The following account is an extract taken from a presentation by Dr Christine Wright entitled ‘Irish Goldminers on the Araluen Goldfields’.
Mike Kelly, who won the seat of Eden-Monaro in the Federal election held on 21 August 2010, is a relative of the central character in the Pick Handle Election of 1869, Michael William Kelly.
The discovery of gold in Australia over 150 years ago precipitated enormous developments in the newly settled land. Immigrants flooded in from Asia, America and Europe, and the population and economy boomed. In fact, the tiny population of the Australian colonies nearly trebled as a direct result of the discovery of gold.[1] Most of the immigrants were from Britain where all gold found was automatically the property of the Crown.[2] The concept of the private development of mineral resources in the Australian colonies was a new, and very, exciting one.
Those who came in search of gold were adventurous and entrepreneurial, and they were changed and shaped by their new environment. The historian Russel Ward found that the gold rushes were a crucible for forging the Australian character, what he termed ‘an individual characterised by independence, ingenuity and a commitment to “a fair go” ’. It is this tradition, which has shaped the heroic image of the gold digger in Australia. It is reflected in the tradition of calling Australian soldiers ‘diggers’.[3]
Irish goldminers
The presence and influence of the Irish gold miners on the southern goldfields of New South Wales, earned them a dubious reputation because of their riotous behaviour during the ‘Pick Handle’ election in Araluen, so called because of the manner in which the Irish miners obstructed voters.
At the time, the whole of the area was a volatile mix of bushrangers and their sympathisers, ex-convicts, and gold miners. The local bushrangers were mostly Irish or of Irish descent, as were the local police.[4] The general lawlessness of the Braidwood district was much commented on during the evidence given to the Royal Commission to enquire into Crime in the Braidwood District held in 1867, not long before the Pick Handle election. In the report of that Commission, the Commissioners noted that ‘complaint has been particularly made as regards Araluen where public houses are kept open on Sundays and at improper hours and music and dancing entertainments are held almost without check, with a very demoralising effect’.[5]
In the 1860s, the concept of voting was innovative. It was only in 1858 in New South Wales that electoral reforms were passed: secret ballot, re-organisation of the electoral districts and manhood suffrage (one man one vote).[6] Before then, voting was restricted to those who owned property of a certain value. By 1861, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland all had manhood suffrage. In this, we led the British as it was not until 1918 that Britain caught up with Australia with the principle of one man one vote.[7]
The significance of Braidwood gold fields, particularly during the 1850s and 1860s, has only recently been uncovered by Barry McGowan, a mining historian at the ANU in Canberra. His work has proven that the Braidwood goldfields, and Araluen in particular, were the largest goldfields in New South Wales for many years.
Catholicism was the religion of the majority of the diggers at the Araluen fields. There were Catholics from other parts of the world: Italians, Prussians, etc. but the majority were Irish. As on most goldfields, Mass was first celebrated in tents. The Catholic church was the first church built at Araluen – of slabs with a shingle roof. When Crown Flat became the principal town in the field, the church was moved up there. A new weatherboard church, named St. Patrick’s was built about 1867, and from 1869, the parish of Araluen became a separate entity from the parish of Braidwood.
It was a large, and wealthy, congregation: half of the people could not get inside for Sunday Mass. All gave generously – crowns and half crowns and plenty of half sovereigns were seen on the plate. It was the generous support of the Irish Catholics from the southern diggings that enabled the very substantial St. Bede’s Catholic Church to be built in the main street of Braidwood in 1856.[8]
The seat of Braidwood in the Legislative Assembly
In September 1869 the only candidate for the seat was Michael William Kelly, an Irish Catholic storekeeper,[9] but a few months later there was another election.
