Australian Digital Thesis Vol.1

'And for harmony most ardently we long'
Musical life in Ballarat, 1851-1871
Volume One
Anne Doggett
B Mus (Melbourne), MA (Swinburne)
This thesis is submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements

for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
School of Behavioural and Social Sciences and Humanities

University of Ballarat
PO Box 663
University Drive, Mount Helen
Ballarat, Victoria, 3353
Australia
March 2006
Concert Room, Charlie Napier Hotel, Ballarat, June 1855.
National Library of Australia, nla.pic-an 2376957.
When we’re out upon the spree,

We are jovial and free,
And for harmony most ardently we long;
To a concert room we pop,
At the bar we take a drop,
And then go in the room to hear a song.
From 'When we’re out upon the spree', written and sung by goldfields
entertainer Charles Thatcher, Thatcher's Colonial Songs, Charlwood &
Son, Melbourne, 1864, p. 76.
ABSTRACT
The study examines two decades in the musical life of Ballarat, a regional city in south-eastern
Australia. Beginning at the time of the 1851 gold rush, it covers the period in which Ballarat
grew from a rough mining camp to an established city with a socially and ethnically diverse
population of over 40,000 people. The thesis pursues the aim of looking at the music practices of
the community in ways that will further our understanding of the significance of music in the
lives of the people.
A framework developed to explore the musical life of the community is based on the centrality of
the individual and communal response to music and the relationship of that response to the total
environment within which it occurs. Meanings are found in the embodied experience and in the
different ways people relate to their environment by connecting and forming relationships with
aspects of their physical and conceptual worlds.
As the people of Ballarat used music in various ways to relate to their environment, music helped
to define and shape the various boundaries within which they lived in the community, and
became one way for people of all social and ethnic groups to establish and assert their identity. It
helped to establish positions of power, negotiate hierarchy and maintain English hegemony in a
multicultural society. There was also a strong contemporary focus on the value of the spiritual
and the aesthetic. By relating, through music, to culturally determined concepts of the beautiful,
the spiritual and the sublime, people could transcend the mundane reality of the everyday.
Music permeated colonial life and can be regarded as a window through which we can look at
contemporary society. Yet music was more than a reflection and, because of its deep significance
in people's lives, it also became a means of reinforcing and disseminating cultural values, and an
effective agent for personal and social change.
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
Except where explicit reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis
contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a
thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree of diploma.
No other person's work has been relied upon or used without due
acknowledgement in the main text and bibliography of the thesis.
Signed (Applicant)
Date
Signed (Supervisor)
Date
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks and appreciation above all to my supervisors: to Dr Janice Newton, University of

Ballarat, for the interest she has taken in this research project, the insights she has provided, and
her readiness to give generously of her time and support; to Dr Anne Beggs Sunter, University of
Ballarat, for her helpful comments, and for sharing her expert knowledge of the history of
Ballarat; and to Dr Kay Dreyfus, Monash University, for her wisdom, interest, and guidance on
this long journey of discovery.
The assistance of the University of Ballarat is acknowledged for providing the scholarship to
undertake this thesis, and the School of Behavioural and Social Sciences and Humanities,
University of Ballarat, for support with costs related to infrastructure and conferences.
A study with such a broad basis necessarily draws on a wide range of sources, and calls on the
knowledge and expertise of many people. The assistance of the following people is greatly
appreciated: Jill Blee, Mark Broemmer, Fred Cahir, Pat Cook, Jan Croggon, Greg Cuthbert,
Neville Cuthbert, Father Bill Devonshire, Jennifer Doggett, Mark Doggett, Barb Dunlop, Marie
Dunlop, Evan Duggan, Helen Duggan, Peter Freund, Clare Gervasoni, Dianne Gome, Bishop
James Grant, Peter Griffiths, Cerud Gruffuth, Paul Hardy, Max Harris, Jennifer Hazelwood, Ruth
Hill, Claire Hinton, Gerald Jenzen, Helen Kinloch, Fred Klasen, Laura Kostanski, Major Neil
Leckie, John Maidment OAM, Peter Moon, Alex Morris, Joan Ogilvie, Ben van Oosten, Graeme
Orr, Bob Pattie, Tom Reidy, Benjamin Segaloff, Johanna Sellick, Adrienne Simpson, Jane
Southcott, Danny Spooner, Jula Szuster, Heiko Timmers, May Townsend, Elizabeth Trudgeon,
Roger Trudgeon, Ken Turner, John Whiteoak, Dorothy Wickham, Jan Wositzky, Amy Young
OAM, Nadine Zacharias. With special thanks to Susan Cuthbert and Mary Heyes.
The staff and volunteers of the following institutions and organisations are thanked for their
assistance: Australiana Research Room, Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation; Ballarat
Gold Museum; Ballarat Historical Society; Ballarat Rangers' Military Museum; Bridge Records
Inc; Centre for Studies in Australian Music, University of Melbourne; Churchill Howells
Associates Ltd; Clunes Museum; Daylesford and District Historical Society; EMI Classics;
Friends of the Mount Alexander Diggings; Hardy Audio Productions; Hyperion Records Ltd;
Lydiard St Uniting Church; Mitchell Library; Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm;
National Library of Australia; Naxos; Performing Arts Museum, Arts Centre of Victoria; Public
Records Office of Victoria; Royal South Street Society, Ballarat; St Andrew's Uniting Church
Archives; St Patrick's Church Archives; St Paul's Church Archives; Sebastopol Historical Society;
Sovereign Hill Museums Association Research Library; White & Gillespie (Melb) Pty Ltd.
IN MEMORIAM
To my parents, in gratitude for two incomparable gifts:
a love of music and an enthusiasm for learning.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iv
LIST OF TABLES vi
OVERTURE 1
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 3
The period 4
Ballarat 6
The people 7
The entertainment venues 11
Rationale for place 16
Rationale for timeframe 17
Another time, another sonic culture 18
Sources 20
CHAPTER TWO: MUSIC IN HISTORY 25
Music in Australian histories 25

General histories of Australian music 32
Historical debates about music 37
High and low culture 37
Music in social life 41
Music in worship 47
Music in Ballarat 51
Local music histories 54
CHAPTER THREE: MUSIC IN SOCIETY 59

Music and humanity 59
A broad spectrum approach 62
Music in society 64
Models of music in society 67
The framework 70
Response 71
The embodied experience 71
Forming relationships 74
Shaping 78
Music as a window onto society 80
i
CHAPTER FOUR: CONNECTING 82
Words 84
Concepts 87
The beautiful 88
The spiritual 90
The tragic and the comic 91
Time 95
The past in the present 96
The passage of time 98
Place 103
Street music 103
Bands 105
Tower bells 113
People 116
A common pursuit 117
Musical networks 119
'Everybody is connected' 121
CHAPTER FIVE: SITUATING 126

Situating in a locality 128
Remnants of a musical culture 129
Situating within gender boundaries: music and women 132
Situating within genteel society: music in the home 141
Situating within a timeframe: music in the Victorian era 147
Situating within a culture: music and ethnicity 151
Ethnic groups 152
Sonic rivalries 155
Visual images 160
Words 160
Community 162
Celebrations 166
Negotiating position 173
CHAPTER SIX: TRANSCENDING 181

A glimpse of other worlds: the experience of opera 182
The artists 184
The performances 190
The experience 192
A taste of the sublime: the choral societies 204
The background 204
The history 206
The leaders 211
ii
The performances 214
A pathway to heaven: music and worship 220
The buildings 221
Aids to worship: organs and harmoniums 227
The voice of the people: hymns and psalms 230
The role of the skilled: choirs, anthems, liturgy 237
CHAPTER SEVEN: SHAPING 246

The power of song (a) 249
Early days on the goldfields 250
Rebelling: music and Eureka 254
The power of song (b) 258
Changing perspectives: songs of 'respectability' 259
A fine arts exhibition 260
Nurturing: music and education 265
Public performances 272
Humanising: adult music classes 276
Succouring: music in the service of the needy 280
Evangelising: spreading the word 286
Building: the architecture of musical tradition 292
CODA 298
The embodied experience 298
Connecting 299
Situating and transcending 300
Shaping 301
Final observations 302
BIBLIOGRAPHY 307
iii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece: Concert room, Charlie Napier Hotel, Ballarat, June 1855.
CHAPTER ONE
Map of Australia 6
Map showing small communities 7
Ballarat in 1851 9
Ballarat in 1872 9
1861 map of Ballarat 10
Night scene on the diggings 12
The Star Concert Hall 13
The Shakespeare Music Hall 13
The John O'Groat Concert Room 13
The Charlie Napier Theatre 14
The Victoria Theatre 14
The Theatre Royal 15
The Mechanics' Institute 15
The Alfred Hall 16
CHAPTER FOUR
Robert Farquharson 85
John Winterbottom 85
Miska Hauser 89
Thomas King 93
Joe the Bellman 103
First Subscription Ball, Ballarat 104
Ballarat Brass Band advertisement 108
Members of Clunes Recreation Band 110
Map of band route 113
The Alfred Memorial Bells 115
CHAPTER FIVE
William Barak, 'Ceremony' 129
Corrobory or Native Dance 131
Mrs Little 135
Catherine Hayes 136
Anna Bishop 136
Maria Carandini 136
Fannie Simonsen 136
Sara Flower 136
Huxtables Music Warehouse 145
Chinese arriving in Ballarat 155
iv
Lancashire Bellringers 156
Dancing saloon, Welshmen dancing 158
Notice of eisteddfod 167
CHAPTER SIX
Anna Bishop in Lucrezia Borgia 185
Giovanna and Eugenio Bianchi 187
Lucy Escott 189
Henry Squires 189
Scene from Masaniello 195
Opening page of Wallace's Maritana 197
Scene from Faust 198
Ballaarat Philharmonic Society rules 207
John Robson 213
Poster for Samson 216
Ballarat Synagogue 223
Lydiard St Wesleyan church 223
St Paul's church, Bakery Hill 224
Christ Church 224
St Patrick's 225
Christ Church Daylesford pipe organ 227
Ballarat's first organ 228
Cummins Hymn Book 232
CHAPTER SEVEN
Song covers: 'Land o' the leal', and 'When the roses bloom again' 264
Children processing to the Alfred Hall 275
Prince Alfred receiving the children's tribute 275
Ballarat Benevolent Asylum 282
Ballarat District Hospital 285
Ballarat Orphan Asylum 285
Matthew Burnett, the temperance evangelist 289
Temperance song: 'Come home father' 290
Ballarat Town Hall 294
v
LIST OF TABLES
CHAPTER ONE
Table 1: Birthplaces of population on the goldfields, 1854 8
Table 2: Birthplaces of Ballarat population, 1871 8
CHAPTER FIVE
Table 3: Women reported in the press 139
Table 4: Percentage of population born in various countries, 1861 153
Table 5: Percentage of population born in various countries, 1871 153
vii
OVERTURE
Ballarat, in 1851, was a sparsely settled pastoral and agricultural district situated in the south-east
of the Australian colonies. Just over a decade earlier, squatters, station managers, shepherds, and
hut keepers had moved into the area, their coming altering irreversibly the lifestyles and ultimate
destinies of the local Aboriginal people. A small village had been established in nearby
Buninyong, but most white inhabitants of the district lived and worked on large scattered sheep
and cattle stations.1 Much of the land was still covered by forest and, in the words of Ballarat
historian WB Withers, 'a pastoral quiet reigned everywhere'.2
But that 'pastoral quiet' was soon to disappear. With the discovery of gold in August 1851 came a
host of dynamic new sounds that were to accompany Ballarat's development into a busy colonial
city. The idyllic soundscape portrayed by Withers was transformed, and noises associated with
mining, habitation and commerce dominated daily life. Along with those sounds came a
remarkable amount of music.
Two decades after the gold discoveries Ballarat citizens enjoyed a rich and varied musical
culture.3 Pianos were bought and sold, 'Joe the Bellman' pushed his barrel organ around the
streets, and prisoners sang hymns to pass the time in police cells. Choirs and harmoniums
provided sacred music on the Sabbath, while congregations in several churches listened to the
music of large pipe organs imported from England. In Sunday schools children learned many of
the church's teachings by taking part in sacred choruses. School children learned to sing at sight
and demonstrated their wide repertoire of songs in their annual speech day presentations. People
from various racial backgrounds practised the music of their own cultures: the Chinese had their
opera, the Welsh their choirs and eisteddfods and the Germans their Liederkranz. Scottish music
was an important part of the annual Highland gatherings. Some of the best overseas and colonial
talent performed in Ballarat, presenting everything from comic songs and popular instrumental
music to seasons of grand opera. Civic ceremonies were accompanied by music from Ballarat's
own bands. The Ballarat Harmonic Society gave regular performances of oratorio and opera.
Experienced musicians led music making and taught vocal, instrumental and theoretical music.
Amateurs and professionals performed music written by resident Ballarat composers. In local
music stores people could buy anything from a harmonium to the sheet music of the latest
popular song. The Town Hall had its own excellent peal of bells, cast by England's leading bell
foundry. Ballarat in 1871 provides vibrant confirmation of Thérèse Radic's assertion that the
1
Weston Bate, Lucky City, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1978, pp. 2-4.
2
WB Withers, History of Ballarat, Ballarat Heritage Services, Ballarat, 1999 (first published 1870), p. 8.
1
OVERTURE
colonial period was 'teeming with a musical life of such exuberance that to ignore it would be to
distort our social, cultural and musical history'.4
The development of this extensive musical culture within such a short timeframe suggests that
music had a deep significance for the people of colonial Australia. Yet the tendency has been for
general histories of Australia to erase music from people's daily lives. Many historians leave the
impression that music was almost non-existent, while others set it apart in a few token
paragraphs, or in its own discrete chapter.5 This approach suggests that music is distinct from the
rest of life, something, for example, to indulge in when work is over, interesting for its own sake
rather than for its interaction with, and influence upon, the way people think, behave, and live
together.
Ballarat’s rapid development from a rough mining settlement into a major city provides an
unusual opportunity to study the music that accompanied the growth of an emerging community,
and to reflect upon its importance in the lives of the people. This thesis provides a documented
account of that music, with the specific aim of looking at the music practices of early Ballarat in
ways that will further our understanding of the significance of music in the lives of the people.
3
The musical activities described are all discussed in chaps 4-7.
4
Thérèse Radic, 'Some historical aspects of musical organisations in Melbourne, 1888-1915', PhD thesis,
University of Melbourne, 1978, p. 2.
5
See chap. 2 for a discussion of music in Australian history.
2
1
INTRODUCTION
In August 1837 a small group of men set out from Corio Bay in the Port Phillip District of New
South Wales in search of new grazing and agricultural opportunities. After travelling 50 miles in
a north-westerly direction they climbed Mt Buninyong, and from there they looked out for the
first time upon Ballarat, the resting place of the Wathawurrong people.1 The discovery of these
rich, fertile plains soon led to a new settlement, and Ballarat became the destination of squatters
who moved into the area, stocking the land with large numbers of sheep and cattle, clearing the
land, planting crops, and erecting houses and fencing. By 1851 a small township had grown up
near Mt Buninyong where services were provided for the squatters, managers, shepherds and hut-
keepers of the district.2 Then, in August 1851, gold was discovered at Ballarat. People came
from all parts of the world in search of wealth and, in the quest for gold, the peaceful countryside
was disfigured beyond recognition. The grim landscape of the goldfields was mirrored by the
harsh conditions under which the miners lived and worked. Yet only two decades after the first
gold discovery, the 'awful quagmire of Ballarat'3 had been transformed into one of the British
Empire's major cities.
In the year 1871 Ballarat had a total population of 47,201.4 It boasted wide streets, beautiful
gardens, retail stores, banks, hotels, libraries, railway stations, large benevolent institutions, and a
hospital. Grand town halls and churches dominated the skyline. Novelist Anthony Trollope
wrote of his impressions after a visit in December 1871:
Ballaarat is certainly a most remarkable town. It struck me with more surprise than any other
city in Australia. It is not only its youth, for Melbourne also is very young; nor is it the
population of Ballaarat which amazes, for it does not exceed a quarter of that of Melbourne;
but that a town so well built, so well ordered, endowed with present advantages so great in
the way of schools, hospitals, libraries, hotels, public gardens, and the like, should have
5
sprung up so quickly with no internal advantages of its own other than that of gold.
1
The word Ballarat, sometimes spelled Ballaarat, comes from the Aboriginal words bala meaning elbow
and arat meaning place (Bate, Lucky City, p. 2).
2
Peter M Griffiths, Three Times Blest: a history of Buninyong and district 1837-1901, Buninyong and
District Historical Society, Ballarat, 1988, pp. 7-15; Bate, Lucky City, pp. 2, 4; squatters were farmers who
appropriated large areas of undeveloped land, often with no initial legal rights to property ownership.
