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Ballarat Suburb Overview

Ballarat is a city located on the Yarrowee River and lower western plains of the Great Dividing Range in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately 105 kilometres west-north-west of the state capital;Melbourne. With an estimated urban area population of just over 94,000 people, Ballarat is the third most populous urban area in the state. One of the Australia’s most populated inland settlements, it is the most populous in the state and fifth in the country. In the late 19th Century and up to the 1920s, the terms Ballaratians and Ballaratites were used for inhabitants of the city, with Ballaforniansmentioned in one source. However, there is no term used commonly used at present.

The City of Ballarat local government area which encompasses both the Greater Ballarat urban area and outlying towns spanning an area of 740 square kilometres and an estimated population of almost 100,000. Ballarat is its the most populous urban centre, the seat of local government and its administrative centre.

It was named by Scottish squatter Archibald Yuille established the first settlement, his sheep run called Ballaarat in 1837 with the name derived from local Wathaurong Aboriginal words for the area, balla arat, thought to mean “resting place”. The present spelling was officially adopted by the City of Ballarat in 1996.

It is one of the most significant Victorian era boomtowns in Australia. Just months after Victoria was granted separation from New South Wales, the Victorian gold rush transformed Ballarat from a small sheep station to a major settlement. Gold was discovered at Poverty Point on 18 August 1851 and news quickly spread of rich alluvial fields where gold could easily be extracted. Within months, approximately 20,000 migrants had rushed the district. Several Australian mining innovations were made at the Ballarat diggings including the first use of a Chilean mill in 1851 and the first use of a mine cage in 1861. Unlike many other gold rush boom towns, the Ballarat fields experienced sustained high gold yields for decades.

The Eureka Rebellion began in Ballarat and the only armed rebellion in Australian history, the Battle of Eureka Stockade, took place on 3 December 1854. In response to the event the first Australian introduction of full suffrage was instituted and as such Eureka is interpreted by some as the origin of democracy in Australia. The gold rush and boom gave birth in many other significant cultural legacies. The rebellion’s symbol, the Eureka Flag has become a national symbol and is held at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Australia’s oldest and largest regional gallery. Other nationally significant heritage structures include the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, established 1857, the best example of a regional botanic gardens in Australia with the greatest concentration of public statuary including the official Prime Ministers Avenue;the longest running lyric theatre building, Her Majesty’s, established 1875; the first municipal observatory, established 1886; and the earliest and longest memorial avenue, the Avenue of Honour, established between 1917 and 1919.

Proclaimed a city in 1871, its prosperity continued until late in the 19th century, after which its importance relative to both Melbourne and Geelong rapidly faded with the slowing of gold extraction. It has endured as a major regional centre hosting the rowing and kayaking events from the 1956 Summer Olympics. It is the commercial capital of the Central Highlands and the largest city in the Goldfields region of Victoria

Prior to the European settlement of Australia, the Ballarat region was populated by the Wathaurong people, an Indigenous Australian people. The Boro gundidj tribe’s territory was based along the Yarrowee River.

The first Europeans to sight the area were an 1837 party of six mostly Scottish squatters from Geelong led by Somerville Learmonth who were in search of land less affected by the severe drought for their sheep to graze. The party scaled Mount Buninyong, among them were Somerville’s brother Thomas Livingstone Learmonth, William Cross Yuille and Henry Anderson all three of which later claimed land in what is now Ballarat.

The Yuille family, Scottish settlers Archibald Buchanan Yuille and his brother William Cross Yuille arrived in 1837 and squatted a 10,000-acre sheep run. The first houses were built near Woolshed Creek by William Yuille and Anderson, while Yuille erected a hut Black Swamp in 1838. Outsiders originally knew of the settlement as Yuille’s Station and Yuille’s Swamp. Archibald Yuille named the area “Ballaarat” which it is thought he derived from local Wathaurong Aboriginal words for the area, balla arat. The meaning of this word is not certain, however several translations have been made and it is generally thought to mean ‘resting place’. In some dialects, balla means “bent elbow” which is translated to mean reclining or resting and arat meaning “place”.

The first publicised discovery of gold in the region was by Thomas Hiscock in 2 August 1851 in the Buninyong region to the south. The find brought other prospectors to the area and on 19 August 1851, John Dunlop and James Regan struck gold at Poverty Point with a few ounces. Within days of the announcement of Dunlop and Reagan’s find a gold rush began, thousands of prospectors to the Yarrowee valley which became known as the Ballarat diggings. Yields were particularly high with the first prospectors in the area were extracting between half an ounce which was more than the average wage of the time and up to five ounces of alluvial gold per day. As news of the Australian gold rushes had reached the world and Ballarat had gained an international reputation as a particularly rich goldfield. As a result a huge influx of immigrants including many from Ireland and China gathering in a collection of prospecting shanty towns around the creeks and hills. In just a few months, numerous alluvial runs were established, several deep mining leads began, the population had swelled to over 20,000 people.

The first Post Office opened on 1 November 1851. Parts of the district were first surveyed by William Urquhart as early as October 1851. By 1852 his grid plan and wide streets for land sales in the new township of West Ballarat built upon a plateau of basalt contrasted markedly with the existing narrow unplanned streets, tents and gullies of the original East Ballarat settlement. The new town’s main streets of the time were named in honour of police commissioners and gold commissioners of the time, with the main street, Sturt Street named after Evelyn Pitfield Shirley Sturt, Dana Street named after Henry Dana and Lydiard Street after his assistant, Doveton Street after Francis Crossman Doveton, Armstrong after David Armstrong and Mair Street after William Mair. These officials were based at the government encampment which was trategically positioned on an escarpment with an optimal view over the district’s diggings.

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