So Kelly found that he had to face the electorate again; but this time he had opposition – Edward Greville (the Post Office Directory man) and George Alley, a local doctor. Edward Greville (48) had emigrated in the 1850s from England and had established first a newsagency, then a telegraphic and advertising agency in Sydney, and it was in 1872 that he began publication of the Official Post Office Directory of New South Wales.[10]
The other candidate was Irish born Dr George Alley, (64) who had been a doctor on the Araluen goldfields for some years. Dr Alley first lived near present day Wollongong, and then moved further south to the Shoalhaven; he was a regular contributor to the Illawarra Mercury and the Kiama Examiner. By all accounts, Alley was an Orangeman and disliked Catholics intensely.[11] For example after his son, Arthur, married a Catholic, Elizabeth Treehy, the daughter of the teacher at the National School at Major’s Creek, a bitter argument developed over the children’s education. Young Arthur Alley had a store at Major’s Creek but was forced to leave the district with his family because of the dispute with his father.
For the 1869 election, then, there were two local Araluen candidates – both Irish born, one Catholic and one Protestant – but it was the nomination of Greville (a resident of Sydney and a rank outsider) that caused disquiet among the miners of the Valley. Consequently, what should have been a straight-forward election turned into a brawl as the Irish miners were determined to have their own man re-elected.
Summer days can be very hot in the Araluen Valley, and election-day in December 1869 was no exception. Yet the miners became even more heated as they witnessed the arrival of Greville supporters in coaches and carriages. A crowd of about 200 men, that evolved in the course of the day into a mob, identified and blocked all those who were not Kelly voters.[12] At both polling places, the Court House and Elliott’s store, potential voters were physically dissuaded from voting via a heady brew of intimidation and violence. Many miners were armed with pick handles and did not hesitate to use them. They blocked the entrance to the polling booth to any person whom their leaders thought were Greville’s men. Any person who tried to get into the polling place to vote was hit with the pick handles, and/or kicked. Some got their clothing torn to ribbons and at least one man suffered broken ribs. But when one of Kelly’s men came along to vote, the crowd of pick and shovel handles would open up a passage to the door so as to let their man through without hindrance.[13] As the day advanced, the mob got more violent and Sergeant Brennan and his fellow policemen attempted to control the crowd, but were unable to do so. The officer in charge of the polling booth at Elliott’s store closed his booth because of the violence, yet the man at the Court House booth declined to close his. Next, the Araluen police telegraphed the Returning Officer in Braidwood requesting police reinforcements and informed him of the early closing of one of the booths.
In those days, it was not uncommon for polling to be conducted on an alternative date to the official one, and William Bunn, the Returning Officer, telegraphed the Colonial Secretary in Sydney for permission to extend the polling until the next day, 15th December. No response was received from the Colonial Secretary so early next morning Bunn rode off with thirty policemen to Araluen, 22 miles to the south. There was still no telegram waiting for him in Araluen, so he delayed the opening of the booths until 10am. When word from Sydney had still not arrived, Bunn bit the bullet and declared the booths open with mounted troopers patrolling the roads to the booths.[14] As soon as the police were in position, large mobs of Irish miners appeared as if out of nowhere, all armed with pick and shovel handles. Their well-planned manoeuvre blocked every access to the main road and an unbroken line of miners was in place. Again the strategy of the Irish miners worked very well, as only Kelly supporters could reach the booths. Some of Greville’s supporters decided to head up the hill to Major’s Creek to vote but they were also blocked for Kelly’s crowd had scouts on fast horses checking all the roads leading out of the valley.
When the poll was declared, Michael Kelly had the majority of votes by far and was duly declared elected, and how could it be otherwise given the intimidation and rioting that had pervaded throughout the election?
Yet the Irish miners were not going to get their own way without a fight. One of Greville’s supporters presented a petition to the Parliamentary Committee of Elections and Qualifications regarding the conduct of the election, and that committee subsequently held an enquiry. Dr Alley gave evidence to that enquiry that he saw Sergeant Brennan attempting to take Mr Johnson of the London Tavern up to vote. They were rushed by the mob before they reached the veranda and the Sergeant drew his pistol, but his arm was held up in the air. He then fired and Johnson was torn away from him.
