Eureka! - The rebellion

Ballarat is a fine, elegant city with beautifully restored and maintained buildings from its gold rush past. Even the MacDonald’s restaurant sits within tasteful heritage. But the impressive edifices are in contrast to the early days of its boozy, brawling, whoring beginnings, when tens of thousands of men rushed the goldfields to live in tents and makeshift huts in search of their fortune.

The brutality of police, sent to keep them under control, and the bullying of inspectors extracting exorbitant mining fees, erupted into the Eureka Rebellion. Troopers gathered outside the Mining Exchange (Lydiard Street) to march on the Eureka Stockade. They attacked on the morning of 3 December 1854, leaving 30 men dead and the stockade in flames.