O'Neil, James

Background

"… Minchin the oldest and three younger brothers, Abbott, James and Benjamin came to Victoria and were at Ballarat at the time of the Eureka Stockade Riot and I often heard Abbott, who lived with us for a couple of years, 1880 and 1881, relate how he brought the Doctor and Priest to Peter Lalor where the rioters had him hidden in the bush after he was wounded in the first fray. He was shot in the arm or shoulder in the first assault by the soldiers and when the diggers saw the soldiers coming at a run they hastily put Lalor in a hole and threw the laths, of which there were plenty about, over the hole and thus hid him from view. The defenders broke and ran. The soldiers swept on and over the stockade thereafter the fleeing diggers and when they returned to camp and when everything had quietened down in the evening Lalor’s mates moved him from the hole and got him away to the bush. Lalor afterwards became a member and speaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. I remember seeing him in 1888 taking the Chair in his robes being proceeded by the bearer with the mace. The Eureka was Australia’s first fight for liberty, a few were killed, not many, less than 20 I think, but a lot of good resulted as more liberal mining laws were passed by Parliament. Mothers, brother did very well at Ballarat and got a lot of gold and wrote home glowing accounts and invited the young sister (mother) saying they would make her mistress of a fine home and all this apparently thus fired her imagination and she was permitted to come out sailing on the ship Donald McKay …" </ref>

Further Reading

Corfield, J.,Wickham, D., & Gervasoni, C. The Eureka Encyclopaedia, Ballarat Heritage Services, 2004.

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