Alley said he considered proceedings on the second day illegal as the boxes had been closed the day before and the Returning Officer ordered the A to K box to be re-opened. Alley also gave evidence that he had heard a man say ‘by the aid of God and our fists we shall get our rights’.[15] Alexander McLerie, a clerk at the Joint Stock Bank in Araluen, gave evidence that the mob where cheering for Kelly and crying ‘Down with all Greville’s party’.[16] McLerie was also asked if he thought this was a mere row, or did he look on it as a riot. As a riot, he replied. After hearing evidence from a number of witnesses, the Committee found the allegations to be proved and that Michael William Kelly Esq., the sitting member for the Electoral District of Braidwood, was not duly elected and that the election was wholly void.
There was another election held in October 1870 for the seat of Braidwood, this time with only two candidates, Kelly and Greville, and the lead up to this election gave every indication that there could well be a repeat of the previous intimidation and violence, but this time by the other side of the religious divide in the form of the Protestant Political Association (PPA). This group was formed in April 1868 as a response to the attempted assassination in Sydney of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, by a young Irishman named O’Farrell. The PPA spread rapidly: by the end of the year it had over 3,000 members. It declared itself a defensive organisation, and saw Catholic claims for a share in public life as an attempt at political domination.[17] The PPA came out in support of Greville, even though he claimed to be an independent.[18] During the election campaign there were two mentions of the both the Braidwood and Araluen branches of the PPA. On the morning of the poll they marched over 400 strong to the booths and one newspaper correspondent reported that ‘they appeared to have no desire to give offence to the other side beyond taking up a bold attitude in defence of their right to go uninterrupted to record their votes’. Also during the election campaign, this group was stopped from marching in procession in Araluen and the newspaper reporter claimed that ‘the police prevented the procession, and it was well they did so, or the consequences would in all probability have been terrible in the extreme. There is no doubt it would have caused a riot, as several members of the PPA were armed with revolvers, which they were determined to use, lives would certainly have been lost. Thirty-two revolvers were taken from this body by the police’.[19]
The Braidwood correspondent of The Town and Country Journal reported similar fears: he foresaw a ‘fearful riot’ at the next election.[20]
The results of the poll were very close with Reidsdale and Braidwood voting for Kelly, Major’s Creek for Greville and the voting at Araluen equal with 425 votes for each candidate. The excitement was intense. When the final returns from Nerriga and Boro came in during the night, there was a majority for Greville of 59 votes.
Kelly delivered a brief harangue to the huge crowd gathered to hear the result to the effect that the ballot boxes had been tampered with and that a petition would be sent down to Sydney against the election, as he was in possession of sufficient facts to unseat Greville. Nothing came of it, and Edward Greville was the member for Braidwood for the next 10 years.
So what was in the air in Araluen during 1869 and 1870 that caused such bitter division and political wrangling between Irish Catholic gold miners and the members of the Protestant Political Association? Part of the answer may be that these Irish Catholic gold miners were the first generation born after Catholic emancipation (1829). Catholic emancipation was the general name given to a series of British Parliamentary Acts which gave relief from legal and civil disabilities suffered by Catholics since the late 17th century. Catholics were forbidden to purchase land, they could not lease land for a period longer than 31 years, and they could not acquire land from a protestant by inheritance or by marriage. Also, their ability to practice their religion was severely curtailed by the ban on Catholic bishops and clergy. Catholic emancipation gave Catholics full political rights along with the rest of the population.
Throughout history, and indeed for much of Australian history, gold has been the stuff of legends, fortunes, conflict and change and the ‘Pick Handle’ election in Araluen is part of that story. But one should not view the elections of the gold rush years in Araluen in isolation, but rather part of a wider religious prejudice prevalent in those years. The exuberance and liveliness of the goldfields comes through in this tale of Irish gold miners exercising their independence and their new political power.