3
William Howitt, Land, Labour and Gold, Lowden, Kilmore, Victoria, 1972 (first published 1855), p. 388.
4
Census of Victoria, 1871, Part 1, pp. 34-38, Table XXX.
5
Anthony Trollope, Australia and New Zealand, Dawsons of Pall Mall, London, 1968 (first published
1873), pp. 406-07.
3
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
These impressive changes occurred between the years 1851 and 1871 and were paralleled by a
similar transformation in Ballarat's musical scene. Until the gold discoveries of 1851 people had
to provide their own music, and there are few details recorded in contemporary accounts. It is
likely that some white settlers had musical instruments with which to amuse themselves and their
companions. A monthly church service for the squatters and their employees gave people
opportunities to join together in the singing of familiar hymns.6 Aboriginal music was also
practised, but the lack of a comprehensive study of indigenous music in the area means we have
little information about its nature or extent. From the time of the earliest gold rushes in 1851,
however, numerous detailed accounts of spontaneous and organised musical activity testify to the
importance of music in contemporary life. This thesis will draw attention to the enormous
amount of music generated in Ballarat over the next two decades, and to the energy and
commitment devoted to its practice and development. This chapter introduces the place and the
timeframe, situating them within the context of the larger framework of Australian colonial
history. It presents the basic historical approach, explains the collection of data and introduces
some of the terms used in the discussion.
The period
Queen Victoria came to the British throne in 1837. Her example as monarch was in sharp
contrast with that of her two predecessors, her uncles George 1V and William 1V, who had been
notorious for their dissolute lifestyles and their womanising.7 Victoria's reign became the longest
in British history, and she ruled over the most extensive empire the world had ever known.8 Asa
Briggs, historian of the nineteenth century, cautions against making ambitious generalisations
about an age of such diversity and complexity.9 In order, however, to provide a brief introduction
to the period in which this thesis is based, it is necessary to consider some of the themes that have
come to typify the Victorian era, looking particularly at those that provide an understanding of
the arguments presented in the thesis.
In 1851, at the beginning of the relevant period, the Great Exhibition was held in the Crystal
Palace, London. A massive celebration of the development of industry, it was the first great
international exhibition and a symbol of confidence in the values of the age. Britain lay at the
centre of a vast empire, and dominated world trade, while advances in transport and
6
Nathan F Spielvogel, The First Ten Years of Ballarat Church History, typewritten account, Ballarat
Historical Society collection, n.d.
7
Dorothy Thompson, Queen Victoria: gender and power, Virago Press, London, 1990, p. 15.
8
By the end of the nineteenth century the British Empire comprised nearly one quarter of the world's land
surface and more than one quarter of its total population ('British Empire', The New Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 15th edition, Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., Chicago, 2005).
9
Asa Briggs, Victorian People: a reassessment of persons and themes, 1851-67, Penguin, Harmondsworth,
Middlesex, 1965, p. 12.
4
communications meant that people and ideas could be moved around the globe as never before.10
In looking at the national mood of Victorian society between 1851 and 1867 Briggs refers to the
key influences of prosperity, of national security, of trust in institutions, of belief in a common
moral code, and of belief in discussion and enquiry.11 It was also a period of apparent stability.
Between the revolutions of 1848 and the Irish nationalist movement of the 1880s, the middle
years were seen by Briggs as 'a great plateau bounded on each side by deep ravines and
dangerous precipices'.12 Pride in the Empire and confidence in its values were conveyed to the
public in the grand ceremonies that accompanied royal and formal occasions.
Yet any appearance of a united society was superficial. Since the seventeenth century, the puritan
ideals of Cromwell's republican movement and the loose morality that accompanied the
Restoration had both been entrenched in England's social climate. Reacting against widespread
practices of vulgarity and debauchery, many people were inspired to look upon the example of
Victoria and Albert, and to espouse family values and the cult of goodness. The concept of
'respectability' emerged, a concept that has come to symbolise much of what we now regard as
Victorian.13
There was no easy solution to the problems that accompanied the rapid changes brought about by
the industrial revolution. The massive increase in urban population and the crowded slums that
housed the new factory workers encouraged the spread of poverty, disease and crime. Large
numbers of criminal and petty offenders were shipped to Australia as convicts, while Elizabeth
Gaskell, Charles Dickens and other writers sought to raise public awareness and to stimulate
social conscience by drawing attention to the human side of poverty and suffering.
The majority of those who settled in Ballarat came from a world in which religion, literature and
music were an established part of the cultural environment. 'Never was Britain more religious
than in the Victorian age', writes K Theodore Hoppen in his history of the mid-Victorian era.14
Culturally, the growth of literacy and improvements in publishing led to an increase in the
writing of novels and, between 1840 and 1870, the number of books published annually in
Britain increased by 400 per cent.15 Everywhere there was music. 'Britain was awash with
10
K Theodore Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation 1846-1886, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998, pp.
288-290.
11
Briggs, Victorian People, pp. 10-12.
12
Briggs, Victorian People, p. 9.
13
See Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation, p. 64, for a discussion of 'respectability'.
14
Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation, p. 427.
15
Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation, pp. 375-386.
5
music',16 and those who came to Australia brought with them a tradition in which music was an
important part of entertainment, religion, ceremony and family life.
As part of a British colony, nineteenth-century Ballarat emerged and developed against the
background of Victorian politics, society and culture. Much of its music related to that
background, and can be better understood with a knowledge of Victorian cultural values. Yet
Ballarat was no mirror of any British community. Historically, geographically and ethnically
different from Britain, Ballarat developed its own distinctive culture, while the social and ethnic
groups who formed part of its population brought their own musical diversity and enrichment.
Ballarat
NEW SOUTH
WALES
WESTERN
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AUSTRALIA
Perth
Sydney
Adelaide
VICTORIA
Ballarat
Melbourne
Geelong
VAN DIEMEN’S
LAND Hobart Town
Australia at the time of the Victorian gold discoveries in 1851. Map adapted from Stuart
Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004, p. 94.
Ballarat is situated in south-eastern Australia, in the state of Victoria. Victoria was separated
from New South Wales and proclaimed a separate colony in 1851,17 shortly before the gold
16
Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation, p. 394.
6
discoveries that mark the beginning of this history. Melbourne and Geelong, established port
towns lying to the south-east of the Ballarat area, were both to become gateways to the
goldfields. A number of smaller towns and communities grew up around Ballarat, each with its
own musical life. While this is a history of music in Ballarat, the music of the smaller
surrounding communities intertwined in many cases with the bigger history, and will sometimes
be mentioned in the thesis and the appendices.
Clunes
Smeaton Daylesford
Mt Bolton
Kingston
Lake Coghill’s Ck
Learmonth Creswick
Bald Hills
Beaufort Weatherboard
Dean
Burrumbeet
Miners Rest
Lake Windemere
Burrumbeet
Dead Horse
Wallace
BALLARAT Warrenheip
Carngham Haddon Sebastopol
Ross Creek Cambrian Hill Egerton
Snake Valley
Smythesdale Buninyong
Scarsdale Browns Lal Lal
Linton Newtown Durham Lead
Happy Valley Piggoreet
Staffordshire Reef
Map showing the small communities around Ballarat whose musical activities appear in the thesis
or the appendices. Each square represents approximately 20 square kilometres (12.4 square miles).
Map plotted from UBD Map 382, 'Ballarat, Grampians & Spa Country Regional Touring Map'.
Other maps were consulted for a few towns.
The people
When gold was discovered in 1851 a sudden rush of people from many different parts of the
world converged on the colony of Victoria. The people who were already living in the Ballarat
area, and those who arrived during and after the gold rushes, had their own vibrant musical
traditions. These traditions met together in Ballarat in the 1850s as people brought their musical
heritage with them, ready to maintain their music practices in the new land.
17
Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004 (first
published 1999), p. 86.
7
The following table shows the birth-places of the population revealed in the 1854 Victorian
census, the first taken after the beginning of this study. The Wardy Yallock gold fields were in
the area around Browns, lying to the south-west of the township of Ballarat (see map, above).
Table 1: Birthplaces of population on the goldfields, 1854
Place of birth Ballaarat, Creswick's Creek &

Wardy Yallock Gold Fields
Victoria 1,316
Other Australian colonies 723
Other British colonies and East Indies 347
England 7,157
Wales 329
Scotland 2,790
Ireland 2,310
France 107
Germany 360
Other European countries 257
USA 342
Other parts of America 9
China 340
Other 297
Total population 16,684
Census of Victoria, 1854, Part 6, p. 8, Table V1
By the time of the 1871 census the area generally referred to as ‘Ballarat’ included the city of
Ballarat (also referred to as Ballarat West), together with the boroughs of Ballarat East and
Sebastopol. By then a far greater percentage of the population had been born in the Australian
colonies. Chinese numbers, risen to almost ten per cent of the Ballarat East population by the
time of the 1861 census,18 had fallen again to around four and a half per cent.
Table 2: Birthplaces of Ballarat population, 1871

Place of birth Ballarat Ballarat East Sebastopol
Victoria 11,141 7,583 3,081
Other Australian colonies and New Zealand 721 451 170
England 6,475 4,261 1,224
Wales 312 231 584
Scotland 1,914 1,031 407
Ireland 3,060 1,632 828
Other British Possessions 111 48 14
France & French colonies 37 16 4
Germany 159 217 74
Austria 8 3 –
Other European countries 92 85 39
USA 78 43 14
China 113 739 40
Other 87 57 17
Total population 24,308 16,397 6,496
Census of Victoria, 1871, Part 6, pp. 20-22, Table X1V
18
Bate, Lucky City, p.149.
8
Ballarat in 1851. The diggings at Golden Point from an engraving by T Ham. Photo from the
Australiana Research Collection, Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation.
Ballarat in 1872. This photograph by Bardwell taken from the Town Hall tower, illustrates the
striking development displayed in Ballarat during the two decades covered by this study. In
John Reid and John Chisholm, Ballarat Golden City, Joval Publications, Bacchus Marsh, 1989,
p.34.
9
10
Ballarat West and Ballarat East in 1861. The street patterns show the contrast between the grid pattern laid out in Ballarat West, and the
haphazard nature of the street development around the mines in Ballarat East. Map GF5 from 'Miscellaneous Geological Maps and Goldfields
Maps', Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
The entertainment venues

A brief outline of the establishment and nature of Ballarat's principal entertainment venues will
be given in this introductory chapter. Other buildings and locations will be described when they
arise in the discussion.
The first music was performed in the open air or in tents. Early places of entertainment included
the Queen's Theatre, the Adelphi Theatre, the Ballarat Assembly Rooms and an early Theatre
Royal, all established by 1854.19
Concert rooms were conducted at many of the hotels for the purpose of attracting potential
customers. Among these were the rooms attached to Bentley's Hotel, the Charlie Napier Hotel,
the Star Hotel and the United States Hotel.20 Although the concert rooms attracted large numbers
of entertainers hoping to profit from the wealth of gold, by 1856 most of the major musical and
dramatic entertainment was taking place in larger establishments. Some concert rooms, however,
continued to operate throughout the period of this study.
By 1856, in addition to these smaller venues, three large theatres had been established in Main
Road. There are varying reports of the size of the Victoria, the Montezuma and the Charlie
Napier Theatres, and they were sometimes rebuilt and enlarged to cater for the growing
population. In 1856 it was said that they could accommodate 2500, 1000, and 2000
respectively.21 The Theatre Royal in Sturt Street was opened in 1858, the first to be built in the
western part of Ballarat, and the most elaborate of the early theatres. Designed in the 'Italian
style', the façade featured columns and pilasters. The theatre provided ten dressing rooms, a
spacious area under the stage, refreshment rooms for 'each grade of audience', a billiard room, a
'green room', a manager's apartment and a commodious orchestra. The stage was equipped with
grooves, traps, pulleys and footlights.22 The Theatre Royal had a capacity of 1500.23
Two halls, as distinct from theatres, became the venues for many of Ballarat's concerts and choral
performances. The Mechanics' Institute was officially opened in 1859, established in the tradition
of the British mechanics' institute movement. This movement sprang from the educational
lectures given by Scottish philosopher George Birkbeck. Institutes were dedicated to self
19
WB Withers, History of Ballarat, 1870, p. 43; Times, 23 September 1854, p. 1, 7 October 1854, p. 1, 21
October 1854, p. 2.
20
The concert room in Bentley's Hotel measured 80 feet by 16 feet. Plans of the hotel dated 1854 are held
in the Sovereign Hill Museums Association collection; Bate, Lucky City, p. 45.
21
Star, 29 December 1856, p. 3; Age, 7 February 1856, p. 3; Star, 28 August 1856, p. 1.
22
Times, 16 December 1858, p. 3; Star, 18 December 1858, p. 3; the term 'orchestra' was often used to
denote a performing space as well as a group of musicians.
23
Star, 18 December 1858, p. 3.
11
improvement and promoted the education of illiterate young adult working-class males. By the
mid-nineteenth century there were 610 local institutes throughout Britain, often established and
supported by the newly-rich middle classes, particularly the rich industrialists. In Ballarat the
Mechanics' Institute provided a large library, a hall for public gatherings and performances and a
geological museum.24 Musical performances in the Mechanics' hall sometimes attracted
audiences of well over 1000. The Alfred Hall was built in 1867 to provide a suitable venue in
which to receive Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, and Ballarat's first royal visitor.
Built on the border between Ballarat East and Ballarat West, it was a large wooden building with
a capacity of around 5000.25
The earliest musical entertainment took place in tents or in the open air. In this picture
of a night scene on the goldfields miners entertain their mates with a concertina and a
cornet. Ballarat Historical Society Collection.
24
Jennifer Hazelwood, 'Mechanics' Institutes⎯a British influence on education and cultural development
in nineteenth century Ballarat', in Alex Gerbaz and Robyn Mayes (eds), Palimpsests: transforming
communities, Division of Humanities, Curtin University, Perth, 2005, pp. 109-122; Star, 27 December
1861, p. 5, 7 August 1869, p. 3.
25
Bate, Lucky City, p. 158.
12
Much of the early indoor entertainment took place in concert rooms attached to
hotels. These early sketches in the Ballarat Historical Society Collection are dated
1857, 1858 and 1865 respectively.
13
Interiors of two Ballarat Theatres, 1856, by scene painter Alexander Habbe, Newspaper Collection,
State Library of Victoria. Top: The Charlie Napier Theatre, where the only seating was in the
partitioned galleries. In 1856 it claimed to be the only theatre lit by gas. Bottom: This is possibly the
Victoria Theatre, a large theatre adjoining the United States Hotel. The author is indebted to theatre
historian Peter Freund for helping to identify these theatres.
14
The Theatre Royal in 1859. The theatre was officially opened in December 1858 and became
the principal venue for opera and drama as well as much of Ballarat's amateur and professional
entertainment. National Library of Australia, nla.pic-an 8655173.
Much of Ballarat’s 'respectable' musical entertainment took place in the Mechanics' Institute,
opened in December 1860. La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria.
15
An 1873 sketch of the Alfred Hall. The hall was built for the reception of Prince
Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1867. Ballarat Historical Society Collection.
Rationale for place

Ballarat, during the period of the 1850s and the 1860s, provides an opportunity to investigate the
music that accompanied the growth of a new community, and to consider the role of music in the
lives of people who had few historical or traditional links to the place in which they lived.
Ballarat was one of the richest of the Victorian goldfields. The rapid increase in wealth during the
early years enabled pioneers to build their city free from many of the financial restrictions that
applied in other settlements. The scale and grandeur of the buildings that were established
reflected the pride of the early citizens in their new community and gave increasing opportunities
for them to develop their music practices. The thriving community also encouraged people to
stay, and Ballarat did not suffer the decline of some other centres.
As well as the ethnic mix and the wealth generated by gold, Ballarat also offers the music
historian another contemporary incentive. Ballarat has retained a very large part of its heritage.
This makes it possible today to enter many of the buildings where mid-nineteenth century
musical events took place, to sit where the audiences sat and, in some cases, to see or even play
the instruments they heard. This is not merely nostalgia, as it provides, for example, information
about such practical details as the size of the performance and audience space. In considering the
acoustics of the buildings we can come a little closer to knowing how the music sounded. In
some cases the retention of the buildings means that the associated records have survived and are
available for research.26 The melting pot of cultures, the wealth generated by gold, the dedicated
26
For example the Mechanics' Institute and several of the churches.
16
commitment to community building and the lasting nature of its heritage contribute significant
dimensions to this study of music in the community.
Rationale for timeframe

In deciding on a suitable period for this study it was necessary to balance the constrictions of
time necessary for the collection of evidence with the need to cover a sufficiently adequate
timeframe to be able to detect trends and patterns. The work of historians Ann Curthoys and John
Tosh supported a decision to cover two decades rather than a shorter period.
Ann Curthoys notes a recent trend among historians to transnational studies and 'big picture'
thinking. In such studies it is possible to explore processes, events and themes that cross national
boundaries, and to trace patterns of influence and networks of connection.27 John Tosh writes that
an emphasis on narrow specialism tends to mask historical trends and, because every aspect of
our culture is the outcome of processes over time, it is important to study 'large swathes of
history'. He believes 'a sense of the whole must always inform our understanding of the past', and
that by approaching history in this way the student can learn to understand major historical trends
and processes.28
This study does not claim to look at 'large swathes of history'. It does, however, aim to explore
something of the process and development evident in the music practices that accompanied
Ballarat’s growth from a goldfields settlement into an established city. It considers music as an
agent for social change, and looks at changes within the musical life itself. It should be noted,
however, that there is no attempt to address the theme of 'progress', or to claim any positive value
implied in those changes. That approach is felt to be inappropriate for this study, where the
meanings embodied in music practices are valorised above value judgments about improvement
or progress. A period of two decades was considered a suitable timeframe, for a preliminary
investigation suggested that in twenty years many of the patterns, relationships and trends in the
musical life of early Ballarat were clearly evident in the abundant evidence disclosed.
There might also have been pitfalls in aiming for a narrower focus in this case. This is firstly
because the meaning of music cannot be understood if it is divorced from its social and cultural
setting, and secondly because tackling a narrowly based study before the bigger picture had been
painted could have given rise to misconceptions regarding the world of which the smaller, more
detailed, aspect formed a part. Because of the relatively small number of similar Australian
27
Ann Curthoys, 'Does Australian history have a future?' Australian Historical Studies, vol. 33, no. 118,
2002, pp. 140-152.
28
John Tosh, The Pursuit of History, Longman, Harlow, 1999, p. 9.
17
studies, there is little with which to make comparisons, so judgments about exceptional or typical
practices would have been difficult. Taking a broader view and identifying consistencies of
thought and practice makes it easier to see which occasions stood out as 'special' and which were
'ordinary'. Tosh observes that it is vital for the historian to be able to distinguish between the
enduring and the transient,29 and this might not have been possible within a more limited
timeframe.
Another time, another sonic culture

