The Gold Commissioner's Government Camp
The Colony and its Goldrush
The NSW colony in 1850, which incorporated Victoria known then as the Port Phillip District, had a European population of 75,000, an indigenous population of 2000, and sheep numbering 5,000,000. The Port Phillip District had 23,000 Europeans of that 75,000. Separation from NSW in 1851 coincided with gold finds in Victoria. This phenomenal quantity of Victorian gold cleared the British national debt in 2 years, upended orderly immigration, left Melbourne empty of men for some time, a harbour of ghost ships at anchor funded a lavish building boom, and set in train an Australian democratic movement. By1854 the population was 237,000 and Victoria was transformed in its demographics, culture, politics, and wealth.
Old World New World
Castlemaine’s birthplace as a settled, ordered society, commenced at the 1851 Government Camp under an archaic military colonial system that was always resented by the civilians outside that system. Within five years a civilian society was established in parallel, on surveyor William Urquhart’s [i] town grid to the east. A creek separated the two worlds. Newspaper and literature searches describe a growing town that defined itself against the Government Camp. Frank McKillop, an editor of the Mount Alexander Mail in 1908 ran articles of pioneer accounts of the early council, documenting the first representative electorate of the early 1850s, and the establishment of the Municipal Council.[ii] These accounts reflect civilian novice Councillors wrangling amongst themselves, united against the Camp and committed to building a fine township. The press often agitated against Camp customs, and protocols. This is perceptible in many newspaper articles (Mount Alexander Mail and the Argus) and speaks to the divisiveness of this form of colonial rule. Towards the end of this rule, the press started referring ironically to the ‘Sacred Camp’.
[i] William Swan Urquhart 1845-1864, district surveyor under the then Superintendent La Trobe, laid out many districts in Victoria. He and the staff he commanded organized surveying of Government Reserves, roads, and lands. https://prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/provenance-journal/provenance-2009/surveying-career-william-swan-urquhart-1845
[ii] Frank McKillop’s articles were collated by both James Martin in 1950, and by Geoff Hocking in 1997, in Early Castlemaine: a glance at the stirring fifties; the Municipal Council 1851-1863, and a further volume in 2013, Early Castlemaine the Municipal Council 1855-1863
A Rebellion Movement in Four Parts
11th December 1851 The first rebellion against the goldfields governance occurred at an event at the ‘Old Shepherd’s Hut near Chewton. Anger erupted at the rise of the licence fee from 30 shillings a month to 3 pounds a month. 14000 diggers at 200:1 against the Governor’s 130 army pensioners led to a reversion to the original 30 shillings. The foment and spirit of rebellion never fully resolves and periodically remerges.
In May 1853, under orders from the Government Camp. The Canvas Town on its periphery was brutally raided overnight, on the pretence of illegal slygrogging. In fact the real intention seemed to be to force a profitable trading township onto purchased rather than Crown Land.[i] Under the guise of quashing illegal trade,businesses were torn apart and tents burnt.
Local activist business men – some of whom were to continue to became major players in the formation of the township, were outraged at the heavy handed over reach of the Camp rule. The met at Agitation Hill in a large body, railing against the Camp, directly opposite the Military Parade Ground now Camp Reserve, where the Camp soldiers and official could observe at close quarters, their outrage. A select group of ‘peoples’ commissioners’ marched on Governor La Trobe for a hearing. Fast talking, smooth negotiation, appeasing reassurances were given, and blood shed was avoided. This uprising of town vs camp was the second chapter in a four part movement, and Commissioner Bull was credited for its peaceful resolution which gets compared with the bloodshed of Eureka, under the command of Rede and Hotham.
[i] Theobald, Marjorie: The Accidental Town Castlemaine, 1851-1861, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2020, p. 45.
The Red Ribbon Rebellion in Bendigo (Sandhurst) followed in August 1853 protesting the license increase from 30 shillings per month to 3 pounds per month. A doubling Captain J.E.N. Bull was asked by Commissioner Panton of Bendigo to send troops from the Castlemaine Government Camp to maintain order.
December 1854 The Eureka Stockade was the culmination of unrest and unity amongst miners regarding the military rule, brutal policing, gouging licence fees and voting rights. 6\Six dead soldiers and as many as sixty dead miners later, and the total, official dissolution of the Gold Commissioner system resulted. A ‘Commission of Enquiry’ 1854-5 that visited the major goldfields including Castlemaine taking testimonies, led to the abolition of gold licences, granting of voting rights and the end of Gold Commissioners. Records of this inquiry build a picture of the politics of Townites and Campites in Castlemaine. Yet it is these accounts that reflect well on the enduring figure of Captain J.E.N. Bull.