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Sunday 28 June 2015

Protest in 1853: the beginnings

At the beginning of 1853, a series of unconnected incidents when the police acted corruptly or over-zealously contributed to mounting bitterness. A petition from Korong in January protested against police perjury and brutality and a month later, La Trobe brought a policeman to trial for wounding an escaping digger. [1] Incidents like this undermined what little faith the diggers had in the police but they were isolated occurrences. However, a more extended episode occurred on the new Ovens field near Beechworth where ten thousand miners were concentrated at Reid’s Creek. In early February, a trooper accidentally killed a digger during a police raid leading to the Police Camp being stormed and the destruction of all their weapons. Order was quickly and sensitively restored by J. M. Clow, the able commissioner at Spring Creek. [2] At a meeting on 11 February chaired by Dr Owens, the miners decided to petition for a full enquiry. [3] La Trobe agreed to change police personnel on the field and assured the petitioners that he would not tolerate those who abused their authority. Owens was nominated as the diggers’ representative at a promised enquiry into the past management of the goldfields on 14 March. [4] By late March, it was reported that Chief Commissioner Wright, in the absence of instructions otherwise from La Trobe would take evidence alone and that Owens should submit his evidence both to Wright and La Trobe.[5] This evaded an understanding that Owens would sit with him on a board of enquiry resulting in a furious meeting on 5 April when, for the first time the diggers’ movement called for the vote. [6]

Photograph of Ovens printed in 1857 Ovens Directory

That in passing this resolution, this meeting cannot refrain from expressing a hope that the day is not far distant when the right of representation in the Legislative Council will be conceded to the Diggers of Victoria.

The meeting submitted their resolutions in the form of a petition to the Legislative Council. [7] The diggers’ organisation on the Ovens field became less vibrant once miners had been ‘much scattered’ to other fields and there was no long-term public movement when Anti-Gold License-Tax meetings were held on other gold-fields in July and August.[8] Owens continued advocating diggers’ rights notably in a letter to the Argus in late July 1853 in which he identified the ‘important three points of the diggers’ rights’:

1st To obtain at once the total withdrawal of the entire license-fee tax, not to accept as a final measure the reduction to ten shillings—and thus establish free labor for the poor man of all countries on the gold-fields’

2nd To obtain an entire change in the government of the gold-fields, in accordance with the common rights of Englishmen and thereby do away with the inefficient and obnoxious system of Commissioners altogether.

3rd To obtain for the mining districts a full and fair representation in the Legislative Council of this colony. [9]

Owens also attended and spoke at meetings in Bendigo in September. [10]


[1] Geelong Advertiser, 12 January 1853, p. 2.

[2] ‘Scraps from the Ovens’, Argus, 8 February 1853, p. 4, details the incident on 3 February and its immediate aftermath.

[3] Johnston, Allan, ‘John Downes Owens (1809-1866)’, ADB, Vol. 5, pp. 385-386. ‘Scraps from the Ovens’, Argus, 15 February 1853, p. 4, ‘The Ovens Petition’, Argus, 7 March 1853, p. 11,

[4] ‘Scraps from the Ovens’, Argus, 22 March 1853, p. 4.

[5] ‘Scraps from the Ovens’, Argus, 29 March 1853, p. 9. Correspondence between Wright and Owens was printed in Argus, 16, 17, 24, March, 9 April 1853.

[6] ‘Important Public Meeting at the Ovens’, Argus, 8 April 1853, p. 9.

[7] Kent, B., ‘Agitations on the Victorian Gold Fields’, Historical Studies, Vol. 6, (1954), pp. 265-269.

[8] ‘Scraps from the Ovens’, Argus, 6 August 1853, p. 4. A meeting was nonetheless held on 8 August, Argus, 26 August 1853, p. 4.

[9] ‘To the Diggers of the Ovens Gold-Fields’, Argus 29 July 1853, pp. 4-5. See also his letter to the editor, ‘The Diggers and the Press’, Argus, 22 August 1853, p. 5.

