Bakery Hill

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On 29 November 1854 a ‘Monster Meeting’ was held on Bakery Hill against the gold licence which was seen as an unjust tax. A flag, representing the Southern Cross, with white stars on a dark blue background, was said to be flown on an eighty foot pole. The diggers took the ‘Oath of the Southern Cross’. They knelt, and with heads uncovered pointed to the banner and said,

We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and defend our rights and liberties.


In the News

During the whole of the morning several men were busily employed in erecting a stage and planting the flagstaff. This is a splendid pole of about 80 feet and straight as an arrow. This work being completed about 11 o’clock, the Southern Cross was hoisted, and its maiden appearance was a fascinating object to behold. There is no flag in Europe, or in the civilised world, half so beautiful and Bakery Hill as being the first place where the Australian ensign was first hoisted, will be recorded in the deathless and indelible pages of history. The flag is silk, blue ground with a large silver cross; no device or arms, but all exceedingly chaste and natural.[1]


A very old colonist Mr. John Balderston, died on Tuesday. Born at Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, in 1831, he engaged in 1851 as a station hand with Philip Russell, of Carngham, but hearing at the Cape of the discovery of gold at Port Phillip, he and his companions started for the goldfields on their arrival in Hobson's Bay.
He built the first bakery in Ballarat, near the present St. Paul's Church, since known as Bakery Hill. Some years ago he purchased a property at Glenalvie, near Loch, where he died at the age of 77 years.[2]

Also See

Ballarat Reform League Inc. Monuments Project


References

  1. Ballarat Times, 30 November 1854.
  2. The Argus, 28 December 1908.