Eureka
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
The Story of the Eureka Flag and the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
For nearly 110 years, the Art Gallery of Ballarat has been the home of the original Eureka flag. This flag, with its bold design of white on blue based on the constellation of the Southern Cross, was first flown in Ballarat during the ‘troubles’ of 1854, when the diggers made a concerted effort to resist the despotic and corrupt local arm of the colonial Government.
The flag was made as a banner for the Ballarat Reform League at some point in time after the first meeting of this group on 11 November 1854. It was first raised on public view at the Monster Meeting at Bakery Hill on 29 November 1854 when the diggers protested against the administration of the Gold Licence. On the following day, Peter Lalor swore his famous oath beneath the flag, which was then taken to the site of Eureka Stockade.
On the morning of December 3rd 1854, when the Government troops and police stormed and ransacked the Stockade, a Trooper by the name of John King cut down the flag and it was eventually brought back to the Government Camp (ironically the Gallery itself was built on this site 33 years later.) On that morning, the ‘rebel’ flag was reviled and mocked by the victorious troopers and the first of many souvenir pieces was cut from it. One of the pieces taken that day was instrumental in proving the authenticity of the flag in the Gallery more than 80 years later.
After the flag had been used as ‘evidence’ of the treason of Peter Lalor and his associates in 1855, (all of the accused were actually found ‘not guilty’), the flag was handed back as a memento to Trooper King, who in later life settled down to farm land near Minyip in the north west of Victoria. In the 1870’s King tried to sell the flag to the Museum in Melbourne, but Lalor, who was called in to authenticate it, could not by that time remember precisely what the flag looked like and the Museum decided against its purchase.
In the 1890’s the founder of the Art Gallery of Ballarat James Oddie became aware of the existence of this flag. Oddie had settled in Ballarat in 1852. It was well known that his sympathies at the time were with the diggers. Oddie established contact with Trooper King’s widow, and persuaded her to lend the flag to the Gallery in 1895, where it has been almost continuously ever since. The descendants of Trooper King formally deeded the Eureka Flag to the people of Ballarat in 2001 on the condition that it be kept in the Art Gallery of Ballarat where it can be provided with stable display conditions and security.
For years there were many people who doubted that the flag that we now see at the Gallery was authentic. These people thought that the cross design ought to look more like the image on the front cover of a book written by Raffaello Carboni, one of the leaders of the diggers cause in 1855. It is now known that the designer of this cover had never seen the original flag and that the cover of Carboni’s book was only an approximate rendering of his description of it.
In the 1940’s a man by the name of Len Fox was able to show that the threads and weave of the Flag in the Gallery match exactly with those of a small fragment that was certainly cut off the flag on the morning of December 3rd 1854.
The final proof of the authenticity of the flag in the Gallery came when previously unknown watercolours by a Swiss/Canadian digger Charles Doudiet came to light in 1996. These watercolours, which were made by an eye-witness just days after the events, clearly show a flag, that matches with the one that you can now see at the Gallery.
The flag is on permanent display in the Selkirk Family Gallery. It is presented at low light levels to ensure that it will not fade any further, and visitors are asked to allow their eyesight to become adjusted upon entering the viewing room. The Gallery also normally displays the Doudiet watercolours and a range of Eureka related images and memorabilia. During 2005 most of this material with the exception of the flag is traveling in the exhibition Eureka Revisited: the contest of memories.
