The 1854 miners' rebellion, culminating in the Eureka Stockade, started the journey towards democracy and universal suffrage in Australia. By 1854 the surface gold had been exhausted, and many miners were earning too little to support their families. Living costs were high, and increased further by the 30 shilling per month miner's licence, which many miners had to pay at the expense of feeding their children. Armed soldiers swept the diggings almost daily searching for unlicensed miners who were jailed, their families left to destitution. At the same time police, government officials and soldiers were making a fortune from bribery and corruption.

The forgotten rebels are the women. The Eureka story has come down to us as a story of men's heroism, and the role of women has been ignored. Wright tracks down the women on the Ballarat goldfields, some of whom played important roles in the fight for democratic rights.

We learned about the Eureka Stockade and the miners' rebellion in primary school, but we didn't learn about the government corruption, the arbitrary arrests and convictions of innocent men on trumped up charges, the soldiers' brutality, the bayonetting of unarmed men and women, the firing of tents with women and children inside them.

An interesting and very readable book about an important piece of Victoria's history. ( )

This is the kind of book the Stella Prize is all about - something I'd never have picked up without the prompt of the long list that turned out to be a fascinating account of a moment in Australia's history I knew surprisingly little about. In focussing on the role of women, Wright shifts the story from the standard outline we all learned about at school and brings new and intriguing insight to bear on the goldfields, the Eureka movement and the nascent women's rights movement of the time. It's long and at times dry, but there's a lot to like here. ( )

Lively, Stella prize-winning history of the Ballarat goldfields exposing the role of women on the fields and in the Eureka Rebellion before, during and after. For my full review, please see Whispering Gums: http://whisperinggums.com/2014/11/09/clare-wright-the-forgotten-rebels-of-eureka... ( )

In December 1854 Australia saw one of its most significant uprisings in its history known as the Eureka Rebellion. This act of civilian disobedience in Ballarat, Victoria was a protest to the expensive miner’s licence been imposed on them. The miner’s licence fee was a way around the taxation problem in the mine fields, allowing the Victorian government to provide infrastructure to the stockade. The miners didn’t see the fee this way and found it to be extortion; everyone had to pay the same amount no matter if they found gold or not, in fact you paid even if you weren’t a miner.

The Eureka Rebellion (or protest) led to the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, where police and British soldiers stepped in to break up the protest. This battle didn’t last long (around 15 minutes) but the effects were lasting. This piece of history has been taught in good high schools (not mine obviously) but it has always been focused on the men involved, even though about 40% of the mine fields consisted of woman and children.

The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka by Clare Wright is an attempt to remind people what happened and tell the untold story of the forgotten rebels. The term ‘herstory’ can be thrown around when talking about this book. My problems with this book was personal, I grew up in a small mining town that often talked about the gold rush in the 1870’s. I’ve heard enough about mining to last me a lifetime and I’m just not interested in the topic.

However I had to read this book for book club, so I made an effort and while I did find some interesting stories it felt too much like a chore. It didn’t help that the book started off as narrative non-fiction and turned into a text book half way through. In hindsight, the introduction was all I really needed to know about this piece of history, the rest just offered extra information.

I have to give the book credit to the huge section of endnotes found at the back. I respect a book more if they reference their work but I don’t seem to share the same concern with fiction. My concern however is the fact that the majority of references are second hand accounts of the Eureka Rebellion. It is true that most firsthand accounts of the rebellion were destroyed but I can’t help but take the information with a big grain of salt; it is like Chinese whispers.

The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka won the 2014 Stella Award, a literary award for Australian women writers similar to the Baileys Women’s Prize which is possibly the reason we read this one for our book club. In fact, since the next book is All the Birds Singing by Evie Wyle which one the Miles Franklin Award (Australia’s biggest literary award), I have no doubt. If you are interested in Australian gold rush history or the forgotten tales of women in a key historical events then try The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2014/09/09/the-forgotten-rebels-of-eureka-by-cla... ( )

It is to my discredit that I didn't really know the Eureka Story. Guess I missed studying it in my schooling in NSW and Qld. I did know there was some sort of uprising, and somehow had formed the prejudice against the government of the time. Clare Wright's wonderful book does not dispel that prejudice.

At the same time she opens up the story by telling it from the female point of view. Here we have the women of the Ballarat goldfields in all their diversity, endurance and (yes) power. The quality of her research jumps off every page, but better still, she knows how to write a ripping yarn. It's a long book at over 500 pages but I read it easily in less than a week (and I do have other things to do).

You wouldn't have to be a Victorian to enjoy it. And to learn something new. ( )