David Jones
Contents
Background
David Griffiths Jones sailed to Sydney c1840.[1] He arrived in White Flat (Bendigo) c1852.[2] He died in 1876 in Sydney, aged 59.[3]
Goldfields Involvement, 1853-1854
Dr Jones was President of the Anti-Gold License Association, and signed the 1853 Bendigo Goldfields Petition. Agitation of the Victorian goldfields started with the Forest Creek Monster Meeting in 1851, but what became known as the Red Ribbon Movement was centred around the Bendigo goldfields in 1853. The Anti-Gold License Association was formed at Bendigo in June 1853, led by George Thomson, Dr D.G. Jones and 'Captain' Edward Browne. The association focused its attention on the 30 shillings monthly licence fee miners were required to pay to the government. They drew up a petition outlining digger grievances and calling for a reduced licence fee, improved law and order, the right to vote and the right to buy land. The petition was signed by diggers at Bendigo, Ballarat, Castlemaine, McIvor (Heathcote), Mount Alexander (Harcourt) and other diggings. The 13 metre long petition was presented to Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe in Melbourne on the 01 August 1853, but their call for a reduction in monthly licence fees and land reform for diggers was rejected. The diggers dissatisfaction erupted into the Red Ribbon Rebellion where agitators wore red ribbons on their hats symbolising their defiance of the law and prohibitive licence fees.
Pre-Eureka 1853
Dr Alfred Yates Carr (Alfred Carr) and Henry Silvester formed the Ballarat Gold Diggers Association, a body which, on 6 September 1853 sent a Petition to the Legislative Council. This was signed by Ballarat diggers who objected to the high licence fees, and the manner in which the fees were collected. They were ‘alarmed’ by the poor administration of the goldfields and were disgusted by the way men were chained to the logs for not paying their licence fees. Richard Brown in commenting on the agitation in Ballarat in the latter months of 1853 posted that: Silvester also requested that a deputation should be heard at the bar of the House in support of the petition. In mid-September, he and Carr gave evidence to the Legislative Council Select Committee on the Goldfields dwelling on the injustices that stemmed from the license fee with Carr pointing to increasing opposition to the fee and the semi-military manner in which it was enforced. Silvester maintained there were some in Ballarat who anticipated the establishment of a republic in Victoria and Carr later concluded that dissatisfaction in 1853 was greater than in the weeks leading up to Eureka a year later. On 26 October, Silvester wrote to John Foster, the Colonial Secretary seeking the introduction of a bill to enfranchise diggers. Almost a month later on 21 November, he expressed his concern to Foster at the failure of the government to carry out its promises to the Diggers’ Association concerning the police in Ballarat. Eight days later, a petition from the Association was forwarded to Foster that opposed proposed legislation for managing the goldfields but added that the Ballarat miners had no sympathy with the ‘lawless and unjustifiable proceedings…at Bendigo’. Although the Ballarat diggers were unsympathetic to the nature of the protests in Bendigo, meetings on 19, 21 and 26 November and 17 December all expressed widespread support for immediately enfranchising the mining population. (Argus 22, 25, 29 November 1853; 20 December 1853.) The Anti-Gold License Association was disbanded on October 1853, near the site of the first mass meetings at View Point, Bendigo and twelve months before the two Monster Meetings were held in 1854 on Bakery Hill, Ballarat. Its message had spread throughout the goldfields of Victoria and beyond. The speakers on this final occasion in Bendigo were Dr David Griffith Jones (David Jones), George Edward Thomson (George Thomson), William Edmonds, William Dixon Campbell Denovan (William Denovan), and Henry Thomas Groves Holyoake (Henry Holyoake).[4]
Post 1854 Experiences
David Jones was a journalist in Deniliquin.[5] He died in 1876 in Sydney, aged 59.[6]
Obituary
- We learn with deep regret that a very old resident of these colonies, who has done the State some service in his time, has passed away. The deceased gentlemen, Dr. D.G. Jones, of Deniliquin, may be reckoned amongst the pioneers of the great salt-bush country north of the Murray. He was a zealous and energetic worker in the public interests, and an able journalist, having for many years edited the Pastoral Times, of which he was the founder and proprietor, and which ranks amongst the best newspapers of New South Wales. He also established the Riverina Advertiser, published at Deniliquin, and the Deniliquin and Hay Standard, published at Hay, on the Murrumbidgee. The deceased gentleman had been suffering severely from dysentery, followed by fever and ague. Dr Jones arrived in Sydney about the year 849, and after a short resident in this colony, left for Victoria, attracted bu the gold-fever, during which period he took an active part in public matters connected with the management of the gold-fields. About the year 1856 Dr. Jones went to Riverina, and settled at Deniliquin, where he started the Pastoral Times newspaper, a journal which has carefully supported the pastoral interests, whole also advocating the development of the resources of the district. Dr. Jones took the initiatory steps for connecting Riverina district with Victoria by telegraph, and was one of the main supporters of the Deniliquin and Moama Railway, and undertaking first mooted by himself, and to the accomplishment of which he assiduously devoted himself, in the face of very serious obstacles thrown in the way by the Sydney Government. His death will leave a vacancy difficult to fill in the district of Riverina.[7]
See also
Ballarat Reform League Inc. Monuments Project
Further Reading
References
- ↑ The Australian Medical Journal, December 1876.
- ↑ Bowden, Keith (1974) Doctors and Diggers on the Mt Alexander Goldfields, Maryborough.
- ↑ New South Wales Death Registration.
- ↑ Dorothy Wickham, Bendigo Goldfields Petition, BHS Publishing, 11 November 2020
- ↑ Bowden, Keith (1974) Doctors and Diggers on the Mt Alexander Goldfields, Maryborough.
- ↑ New South Wales Death Registration.
- ↑ The Australian Medical Journal, December 1876.
External links
If you can assist with information on this person, or a related image, please email eurekapedia@yahoo.com.au
To CITE this page click on the link to the left of this page.