George Stephens

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Background

George Stephens was born at St. Austell, Cornwall, England, and came to Adelaide on 'Sir William Money in the year 1849. He arrived in Ballarat in 1851 as a boy..[1]

Goldfields Involvement, 1854

Post 1854 Experiences

Obituary

Charles A. Doudiet, watercolour on paper, 1854, watercolour, on paper.
Courtesy Art Gallery of Ballarat, purchased by the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery with the assistance of many donors, 1996.
A PIONEER'S DEATH - EUREKA MEMORIES REVIVED.
The late Mr George Stephens, formerly of Clunes, and father of Mr T. G. Stephens, storekeeper of Newlyn, was born at St. Austell, Cornwall and came to Adelaide in the sailing vessell 'Sir William Money" in the year 1819. He arrived in Ballarat in 1851, and was lost in the bush between what is now Humffray street and the City post office on November 5, 1852. He obtained 12 ounces of gold on the 3rd December of the same year of the date of the Eureka Stockade, he being twelve years of age on that day. His brothers and he had a claim on the corner of Bridge and Main streets where the Exhibition Mart was afterwards built, the premises now being occupied by Levy and Goddard, fruit merchants. Mr Stephens always maintained that the Eureka Stockade was unnecessary. as the diggers would have got justice if they had followed Mr J.B. Humffray, whose method was that of moral persuasion. A Clunes correspondent writes: The mining, pioneers of the early fifties are rapidly diminishing, and one of the latest to go the way of all flesh has been Mr George Stephens, of Clunes, whose death at the age of 64 years, occurred at his residence, Talbot road. For the past seven or eight years. Mr Stephens had followed the occupation of a storekeeper in Service street. previous to which he had from a very early age been engaged in mining. The late Mr Stephens had a vivid recollection of the burning of Bentley's hotel. Though only a boy of 14 years, he was at the time engaged in a man’s work in a claim in the shallow ground on the flat between the Eureka Lead and the Black Hill. Boy as he was, he was taken by the troopers from the shaft because he had not his license with him was marched with other prisoners to the on the site of the present police camp. Here he was ordered by the commissioner to pay £? and be confined until the license was forth coming and the fine paid. Then for some years afterwards Mr Stephens continued mining for rations in Ballarat, and later in the Castlemaine district, finally settling in Clunes, where he worked in the principal mines, and where he lived for over 30 years, and with Mrs Stephens brought up a family of four sons and seven daughters, all of whom survive him. The cause of Mr Stephens’ death was miners’ consumption, which prostrated him about 18 months ago.[2]

See also

J.B. Humffray

Further Reading

References

  1. Ballarat Star, 2 June 1905.
  2. Ballarat Star, 2 June 1905.

External links



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Caption, Reference.