Adeliza Faulds
Contents
Background
Adeliza Faulds was born on 03 December 1854 as the Eureka Stockade raged.
Goldfields Involvement, 1854
At the time of the attack Mary Faulds was pregnant and in labour. Mary and her husband, Matthew Faulds decided to stay in their tent for the pregnancy because they believed the troops would not attack "on the Sabbath day". When the first shots rang out, Matthew rolled two logs on either side of her, laid a blanket over her and sat beside her during the attack. A trooper on horseback slashed the tent with his sword, saw she was in labour and rode away. Miraculously apart from the dust, smoke, noise and the occasional bullet whizzing through the tent, they were left alone. Their daughter Adeliza Faulds was born during or shortly after the battle.[1] There is no official record of the baby's birth, but the child named Adeliza, always celebrated her birthday on 03 December 1854. [2]
Post 1854 Experiences
The family moved to Magpie near Ballarat after the gold petered out. Adeliza Faulds married Charles Archer on the 2nd October 1880. She moved to Sydney and died at the age of 81 on the 16th January 1935. She was known as the "Eureka baby" and returned to Ballarat to join in the 50th anniversary celebrations on the 3rd December 1904. At the celebrations Adeliza recalled that as a young girl she was taken to the miners graves at the Ballarat cemetery by an old digger and told to "Never, never forget".[3]
At the 50th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade Adeliza Faulds recalled her mother stating that 'the soldiers were a lot of flash youngsters who would kill a man as readily as they would kill a chicken.[4]
Obituary
- Mrs. Adeliza Archer. who was born in the Eureka Stockade, in 1854, while bullets whistled through the tent in which her mother lay, has died. Mrs. Archer was born on December 3, the day on which the goldminers of Ballarat fought the soldiers, and now regarded as the anniversary day of Eureka Stockade. Recalling what she had been told of the stirring times of her birth, Mrs. Archer often related how her father rolled a great log against the tent as a shield. Any light was fired at and be fore the illumination in the tent was extinguished, several shots went through the canvas. Mrs. Archer died last night at 186 Beattie-street, Rozelle. Motor Fune rals, Ltd., are carrying out the funeral arrangements.<rfe>Sydney Sun, 17 January 1935.</ref>
Also See
References
- ↑ http://www.takver.com/history/eureka.htm#aa518.
- ↑ Supplement to the Ballarat Courier, 27 March 1998, p.6.
- ↑ http://www.takver.com/history/eureka.htm#aa518.
- ↑ Blake, Gregory, To Pierce the Tyrant's Heart, Australian Military History Publications, 2009, p.179.
