The Welsh in an Australian Gold Town

Robert Tyler

Description

Works which have sought to look specifically at the Welsh in Australia have been few in number and characterised by a concentration on prominent individuals and cultural/religious societies, thus excluding many facets of immigrant life. This book provides an analysis of the Welsh immigrant community in the Ballarat/Sebastopol gold mining district of Victoria, Australia during the second half of the nineteenth century and considers all aspects of the Welsh immigrant experience. As its focus, the book has the Welsh migrant group as a whole, in one particular area, during one period of time, for ultimately it was the migrants themselves who were responsible for the strength or weakness of Welsh religious life, the success or failure of Welsh cultural institutions; they who decided whether or not to retain and transmit their national language if, indeed, they spoke it in the first place; they who chose whether or not to marry within their own group, to live amongst their own, to retain the ties of Welshness and pass on the values of the Old Country, or to attempt full and immediate integration; they who were miners or shop owners, abstainers or drunkards, law abiding or criminal. A true picture of Welsh immigrant life can only be obtained by considering the community in its entirety, to view it in the round, as it were. This work attempts to do just that and hopes to make some small contribution to the understanding of what it was to be one amongst the thousands of Welsh people who lived in a particular place at a certain time in a land so far from Wales.

Sujets

• Histoire
• New Zealand
• History
• Australia
• Wales
• Victoria

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780708322673
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Welsh in an
Australian Gold Town
Ballarat, Victoria 1850–1900
Robert Tyler
University of Wales PressTHE WELSH IN AN AUSTRALIAN GOLD TOWNTHE 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 978-0-7083-2267-3
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.
Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, WiltshireI fy Mam a fy NhadPreface
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.
W elsh- 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 withThe Welsh in an Australian Gold Town
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 denomin -
ational 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.
viiiAcknowledgements
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 NationalAustralia, 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 vii
Acknowledgements ix
List of Tables xiii
List of Maps and Illustrations xvi
Introduction 1
1 Settlement Patterns 7
2 Occupation 18
3 Language 34
4 Religion 55
5 Cultural Institutions 76
6 Villains, Whores, Drunkards and British Imperialists 101
7 Assimilation 123
Conclusion 145
Appendix I 148
Appendix II 152
Appendix III 153
Notes 156
Bibliography 188
Index 201Tables
1.1 W elsh- born in Australia 8
1.2 Numbers of Welsh-, English-, Scottish- and Irish- born in
Victoria 9
1.3 WIrish- born in Victoria as a
percentage of total population 9
1.4 Percentage by birthplace in each region, 1854 10
1.5 Percentage by birthplace in each region, 1857 10
1.6 Percentage of each nationality found on the gold fields, 1854
and 1857 10
1.7 Percentage by birthplace in each region, 1861 11
1.8 Numbers of Welsh-, English-, Scottish- and Irish- born in the
Ballarat area, 1861 12
1.9 WIrish- born in the Ballarat area
as a percentage of total population, 1861 12
1.10 Numbers of WIrish- born in the
Ballarat area, 1871 13
1.11 Welsh-, English-, Scottish- and Irish- born in the Ballarat area
as a percentage