Bendigo Goldfields Petition

Diggers Flag of 1853, 2013, From Bendigo Monument in Rosalind Park.

Bendigo Goldfields Petition Cover, August 1853. State Library of Victoria (MS 12440)

Background

TO THE EDITOR' OF THE AGE.

Sir,— It gave me great pleasure to hear the name of my teacher of years ago, Mr Finley, who taught the children at Mt. Pleasant In 1857. I knew Mr. Finley In Scotland, when he used to sell skates, and in the long town of Kirkcaldy, I often went to his shop, just over the road from our place. There was a dam which we called the Mill Dam; the peo-ple used to skate on it. He left before us

us and came to Australia. I never got my skates. I do not remember if they had wheels like those I see here. That Is nearly 80 years ago, Strange to say, when our family landed we came to Se-bastopol. We were sent to school, three of us— my sister, two years older, and brother, two years younger, I am the only Scot left. Strange to say, we were sent to school, and Mr Finley was our

teacher. He still remembers about the skates. I think we were about twelve months there. Then we came to the foot of Mt. Buninyong. We attended a children's school, our teacher was a Miss Bock, who married Mr. Hale, secretary to Buninyong shire council. Then we went into Buninyong township, three miles to school. That was of short duration, for I had to go to work, and have worked hard ever since. — Yours, &c„

WILLIAM REDDIE. South Melbourne. Once thought to be lost, the Bendigo Goldfields Petition was discovered by chance lying in a pile of papers on a rubbish tip. Some 13 metres in length and bound in green silk, it’s a milestone document in the state’s history.^[1]

The petition was signed by over 5000 diggers on the Victorian goldfields in mid-1853. At the time, the signatures represented about one in 12 diggers.^[2]

In June 1853 an anti-gold licence association was formed at Bendigo to give voice to the diggers' many grievances about their conditions. The diggers were angry about the mining licence fees imposed by the government and the system by which they were collected.^[3]

The petition was signed by miners across the state’s major goldfields and was brought to Melbourne and presented to Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe on 01 August 1853. Most of its demands, including the reduction in the licence fee, were rejected. Eventually the diggers' dissatisfaction erupted, culminating in the Eureka Stockade uprising at Ballarat on 3 December 1854.^[4]

Dr John Chapman, a Melbourne collector, purchased the petition from its discoverer and presented it to the State Library of Victoria in 1988. Its discovery is particularly valuable for historians and genealogists investigating the history of social and political events during the gold rushes in Victoria.^[5]