Strangers in a strange land : Converging and accommodating Celtic identities in Ballarat 1851-1901
- Authors: Croggon, Janice
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: "This thesis examines the paths by which four Celtic ethnic identities, Cornish, Welsh, Scottish and Irish, responded to the specific society and culture of the Victorian goldfields between 1850-1901. The individual Celtic groups intersected, harmonised and contested with each other in a process through which they retained their identities and yet managed to move towards becoming part of a larger, more-encompassing unity."
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
The Liberator's Birthday
- Authors: Blee, Jillian
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Book
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: A1
- Description: 2003000176
Ghosts on the Goldfields : Ballarat as a haunted city
- Authors: Waldron, David , Waldron, Sharn
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Supernatural cities : Enchantment, anxiety and spectrality Chapter 11 p. 229-248
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The history of Ballarat, situated at the heart of the goldfields of central Victoria, Australia, is closely tied to the colonial experience. As the site of the Eureka Stockade rebellion, its history is linked to the foundation myths of Australian democracy. It boasts both the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka (M.A.D.E), situated on one of the suspected sites of the rebels' stockade, and Australia's premier open air museum, the theme park of Sovereign Hill, which re-enacts life on the goldfields of the 1950s and 1860s. In Ballarat itself many of the businesses utilise symbols of the goldfields in their advertising and trademarks, as do many of the street names, festivals and public events. The Victorian architectural heritage is highly prized and showcased to the thousands of visiting tourists on Sturt and Lydiard Streets, and particularly those who come each year for Ballarat's Heritage Weekend festival held in May. Yet there is a dark side to this history. The prosperity of the gold was built on the land of the Wathawurrung Aborigines who were displaced and marginalised, and suffered under the weight of colonial occupation and environmental devastation. Likewise, despite the prominence of stories surrounding those who became wealty on the goldfields of central Victoria, many who came to Ballarat during the Victorian era found themselves displaced and living in extremen poverty, facing disease, hunger and vulnerability to crime, prostitution and dangerous working conditions. It is these stories from the underbelly of Ballarat's heritage that form the fodder of a thriving dark tourist industry, expressed in popular ghost tours and supplemented by a rich heritage of ghost stories in folklore and popular culture. In the tension between these two discordant narratives Ballarat has become, in popular imagination, a haunted city.
The night Dixie came to town : The Shenandoah and the American Civil War in Ballarat
- Authors: Moll, Nicholas
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Goldfields and the gothic : A hidden heritage & folklore p. 116-129
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: That the American Civil War occurred exclusively within North America and affected specifically United States affair is a common misconception. Whilst the majority of the infantry conflict occured within and between the United and then Confederate States of America, the clash was such that it and its effects spread accross the globe. Also engaged in the American Civil War were Prussian military observers; political entanglements with the United Kingdom and Russia; Canadian volunteers within the Union army; smuggling and blockade running from the Bahamas into the Confederate States; cotton shortages in French industries that were heavily reliant on raw materials imported from the southern states; merchant raiding in the Pacific and Atlantic; along with countless other entanglements to Europe and their colonies into the conflict through one means or another. The tyranny of distance notwithstanding, Australia was no exception to the overflow of conflicts and consequences that resulted from the American Civil War.
Avenue and Arch : Ballarat's commemoration. How are community attitudes to war and peace reflected in the civic management of the Avenue of Honour and the Arch of Victory?
- Authors: Roberts, Philip
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: This thesis examines the importance of memory, commemoration, heritage and militarism in relation to Ballarat’s Avenue of Honour and Arch of Victory. Inspired by Ken Inglis and other historians who have analysed war commemoration, the thesis argues that, led by the Lucas clothing company, Ballarat civic leaders and community members commemorated the war service and sacrifice of local soldiers, airmen, sailors and nurses by planting the 22-kilometre Avenue during 1917–19 and by constructing the prominent Arch in 1920. Although Ballarat voted against conscription in 1916 and 1917 and was a ‘divided’ society, the Avenue and Arch were able to unite members of the local community. From the 1920s, through memory and mythology during the civic maintenance of the Avenue and Arch, Australian community attitudes to war and peace were reflected, and a determined effort was made to remember the service and sacrifice of military personnel for all Australian wars. Discussion of the need for peace remained in the background until recent years. Important influences on the civic management were the collective memory of the so-called Lucas Girls, a group of former female employees of the Lucas clothing company, and of the members of the Arch of Victory/Avenue of Honour Committee. Increasingly, the embracing of the Anzac legend and an emphasis on loss and grief was reflected in the civic management. By 2017 the Avenue and Arch were in pristine condition and, through the Garden of the Grieving Mother, had transformed to symbolise the importance of remembering the sacrifices and grief of war and the need for peace. The project was based on documentary research and oral history, using an examination of newspaper and other documentary accounts from 1917–2017, a study of Arch of Victory/Avenue of Honour Committee papers and conservation management plans, research of relevant books and articles, landscape fieldwork and interviews with 26 people.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy