Petition

The document reproduced below is a petition from concerned residents of Melbourne responding to the Ereka Stockade battle.

The text of the petition reads:

To His Excellency Sir Charles Hotham
Lieutenant Governor of the Colony

This Petition humbly sheweth that

We the undersigned citizens of Melbourne, viewing with pain the recent fatal insurrection at Ballarat, yet believing that the diggers have been aggravated by a long system of misrule and a most odious administration on the Goldfields, petition your Excellency that a fair and equitable commission of enquiry be immediately appointed to investigate the causes of the present dissatisfaction and to suggest the best method of redressing the grievances so long complained of. And further our petitioners would pray that your Excellency would consider the propriety of allowing the diggers the nomination of a part of the Commission. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray &c &c &c

Petition to Lieutenant-Governor Hotham from concerned citizens of Melbourne 1855
VPRS 1192/P, unit 7
Public Record Office Victoria

Although the text is undated, a small note on the back indicates that the Lieutenant Governor's office replied to the petition on 8 December 1854.

The writers of this petition may or may not have known that Lieutenant Governor Hotham had instituted an enquiry into the administration of the goldfields in mid November 1854, before the Eureka Stockade. Their request for digger involvement in the process nevertheless went well beyond the terms of reference of the existing inquiry.

As the petition is fragile and tightly rolled, we are unable to estimate the number of names it contains, but it may extend to several thousand.