COLLECTION: BALLARAT FINE ART GALLERY


BACKGROUND

Gold had been discovered at Ballarat, and from 1851 people had trecked many miles from Melbourne and Geelong to seek their fortune on the prolific goldfield, from where gold was being won with a minimum of effort. It was not long before the news had spread internationally, and ships arrived laden with people from many countries, all in search of the elusive golden metal which could make them their fortunes.

For the privilege of scratching around in the dirt however, they were beholden to pay a tax, in the form of a licence fee, to the Government every month.

In 1854 this fee was increased from 5 Shillings to One Pound, a considerable sum for the huge majority who had not as yet found any of the yellow metal. The authorities conducted frequent hunts to collect the fees and were merciless with those found wanting, whatever the reason. Typical punishment was to be chained to a large log until a £10 fine was paid.

This caused outrage among the miners and eventually they formed the Reform League led by Peter Lalor, to air their grievances to the authorities and to consolidate their actions on the goldfield. It was this group that decided to adopt a flag to display at their meetings, probably as a rallying flag to call attendance to their meetings. History has it that a Canadian, Captain Ross, suggested the design of the Stars of the Southern Cross, and at least three ladies were responsible for the banners construction.

The activities at Ballarat eventually led to an armed conflict, and history relates the story of a bloody battle in which many of the miners were killed and tortured, the flag having been torn down from its pole and dragged through the dirt by exultant soldiers and policemen.

The tattered flag was eventually given in safe keeping to the Ballarat Art Gallery by the descendants of the trooper who had pulled it down from the flagpole in 1854.

It had been previously been used many times as a backdrop in civil liberty type rallies and was well known, but it faded into obscurity for many years, until in 1973 the Gallery Committee, chaired by Cr. Jack Chisholm O.A., set about to conserve it and display it once again. Cr. Chisholm approached me and asked my opinion concerning the conservation, and if I was willing to carry it out.

THE APPRAISAL

The long roll of sheeting was unrolled on the Gallery floor and entwined within its folds was the Eureka flag. It was larger than I had expected, about 4m by 2.6m, and it was terribly torn and shredded in many places. About a third of it was missing on the fly end, but the rest was basically intact , except for the fraying of the cross, and several jagged holes here and there. Cr. Chisholm and his group had very carefully washed the flag to prevent further deterioration of the fabrics. They had constructed a special wading pool type bath and laid the flag on a wire netting rack, which allowed the flag to be gently agitated in the special detergent solution, and later provided support during drying. It certainly had suffered a hard time, but for some reason, as its history began to flood back into my mind, I fell in love with this starry banner which would occupy so much of my future. Of course I decided to undertake the task of trying to present it as it deserved to be presented .

THE CONSERVATION WORK

Despite making many inquiries, I was amazed to find out that there was very little information available in 1973 concerning methods of restoring or conserving flags. What little information was available was rather sketchy and in most cases not proven.

I decided that the work would take place over the school holiday period, and I was allocated one of the Galleries to carry out the work undisturbed, beneath several beautiful landscapes by Hans Heysen.

It must be realised that the Eureka Flag would have been made in haste, in adverse conditions, and with inadequate materials and equipment. As a consequence, the flag is quite irregular in outline and dimensions, but the workmanship executed by the seamstresses who sewed the flag under those conditions is magnificent.

It had been a huge flag measuring about 4m x 2.6m but all that remains is about 3.24m of its original length. To facilitate the conservation sewing we had constructed a base board, the size of the original flag and mounted it on trestles. This board also served as a work table so that I could reach the centre of the flag by kneeling on it, after applying suitable padding to prevent damage.

Because of the fragility of most of the remaining fabric, and the requirement that the flag had to be displayed in a vertical position, it was necessary for the flag to be mounted on to two layers of backing materials, one layer to be aesthetic, and both of them to provide strength and stability, and to provide a suitable backing to receive the thousands of couching stitches required to mount the flag and to retain the many areas of frayed fabric. The green backing material was placed onto the board and carefully tensioned before anchoring to the baseboard. The Stabiltex material was then placed on top and likewise, it was also carefully tensioned before fixing down to the baseboard and making it ready to receive the flag.

The flag having been placed into position on top of its backing materials, a plan was adopted to affix the flag to the backing fabrics by applying rows of stitches in a 12cm. grid pattern. To achieve this the grid was laid out using threads stretched between pins set up over the flags surface for me to follow. The flag was sewn to the backing by the rows of almost invisible stitching in the grid pattern. The extensive frayed and degraded areas, and the perimeters of the torn and tattered areas, were then couched down as required. This part of the operation of mounting the flag took me two weeks, often working into the early hours of the morning.

It was now time for the carpenters to move in and build the framing for the baseboard and fit the huge glass front so that the flag could be exhibited on a wall over the staircase in the Gallery in readiness for the unveiling by the Prime Minister, the Hon. Gough Whitlam M.P. on the 3rd December 1973.

The flag was moved from the Art Gallery to the Gold Museum in 1987 to enable extensive renovations to be carried out at the gallery, including a special gallery The Selkirk Gallery, which is now the flags permanent home, and has been provided with the special lighting and temperature control specifically for the exhibition of the flag and a permanent display concerning the Eureka Affair.

POINTS OF INTEREST

The presence of a machined seam on the hoist end of the flag, and the obvious foreshortening of the relevant star, indicates that at some time the flag has been in two pieces and that a strip of fabric was missing when the two pieces were machine sewn back together. It is not known when this was done, or by whom. The accompanying drawing allows for this gap, and is drawn freehand to accurately follow the irregularities of the outlines and the dimensions.

The flag is constructed of 13 pieces of a very fine blue woollen fabric of the 1850s. (it is very light, but strong, and has a high sheen that gives a silk-like appearance), 4 pieces of cotton twill for the cross, and 5 pieces of fine cotton lawn for the stars.

The seams are flat felled seams and one seam still contained an old dressmakers pin.There is a distinct W mark adjacent to the star on the Fly end of the flag.

In 1980, 7 years after I undertook the conservation work and literally fell in love with this wonderful flag, I was informed by an elderly family relative that it was accepted in the family history that my Great-Great Grandmother, Anastasia Withers, was one of the three women who were responsible for sewing the flag. Further research on my part has revealed that this was highly probable. Could the W mark be her autograph ? I like to think so !