The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (34 page)

Ever mindful of purist Chartism's aims—companionate marriage, equality of purpose and valour between the sexes—Ellen also includes Lady Jane Hotham in her salutation.

For the great good Victoria will gain—

Let us all honor on Sir Hotham rain,

And let his fair, accomplish'd, gentle bride,

Her equal due, —share in his fame, world-wide.

To her we'll give an equal meed of praise

(As one Heav'n-sent, our moral worth to raise)…

And soon may Ballarat, Victoria's pride,

Be honor'd with Sir Hotham and his bride.

Despite Ellen's tribute, Sir Charles's bride has been anything but honoured with an equal measure of history's attention. Whole biographies have been written about Governor Hotham, but there is not one extant image of Lady Hotham to place beside the official portraits of His Excellency. No photos, paintings or sketches exist. Lady Hotham did keep a diary of her time in Victoria, but only snippets survive. However, there is enough information in other fragmentary sources to know that Lady Jane Hotham was no puffed-up princess.

Of the two Hothams, it was ‘her ladyship' who proved more adaptable to the new circumstances. Journalists noted that she was gracious and open, perpetually cheerful and appeared to greet every new situation with wide-eyed enthusiasm. She intuited the need to shed aristocratic pretension when mixing with the hoi polloi, but to stroke the plumes of the nouveau riche who flocked to Toorak in their finery. She threw dinner parties every week, and invited both
all the best people in the colony
, as William Kelly described the squattocracy, as well as those who, before striking gold,
never trod on a carpeted floor.
Such
stalwart dames and strapping girls
wore
low evening costume
for morning engagements, but were always accepted graciously by the lady of the house. When Mrs Massey attended her first ball at Toorak—which she describes as
a large handsome place, which the winding Yarra almost surrounds by her silver girdle
—there were so many guests it took two hours to get the carriages up the drive to the front entrance. Lady Hotham's
affability
was often contrasted to the
unbending
nature of her husband.

She also took to the streets. Before leaving for their tour of the diggings, Sir Charles and Lady Hotham attended a tradesman's ball at the Criterion Hotel. There, described Kelly, they met an
assemblage of hard-brushed, shiny-haired operatives, publicans, corporations and small shopkeepers, with their wives and daughters, girthed in silk or satin, and moist with mock eau-de-cologne
. It was a tough crowd: common, aspirational, monied, star struck. Lady Hotham, with the
consummate tact of her sex
, merrily drank a low-rent brandy cocktail at the urging of one of the guests. Charles bristled. Lady Hotham was the belle of the ball.

Lady Hotham took her tact, her joie de vivre, her kindly yin to Charles's dour yang—whatever it was she possessed that her husband didn't—all the way to the diggings. Their goldfields tour took them to Bendigo, Ballarat and Castlemaine, bumping along in a Yankee Telegraph carriage,
a grotesque article
, according to William Westgarth, built for strength not comfort. First stop: Ballarat. They arrived at 5pm on Saturday 26 August, Sir Charles on horseback, her ladyship in the carriage. It had been raining steadily all afternoon. Their appearance elicited little fanfare. In fact, they saw the advantage in entering the stage unannounced and unrecognised, the better to take in an undoctored scene. The couple slipped quietly into the Government Camp, where they were staying in Police Inspector Robert Evans' quarters (
into which we managed to convey almost every piece of furniture to be found in the Camp
, griped Police Magistrate D'Ewes). On Sunday they walked together through the diggings, stopping to ask questions of the diggers.

In a despatch to Lord Grey in London, Hotham later wrote that
for some time I was enabled to walk undiscovered amongst them, and thus I gathered their real feeling towards the Government, and obtained an insight into some minor causes on which they desired redress.
He concluded that the digging population was generally orderly, loyal and
having among them a large proportion of women and children…there was an appearance of tranquillity and confidence.
He concluded that it was through the influence of women that
this restless population must be restrained
. Hotham predicted that where a militia would fail to tame the more restive diggers, the wives would succeed.
I would rather see an army of ten thousand women arrive, than an equal number of soldiers
, he ended his despatch.
²²

On Monday, Lady Hotham went without her husband to Black Hill to view the mining operations there. She made a distinct impression. All were pleased with the governor, the
GEELONG ADVERTISER
later reported,
but Lady Hotham ranks still higher. The diggers considered her a perfect darling and no more frightened of the mud than ourselves
. It was considered a stroke of policy genius to conduct a private tour, an unobtrusive, inconspicuous visit rather than the
tinsel, formality and studied effect
of a public tour, which the diggers would have despised. Was this judicious decision made by Lady Hotham? She certainly seemed to enjoy the unorthodox viceregal outing.
It was indeed a grand and gratifying sight
, wrote the
DIGGERS
'
ADVOCATE
,
to see her Ladyship shaking hands and exchanging civilities with the clay-besmeared but generous-hearted diggers…scattering to the winds the almost blinding cloud of aristocratic prejudice
. A miner wrote to the
BALLARAT TIMES
to express the same appreciation of Lady Hotham's egalitarian inclinations. C.G.D. (Constantly Growling Digger) expected the Hothams
to come up here as aristocratic novelties to have a look at us cattle [and] shrug their shoulders in horror.
But he was delighted to observe her ladyship
breaking and examining bits of clay in her white, delicate little hand and talking and smiling to the people about her all the while…why, bless your soul, she hasn't half the airs and graces of your innkeeper's or storekeeper's wives
.
²³
That was the diggings: the common slags getting all uppity, while the governor's wife got down in the dirt.

