The Welsh in an Australian Gold Town: Ballarat, Victoria 1850-1900

By Robert Llewellyn Tyler

This book’s focus is the Welsh immigrant community in the Ballarat/Sebastopol gold mining district of Victoria, Australia during the second half of the nineteenth century. The book provides an analysis of a Welsh community as it existed in a particular area and the ways in which it changed during a specific period of time and considers all aspects of the Welsh immigrant experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781783161737

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THE WELSH IN AN AUSTRALIAN GOLD TOWN

THE WELSH IN

AN AUSTRALIAN

GOLD TOWN

BALLARAT, VICTORIA, 1850–1900

________________________________

Robert Llewellyn Tyler

CARDIFF

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS

2010

© Robert Llewellyn Tyler, 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-7083-2266-6

e-ISBN 978-1-78316-173-7

The right of Robert LlewellynTyler to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

I fy Mam a fy Nhad

Preface

The Australian colony of Victoria, in the decades following the discovery of gold in the early 1850s, provides an attractive setting for an analysis of a Welsh immigrant community and the resilience of its cultural identity. Welsh-born immigrants in Victoria, besides the transitory populations of the seaport towns, were found in significant numbers only in a relatively few urban areas that emerged with the development of the gold mining industry. Most notable amongst these were the city of Ballarat and the adjacent township of Sebastopol.

The nature of the Welsh immigrant community in this area and its ability to retain its cultural integrity, in whatever form, is addressed with regard to a variety of factors. Settlement patterns, economic specialization and mobility, language, religious allegiance and adherence, cultural institutions and the conscious desire of many Welsh immigrants to cast off their old-world cultural traits are considered in relation to the continuation, modification and decline of a discernible Welsh ethnolinguistic community. This study also focuses on those responsible for defining Welsh identity and propagating Welsh social and cultural mores in colonial Victoria, analyses the components of that identity and establishes the extent to which the mass of the Welsh-born population conformed. The sometimes paradoxical loyalty to Wales and Britain and attempts to establish a purely Welsh settlement, as they related to a continued sense of Welsh identity, are also considered, as are activities not usually associated with Welsh migrants.

This book hopes to provide an analysis of the Welsh immigrant community in the Ballarat/Sebastopol area in the second half of the nineteenth century, explores all aspects of the Welsh immigrant experience and employs, in addition to qualitative evidence, a quantitative analysis at micro-level. By viewing all Welsh immigrants in one particular area over a set period of time, a clearer picture is obtained regarding the true nature of the community and the ways in which it changed.

A note on sources

As indicated, this book relies heavily on quantitative analysis and this is reflected in its source material. Settlement patterns were established with reference to official census reports and city directories. Occupational preference and mobility were identified largely from the information contained in death certificates in conjunction with city directories and rate books. In assessing the strength of the language amongst Welsh immigrants, data regarding date and place of birth along with time of arrival in the colony were also gleaned from death certificates. The quantification of denominational allegiance relied on information contained in the records of the Ballarat District Hospital, whereas levels of religious adherence were established from contemporary church records, primarily those of Sebastopol’s Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church. The work on cultural institutions was predominantly based on qualitative material, but the changing nature of the eisteddfod was quantified using programmes as a source. The ideology of Welshness was addressed through a content analysis of the two Australian Welsh-language periodicals of the time, Yr Australydd and Yr Ymwelydd. Indeed, the Welsh press, as it existed in Victoria during the 1860s and 1870s, casts considerable light on several aspects of the migrant experience, with the initial predominance of Victoria, more especially the gold field settlements, and ultimately Ballarat/Sebastopol, in the reports of immigrant activity, clearly indicating the areas of greatest Welsh concentration at that time. In addition, the press provides, whether in articles, correspondence or reports of religious and social events, a wealth of information concerning community activity, language and culture retention and the vitality of cultural institutions. Beyond this, these periodicals also illuminate the ideologies of the Welsh immigrant community in general and of its leaders in particular, including assumptions made regarding identity.

The quantification of criminality levels amongst the Welsh relied on the census reports in tandem with the Central Register of Prisoners for Victoria. The analysis of marriage preference, and consequent family composition, depended, for reasons which will be made clear, on birth certificates. In addition, this work drew upon the host of contemporary Welsh and Australian newspapers, periodicals, journals, biographies, diaries, books, articles, letters and the reports of societies and institutions, both secular and religious. Detailed information is provided throughout, and a full list of both primary and secondary source material is included in the bibliography.

Much of the material used in this book was originally written in the Welsh language. All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are my own. In translating from the Welsh I have endeavoured to adhere, as closely as possible, to the original meaning, which has resulted in the use of some stilted and clumsy English.