[10] Argus, 2, 5 September 1853, p. 5, p. 4.

Saturday 6 June 2015

Unlocking the Land

At the beginning of 1853 the Government established a programme of public works helped by the ready availability of finance and labour. Improvements to roads supported by expenditure by the Legislative Council and supplemented by tolls were aided by setting up a Central Roads Board. [1] There were improvements to street lighting and drainage in Melbourne and Geelong and an act in January 1853 authorised the creation of a university. [2] Despite this and recognition that the Government was now working more effectively, the attacks on La Trobe in the Argus were unrelenting and in December 1852 he resigned, though he remained in office for over a year until his successor was appointed. In the early months of 1853, the Government was severely criticised by the miners over two issues; the need for land reform, and the increasingly vexing issue of police brutality.

Until 1851, squatters’ privileges were not a major concern since there was sufficient agricultural land available to meet demand. Between 1846 and 1851, more than 100,000 acres of land had been sold in the ‘settled’ districts near Melbourne, Geelong and the coastal towns. The Imperial Waste Lands Act 1846 and the Order-in-Council of March 1847 granted leases of up to fourteen years to squatters in the ‘unsettled’ districts covering the northern half of Victoria and for up to eight years in the ‘intermediate’ districts that included the Western District and Gippsland. In both areas, squatters had the sole or pre-emptive right to buy any part of the land during the period of their leases. However, a precise survey was necessary for this to have legal effect, and this had hardly begun by 1851. [3] Once the gold rushes began, growing demand for farming land put pressure on the government to open some of the squatting areas. [4]

This situation created major problems for La Trobe. Should squatters be given pre-emptive rights if leases could not be issued? Squatters were buying and selling land on the assumption that pre-emptive rights applied. Equally pressing was whether the Government could sell any public land outside the ‘settled’ districts where there was little unsold land left. La Trobe was not a defender of the squatters and argued for a liberal interpretation of the 1846 Act believing that it was the duty of government to sell land when and more importantly where it was needed. Consequently in late March 1853, he reserved 700,000 acres ‘for public purposes’ where pre-emptive rights did not apply.[5] The Argus saw this as evidence that ‘the lands are really to be unlocked at last’. [6]

Some members of the Legislative Council were highly critical of the squatters but in July 1852, they were defeated on a motion of extend the boundaries of the ‘settled’ districts and that leases be issued for the ‘intermediate’ districts so that the Government could bring forward land for sale without having to rely on its reserves. Squatters were unwilling to compromise and La Trobe’s executive voted with them to demand the immediate issue of leases for all pastoral land outside the ‘settled’ districts. [7] This was a short-lived victory and radical members of the Council mounted a strident public campaign that led to a compromise of sorts. Protests against the squatters were bitter reflecting long established hostility and the need for outlets for capital than genuine land hunger. [8] Growing demand for land came from successful diggers and urban speculators. For miners, land signified social status; for urban businessmen it was a way to break the economic and political dominance of the ‘squattocracy’.

On 18 August 1852, La Trobe informed the Council that he did not have the power to issue leases immediately and that he would refer the issue to the Colonial Office. In the interim, squatters would be allowed to buy their homestead blocks (up to 640 acres) and the existing policy of reserving land for future sale would continue. [9] While this may have satisfied many squatters, some extremists such as William Campbell reacted bitterly. [10] In early September they restated their position and La Trobe forwarded their views to the Colonial Office along with a wordy dispatch on the issue.[11] La Trobe then gradually brought more land on to the market. With growing demands from diggers for land, in December 1852 a deputation from Castlemaine with a petition signed by thirteen hundred miners was promised that land near the diggings would be sold as soon as they were surveyed. In early 1853, the movement concentrated on the need for sales of 20, 40 and 80 acre lots near the fields. Calls for a colonial reform association were initially voiced at a conference in April 1852 but it was not until November 1852 that an association with a broad radical platform was formed. [12] Increasingly the Colonial Reform Association concentrated on the land question supported by the Argus that, with monotonous regularity, called on the government to ‘Unlock the Lands’.


