Celebrating humanity and Eureka at Saint Paul's, Bakery Hill, #Ballarat - 5.30pm December 3

We are celebrating at Saint Paul's, Bakery Hill in #Ballarat this evening. To-day, December 3, is the day we celebrate...
Posted by Brigid O'Carroll Walsh on Wednesday, 2 December 2015

EUREKA DAY - THURSDAY 3 DECEMBER 2015 : CELEBRATON OF HUMANITY AT ST PAUL'S, BAKERY HILL, BALLARAT

 

Father Constantine Osuchukwu is pleased to welcome you

to a very different celebration of Eureka

- at St Paul's we are celebrating humanity:

the international people of Ballarat 161 years ago

and the multicultural city that Ballarat is to-day.

There will be music, poetry, spirituality - and supper.

Remembering - the war to end all wars; the charter of democracy - Australia's first document of participatory democracy

To-night at 6.30pm at St Paul's Anglican Church, 3-5 Humffray Street, Bakery Hill, Ballarat, Advocacy@ St Paul's is joining with the Ballarat Trades & Labour Council to celebrate the Charter of Rights, drafted by the English chartist John Basson Humffray who was a leading figure in the events leading up to and surrounding the Eureka Rebellion. Members of the modern-day Ballarat Reform League are interested too.  The site on which St Paul's is located is believed to be the site of the "Monster Meeting" of 10,000 miners who gathered to hear the Charter of Rights.  Hedley Thomson, Chair of Advocacy @ St Paul's, will read the Charter of Rights. Brett Edgington, Secretary of the Ballarat Trades & Labour Council, will speak.  The Charter of Rights is Australia's first document relating to the concept of participatory democracy.


To-day is not only the anniversary of the Charter of Rights. It is Remembrance Day, the day when we commemorate "the war to end all wars".  Below is a letter written earlier this year by Hedley Thomson with reference to the idea of 'nation building' in which he references the events of Eureka. If you want to let us know that you are coming, please go here.

14^th May 2015

The Editor

‘Ballarat Courier’

PO Box 21

Ballarat, 3353

Dear sir,

In the lead up to the 100^th Anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, the ‘nation building’ significance of the event was often mentioned. This assertion needs to be challenged. Aside from the disaster that was Gallipoli, for three quarters of a century prior, European settlers had a clear-eyed view that the Australian landmass would one day comprise one nation. For example:

1840s – colonial governments agreed that there should be one railway gauge to facilitate trade and transport throughout what would one day be a single nation. The fact that the one gauge objective was not achieved was to do with subsequent technical decisions, not a change of vision.

• 1854 – the Eureka rising – no civil war was required to affirm the commitment to establishing a parliamentary democracy; the death of two-dozen people was enough. What’s more, Eureka was a multi-cultural event at a time when Australia was the most multi cultural ‘nation’ on Earth.

• 1860s onwards - the Australian Constitution was developed over 40 years by the ‘founding fathers’, including Ballarat’s own Alfred Deakin. Here was true leadership, providing us with a parliamentary and electoral system with a sensible pragmatic structure to ensure representative democratic government.

• 1880s – the works of Henry Lawson and other writers, with their strong references to a sense of being Australian, independent of spirit, the mother country left behind.

• 1901 – Federation – the culmination of the past 60 years’ work.

On the basis of this history of Australia, it is arguable that our ‘nation’ was more independent, self-supporting and self-assured then than we are now! 

Hedley Thomson

Celebrate the Ballarat Reform League Charter : The Charter of Rights : 11 November 2015

Before the uprising at Eureka,

there was the Charter of Rights

which was framed by John Basson Humffray

for whom Humffray Street, Bakery Hill is named.

PLEASE COME & CELEBRATE WITH US

John Humffray's Charter of Rights : Commemoration Service @ St Paul's : Eureka : Australia's founding document of participatory democracy

As we lead up to the Eureka anniversaries here is an event to put in your diaries.
Posted by Ballarat Reform League Inc. on Wednesday, 7 October 2015

Is it still Miners -v- Troopers in #Ballarat #Eureka ?

 A friend has forwarded the letter below:

 

 Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion 

Dawn Service at the Eureka Memorial - #Ballarat

Picture from here

Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 05:06:39 +0000
From: anarchistage@yahoo.com
Subject: Lack of respect

We were saddened by the lack of respect shown to the miners and soldiers who were killed during the Eureka uprising on the 3rd December 1854, in Ballarat during the celebrations that were held on Wednesday to mark the 160th Anniversary of the uprising.  It's a pity the City of Ballarat continues to refuse to fly the Eureka flag on the main flagpole of the Town Hall on the anniversary of the Eureka massacre to acknowledge their sacrifice.  We were surprised when we walked from the Eureka Stockade site to the Old Ballarat Cemetery on Wednesday as part of the yearly Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion Celebrations that the Eureka flag was not flying over the miners' mass grave and the British flag was not flying over the soldiers' graves.  We were saddened to see neither gravesite had any flowers placed on them (fortunately we had a spare Eureka flag that was attached to the flagpole and some flowers for the miners).  I'm confident if the same disrespect was shown to the graves of those who have died fighting in the name of this country on Anzac Day, there would have been an outcry.  The miners buried in the Old Ballarat Cemetery paid the ultimate sacrifice so we can enjoy many of the rights and liberties we take for granted today.  It's not much to ask the City of Ballarat, a city whose name is synonymous with the Eureka Rebellion, to ensure the Eureka flag is flown over the miners' mass grave and the British flag is flown over the soldiers' graves on the anniversary of the day they died.  Lest We Forget. 

Dr. Joseph TOSCANO / Convenor Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion Celebrations
Level 1/21 Smith Street, Fitzroy VIC 3065
Tel: 0439 395 489

Editorial note:  There are remnants of the Miners -v- Troopers alive and well and, if you speak to some locals, still influential. For instance, there is the Ballaarat Club (please note the old spelling and the name of their restaurant) and the Old Colonists Club.

Eureka 160 @ St Paul's will be celebrated December 3 - remembering the people of Ballarat then and now

 

Father Constantine Osuchukwu is pleased to welcome you

to a very different celebration of Eureka

- at St Paul's we are celebrating humanity:

the international people of Ballarat 160 years ago

and the multicultural city that Ballarat is to-day.

There will be music, poetry, spirituality - and supper.

This week - on Wednesday December 3 - 

the 160th Anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion

will be commemorated and celebrated in Ballarat.  

Please go here to see all that is happening at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka.

and there is

Commemorating Radical Eureka Events

And this year there is a new - and somewhat different - event 

on the Eureka Calendar - at St Paul's Bakery Hill in Ballarat.
St Paul's is the site of the establishment of the Ballarat Reform League.

Eureka Vox Pop at M.A.D.E. - this Saturday 22 November 2014

From ABC Open Ballarat

 
Picture from here
 
What's your Eureka story?


Did you learn about Eureka at school? 
Do you have a family connection? 
Maybe a car with a Eureka number plate?

ABC Open & MADE are inviting you 
to share your Eureka stories 
at a video booth this Saturday at the 
Museum of Australian Democracy in Ballarat from 2pm. 
BBQ and drinks provided. 

Other workshops:

Photography

at the Ararat Library this Saturday from 9am to 12 noon. 

 https://open.abc.net.au/explore?projectId=110&sortBy=publishedDate&isFeatured=0

Writing

at the Ararat Library this Monday from 6pm. 

The theme is My Secret Fear.  

https://open.abc.net.au/explore?projectId=109&sortBy=publishedDate&isFeatured=0

Eureka history in #Ballarat - Women of the Goldfields

Post by Erin M McCuskey.