Some of the material contained in this book has appeared in the following journals: Immigrants and Minorities, Llafur, Welsh History Review, The Welsh Journal of Religious History, Victorian Historical Journal and Local Population Studies.

Acknowledgements

If I were to include the names of all those who have been of assistance, in whatever way, in the researching and writing of this book the acknowledgements would merit a chapter in their own right.

I would first like to express my immense gratitude to my Ph.D. supervisor at the University of Melbourne, the late Jacqueline Templeton, for her invaluable advice, encouragement and patience. She is greatly missed. John Lack, my associate supervisor, was also tremendously supportive and deserves a special thank you for his noble attempts in untangling my convoluted prose. I am also especially grateful to Dilys Anderson and Mark Williams for their priceless efforts in correcting my Welsh translations; Willie Anderson for his sterling work in proofreading; Evan Hughes of Melbourne’s Welsh Church for providing access to his formidable personal collection and innumerable lifts to Laverton Public Record Office; Sion Aled Owen for throwing light upon what, for me, were the murky waters of denominational differences and the intricacies of Welsh-language poetry composition; William Jones of Cardiff University, for his advice and support; Kerry Cardell and Cliff Cumming of Deakin University; John Davies of Cardiff; Robert Doherty of the University of Pittsburgh; Jane Brion of Melbourne; Gareth Butler of Aberystwyth; Alun Howell, Susan Jenkins and Liam and Mary Sullivan of Cardiff; Peter Griffiths of Ballarat and my sisters, Jane Sullivan and Jaqueline Allen, and their families. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dot Wickham of the Ballarat Historical Society, Arthur Jenkins of the Sebastopol Historical Society and John Scarce at the Registry for Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria, for their generous assistance. I am also grateful to the staff at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, the State Library of Victoria, the National Library of Australia, the Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, and the Public Record Offices at Collins Street and Laverton, Melbourne, along with all those at the History Department, University of Melbourne, for their friendship and kindness.

Finally, I would like to thank my dear friend Elizabeth Kalynka.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Tables

List of Maps and Illustrations

Introduction

1  Settlement Patterns

2  Occupation

3  Language

4  Religion

5  Cultural Institutions

6  Villains, Whores, Drunkards and British Imperialists

7  Assimilation

Conclusion

Appendix I

Appendix II

Appendix III

Notes

Bibliography

Tables

1.1 Welsh-born in Australia

1.2 Numbers of Welsh-, English-, Scottish- and Irish-born in Victoria

1.3 Welsh-, English-, Scottish- and Irish-born in Victoria as a percentage of total population

1.4 Percentage by birthplace in each region, 1854

1.5 Percentage by birthplace in each region, 1857

1.6 Percentage of each nationality found on the gold fields, 1854 and 1857

1.7 Percentage by birthplace in each region, 1861

1.8 Numbers of Welsh-, English-, Scottish- and Irish-born in the Ballarat area, 1861

1.9 Welsh-, English-, Scottish- and Irish-born in the Ballarat area as a percentage of total population, 1861

1.10 Numbers of Welsh-, English-, Scottish- and Irish-born in the Ballarat area, 1871

1.11 Welsh-, English-, Scottish- and Irish-born in the Ballarat area as a percentage of total population, 1871

1.12 Welsh-born in Ballarat by wards, 1871

1.13 Welsh-born in Ballarat and Sebastopol, 1881–1901

2.1 Occupations of male migrants by nationality in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

2.2 Occupation of fathers in home country of migrants in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

2.3 Percentage of miners in Ballarat/Sebastopol with fathers in home country as miners, 1853–1891

2.4 Percentage of miners in home country with sons as miners in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

2.5 Male migrants in mining by nationality in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

2.6 Average net annual value in pounds of owned domiciles by occupation in Ballarat, 1875

2.7 Value distribution of homes by occupational category in Ballarat, 1875

2.8 Occupations of Welsh-born by decade in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

2.9 Intergenerational occupational mobility, Wales to Ballarat/ Sebastopol, 1853–1891

2.10 Welsh-born intragenerational occupational mobility in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1906

2.11 Intergenerational occupational mobility, first to second generation, in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1906

2.12 Intragenerational occupational mobility, second generation, in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1906

3.1 Incidence of non-Welsh surnames amongst Welsh-born males by place of birth, Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

