ventures were capitalised from within Ballarat itself. Money circulated within the city.

In the early days Ballarat was a cosmopolitan township. The aggrieved and impoverished Irish were there in force. The diggings also attracted Americans, Scandinavians, Germans, and, a little later, a sizeable contingent from Wales, whose expertise in quartz mining was highly valued. The Chinese were also conspicuous. The multicultural nature of the township was most evident in Main Road, which had grown up like topsy. Restaurants, theatres, Chinese josh houses and brothels

competed with iron mongers, blacksmiths and candle makers. Buildings were made out of wood and fires frequently reduced portions of the road to smoking embers.

In contrast to the bustling activity of the East, the West developed an air of sobriety. The Camp, the official headquarters of the police, the army and the mining commissioner, were built on an elevated plain above the early mining developments. In time, banks, insurance companies, coach works and other, more permanent, commercial ventures spotted the elevated area to the west of the Camp settlement. Hotels were also built in the respectable part of the town. Churches, which, in the early days, were little more than shelters which were transferred from one place to another, were constructed out of more permanent materials.

The Ballarat diggers were generally orderly. In the early stages, when they were allowed to adjudicate their own disputes, a high level of morality prevailed. However, the imposition of an unnecessarily heavy licence fee, together with licence hunts, which were organised by some of the later gold commissioners with the backing of Governor Hotham and other public officials in Melbourne, aroused resentment, which eventually boiled over. Men of substance and education were treated like felons. Their mates, the licensees of sly-grog shops, were also hounded. The first indication that the situation was explosive was the burning of Bentley's Hotel, which, while partly accidental, reflected resentment against corrupt officials, who, it was felt, were willing to countenance murder.

Eureka

Unwilling to moderate their behaviour, or to look honestly at the grievances of the miners, camp officials precipitated a confrontation on 3rd December, 1854 at the site of the slab stockade erected at the head of the Eureka Lead. While the miners, who were attacked in the early morning when most of their number had drifted away to their camp sites, lost the battle, they won out in the end. Those arrested were eventually acquitted and the reforms for which they fought were granted. The pity of it was that the logic of their grievances could not have been realised earlier and the bloodshed prevented.

Eureka stands out in Australian history as the prototypal protest of the powerless against the powerful, of the common people against corrupt officialdom. This stance, perceived by many to be an aspect of the Australian temperament, is related to the development of the Australian experience of mateship, a mateship forged in opposition to injustice.

From East to West

During the 1860's and early 1870's the city centre shifted from East to West Ballarat. Major mining activity transferred to the West. The East was left to be

picked over by those who lacked the capital to engage in quartz mining, or who were unwilling to work for wages. It also attracted the Chinese.

The West also became the commercial and industrial hub of the town. Industries sprang up, particularly those connected with metal work, such as foundries and engineering works. More permanent buildings began to be built and encouragement was given to the development of skilled trades.

Homes also became more substantial. Larger hotels were built and a produce market drew farmers to the area.

The decision to site the station linking Melbourne and Ballarat in Ballarat West signalled the end of the supremacy of the East. While left with most of the poorer citizens, the East did not surrender its position without a fight. The grandiose town hall they built reflected their indomitable spirit.

By 1871 the population had reached 47,000. The area had begun to be beautified through the planting of trees and the development of the Lake Wendouree; a city had been established.

The Churches

The churches were not slow in establishing themselves in Ballarat.

Wesleyans

The Wesleyans, with their tradition of seeking out human need and of following the population to far out-posts, were the best situated to minister to the mining population of Ballarat in its early years. The first worship service held at Ballarat was conducted by a few Wesleyans who assembled in a tent belonging to John James, near the intersection of Grant Street and the Yarrawee. They held their class meetings seated on fallen logs. Dense bush gave them privacy.

Meetings were later held in a hut on Winter's Flat, and then in a tent at White Flat, when the diggings shifted to Golden Point. The first full-scale service, held at Golden Point, was conducted on Sunday morning 28th September 1851. Mr. J. Sanderson, a local preacher, spoke on "Ye are bought with a price" from 2 Corinthians. There were about 100 present. On the following Sunday the Rev. Mr. Lewis, a Wesleyan minister from Geelong, held forth at 11am and then at 7pm at Black Hill.

