We Are the Rebels Read Online Free

THOMAS

    BORN Philadelphia, 1813
    DIED Ballarat, 1911
    ARRIVED February 1853, on the Ascutna
    AGE AT EUREKA 41
    CHILDREN One son, 15 years old.
    FAQ Married to Frances Pierson. Freemason. Book binder. Worked as a digger while
Frances ran a store. Kept a detailed diary from the ship voyage through the early
years on Ballarat diggings.
    ARCHIVE Diaries, SLV MS 11646
    Well, that was the plan anyway.

THE WILD WORLD OF WATER
    These days it’s hard to believe that a journey could completely transform you. Today
we can cross the globe so fast we might never even speak to the strangers in the
seats around us. Unless disaster strikes, the voyage itself leaves us unchanged.
    But by the time the gold-rush immigrants reached Ballarat, they’d already endured
a colossal, epic journey. And it was an experience many of them found life-altering. A new era , as one shipboard journal proclaimed grandly. Men, women and children who
had hitherto hugged the land now committed their destinies to the wild world of water.
    But first they had to get over their seasickness—which was, like war and childbirth,
a truly democratising experience. Few first-timers escaped it, and even old hands
felt the effects as the land disappeared astern and the body lost its bearings. With
nothing fixed to focus on, the balance between eye and ear was disturbed. The ship
would pitch and rock and yaw, and even when that ceased there was still a constant
nauseating motion in the head.
    It helped to keep busy and concentrate on mechanical tasks, as Louisa Timewell discovered.
Although the ship swayed like a hammock in the breeze, she and the other women still
needed to go about their daily business. They held their babies on one hip while
washing out clothes, trying to keep the basin steady. It’s very laughable to see
them pitching about so , wrote Louisa . Fortunately for her, babies are strict taskmasters. I got on deck all day with the children , Louisa wrote, and the time passed off very
pleasantly .
    Céleste de Chabrillan was the wife of the new French Consul to Melbourne. She described
a less pleasant scene on the Croesus as it headed for the open sea in 1854.
    It jolted and tossed about on the waves so much that passengers and objects all
came tumbling down on top of each other…The famous line ‘ hare you sichowek ’ (are
you seasick?) went from one passenger to the next, some escaping to their cabins,
others leaning over the side. The only reply one hears is moaning, groaning and retching.
    Céleste herself felt the initial effects of this horrible sickness , but she refused
to yield to its power: I am fighting against it. She stayed on deck—alone—while her
husband Lionel remained in their cabin for three days with his head between two pillows. I was distressed to see him suffer so , she lamented. But the headstrong Céleste,
a former dancer and courtesan, declined to stay by his side in their dark, cramped
cabin: I prefer to face the enemy and I go back up on deck .
    SARAH HANMER (NEE McCULLOUGH)
    THE LEADING LADY
----
    AIDING AND ABETTING REBELS WHILE SINGING FOR HER SUPPER

    BORN Drummadonald, County Down, Ireland, 1821
    DIED Adelaide, 1867
    ARRIVED August 1853, on the Lady Flora
    AGE AT EUREKA 33
    CHILDREN one daughter, Julia, aged twelve.
    FAQ Actress and single mother. Had toured America before coming to Australia with
her brother and daughter. Manager and proprietress of Adelphi Theatre, headquarters
of American leaders of Eureka, and a financial benefactor of diggers’ cause. Lent
costumes and props to miners in the Stockade.
    Brave-faced Fanny Davis was mortified to find that defiance alone was not enough. It was a great mistake me being ill , she wrote, as I did not mean to be . It offended
her dignity that crewmen needed to come down with mops and buckets to clean out her
cabin.
    Agnes Paterson was, by her own admission, reduced to a most pitiful condition and
Charlotte Spence was a pitiable mess , refusing all nourishment for days. On