3.2 Date of birth of Welsh-born migrants in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

3.3 Date of arrival in the colonies of Welsh-born migrants in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

3.4 Age on arrival in the colonies of Welsh-born migrants in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

3.5 Percentage of children born in Ballarat by nationality, 1860–1880

3.6 Children born in Ballarat of Welsh parentage

3.7 Percentage of children born in Sebastopol by nationality, 1866–1880

3.8 Children born in Sebastopol of Welsh parentage

4.1 Church membership of Welsh denominations in Ballarat and Sebastopol, 1865

4.2 Strength of Carmel Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church, Sebastopol

4.3 Student and teacher numbers at Carmel Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church, Sebastopol

4.4 Student and teacher numbers at Welsh Calvinistic Methodist churches

4.5 Welsh religious affiliations in the Ballarat area, 1862–1899

4.6 Welsh religious affiliations in Ballarat, 1862–1899

4.7 Welsh religious affiliations in Sebastopol, 1862–1899

5.1 Competitions and prize money for the Ballarat Eisteddfod, 1867

5.2 Competitions and prize money for the Ballarat Eisteddfod, 1887

6.1 Content analysis of Welsh periodicals by percentage of column space

6.2 Issues of Yr Australydd sold by distributors in Sebastopol, 1866–1867

6.3 Percentage and number of males by nationality resident in Victoria and receiving custodial sentences in Victoria

6.4 Percentage and number of females by nationality resident in Victoria and receiving custodial sentences in Victoria

7.1 Persistence of Welsh settlement in Ballarat

7.2 Persistence of Welsh settlement in Sebastopol

7.3 Entries from Ballarat and Sebastopol as a percentage of all birth, death and marriage notices in Yr Australydd and Yr Ymwelydd

7.4 Percentage of males by nationality, Victoria

7.5 Percentage of males by nationality, gold fields

7.6 Percentage of males by nationality, Ballarat

7.7 Percentage of males by nationality, Sebastopol

7.8 Male marriage preference by nationality in Ballarat to 1880

7.9 Female marriage preference by nationality in Ballarat to 1880

7.10 Male marriage preference by nationality in Sebastopol to 1880

7.11 Female marriage preference by nationality in Sebastopol to 1880

7.12 Marriage preference by nationality in Ballarat to 1880

7.13 Marriage preference by nationality in Sebastopol to 1880

7.14 Percentage of Welsh individuals marrying within the group by place of marriage, Ballarat, 1860–1880

7.15 Percentage of Welsh individuals marrying within the group by place of marriage, Sebastopol, 1866–1880

7.16 Percentage of couples of the same ethnic group married in country of origin in Ballarat, 1860–1880

7.17 Percentage of couples of the same ethnic group married in country of origin in Sebastopol, 1866–1880

Maps and Illustrations

1 Ballarat and Sebastopol, 1870s (with the permission of the National Library of Australia. Map RM 1048)

2 Victoria in the 1880s

3 Welsh towns and counties

4 Linguistic divides in Wales 1750 and 1850

5 County of origin in Wales of Welsh-born in Ballarat/Sebastopol, 1853–1891

6 Bridge Street, Ballarat, c.1866 (with the permission of La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria)

7 David Jones’s Criterion House, corner of Armstrong and Sturt Streets, Ballarat, 1866 (with the permission of La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria)

8 Albert Street, Sebastopol, 1866 (with the permission of La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria)

9 Robert Miles’s premises, Sebastopol, 1866 (with the permission of La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria)

10 Prince of Wales Gold Mine, Sebastopol, c.1861 (with the permission of La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria)

11 Carmel Welsh Presbyterian (Calvinistic Methodist) Chapel, Sebastopol, 1866 (with the permission of La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria)

12 Ballarat Star, September 1864, with advertisements for Welsh businessmen David Jones and Joseph Jones

13 Businesses advertising in Yr Australydd, September 1871, including several in Ballarat

14 First issue of Yr Australydd (new series), April 1871

Introduction

Shortly after midnight on the morning of Monday 31 July 1876, a mining accident in the Victorian gold town of Ballarat saw the death of two Welshmen, John Jones and William Williams. The men, killed by falling materials as they descended the shaft of the Sovereign Quartz Company gold mine, were not working their regular shift but had changed in order to be able to attend the funeral of a Mrs Howells, their neighbour in nearby Sebastopol. Jones, aged thirty-six, was a Carmarthenshire man who had married Hannah Evans at the age of twenty in Glamorgan and had arrived in Victoria in 1862. Williams, aged thirty-two, the son of Thomas and Lydia of Trefethe, Talgarth, Breconshire, had married Ellen Williams at Brecon in 1866 and had arrived in the colony in 1869. Both left three children.

