John Sweetnam

History

John William Sweetnam was born c1832 at Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland, the eldest son of Dr Stephen Sweetnam and Jan Clerke. He died at the Benevolent Asylum, Cheltenham, and was buried at Cheltenham Cemetery two days later.

1854

According the John Sweetnam's obituary John Sweetnam to part in the Eureka Stockade on 03 December 1854.

Obituary

Mr John William Sweetnam died in the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum, aged 83 years. Mr Sweetnam arrived in Victoria in 1842, and lived near Ballarat. He was a friend of the Eureka Stockade rioters in the early fifties, and when, after the fall of the stockade, the police were on the track of (Peter Lalor, the diggers' leader, Sweetnam, hid Lalor in his dwelling one night, and got him safely away.

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