Difference between revisions of "Henry Wise"

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[[File:[[File:Eureka drawing - colour - BHS-wiki1.jpg|800px|thumb|right|''Eureka,'' Ballarat Heritage Services Picture Collection.]]|800px|thumb|right|''Leek Wooton Church,'' Photography: Clare Gervasoni, 2001]]
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[[File:[[File:Eureka drawing - colour - BHS-wiki1.jpg|800px|thumb|right|''Eureka,'' Ballarat Heritage Services Picture Collection.]]
  
 
==Background==
 
==Background==

Revision as of 19:35, 25 June 2013

[[File:
Eureka, Ballarat Heritage Services Picture Collection.

Background

Henry Christopher Wise

Goldfields Involvement, 1854

Captain in the 40th Regiment who was killed at the Eureka Stockade on 03 December 1854.

RELIC OF EUREKA. - CAPTAIN WISE'S SWORD. - BALLARAT Thursday.
Mr. H. Barnett, of Ballarat East, has presented to the Fine Art Gallery, the sword said to have been carried by Captain Wise, who led the military forces in the attack on the Eureka Stockade on the morning of Sunday, December 3, 1854, and who was fatally wounded during the progress of hostilities.
It is stated that a digger saw the sword fall from Captain Wise's hand when he was wounded. This man secured the weapon and hid it. The sword was found by John Bentley, a digger, who died recently at Ballarat North. Before his death Bentley presented the sword on to Mr. Barnett, who has now passed it on to the trustees of the Art Gallery, where it will display alongside the tattered flag said to have been hoisted over the stockade by the diggers on the memorable occasion of the riots. [1]
Leek Wooton Church, Photography: Clare Gervasoni, 2001
The Eureka Anniversary. It went without much in tile way of celebration, but the 3rd December was one of the historic anniversaries of the colony. The following abbreviated account of the storming of the Eureka Stockade, on the 3rd December, 1854 - one of the best yet published-is taken from "The Early Days of Victoria" in the current number of the "Australian Journal." After describing the events of the week previous and the reasons why Captain Thomas of the 40th, then in command, resolved to attack the stockade early on Sunday morning, the writer goes on to say : in pursuance of this determination Captain Thomas, who was ably assisted by Captain Pasley, R.E., and Captain Wise, had the whole force at his disposal under arms by 2 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, 3rd December. Mr Commissioner Amos, who was intimately acquainted with the locality, acted as guide, and led the troops to within a quarter of a mile of the Stockade. The force consisted of 30 picked men of the 40th Regiment; mounted, under the command of Lieutenants Hall and Gardyne; 87 men of the same regiment, under Captain Wise and Lieutenants Bowdler and Richards; 65 men of the 12th Regiment, under Captain Queade and Lieutenant Paul; 70 mounted police, under Sub-inspectors Furnell, Langley, Chomley and Lieutenant Cossack; 24 foot police, under Sub-Inspector Carter. Total, 100 mounted and 176 foot. The troops reached the ground just as the morning began to dawn, and when about 300 yards from the Stockade the detachments of the 12th and 40th Regiments ex tended in skirmishing order. The mounted men moved to the left, and threatened the flank and rear of the insurgents. As the advance in this order was being made, a sentry within the Stockade gave the alarm by firing his piece. Upon hearing the shot Captain Thomas said "We are seen. Forward, and steady, men ! Don't fire ; let 'the insurgents fire first. You wait for the sound of the bugle." Within the Stockade were about 150 men, and when the soldiers had approached to the distance of about 150 yards they fired a volley, which wounded Captain Wise, Lieutenant Paul, and three men of the 12th Regiment, and killed two and wounded one man of the 40th. Then the bugle sounded the order to fire, and a general discharge brought down all the insurgents who were visible above the enclosure; nine were killed by this volley. Then the order, "On, 40th! Forward!" was heard, and the soldiers cheered, and notwithstanding scattered shots fired at them, rushed at the enclosure with fixed bayonets, followed by the foot police. The hastily arranged face of the enclosure did not impede the troops an instant, and, breaking through it, a series of combats ensued between brave diggers armed with pikes for their ammunition was spent and the soldiers, who had loaded muskets and bayonets fixed. Some, as the swarm of police joined the soldiers, took refuge in the shallow holes and smithy, and, as one of the military officers wrote, many were put to death in the first heat of the conflict, either by bullet or bayonet thrusts." In less than ten minutes the resistance and slaughter were over. Nine soldiers were wounded, one fatally, in the hand-to-hand combats within the Stockade. Vern, with a number of his companions, did not wait to exchange blows with the troops, but escaped by the rear of the Stockade. Lalor, when the troops fired their first volley, was standing upon the top of a logged-up hole close to the barricade, and was shot in the left shoulder as he was in the act of signing to the defenders to retire to the rifle pits. When wounded he fell under a stack of slabs, some of which, in falling, partially covered him, and when the soldiers charged by the spot he was left for dead. While, the soldiers were busy among the tents making prisoners, three non-combatants, whose curiosity brought them to the spot, saw him, and carried him a short distance down the Eureka Lead to a hollow pile of slabs, into which they lifted him. When the resistance was over, fifteen of the diggers lay dead, sight were fatally wounded,and thirty to forty others were more or less severely wounded, some of whom subsequently died. The Southern Cross flag had been torn down by one of the police at an early stage of the combat, and was carried off to the camp. The troops set fire to all the tents In the enclosure and the immediate vicinity, and collecting all the prisoners, to the number of 125, marched back to the camp. Captain Wise died of his wounds before the week ended. [2]
Wise Memorial, Leek Wooton, Photography: Clare Gervasoni, 2001.