The men had been working in the mine for some time, were well known in the district and were highly regarded as two of the best miners in the Sovereign Company. Jones, a resident of the Cobblers district, Sebastopol, was a respected member of the Calvinistic Methodist Church, of which he had acted as secretary and taught in the Sunday school, a thorough abstainer and a committee member of the Band of Hope. Williams, also of Cobblers, Sebastopol, was a member of the Independents (Congregationalists) and his loss was to be felt in the prayer meetings of the Sunday school and in other religious circles. They were buried in Ballarat, Jones in the old cemetery and Williams in the new. Both had been leading the Sunday school in their respective chapels only hours before their deaths, both having read the same chapter, Psalm I.¹

Much of the writing on the Welsh overseas has been heavily influenced by the positive characterization of the group by the Welsh themselves or by their would-be leaders.² This phenomenon can be related to the emergence in mid-nineteenth-century Wales of what Merfyn Jones has referred to as ‘a series of definitions of Welshness’ which forged an identity ‘based on an assumed and proclaimed homogeneity’.³ Prys Morgan and others have argued that from the 1840s onwards, under the leadership of ‘nonconformist journalists, preachers, and radical politicians’, the very image of Wales was transformed. As Morgan put it:

The Welsh saw themselves as the most virtuous and hard-working people in Europe, in farm, mine and factory, the most God-fearing, the best at observing the sabbath, the most temperate with regard to drink, the most deeply devoted to educational improvement and to things of the mind . . .⁴

Assertions of this nature were certainly endemic in commentaries regarding Welsh communities overseas in the second half of the nineteenth century and, while such filiopietistic comments were not confined to the Welsh, the leadership of that community appears to have been particularly concerned with the propagation of a favourable image.

A prime example from colonial Australia is the presidential address given by Dr David Thomas to the Victorian Welsh Eisteddfod held in Ballarat on Christmas Day 1867. The address was given in English but the speaker was clear in his affection for his native tongue and apologized for not using the ‘language dear to us, but which for so long a time I have not had the opportunity of speaking’. Thomas, a Melbourne physician and a native of Carmarthenshire, who had been away from Wales for thirty-five years, was pleased to be surrounded by so many ‘bards, essayists, poets, singers and harpists’. ‘In what part of the British Empire, or of the Continent’, he asked his audience, ‘will you find so large a majority of the people, who, like the Welsh, toil during the day, and occupy the evening with music and singing . . .?’ In addition, he noted, ‘The Welsh as a people are Christians, every man can read his Bible, and all the children scrupulously attend the Sunday-school.’ Due to this Christian character ‘the gaols in Wales are so frequently empty’, and ‘in this country one seldom hears of a Welshman being the inmate of a prison’. For Thomas, in ‘war, religion, intellectual pursuits and music’ the Welsh had ‘not been behind with the rest of mankind’. He was clear, moreover, that the Welsh had added ‘so much to the glory, honour and prosperity of the British empire’ and that they would continue to ‘maintain that character in Australia which has been assigned to them in Europe as an integral part of the British Empire’.⁵

Thomas was certainly not alone in his conception of Welshness. The banquet, held in honour of St David, Wales’s patron saint, at Craig’s Royal Hotel, Ballarat, on 1 March 1868, featured several local Welsh notables with similar ideas. Robert Lewis, successful businessman, politician and sometime mayor of Ballarat, who acted as chairman for the evening, referred to the ‘industry, frugality, absence of crime, and especially the deep religious feeling pervading high and low’ amongst his countrymen, and to ‘the solid virtues of a free and industrious people’. The Revd D. M. Davies of Sebastopol stated in response to the toast: ‘I could but feel proud to meet so many of my countrymen, many of whom, besides our noble chairman, have risen to wealth and influence in this country by means of their industry, talent, and perseverance.’ The Revd R. Trevor, the minister of All Saints Church, Drummond Street, asserted that ‘whether the Welsh language died or lived the Welsh virtues of frugality, industry, and religious feeling should be preserved’. Theophilus Williams, another prominent local Welshman, urged the ‘maintenance of the spirit of nationality’, but cautioned that love of country did not mean that Welshmen ‘should go out next day and knock a Sassanach on the head’.⁶ All these individuals were clear in their perceptions. Their ideas of Welshness revolved around the positive attributes of industry, frugality, temperance, adherence to the law, religiosity, musicality and literary endeavour, along with affection for the Welsh language. All of these were bound up with an allegiance to the British Crown and Empire.

