List of Eureka Stockade defenders

This is an incomplete list of those who were among the rebel garrison at the Battle of the Eureka Stockade that took place on 3 December 1854 at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It was the culmination of the 1851–1854 Eureka Rebellion during the Victorian gold rush. The fighting resulted in at least 27 deaths and many injuries, the majority of casualties being rebels. The miners had various grievances, chiefly the cost of mining permits and the officious way the system was enforced. There was an armed uprising in Ballarat where tensions were brought to a head following the death of miner James Scobie. On 30 November 1854, the Eureka Flag was raised during a paramilitary display on Bakery Hill that resulted in the formation of rebel companies and the construction of a crude battlement on the Eureka lead.

Fortification of the Eureka lead


Following the oath swearing and Eureka Flag raising ceremony on Bakery Hill, about 1,000 rebels marched in double file to the Eureka lead, where the Eureka Stockade was constructed over the next few days. It consisted of pit props held together as spikes by rope and overturned horse carts. Raffaello Carboni described it in his 1855 memoirs as being "higgledy piggledy". It encompassed an area said to be one acre; however, that is difficult to reconcile with other estimates that have the dimensions of the stockade as being around 100 ft x 200 ft. Contemporaneous representations vary and render the stockade as either rectangular or semi-circular. Testimony was heard at the high treason trials for the Eureka rebels that the stockade was four to seven feet high in places and was unable to be negotiated on horseback without being reduced.

Lieutenant governor Charles Hotham feared that the goldfield's terrain would greatly favour the rebel snipers. Ballarat gold commissioner Robert Rede would instead order an early morning surprise attack on the rebel camp. Carboni details the rebel dispositions along:

"The shepherds' holes inside the lower part of the stockade had been turned into rifle-pits, and were now occupied by Californians of the I.C. Rangers' Brigade, some twenty or thirty in all, who had kept watch at the 'outposts' during the night."

The location of the stockade has been described by Eureka veteran John Lynch as "appalling from a defensive point of view" as it was situated on "a gentle slope, which exposed a sizeable portion of its interior to fire from nearby high ground".

In the early hours of 1 December 1854, the rebels were observed to be massing on Bakery Hill, but a government raiding party found the area vacated. The riot act was read to a mob that had gathered around Bath's Hotel, with mounted police breaking up the unlawful assembly. A three-man miner's delegation met with Rede to present a peace proposal; however, Rede was suspicious of the chartist undercurrent of the anti-mining tax movement and rejected the proposals as being the way forward.

The rebels sent out scouts and established picket lines in order to have advance warning of Rede's movements and a request for reinforcements to the other mining settlements. The "moral force" faction had withdrawn from the protest movement as the men of violence moved into the ascendancy. The rebels continued to fortify their position as 300-400 men arrived from Creswick Creek, and Carboni recalls they were: "dirty and ragged, and proved the greatest nuisance. One of them, Michael Tuohy, behaved valiantly". Once foraging parties were organised, there was a rebel garrison of around 200 men. Amid the Saturday night revelry, low munitions, and major desertions, Lalor ordered that any man attempting to leave the stockade be shot.

Eureka Stockade defenders


Common estimates for the size of the Eureka Stockade garrison at the time of the attack on 3 December range from 120 to 150 men.

According to rebel commander in chief Peter Lalor's reckoning: "There were about 70 men possessing guns, 30 with pikes and 30 with pistols, but many had no more than one or two rounds of ammunition. Their coolness and bravery were admirable when it is considered that the odds were 3 to 1 against". Lalor's command was riddled with informants, and Rede was kept well advised of his movements, particularly through the work of government agents Henry Goodenough and Andrew Peters, who were embedded in the rebel garrison.

Initially outnumbering the government camp considerably, Lalor had already devised a strategy where "if the government forces come to attack us, we should meet them on the Gravel Pits, and if compelled, we should retreat by the heights to the old Canadian Gully, and there we shall make our final stand". On being brought to battle that day, Lalor stated: "we would have retreated, but it was then too late".

Rede planned to send the combined military police formation of 276 men under the command of Captain John Thomas to attack the Eureka Stockade when the rebel garrison was observed to be at a low watermark. The police and military had the element of surprise timing their assault on the stockade for dawn on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath day of rest. The soldiers and police marched off in silence at around 3:30 am Sunday morning after the troopers had drunk the traditional tot of rum. The British commander used bugle calls to coordinate his forces. The 40th regiment was to provide covering fire from one end, with mounted police covering the flanks. Enemy contact began at approximately 150 yards as the two columns of regular infantry and the contingent of foot police moved into position.

According to military historian Gregory Blake, the fighting in Ballarat on 3 December 1854 was not one-sided and full of indiscriminate murder by the colonial forces. In his memoirs, John Lynch, one of Lalor's captains, mentions "some sharp shooting". For at least 10 minutes, the rebels offered stiff resistance, with ranged fire coming from the Eureka Stockade garrison such that Thomas's best formation, the 40th regiment, wavered and had to be rallied. Blake says this is "stark evidence of the effectiveness of the defender's fire".

The rebels eventually ran short of ammunition, and the government forces resumed their advance. The Victorian police contingent led the way over the top as the forlorn hope in a bayonet charge. Carboni says it was the pikemen who stood their ground that suffered the heaviest casualties, with Lalor ordering the musketeers to take refuge in the mine holes and crying out, "Pikemen, advance! Now for God's sake do your duty". There were twenty to thirty Californians at the stockade during the battle. After the rebel garrison had already begun to flee and all hope was lost, a number of them gamely joined in the final melee bearing their trademark Colt revolvers.

The exact numbers of deaths and injuries cannot be determined as, according to researcher Dorothy Wickham, many miners "fled to the surrounding bush, and it is likely a good many more died a lonely death or suffered the agony of their wounds, hidden from the authorities for fear of repercussions". On 20 June 1855, the registrar of Ballarat, William Thomas Pooley, entered 27 consecutive names into the Victorian death register. There are a least three dead buried outside of Ballarat. In total, it has been discovered that there are at least ten other individuals not found on the register but referred to elsewhere as having died.

Here is a list of the best-documented rebels who participated in the defence of the Eureka Stockade.

Notable absent defenders
A number of people who played an important part in the Eureka Rebellion and were defending the Eureka Stockade at some point lived in tents situated outside the stockade and were on assignment or otherwise absent when the surprise attack took place on Sunday morning, 3 December 1854.

Non combatants
The Eureka Stockade encompassed an area of existing mines, and not all of the residents in the vicinity actively supported the armed struggle. There are a number of recorded deaths and injuries among non-combatants during the Eureka Rebellion. There were also economic losses, such as those suffered by Michael Noonan, who lost his store and received 70 pounds in compensation. His spouse was also assaulted at the time of the battle, and he was detained for five days after being arrested while standing near the St Alphius chapel. It has been thought that all those killed during the battle were men. However, the diary of Charles Evans describes a funeral cortege for a woman who was mercilessly butchered by a mounted trooper while pleading for the life of her husband. Her name and the fate and identity of her husband remain unknown.

Following the fall of the stockade, Hotham proclaimed martial law on 6 December 1854 with no lights allowed in any tent after 8 pm "even though the legal basis for it was dubious". There were a number of unprovoked shots fired from the government camp towards the diggings. Unrelated first-hand accounts variously state that a woman, her infant child and several men were killed or wounded in an episode of indiscriminate shooting.

Notable impostors
John Lishman Potter claimed that he was the last surviving defender of the Eureka Stockade, which nobody questioned during his lifetime. However, later research has shown that Potter was aboard the Falcon en route to Melbourne from Liverpool on the day of the battle.