John Yates

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Background

Goldfields Involvement, 1854

<John Yates was in Ballarat at the time of the Eureka Stockade. He counselled moderation with firmness and common sense in the midst of heated passions[1]

Post 1854 Experiences

John Yates was Sheriff of the Ararat and Belfast Circuit District. [2]


Obituary

SUDDEN DEATH OF JOHN YATES, ESQ.
Considerable sensation was caused in Hamilton yesterday morning by the report that Mr. Yates, the Sheriff of the Ararat and Belfast Circuit District, had suddenly fallen down and expired. The rumour was disbelieved at first by many, for the reason that Mr. Yates was seen an hour or two previously, alive and apparently in good health, driving in a buggy through the streets. No long time elapsed, however, before the report was authoritatively confirmed. It appears that Mr. Yates visited the house of Mr. H. Scott, at Fetherstonhaugh's Swamp on Thursday evening, where he was overtaken by a fit, and a medical man had to be sent for. Mr Yates recovered from the attack, but expressed a presentiment that he should die on the following day. This prediction was verified, for he was seized at his own house with a second attack, which terminated fatally. The inquest will be held at nine o'clock this morning, and the funeral will take place at three o'clock on Sunday.
Mr. Yates arrived in this colony in the year 1852. Drawn hitherward like so many others by the fame of the gold diggings, it was at the first attempt at deep-sinking on the Ballarat gold-fields, we believe, that his sturdy independence of character, unflinching integrity and energetic honesty in all things great and small, caused his name to rise above the rank of his contemporaries, and obtain for him the well-earned soubriquet of "Honest John." His fellow-miners soon elected him a member of the Mining Board, the duties of which he satisfactorily performed, continuing to gradually increase his personal influence in the community by his general urbanity and warm-heartedness.
At the time when the unhappy rioting at Ballarat arose, the influence of Mr Yates with a few of his intimate friends was powerfully and successfully exerted in the cause of law and order, in counselling moderation with firmness and common sense in the midst of heated passions. The small band, of which Mr. Yates was the chief, proved, we believe, the strongest instrument in the hands of the Government in allaying bloodshed and restoring order.
The Government of the day were not slow in recognising those services, the Commission of the Peace having at once been offered to him. This was however, delined, Mr. Yates private fortune being not such as to enable him to continue an honorary assistant of the Government.
In 1858, however, on Ararat being made a Circuit Town, and a Deputy Sheriff there appointed, the position was offered to, and accepted by Mr. Yates, who continued to hold it until (with its various changes) it became, as now, the Sheriffdom of the Ararat and Belfast Circuit Districts.
It will be well within the memory of most of our readers, the regret so strongly expressed by all classes at Mr. Yates' removal from amongst us under the recent Government reductions, as also the general satisfaction-we might almost say, public ovation-by which he was greeted on his return in November last on re-appointment.
We understand Mr. Yates leaves three sons in this colony, besides a widow in Ireland, to lament his untimely death. His loss will, perhaps, be most fully and deeply deplored by the large class of subortinate officials who were under his immediate control in the in the department of the Ararat and Portland gaols, where the name of John Yates, to get fair play in any scrape, was always held as a tower of strength.
To his immediate subordinates he was the warmest friend, and his death has left a void difficult to fill. Among his contemporaries and personal friends, his death will cause a lasting impression ; he was never known to speak an unkind word of the absent ; ever cheerful, good-hearted, and obliging, ready to befriend in need or sympathise in distress.[3]

See also

Ballarat Mining Board

Further Reading

References

  1. "The Hamilton Spectator", 09 April 1870.
  2. "The Hamilton Spectator", 09 April 1870.
  3. "The Hamilton Spectator", 09 April 1870.

External links



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Caption, Reference.