It is thanks to the no-longer-growling digger that we have the best eyewitness pen portrait of the governor's wife available:

There is Lady Hotham on his arm, her shoes and stockings all over mud, she doesn't care a straw—she is joyous, and evidently happy. She is a tall young woman of six and twenty [actually she was thirty and seven]
²⁴
fine symmetrical figure, very active, no mock delicacy about her, blond complexion, fine liquid ox-eyes, fair hair, teeth white and regular, as a greyhound's, and affable and conciliating manner—none of all that
hauteur
in her manner you might expect in her high position—cheerfulness and goodness are impressed upon her countenance. But dear me, how plain she dresses; plaid dress, red stripe, very plain bonnet…A gold watch, suspended by a massive gold chain, and hanging carelessly from her neck is the only ornament she wears.

The passage is descriptive, but sounds a cautionary note. All those women whose behaviour and attitude in the colonies has become uncomfortably defiant, ambitious or demanding, beware.

Now, if all the diggers, storekeepers and publicans wives would throw by their silks and satins, and appear like Lady Hotham,
simplex in munditiis
, they would confer a great boon upon their indulgent husbands; and be more respected, the closer they would follow Lady Hotham's example.
²⁵

Less pressure to perform, more yielding to the simplicity of their surroundings—that's what the miners of Ballarat wanted from their wives.

But Lady Hotham was not merely a walking mannequin of feminine decency. When the people threw up a hearty three cheers for Hotham and his lady, Jane turned around to face the crowd,
her eyes beaming with delight and face suffused with gladness. She smiled, not with the cold dignity of a high born dame but with holiday glee.
She said plainly,
‘Well, I declare, these diggers are, after all, fine hearty fellows; I'll speak to Charles to be kind to the poor fellows, when we get back to town again'.

There is a more celebrated image of Lady Hotham at the Ballarat diggings: the moment when she was swept up in the arms of a hefty digger, who transported her safely over a muddy ditch. Either Lady Hotham was an independent spirit by nature, or her adaptable nature adjusted readily to the sense of freedom from convention that many women experienced on the diggings.

There's a moment in Bendigo on their goldfields tour when we see the Hothams in an arresting snapshot of marital dissonance. In Bendigo Hotham was invited to a public dinner at the Criterion Hotel. Earlier that day, in front of a crowd of nine thousand, he promised to throw open the lands, and encouraged the people to pursue agricultural activities and
make beautiful homes for themselves on the rich lands of the colony.
He was presented with a petition to abolish the licence tax. He could not promise, he said, to do away with so large a portion of public revenue.
All must pay for liberty and freedom in some shape or another
, he consoled. To show his man-of-the-people stripes, he confided that he paid ten per cent tax on his property in England—
and I can assure you, I dislike it most infernally, but I still must pay it.
He agreed to give the subject his full attention but warned,
having made up my mind as to what is right, I am just the boy to stick to it.

At the dinner that night, the boy prophesied that although Victoria was in its
infancy
, it would soon reach its
manhood
and live happily into
old age
. Though no individual would be threatened, Hotham was certain that the introduction of machinery to the goldfields would be an essential part of its
rigorous manhood
.

Now it was time to get on with the toasts. The chairman proposed a toast to Lady Hotham, who was present. Perhaps she wanted to answer the toast herself, to use the voice that Ballarat's diggers had found so refreshing and open. But Sir Charles rose and spoke for her.

As you know, it is not in the power of a lady to take part in politics, and it is certainly not my wish that Lady Hotham should do so. In her name, I thank you for the toast that has been given. It is her part, and I believe I may add, her study, to take part in all those charities, and other works of a social character, which women are best suited for. (Cheers) If she adhere to this part of her duty, she can be as useful in that way to the people of this country, as I, with God's blessing, can be in mine. (Great cheering.)
²⁶

What an odd speech. Who is it really for? The audience who met his uncontroversial ideas about women's place with applause? Or Lady Hotham, who must have sat in silence, as she absorbed the subtle sting of rebuke from her husband of just nine months? It is possible that Hotham's backhander was intended partly for Ellen Young, whose overtly political incursions may well have been brought to his attention in Ballarat. But later events cast it in the most personal light.

Fifty years after the Hothams' goldfields tour, an old Ballarat pioneer added a piece to the Jane Hotham jigsaw. One day in the winter of '54, the digger recalled in a letter to the Ballarat Council on 3 December 1904, he had sheltered a fugitive from a licence hunt, hiding the man in his tent. The next day the digger encountered a gentleman and his wife, asking directions to Bath's Hotel. He walked them to their destination, and was surprised to find them asking him many questions about the conditions on the goldfields. Happy for an audience, he denounced the impudence and cruelty of the authorities, giving the events of the previous day as example. The gentleman halted, stood in front of the digger and said
I am surprised Sir, that you, an Englishman, should give sanctuary to a rebel against your Queen. Do you know who I am?
Yes, the governor. The digger protested:
I simply did my duty as an Englishman should do to try and free a fellow man from oppression
. An animated discussion then ensued, in which fifteen minutes was spent
arguing the point of justification for my action, in which her Ladyship very energetically joined
. Sir Charles retorted that he would
not stand for insubordination
—whether from the digger or his wife is unclear.
²⁷

Of course, the pugnacious digger could have been gilding the historical lily, half a century on—showcasing his courage in taking on the new governor. But then why bring Lady Hotham into the reminiscence of what he described as
a triangular debate
? Why draw a woman into the ring? Lady Hotham's actions that day must have made a lasting impression on him, either from the sheer force of her energy or the unorthodox nature of her involvement in the discussion. Was her ladyship always so lippy, or was there something in the colonial air that made her feel suddenly reckless? It may have been this indiscretion, this challenge to his authority, that led Hotham to rein his wife in publicly at the Bendigo dinner. How could the governor rule with an iron fist if he could not control his lady? The governor certainly would not
look
like the sort of boy who stuck to his guns if even his outspoken young wife was prepared to take him on.