The Welsh in Australia, although comprising a highly recognizable and singular ethnic group, have, until relatively recently, received scant attention. The fundamental reasons for this are, perhaps, simple: the small scale of Welsh immigration and the frequent subsumation of the Welsh under the category of British or, indeed, English.⁷ Nevertheless, general historical works on the Welsh in Australia, although few, do exist and these recognize the centrality of Victoria as a magnet for Welsh immigrants in the second half of the nineteenth century.⁸

The section ‘Welsh’ by A. F. Hughes in The Australian People: An Encyclopedia briefly but clearly outlines the nature and magnitude of Welsh immigration by colony and state from convict transportation, through the nineteenth century and up to the present.⁹ Hughes notes that Welsh settlement patterns were largely shaped by the employment opportunities available, and identifies Victoria and the gold field townships within the colony as the primary magnets for Welsh immigrants in the decades following the discovery of gold in 1851. Hughes takes care to point out the emergence of Welshmen as political leaders (John Basson Humffray), business managers and merchants (David Jones, Criterion Stores), and links these success stories to the perceived mainstay of Welsh cultural life, the Nonconformist chapel, twenty-one of which were active in Victoria by 1865. Hughes then, provides a clear indication of the Welsh presence in Victoria in the second half of the nineteenth century, relying on the census and using the chapel as the primary indicator of Welsh activity.

Lewis Lloyd’s Australians from Wales attempts to provide a broad overview of Welsh immigration to Australia, commencing with the Welsh representation on Cook’s early voyages and concluding with the Australian bicentennial year of 1988, when the book was published.¹⁰ Lloyd’s primary area of specialization is the maritime connection between Wales and Australia, but this work gives considerable attention to the experiences of nineteenth-century immigrants to Australia, especially those in the Victorian gold fields, as revealed by the letters they sent home. Many valuable insights concerning the nature of the Welsh immigrant experience are provided by Lloyd’s work, although he avoids the less wholesome aspects of colonial life.

Myfi Williams’s Cymry Awstralia (The Welsh in Australia), published in Welsh in 1983 and, as the title suggests, purporting to be a broad study of Welsh settlement in Australia, suffers as a general study by having too narrow a focus.¹¹ Williams, making use of emigrant letters and contemporary Welsh publications, including Yr Ymwelydd and Yr Australydd, focuses largely on religious activity in the colonies, primarily in Victoria. This work charts the emergence and development of what she regards as the major feature of the Welsh presence, the Nonconformist chapel. Williams repeatedly notes the fractious nature of Welsh Nonconformity and clearly reveals the extent to which interdenominational rivalry prevented the formation of a single focus for Welsh religious life.

In 1994, A. F. Hughes completed his Ph.D. thesis which, while placing most emphasis on the ability of the Welsh to retain their language and culture in recent decades and to the cultural attitudes prevailing among present-day Welsh Australians, does, in addition, include some sections of interest and relevance to those studying culture maintenance in a historical context.¹² Hughes includes chapters which address the conditions necessary for successful language and culture retention and transmission. He outlines the history of Welsh settlement in Victoria, and suggests that the necessary conditions were absent in this primary area of concentration even during its heyday in the 1860s and 1870s.

The year 2003 saw the completion of a large-scale work focusing on a geographically defined Welsh community over a set period of time. Lesley Walker’s study of Welsh migration to and settlement in the Newcastle coalmining district of New South Wales provides an invaluable insight into several aspects of the Welsh migrant community in one of its most obvious strongholds in the latter decades of the nineteenth century.¹³ Walker focuses on the background and motives of Welsh immigrants, the process of migration itself, provides excellent case studies of the migration experiences of individual women and explores the Welsh role in the labour movement. Walker’s study also includes sections on the linguistic, religious and cultural nature of this Welsh community and addresses the ways in which it changed over time.¹⁴

Works which have sought to look specifically at the Welsh in Australia have, therefore, been few in number and characterized by a concentration on prominent individuals and cultural/religious societies, thus excluding most facets of immigrant life. In addition, almost all of the contemporary material referring to the Welsh was saturated with an ideology of what constituted Welshness which invariably focused only on the positive. Furthermore, with the exception of Lesley Walker’s recent Ph.D., what is most conspicuously absent are studies which seek to analyse a particular Welsh community over a specific period of time.¹⁵ This study hopes, in part, to rectify this by providing an analysis of the Welsh immigrant community in the Ballarat/Sebastopol area of the colony of Victoria which includes all aspects of the Welsh immigrant experience as it existed and evolved during the second half of the nineteenth century.¹⁶

An effective analysis of the Welsh immigrant community requires the consideration of numerous issues including residential propinquity, economic specialization, the establishment of cultural and religious institutions, language retention, marriage within the group, institutional support, status, a sense of separateness and even an ideological commitment to the preservation of identity. All these conditions as they existed in the area chosen for study are analysed, and an attempt is made to