[1] ‘Legislative Council’, Argus, 21, 28 January 1853.

[2] Argus, 1 January 1853.

[3] No leases were ever issued under this legislation and throughout the 1850s squatter occupancy of their runs continued with annual licenses.

[4] Roberts, Stephen H., The Squatting Age in Australia 1835-1847, (Melbourne University Press), 1935, reprinted, 1964, pp. 350-358, is useful on the land question in the early 1850s; Clark2, pp. 179-180.

[5] Geelong Advertiser, 24 March 1853.

[6] ‘Unlock the Lands’, Argus, 14 July 1853, reported the creation of the reserve at Kyneton on 12 July, evidence that ‘the squatters shall give way, when necessary, to land purchasers and legitimate settlers’.

[7] ‘Legislative Council’, Argus, 29 July 1852, p. 6, indicates that this was defeated by 18 to 9 with ‘the Nominees and Squatters coalescing in opposition to the popular representatives in the mode which is making both so odious…’ See also, ‘Legislative Council’, Argus, 6 August 1852.

[8] See, for instance, ‘The Squatter Swindle’, Argus, 14 December 1852, p. 6, and ‘Anti-Squatter Meeting’, Argus, 16 September 1852, p. 6, reporting a meeting at Geelong while Argus, 25 August 1852 p. 6, reported a similar meeting in Melbourne two days earlier.

[9] ‘The Leases’, Argus, 21 August 1852, commented on La Trobe’s indecision.

[10] William Campbell’s position can be found best in his The Crown Lands of Australia being an Exposition of the Land Regulations, and of the Claims and Grievances of Crown Tenants, (John Smith & Sons), 1855, pp. 31-54.

[11] ‘Legislative Council’, Argus, 1 September 1852, p. 4.

[12] ‘The Conference’, Argus, 15 April 1852, p. 4.

Friday 5 June 2015

Sir Richard Tangye 1833-1906

For the past year or so I've been helping Stephen Roberts to publish his work on Victorian Birmingham. This includes biographical studies of A. J. Langford and Sir Benjamin Stone, MP and pioneering photographer, as well a Mocking Men of Power, a highly illustrated study of comic art in Birmingham between 1861 and 1911 written with Roger Ward. Today, the fourth book on Sir Richard Tangye is published.

BookCoverPreview

'We launched the Great Eastern and she launched us' – Sir Richard Tangye.

In January 1858 Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Eastern, at that point the largest ship ever built, was, after several failed attempts, finally launched into the Thames. The powerful hydraulic jacks that enabled the ship to get afloat were manufactured by Tangye Brothers of Birmingham. For this firm of Cornish-born engineers the launch of this great ship was the breakthrough they had been waiting for. By the end of the nineteenth century the Tangye Brothers' business employed 2000 workers and had come a long way from a packing room divided into two by brown paper stretched over a wooden frame. The life-story of Richard Tangye was held up in Victorian Britain as an outstanding example of what a man could achieve by determination, single-mindedness and sheer hard work. Born in a cottage in a small village near Redruth, he died in a mansion near the Thames. Tangye was undoubtedly a brilliant entrepreneur, but, as he acknowledged, his brothers were also brilliant engineers. Bound together by family ties, the talented Tangye Brothers created one of the most famous industrial success stories of the nineteenth century. Using autobiographies, periodicals and letters from the time, this book tells the story of how five brothers, with Richard leading the way, left Cornwall to establish a great engineering company, how they became generous benefactors in their adopted town, establishing the Art Gallery and School of Art, and how, in search of profits and adventure, they travelled across the globe. The reader will be left in no doubt as to why Richard Tangye was known as 'the foremost Cornish man of his day'.