© Copyright Dr Christine Wright
The following article was written by Peter Smith and reported in the Braidwood Times on 5 June 2018:
Araluen’s Pick Handle Election
At Araluen in the rowdy days of the goldfields, December 1869, elections for the seat of Braidwood, are on record as one of the most violent with mob rule and intimidation. It became known as the ‘Pick Handle Election’.
There were three candidates standing for election, Michael Kelly an Irish storekeeper, representing the miners’ interests, Edward Grenville a Sydney publisher viewed a representing the squatters’ interests and Dr George Alley, a local medical practitioner.
At 9 am the poll was declared open. By 10 am mobs of Kelly supporters packed in and crowded around the approaches of the courthouse and Elliott’s pub, the two polling stations. For those who came to vote for Kelly the crowd would open up and let them through. But those who supported Grenville or Alley did so at the cost of torn clothing, being kicked, trampled and thrown off the veranda of the courthouse.
The police officer charged with maintaining law and order in Araluen was Senior Sergeant Martin Brennan supported by his local police contingent. Brennan, himself an Irishman, was highly respected, tough and courageous but this day tested his resources to the limit. He was thrown off the veranda three times and even firing his revolver in the air had no impact. All Brennan could do was to close the polling stations early as voting had become a farce.
Early next morning, 15 December, the district returning officer, William Bunn, accompanied by Superintendent Orridge with a strong force of over 20 mounted and foot police arrived from Braidwood. But this did little to settle the mood of the mob.
The polling stations were re-opened with a strong force of police being stationed at each with mounted troopers patrolling the main road. The Braidwood Dispatch newspaper stated, “Large masses of men were suddenly seen, armed to the teeth with pick-handles, shovel-handles and bludgeons of every description, blockading every avenue leading to the main road”.
Not surprisingly when the poll was declared Kelly had the majority. Had the Irish miners won the day? The Braidwood Dispatch commented, “How could it be when no-one else had a chance to vote except at the risk of their life?”
Michael Kelly took his seat, being the first candidate to beat the squatters’ nominee since the seat of Braidwood was formed 11 years earlier.
However, the events at Araluen were so outrageous that the Government was forced to act. A parliamentary inquiry found that Kelly should never have been elected. He was disqualified and Grenville was declared the new member. Some say Grenville did an immense amount of good work for the district others said he was the dullest speaker in the house. Either way he never ventured into the Araluen Valley during the 10 years he held the seat.
[1] Intro. I. McCalman et al (eds.)., Gold: Forgotten Histories and Lost Objects of Australia, Melbourne, 2001.
[2] McCalman, Gold, p 5.
[3] McCalman, Gold, p 5.
[4] Evidence of Joseph Taylor of Little Bombay to the Royal Commission, quoted in John O’Sullivan, The Bloodiest Bushrangers, 1973, p 112.
[5] Ibid, p 188.
[6] F. Welsh, Great Southern Land: A New History of Australia, London, 2004, p 220.
[7] Ibid, p 226.
[8] M. Carron, The Braidwood-Araluen Goldfields 1851-1871, in Canberra Historical Journal September 1976, p 65.
[9] See Goulburn Herald 22 September 1869.
[10] E.J. Lea-Scarlett, entry for Edward Greville, Australian Dictionary of Biography, (Online edition) http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs.A040337b.htm accessed 23 March 2008.
[11] T. Jenkin, The Alley Story, 1980, p 37.
[12] M.A. Bunn, The Lonely Pioneer, Braidwood, 2002, p103.
[13] R.Maddrell (ed.) Braidwood Gold Fields 1850s – 1860s by Richard Kennedy, 1978, p 29.
[14] Bunn, p104.
[15] Evidence of G.U. Alley to Enquiry, p1183.
[16] Ibid, p1187.
[17] Patrick O’Farrell, The Catholic Church and Community: an Australian history, New South Wales University Press, 1985, pp156-157.
[18] Lea-Scarlett, entry for Greville.
[19] The Goulburn Herald 22 October 1870.
[20] Town and Country Journal, 5 November 1870.