Just as communities around the world may have entirely different musical practices and concepts,
the music of a culture may also alter in major ways with the passing of time. The music of 150
years ago was experienced in many different ways from that of today, and may have carried very
different meanings.
Firstly, it took place in a different environment. Living in a world of motor traffic and ubiquitous
background music, we can have little concept of the soundscape of mid-nineteenth century
colonial life. The world then would have sounded very different. Because the non-musical
sounds in their lives were unlike those of today, people heard their music against a different
backdrop, affecting their perception of musical sound in ways we are unable to calculate.
Today there is a great deal of music in our everyday environment. We hear it on the radio, the
television, in movies, shopping centres, offices, factories, transport and restaurants. Most of this
music is not intended to be the focus of our attention and, as a result, it is easy to develop the
habit of not listening to it with any degree of consciousness. It was a different situation in
colonial times when the majority of music experienced was a focal point rather than a
background accompaniment. Most music occurred in the foreground rather than in the
background.
It was also an era when all music was performed and heard live. Every performance involved the
physical presence of at least one musician and provided visible evidence of conscious human
effort. In looking at the musical life of the community, it is necessary to appreciate that this factor
was integral to every contemporary musical experience.
Long distances, and the length of time taken to receive orders, had a major influence on what was
performed locally. The tendency to repeat available works until they were very familiar to their
29
Tosh, The Pursuit of History, p. 21.
18
audiences was likely to have meant close relationships with those works, and an enhancement of
the novelty of new music.
These contrasts with our own experience of music raise the issue of the possibility of really
appreciating and understanding the role music played in people's lives. Considering that
possibility is an important element in the decision of how to approach this study.
Whereas it was once the historian's aim to set aside present day understandings and to look at the
situation from the point of view of someone living at the time, more recent scholarship has made
it clear that in studying the past it is never possible to discard the present. As we learn from the
work of EH Carr and Keith Jenkins, we can never know the real objective past. In writing history
we use current knowledge to give meaning to past issues, and our present position to make
decisions about selecting, highlighting, simplifying and making connections. Discovering the
chronicle of history—the undisputable facts such as dates—is not the task of the historian.
History lies rather in the meanings behind the facts, and in their interpretation.30
This thesis is one interpretation of a former musical culture. It reflects the present as well as the
past, investigating attitudes, developments, influences and outcomes with the benefit of
hindsight, and taking into account current philosophies and writings that were unknown in the
period under investigation. It is based on the understanding that the past can never be accessed
directly, and always comes to us through a text or narrative. It is also necessary to acknowledge
that, in spite of the desire to immerse oneself in the target culture, it is never possible to achieve a
close empathy with the people whose practices are being investigated.31
The thesis, however, is approached from the point of view that 'getting the story right matters'.32
In support of its claim that music was more important in people’s lives than historians have
previously recognised, the study attempts to learn something of the way people thought about,
and practised, their music. According to historian John Tosh, 'to maintain that no text from the
past can be read as an accurate reflection of something outside itself flies in the face of common
experience'.33 In fact, a historical study brings certain insights that were not available to the
people themselves, for we do not look at life with the same prejudices and assumptions and,
30
Edward Hallett Carr, What is History? Knopf, New York, 1962, chap.1, 'The historian and his facts', pp.
3-35; Keith Jenkins, Re-Thinking History, Routledge, London, 1991, chap.1, 'What history is', pp. 5-26,
chap.2, 'On some questions and answers', pp. 27-57.
31
Jenkins, Re-Thinking History, pp. 39-47.
32
33
19
because of the passage of time, we are able to see significance in many of the events and
processes that were once taken for granted.34
Sources
Music is a temporal art, but it does leave certain traces, including scores and textual accounts
written while performances still live in people's memories. Sources used for this thesis include
diaries, reminiscences, local and general histories, hymn books, church records, musical scores,
paintings, photographs and family histories. In certain cases examples of surviving musical
instruments provided clues to past practice. The day-to-day accounts of music that appeared in
the newspapers, however, revealed the bulk of the evidence. Without the very detailed reports
that were a regular part of the daily press, an awareness of the vibrant musical life that will
become evident in this thesis would never have been possible. Music historian Duncan Bythell
claims that newspapers are undoubtedly the most important sources for tracing the activities and
assessing the role of early bands in Australia,35 and this certainly applied to nearly every aspect of
Ballarat's musical life. For that reason it is considered necessary to acknowledge from the
beginning that the thesis is an investigation of music practices conveyed by contemporary
sources, of which the newspapers form the major part. This means that certain issues need to be
addressed.
Firstly, although the thesis is a study of the years 1851-1871, it was not until the mid 1850s that
there was a regular local press in Ballarat. A reliance on newspapers may lead to the assumption
that musical activity increased at around this time, and that there was far less in the early years. In
fact, this was far from true. Other sources provide hints to an enormous amount of music taking
place from the first weeks of mining activity, and it is necessary to realise that while most of the
details of this early music practice may never be known, music did not begin in Ballarat with the
printing of the first newspapers. We do, however, have proportionately far less information about
Ballarat's music practices in the years before 1856.
Secondly, the picture newspapers paint of musical life is far from complete. Whereas reporters
saw it as their duty to inform people about public entertainment, there was less emphasis placed
on the role of music in the everyday life of the community. The newspapers did not report music
in the home, or regular weekly religious ceremonies. The special, rather than the everyday, was
the focus, with the danger that this could lead to a mistaken impression that music practice was
34
35
Duncan Bythell, 'The brass band in Australia: the transplantation of British popular culture, 1850-1950',
in Trevor Herbert (ed.), Bands: the brass band movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, Open University
Press, Buckingham, 1991, p. 149.
20
largely about concerts, ceremonies and important events. It is always necessary to read between
the lines of newspapers accounts. The large number of pianos and harmoniums mentioned in the
contents of homes advertised for sale, for example, suggests a great deal of home music making,
the existence of which went relatively unnoticed in the press. The success of school music
festivals speaks of many unreported hours of preparation by the music teacher, organisational
support by schoolteachers, assistance of parents in ensuring their children were clean and well
dressed, and hours of work that went into the provision of the feasts that accompanied these
occasions.
Thirdly, the newspapers were not unbiased. What we read is not an objective description of the
activity of the people, but the view of one small sector of the community, written with many
different purposes. Those purposes include informing, promoting, and wielding power to shape
the thinking and behaviour of the community.36 Some aspects of music were promoted
unconditionally, some were felt to have no value at all, while some were claimed to be a bad
influence. So this thesis, itself based on personal selection of material and written with a definite
purpose, relies on biased sources.
In fact, however, all histories that are based on textual sources have similar issues to address, for
every textual document is somebody's creation. Even contemporary texts and narratives do not
provide us with an objective picture of music as it existed at the time. Writers of letters, diaries,
fiction, reminiscences, and contemporary histories made decisions about selection and emphasis,
incorporated their own beliefs and values, made assumptions about the knowledge and interests
of readers, and often had hidden agendas that were not expressed or admitted. Tosh writes that
textual sources tend to omit issues that were taken for granted when they were written, often
some of the most influential beliefs of the day. They are tainted with assumptions, less than pure
intentions and sometimes rigged in favour of the ruling class.37 To write a history in the full
knowledge of these issues eliminates misconceptions about the objective nature of the account,
and also means a deeper understanding of the nature of history itself.
If they are to have value as evidence, sources must be evaluated critically. Tosh claims that
critical method will enable the historian to make allowances for deliberate distortions and for the
unthinking reflexes of the writer. This means it is important to understand the nature of the
prejudices incorporated in the sources being used. Tosh also advises ascertaining whether
accounts were written by eye-witnesses, checking their authority, and keeping them in the correct
36
Tosh, The Pursuit of History, p. 17, writes that the written word always serves different purposes, all of
which may have relevance for the historian.
37
21
context. In order to reveal inaccuracies and distortions he suggests investigating a wide range of
sources.38 In this case the latter advice has proved fruitful in correcting several misconceptions
that have found their way into the current body of knowledge surrounding the music of early
Ballarat.
Australian historian John Molony has noted the importance of contemporary newspapers as a
formative element among the literate population of colonial Australia,39 and this suggests that
their value as a historical source lies in more than providing a day-to-day record of events. Tosh
confirms the importance of the press as a valuable primary source, both as evidence of events,
and also for the insights offered into the social and intellectual milieu of the day.40 Records, he
claims, are not simply testimonies of events, but parts of a process that is itself the subject of
enquiry.41 So even the bias shown in contemporary reporting helps us to understand the way
newspapers reflected and influenced the thinking of the dominant literate middle classes and thus
became one of the factors that shaped their musical experiences. The influence of the press was
not limited to those who read the papers, however, for as Ballarat developed along the lines of a
prosperous British city, the values of the dominant middle class impacted upon the thinking of
other community groups. The bias in favour of the views of the ruling classes is acknowledged,
and efforts made to ascertain other points of view, but it is also important to acknowledge the
extent to which newspapers became an important shaping force in the development of Ballarat's
musical life.
The first regular newspaper in Ballarat was the Ballarat Times, which commenced in March 1854
and was published until October 1861. Surviving copies from the first few years, however, are
sparse, and until 1856 there are only scattered editions available. For details about the early years,
the Melbourne Argus provided information through the eyes of the Ballarat correspondent. The
Ballarat Star commenced in September 1855, and was produced three times a week until
December 1856, after which it continued as a daily paper.42 The Ballarat Courier began
publication in 1867. From the time the newspapers commenced, the amusement columns of at
least one Ballarat newspaper were read for each day of the two decades being examined. This
provided a comprehensive picture of visiting artists, concerts, and local musicians who performed
publicly. In addition to the amusement columns, a comprehensive sample of newspapers was
read thoroughly from front to back in order to find musical information of any sort from other
38
Tosh, The Pursuit of History, pp. 56, 58, 61, 111.
39
John Molony, The Penguin History of Australia, Penguin, Ringwood, 1988, p. 116.
40
Tosh, The Pursuit of History, pp. 42-43.
41
42
Stephen J Herrin, The Development of Printing in Nineteenth-Century Ballarat, Bibliographical Society
of Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, 2000, pp. 9-21.
22
sections of the paper, such as advertisements and 'letters to the editor'. The sample comprised one
week of newspapers from every month, and one newspaper from every day in December
throughout the period under review. A large number of leads was also followed up by reading
many newspapers from outside the above sample. Ballarat weekly papers were consulted, and
also a range of papers from nearby Creswick, Clunes, Daylesford and Geelong. As well as
serving as the basis for this thesis, this has resulted in the first comprehensive collection of data
relating to early music in Ballarat.
* * *
To further the aim of looking at the music practices of early Ballarat in ways that will further our
understanding of music's significance in the lives of the people, the thesis is set out as follows.
The next chapter, by analysing Australian, local, and specialist music histories, demonstrates the
need for a study that addresses the issue of music as an integral part of Australian colonial life.
Chapter Three works specifically towards developing a framework for exploring music in
society, considering relevant theoretical literature from the fields of ethnomusicology,
musicology, history and philosophy. Chapters Four to Seven present the main body of empirical
data, looking at the musical life of Ballarat within the framework proposed in Chapter Three. A
brief description of the content of these chapters is given in Chapter Three when the rationale for
the framework is explained. The final chapter evaluates the proposed framework, draws
conclusions, and looks at the significance of the findings. Finally, detailed appendices list music
known to have been performed in Ballarat and surrounding townships, and musicians known to
have performed in the district during the two decades of this study. These are referred to at
appropriate junctures throughout the thesis, and offer strong support for the arguments presented.
Finally, it is necessary to explain some of the terms and language used, and the general
chronological and stylistic approach of the thesis. The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology gives
several meanings for 'community', including a collection of people who share something in
common, a feeling of connection to others and, most commonly, 'a collection of people who
share a geographical territory and some measure of interdependence that provides the reason for
living in the same place'.43 In this thesis the term is used mostly in the latter sense, to refer to the
Ballarat community, and occasionally in the sense of a group of people who share some
significant aspect of their lives. 'Culture' refers to the symbols, beliefs, values and material
products associated with a particular group of people.44 'Hegemony' is used to mean 'relationships
43
Allan G Johnson, The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995.
44
Johnson, in The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology, p. 68, points out that culture does not refer to what
people do, but to the ideas they share about what they do.
23
of domination between social classes'.45 In a multicultural community there may be very different
concepts of 'music', and the term is used to mean any or all of those concepts.46 The term
sometimes refers to music sound, and sometimes to the activity related to music sound, but in
each case the meaning should be clear from both text and context. A society is defined as the
largest system with which people identity themselves as members. This usually refers to people
who live in a particular geographical territory and share a common culture.47 The use of the term
'respectable' reflects contemporary usage rather than a value judgement, and refers to people and
practices conforming to the socially acceptable standards of Victorian middle-class morality.48
'Working class' is used in the thesis to refer to workers who earned their living by manual labour.
'Middle class' covers those with income arising from business interests, professional skills or
experience that enabled them to have a higher standard of living than the working class
population. Other terms will be explained as they arise in the text.
Because the total environment was integral to the way people experienced music, whenever
possible information about social settings and locality is included. Statistics and figures have
been used in a few cases when they can provide clear supportive evidence. Ballarat's musical life
is, however, explored mostly through description, narrative and analysis, with the hope that this
will convey something of the meaning that does not emerge from tabulated empirical data.
Language patterns used in the sources are sometimes adopted when this may help the reader
become immersed more readily in the contemporary experience. It is also considered appropriate
to refer to people as they were at the time, by using titles such as 'Mr' or 'Mrs' in descriptive
passages. Finally, although the thematic approach adopted in the empirical chapters means that
events are not always dealt with chronologically, every effort has been made to ensure that the
reader has a clear sense of chronology from a reading of the complete thesis.
45
The Macmillan Student Encyclopedia of Sociology, Macmillan, London, 1983, p. 154.
46
Martin Stokes leaves music as a vague category, using it to refer to what any social group considers it to
be (Martin Stokes, 'Introduction', in Martin Stokes (ed.), Ethnicity, Identity and Music: the musical
construction of place, Berg, Oxford, 1994, p. 5).
47
The definition of society is adapted from Johnson, The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology, and Gordon
Marshall (ed.), A Dictionary of Sociology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998.
48
Derek Scott, The Singing Bourgeois: songs of the Victorian drawing-room and parlour, Open University
Press, Milton Keynes, 1989, p. xi, points out that in connoting adherence to a code of what is socially
acceptable, the term 'respectability' has a hegemonic function.
24
2
MUSIC IN HISTORY
Richard Twopeny, a visitor to the Australian colonies in the mid-nineteenth century, made the
following observation:
Whether on account of the warmer climate I do not know, but certainly the colonists are a
more musical people than the English. Of course I do not mean that there are any
considerable number of people here who really understand classical music, or who play an
instrument or sing really well. On the contrary, as I think I have said in some other
connection, there is no part of the world where you hear so much bad music, professional
and amateur. But it is also true, that there are few parts where you hear so much music …
Sometimes … you are inclined to think that the colonial love of music is an intolerable
nuisance.1
This chapter will look at the way music is revealed in the work of Australia's historians and
music scholars, outlining some of the limitations of the work, and underlining areas for
consideration. It demonstrates the need for a detailed study focusing on the music of one
community, arguing that this will help us understand the 'colonial love for music' to which
Twopeny testified, and also something of the significance of music in the lives of colonial
Australians.
The first part of the chapter investigates the way music is presented in the more recent of the
major histories of Australia, and in the main comprehensive studies of Australian music. This is
followed by a discussion of relevant scholarly debate regarding music in colonial life, with an
emphasis on high and low culture, music in social life, and music in worship. Next there is an
outline of previous studies of music in Ballarat and in other communities in early Australia. The
final section looks at areas in which this thesis can contribute, and how its approach differs from
and complements other histories of Australian colonial music.
MUSIC IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORIES

