Eureka Rebellion in popular culture
The Eureka Rebellion, an 1854 gold miner's revolt in Victoria, Australia, has been the inspiration for numerous novels, poems, films, songs, plays and artworks.
The folk song German Teddy concerns Edward Thonen, one of the rebels who died defending the Eureka Stockade.
Carboni was one of the thirteen rebel prisoners put on trial for high treason, being acquitted by the Victorian Supreme Court on 21 March 1855.
[2] After becoming a British subject, Carboni would leave Australia on 18 January 1856, setting sail as the lone passenger aboard the French vessel Impératrice Eugénie.
Carboni later became a military interpreter and also for Francesco Crispi, an Italian statesman who was negotiating with the British in an attempt to secure their support for the reunification of Italy.
[3] One notable inconsistency in Carboni's account is that he describes the Eureka Flag as made of silk,[4] and the cover of the first edition has an illustration that features diamond-shaped stars.
These incorrect descriptions plagued early Eureka investigators such as Len Fox, with the fragments held by the Art Gallery of Ballarat being of cotton and mohair construction.
Author Ian MacFarlane notes that Carboni, who accompanied George Black and Father Smyth on this occasion, "suggested in his The Eureka Stockade that this meeting took place on 30 November.
Charles Doudiet was an associate of Henry Ross and aided the wounded rebel, noting his death at the Free Trade Hotel two days later in his sketchbook.
He was present at the burning of Bentley's Hotel, the oath swearing ceremony on Bakery Hill and may have been an eyewitness to the early morning battle.
The events were referenced in a work of fiction for the first time in Marcus Clarke's His Natural Life, which relies heavily on the history of Carboni and W.B.
Other novels set in the period to follow include: In the Roaring Fifties (1906), The Call of the Cross (1915), Black Swans (1925), In Days of Gold (1926), Red Mask (1927), An Affair at Eureka (1930), The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1930), Human Drift (1935), Rebels on the Goldfields (1936), The Five Bright Stars (1954), Ballarat (1962), Road to Ballarat (1958), Southern Cross (1965), and Goldfields (2000).
The first, Eureka Stockade, was a silent 1907 film directed by Arthur and George Cornwell and produced by the Australasian Cinematograph Company.
The film impressed critics of the time and was found to be a stirring portrayal of the events surrounding the Eureka Stockade, but it failed to connect with audiences during the two weeks it was screened.
Directed by Alfred Rolfe, it starred Maisie Carte, Wynn Davies, Reynolds Denniston, Charles Villiers, Percy Walshe, Jena Williams, and Leslie Victor as Peter Lalor.
[16][note 1] Stockade, a 1971 Australian musical film featuring Rod Mullinar as Peter Lalor, was directed by Hans Pomeranz and Ross McGregor.
The film focuses mainly on Governor Hotham (played by Brian Lipson), Raffaello Carboni (Barry Kay), and Douglas Huyghue (Tim Robertson).
Eureka Stockade, a three-act opera with music by Roberto Hazon and a libretto by John Picton-Warlow and Carlo Stransky, was completed in 1988.
