Ballarat Reform League Inc. Ballarat Monuments

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Map showing placement of Ballarat monuments, Courtesy Ballarat Reform League Inc.

The Ballarat Reform League Inc. has completed monuments in three key Ballarat to identify the sites as important to the original Ballarat Reform League. The three sites are:-

  • Bakery Hill - plaques on wall and footpath
  • Main Road, Ballarat East - plaque in footpath
  • Eureka Stockade Memorial Park - 3 plaques


Bakery Hill Monument

Plaque 1 was placed at Bakery Hill by the Ballarat Reform League Inc. in 2004, and commemorates the meeting held on 11 November 1854. The plaque includes the words:-

Bakery Hill is obtaining a creditable notoriety, as the rallying ground for Australian freedom. It must never be forgotten in the future history of this great country, that on Saturday, Nov. 11th, 1854, on Bakery Hill, and in the presence of about

ten thousand men, was first proposed, and unanimously adopted, the draft prospectus of Australian Independence. We refer to that of the Ballarat Reform League.' [1]

Plaque 2 was placed at Bakery Hill but the Ballarat Reform League Inc. in 2004, and commemorates the meeting held on 29 November 1854. The plaque includes the words:-

From our own Correspondent. 29th Nov. 4 am. Ere many minutes the sun shall have risen on a day fraught with interest, pregnant with the destiny of Victoria and consequently of Australia. [2]

On 29 November 1854 a Monster Meeting of 10,000 to 12,000 men gathered for the first time around the new flag and heard of the failure of the talks between their delegates and Governor Charles Hotham and angrily rejected any further conciliatory moves.

At 3 o'clock an impromptu meeting was held on Bakery Hill, when volunteers were called for ... They assembled round the Australian flag ... They all knelt down around the flag, swore to defend each other, and prayed heaven to prosper them. [3]

Plaque two also depicts Charles Doudiet's work Swearing Allegiance to the Southern Cross, 1854. The watercolour, reproduced with the permission of the Art Gallery of Ballarat, was purchased with the assistance of many donors in 1996. It is the only visual record of the crucial meeting held at this spot on 29th November 1854. It shows Peter Lalor calling on those present to swear allegiance to the Eureka Flag, the Southern Cross.

Main Road, Ballarat East Monument

Eureka Stockade Memorial Park Monument

Also See

Ballarat Reform League

Ballarat Reform League Inc.

Ballarat Reform League Inc. Monuments Project

Ballarat Reform League Inc. Buninyong Monument

Ballarat Reform League Inc. Chewton Monument

References

  1. Ballarat Times, 18th November 1854.
  2. Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 30th November 1854.
  3. Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 2nd December 1854.