'There is a great and interesting local musical, as well as dramatical, history', wrote Ballarat
historian WB Withers in 1887. 'But', he added, 'there is no room for it in these pages'.2
Hints of a 'great and interesting' musical history can be found in most of the well-known histories
of Australia. Nearly always, however, these are glimpses only, leaving the impression that
1
Richard Twopeny, Town Life in Australia, Penguin, Ringwood, 1973 (first published 1880), pp. 217-218.
2
WB Withers, The History of Ballarat, from the First Pastoral Settlement to the Present Time, FW Niven,
Ballarat, 1887 (second edition), p. 290.
25
CHAPTER 2: MUSIC IN HISTORY
historians attach little significance to this aspect of colonial life. Music historians are left to
ponder why, when their own research shows music to be a prominent and pervasive part of
society, the message conveyed by the majority of Australia's eminent historians is very little
different from that of William Bramwell Withers in his comment about the music of mid-
nineteenth century Ballarat: 'there is no room for it in these pages'.
Not all Australian historians, however, have been so dismissive. Russel Ward and Humphrey
McQueen, in particular, claimed far more than a peripheral role for music in colonial Australia.
McQueen saw music as a means of maintaining middle-class values, and regarded the
importation of 700,000 pianos in the nineteenth century as the 'inevitable accompaniment of
colonial hopes and desires'.3 Ward's work in the 1950s was notable for his use of ballads as a
primary source.4 Both Ward and McQueen, writing about the activity of the comic singers on the
goldfields, referred to the role these singers played in the development of an Australian ethos.5
Yet historians have been slow to build upon the concept of music as a vital force in colonial
society. By devoting little space to their accounts of music, and by failing to address its power in
the community, histories frequently convey the impression that music was little more than a
pleasant relaxation or pastime.
A glance through a few of these histories provides an indication of the extent of the coverage
given to music. The index of Geoffrey Blainey's A Shorter History of Australia, for example, has
only two music-related words ('Waltzing Matilda' and 'Sydney Opera House') and, although
Blainey devotes a chapter to sport, there are only a few scattered references to musical activities,
and no mention of composers or performers.6 Similarly, John Molony's The Penguin History of
Australia celebrates the sporting activities of colonial Australians with detailed discussions of
various sports and institutions but, apart from a few passing references, the music of the 1850s
and 1860s is covered in a single paragraph.7 The chapter devoted to the period 1851-1888 in A
Concise History of Australia, by Stuart Macintyre, even omits music from its discussion of
recreation, which does, however, mention museums, galleries, libraries, parks, botanical and
zoological gardens, theatre and sport. It is necessary to look very carefully for the few hints that
music had a significant role in people's lives. 8
3
Humphrey McQueen, A New Britannia, Penguin, Ringwood, 1970, p. 117.
4
Russel Ward, The Australian Legend, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1966 (first published 1958).
5
McQueen, A New Britannia, pp. 117-19; Ward, The Australian Legend, pp. 112-40.
6
Geoffrey Blainey, A Shorter History of Australia, Random House Australia, Sydney, 2000 (first
published 1994).
7
John Molony, The Penguin History of Australia, Penguin, Ringwood, 1987.
8
Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004 (first
published 1999), pp. 85-120.
26
Australians have used music in their celebrations, protests and myth-making, in order to relate to
many of the important issues of their day, and it is hard to imagine 'The Monarch's Birthday', 'St
Patrick's Day', and 'Christmas' without any form of music. These chapter titles in the book
Australian Colonists, by Ken Inglis, suggest that music may form an important part of this
history.9 But although Inglis gives passing reference to music making, suggestions that music
may have been a way for people to relate to their society and their environment are not pursued,
and it is left for others to consider the significance of the musical life of the Australian colonists.
Even cultural histories of Australia give little acknowledgement to music as a social force,
particularly those that approach music from a 'high art' perspective. From Deserts the Prophets
Come: the creative spirit in Australia 1788-1792, by Geoffrey Serle was published in 1973, and
brought out in a revised edition with new and updated material in 1987 as The Creative Spirit in
Australia: a cultural history.10 This work is a history of high culture in Australia. 'It is frankly
élitist', wrote Serle in the preface to the first edition, 'except incidentally, it does not discuss either
"popular" culture or the sociology of culture'.11 Accordingly, there was apparently no music in
the pre-1850 period of Australian history, although Serle does write about art, architecture,
literature and poetry. The six paragraphs devoted to music of the period 1850-1900 were left
almost untouched in the second edition. The amount of detail crowded into this small section
means it becomes little more than a list. Serle is dismissive of Australian compositions of the
period. In the first edition Serle wrote: 'Nineteenth century musical composition was of negligible
importance'.12 In the second edition this sentence was omitted, and Serle added the following:
'Recent research and performances, however, display some surviving compositions of unexpected
quality'.13 Serle prioritises the European tradition over the music of other cultures, and
performing groups over individual amateur music-making. Although he notes a 'widespread
passion for music', he finds significance in little more than its role in asserting British middle-
class values. He emphasises its derivative nature, but makes no attempt to understand why it
remained for so long a reflection of British culture.14
John Rickard, in his Cultural History of Australia, offers a more eclectic view of culture than
does Serle, and does not restrict his observations to high culture alone. The author aims to tell the
story of Australia 'through an examination of its evolving values, beliefs, rites and customs', and
9
KS Inglis, Australian Colonists: an exploration of social history 1788-1870, Melbourne University Press,
Carlton, 1993 (first published in 1974).
10
Geoffrey Serle, From Deserts the Prophets Come: the creative spirit in Australia 1788-1792,
Heinemann, Melbourne, 1973, The Creative Spirit in Australia: a cultural history, Heinemann, Richmond,
1987.
11
Serle, From Deserts the Prophets Come, p. xi.
12
Serle, From Deserts the Prophets Come, p. 43.
13
Serle, The Creative Spirit, p. 43.
27
he has sought to place the arts in their social context.15 Rickard comments on the tendency for
colonial Australians to follow British musical practices. Choral music and opera were popular in
colonial Australia, and the author notes the large operatic repertoire enjoyed by enthusiastic
audiences who were not restricted to the upper classes. German culture was represented by the
German bands and the liedertafels, while popular entertainment included pantomime and
melodrama.16 Rickard has also written elsewhere on aspects of music and theatre in colonial
Victoria, observing that much of Victoria's colonial music took place in a domestic setting, and
looking at the significance of the piano, the popularity of choral music and the role of music in
adapting British culture to the new environment.17
In 1988 Australia celebrated the bicentenary of European settlement. An eleven-volume history

