Frances Rowe
Contents
Background
Goldfields Involvement, 1853-1854
Francis Rowe signed the 1853 Bendigo Goldfields Petition. Agitation of the Victorian goldfields started with the Forest Creek Monster Meeting in 1851, but what became known as the Red Ribbon Movement was centred around the Bendigo goldfields in 1853. The Anti-Gold License Association was formed at Bendigo in June 1853, led by George Thomson, Dr D.G. Jones and 'Captain' Edward Browne. The association focused its attention on the 30 shillings monthly licence fee miners were required to pay to the government. They drew up a petition outlining digger grievances and called for a reduced licence fee, improved law and order, the right to vote and the right to buy land. The petition was signed by diggers at Bendigo, Ballarat, Castlemaine, McIvor (Heathcote), Mount Alexander (Harcourt) and other diggings. The 13 metre long petition was presented to Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe in Melbourne on the 01 August 1853, but their call for a reduction in monthly licence fees and land reform for diggers was rejected. The diggers dissatisfaction erupted into the Red Ribbon Rebellion where agitators wore red ribbons on their hats symbolising their defiance of the law and prohibitive licence fees.
He was in Ballarat at the time of the Eureka Stockade.
- OLD COLONISTS. Mr and. Mrs Francis Rowe, of Auckland, celebrated their diamond wedding on Saturday last, having been married at the Wesleyan Church, High street (now the Deeds Office), on March 10th, 1357,' by the Rev. Joseph Fletcher. Both are natives of Cornwall, England, and Mrs Rowe (says the “Star”) is probably one of the oldest' residents of Auckland, having arrived in Wellington in the ship Bolton when little more than a baby, and shortly afterwards they went to W'aitemata. That was before Governor Hobson removed the capital of New Zealand from Bussell to Auckland. They camped in a Maori whare, on the present sits of Auckland Government House, and afterwards lived in a tent, there being no wooden houses in Auckland in those days. Mr Rowe came out first to Australia as a lad, and went to the diggings. He was at Ballarat at the time of the Eureka Stockade, and came to Auckland in 1885, and worked at the Kawau copper mines in the early days. He remembers the early militia days, when the men paraded round Auckland at night from blockhouse to blockhouse. Mr and Mrs Rowe have eight children, forty grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Six of their grandsons are at the front.[1]
Post 1854 Experiences
See also
Ballarat Reform League Inc. Monuments Project
Further Reading
References
- ↑ New Zealand Times , 13 March 1917.
External links
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