"Sacred to the memory of Henry Christopher Wise Esq, captain in H.M. 40th 2nd Somerset Regiment. Eldest son of Henry Christopher and Harriett Wise of Woodcote, who died on the 21st of December 1854 at Mt Ballarat, Victoria, South Australia, of wounds received on the third of the same month, while gallantly leading his company to the assembly of the rebel stockade at Eureka, Ballarat. This tablet is erected by the officers of the 40th Regiment."


In the News

THE EUREKA STOCKADE. GATHERING. AT KALGOORLIE. ... 'Mr. J. O'Brien, a sturdily-built man from Kanowna, made a decided hit with the crowd. He gave his recollection of the mass meeting at Bakery Hill. Apparently the advocates of peaceful measures for obtaining the redress of wrongs had not had his sympathy, for he joined with the party he believed in the now historical words of one of the speakers on Bakery Hill "Moral persuasion is all a humbug, there's nothing convinces like a lick in the lug.' He gave a good description of the arms of the diggers. He showed how companies were formed which elected their own officers, including sergeants. There was the rifle company, the musket company, the pistol company, and the pike company. The true heroes of the stockade in his opinion were the men who were armed with pikes only - the men who stood patiently awaiting the advance of the soldiers who kept pouring in musketry fire upon those diggers who were not in a position to fire back. Mr. O'Brien paid a tribute of praise to Captain Wise; who climbed the stockade and shouted to his men, only to fall "among the pistols." Mr O'Brien believed Captain Wise was to gallant a soldier to fall in such "a squabble". The speaker got rounds of applause from the spectators on account of his displays with his walking-stick of the use of "the pike and improvised bayonets of the diggers. [3]
RELIC OF EUREKA. - CAPTAIN WISE'S SWORD. BALLARAT Thursday - Mr. H. Barnett, of Ballarat East, has presented to the Fine Art Gallery, the sword said to have been carried by Captain Wise, who led the military forces in the attack on the Eureka Stockade on the morning of Sunday, December 3, 1854, and who was fatally wounded during the progress of hostilities. It is stated that a digger saw the sword fall from Captain Wise's hand when he was wounded. This man secured the weapon and hid it. The sword was found by John Bentley, a digger, who died recently at Ballarat North. Before his death Bentley presented the sword on to Mr. Barnett, who has now passed it on to the trustees of the Art Gallery, where it will display alongside the tattered flag said to have been hoisted over the stockade by the diggers on the memorable occasion of the riots. [4]

See also

Ballaarat Old Cemetery

http://eurekapedia.org/Military

James O'Brien

Further Reading

Corfield, J.,Wickham, D., & Gervasoni, C. The Eureka Encyclopaedia, Ballarat Heritage Services, 2004.


References

  1. The Argus, 22 December 1911.
  2. Oakleigh Leader, 15 December 1894.
  3. Kalgoorlie Western Argus, 6 December 1904.
  4. The Argus, 22 December 1911.

External links