BENDIGO\u2019S rich gold era was in significant part thanks to the miners who laboured across the region\u2019s fields in the 1800s.<\/p>\n
However, those miners were subject to a license tax which the majority felt was too expensive, and subsequently a peaceful protest, called the Rid Ribbon Agitation, was staged at Camp Hill.<\/p>\n
One-hundred-and-seventy years to the day after the event, on Thursday 27 August, actors from The Bendigo Theatre Company will put on a play showing what historians believe occurred on that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully the citizens of Bendigo who do come will get a really good idea of what all this was about,\u201d said Euan McGillivray, president of the Bendigo Historical Society.<\/p>\n
\u201cRed was thought to be the colour of agitation and revolution and rebellion because there were people from all over the world on the Bendigo minefields.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr McGillivray said as a way of raising money between 1851 to 1853, the Victorian Government applied a license fee for those wishing to dig on the goldfields.<\/p>\n
Miners had to pay 30 shillings per month, but pushed for a reduction to 10 so the practice was more affordable.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally it wasn\u2019t a lot, and they wouldn\u2019t have noticed it so much when times were very good and they were getting a lot of gold,\u201d said Mr McGillivray.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in late 1852 to 1853, times were a bit tough on the Bendigo fields, so hundreds and thousands of the miners were really quite perturbed about it and thought it was unjust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr McGillivray said the collection method also angered miners, who had to pay the fee even if they hadn\u2019t found any gold yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice they were quite brutal about it, and arrested people, chained them up, and did all sorts of gruesome things to many miners at the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were 15,000 miners armed to the teeth and it could have got very ugly if it wasn\u2019t controlled properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1853, thousands signed a petition for the Crown to reduce the fee by two-thirds, subsequently rejected by Governor Joseph La Trobe, leading to the protest.<\/p>\n
Although not immediately, the protest led to the Eureka Rebellion and the eventual end of the goldfield tax in April 1855.<\/p>\n
The reenactment will be at Bendigo Piazza in Rosalind Park at 11am on Thursday 27 August, and people are asked to wear a red ribbon like the miners did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BENDIGO\u2019S rich gold era was in significant part thanks to the miners who laboured across the region\u2019s fields in the 1800s. However, those miners were subject to a license tax which the majority felt was too expensive, and subsequently a peaceful protest, called the Rid Ribbon Agitation, was staged at Camp Hill. One-hundred-and-seventy years to […]<\/p>\n