A new chapel, constructed from saplings and boughs, over which was stretched a tarpaulin, and which was without a pulpit, was opened on 12th November. Despite persistent rain, worshippers turned out in force. Mr. Jones, of Tasmania, gave the first pound and nuggets rolled in fast and furious. However, despite this auspicious beginning, this was the only service held in the building. A find at Forest Creek

emptied the area of its population the following weekend.

The first substantial chapel to be built by the Wesleyans was constructed on Sinclair's Hill, later renamed Wesley Hill. Their enthusiasm for building churches continued unabated. The first church building, using permanent materials, was erected by the Wesleyans at the corner of Lydiard and Dana Streets. While the building was in the process of construction, workmen narrowly escaped stray bullets fired off by insurgents on the flat.

Presbyterians

In 1847 a Presbyterian preacher, the Rev. Thomas Hasty, arrived at Buninyong, whose inhabitants, through gifts and personal labour, had constructed a manse and church. The Learmonths were prime movers in the venture. Hasty's parish included the area bounded by Batesford on the Barwon to Glenlogie in the Pyrenes and included all the country for miles on either side. The Learmonths, who had plans of establishing a cheap boarding school for the children of shepherds and other bush-workers, delayed doing anything until the minister was permanently settled in the area. With Hasty's arrival, plans were made and the school opened in 1848. The school lost its teachers with the discovery of gold, which also caused prices to rise. Thomas Hasty was faced with looking after the school and its sixty boarders himself. It was kept afloat through many ups and downs and eventually became a Common School with an average attendance of some 180 children.

The first class meeting of the Presbyterians, held in Sanderson's tent on Golden Point, attracted the attention of the Rev. Hasty. He asked those he had heard singing so enthusiastically if they would accompany him to a service he was conducting at the Commissioner's Camp. It became his practice, after services at Buninyong in the morning, to ride to the Ballarat diggings on Sunday afternoons to hold services wherever he could gather together sufficient hearers. Though friendly, in the best bush tradition, Hasty was nevertheless too tied to the decorum associated with church buildings and traditions to take up opportunities of ministry that lay open to him.

At the time of the Eureka rush, a tent was erected for worship by the Presbyterians on the Eureka flat. They afterwards built a wooden church on Specimen Hill. With the Ballarat congregation a little more settled, Hasty urged them to call a minister. The Rev. James Beard was invited and ordained in 1855. On Sunday afternoons a Gaelic service was held in the building. As Ballarat West grew in importance, a service was held at a spot midway between both places. The West ultimately won out and services moved there, being held in the Council Chamber at the corner of Sturt and Lydiard Streets. In this same period a church was built on Soldiers Hill. However, as the Lydiard Street site was considered more convenient, the church at

Soldiers Hill was made into a school. In 1858 Beard resigned and was succeeded by the Rev. William Henderson.

Roman Catholics

The Catholic population, made up largely of Irish immigrants, was not forgotten by their priests. Fr. Dunn, of Geelong, was the first priest to visit the diggings. His first church was a tent near Brown Hill, where the worshippers knelt on quartz gravel. The early priests identified closely with their people. While they urged moderation on the Tipperary boys, especially during the events that led up to the Eureka rebellion, they kept close to them and spoke up in their defence.

Anglicans

The Anglican establishment was ill-suited to the Ballarat environment. The hierarchical structure of the church and its formal worship did not allow them the flexibility needed to effectively reach the diggers. Characteristically, the first Anglican service was held in a police court in Ballarat West. A small wooden church was afterwards built in Armstrong Street, where the Anglicans continued to worship until Christ Church was built in Lydiard Street. The first congregation established by Anglicans in Ballarat East met in a tent on the site of St. Paul's reserve. A weatherboard building constructed on the site was later replaced by the present brick building.¹

[BCOC 1-6]