Englishwoman Ellen Young, gave voice to the collective grievance of her community by publishing politically poetry and fiery letters to the editor in The Ballarat Times.
“We, the people,” she fumed, “demand cheap land, just magistrates, to be represented in the Legislative Council, in fact treated as the free subjects of a great nation”. Or Clara Seekamp, an Irish single mother of three who became the wife of Henry Seekamp, editor of The Ballarat Times. Together, they ran the profitable printing and publishing business until Henry was jailed for sedition after the Stockade, making Clara Australia’s first female newspaper editor. Clara continued to send blistering editorials, prompting one startled Melbourne journalist to fret over “the dangerous influence of a free press petticoat government”. Or Sarah Hanmer, the Scots-Irish entrepreneur and activist who ran Ballarat’s Adelphi Theatre, which acted as the headquarters of the group driving the push for constitutional change, the Ballarat Reform League. Then there was Catherine McLister, wife of a British policeman living at Ballarat’s Government Camp, who laid a sexual harassment case against Police Inspector Gordon Evans only weeks before the Stockade clash. Another brave women of this time was Anastasia Withers. Her husband was a convicts and they wanted to put this life behind them after they moved from Tasmania to the Colony of Victoria. They certainly ‘made a go’ of it in Victoria and future generations have successfully left their mark in the form of patents, teaching and businesses. The fact that none of these women’s names is as familiar to us as that of Peter Lalor points to the inherent gender bias of Australian nationalism. Anastasia was ‘very good, quick and exemplary’. She got into a bit of trouble with stealing property and whilst in Bendigo she hid gold in small bags hung from a belt under her dress. People say she was trying to prove a point that women can be just as brave and have the same rights. Described as being ‘resilient’ and perhaps understandably as having ‘a fiery temper’, the women encouraged and motivated there husbands with heaps of support in becoming politically active against the many injustices on the goldfields. |
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