of Australia, entitled Australians: a historical library, was created to mark the occasion.18 The
Events section of the volume entitled Events and Places is a chronology of 'the most important
and interesting happenings in Australian history', and Peter Spearritt, one of the general editors of
the series, hopes it will 'help a reader imagine Australia in the year in which he or she was born
or when a parent, grandparent or greatgrandparent first arrived'.19 In the period covered by this
thesis there were three entries about music (each related to opera), ten entries for sport, five for
the visual arts, and two about balloon ascents.20 Four of the nineteen illustrations were of sporting
activities or teams, but there were no pictures of musicians and none of musical occasions.
Four other volumes in the same series present a slice of the past at fifty-year intervals, with the
volume dealing with the year 1888 closest to the period covered in this thesis.21 The length of this
history allows a more detailed look at people and communities than the shorter histories could
hope to achieve. As a result, it becomes easier to catch glimpses of the music that was part of the
everyday life of ordinary people. Diaries referred to, and quoted from, reveal music as a form of
pleasant entertainment and part of home and family life. While a section on the celebrations for
Australia's centenary in 1888 contains the only detailed discussion of music in the book,
references to a variety of musical activities in many different situations suggest to the reader that
14
Serle, The Creative Spirit, pp. 43, 31.
15
John Rickard, Australia: a cultural history, Longman, Harlow, 1988, pp. xi, xiii.
16
Rickard, Australia: a cultural history, pp. 97-98.
17
John Rickard, 'From pianos to panto: aspects of music and theatre in colonial Victoria', in The Victorian
Historical Journal, vol. 49, no. 191, February 1978, pp. 66-75.
18
Australians: a historical library, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway NSW, 1987.
19
Peter Spearritt, 'Preface', in Graeme Alpin, SG Foster, Michael McKernan (eds), Australians: events and
places, vol. 8, Australians; a historical library, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, 1987.
20
Alpin, Foster, McKernan (eds), Events and Places. Music entries appear on pp. 74, 85, 86.
21
Graeme Davison, JW McCarty, Ailsa McLeary (eds.), Australians 1888, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon
Associates, Broadway, 1987.
28
music may be more meaningful in the lives of colonial Australians than the authors have sought
to acknowledge.
The proposed structure of this official bicentennial history did not meet with the approval of
some historians, who felt it would prove to be a type of sophisticated celebratory history.
Accordingly, another history of Australia was published at the time of the bicentenary, entitled A
People's History of Australia since 1788, one volume of which was entitled Constructing a
Culture.22 The editors of this work reject myths of national progress and unity, regarding their
history as critical rather than celebratory. They do not restrict their approach to high culture, but
look at how culture 'is embedded in the innumerable ways we relate to one another'.23 The
chapters in this volume are written by different authors and deal with such topics as dementia,
sport, schooling, prostitution, gambling, humour and religion, within the timeframe 1788-1988.
One chapter by Lawrence Zion is devoted to music.
In 'The Sound of "Australian" Music' Zion claims that in emphasising 'proper' music,
conventional music history has made the assumption that popular music is irrelevant. He seeks to
look at music in its social setting, and to relate it to the lives of the people. Issues discussed
include music and business interests, the influence of the 'cultural cringe', music and
immigration, and music in urban and rural culture. There is an emphasis on the influence of class,
and the author refers to the way nineteenth-century middle-class values were promoted through
music, particularly in relation to choral music, opera, and the rise of the piano as a symbol of
social status. Zion's chapter is one of the few contributions in general histories of Australia that
address these social issues, but the breadth of the time frame, as well as the complexity of the
various issues discussed, mean that there can be no in-depth exploration of the relationship of
music and society in this chapter.
As in the official bi-centennial history discussed above, there are suggestions in several of the
other chapters of Constructing a Culture that music is embedded in many aspects of human
existence. Marc Askew's chapter on religion, 'Praying, paying and obeying', has passing
references to hymns, instruments, concerts, organists, choir leaders and brass bands.24 In
'Mightier than the sword?' Paul Gillen refers to the folk songs and street ballads sung by the
convict members of the First Fleet.25 The role of song is felt to be influential in establishing
22
Verity Burgmann & Jenny Lee (eds), Constructing a Culture: a people's history of Australia since 1788,
McPhee Gribble/Penguin, Fitzroy, 1988.
23
Burgmann & Lee (eds), Constructing a Culture, p. xi.
24
Marc Askew, 'Praying, paying and obeying', in Burgmann & Lee (eds), Constructing a Culture, pp. 170-
189.
25
Paul Gillen, 'Mightier than the sword?', in Burgmann & Lee (eds), Constructing a Culture, pp. 190-208.
29
attitudes to marriage, according to Kerreen Reiger and Margaret James in 'Hatches, matches and
despatches'. The myth that marriage is a private relationship based on love has been promoted by
the mass media. Song is one way of emphasising that myth, serving at the same time to hide the
social nature of marriage as a legal and economic institution.26 John Docker, in an article on
popular culture, claims a continuity from the festive practices of early modern Europe through
the nineteenth-century melodrama, music halls, circuses and sideshows, to the popular culture of
today. He displays an unashamed bias in favour of popular culture, and divides people into 'high
culture people' and 'popular culture people'. 'Middle-class people', he writes, 'are attracted to
attending opera or ballet for reasons of social status and cultural identity', and, 'popular culture is,
I think, enjoyed by the majority of the working class and lower middle class, and perhaps by
some in the non-tertiary-educated middle class'.27 Such misleading statements and categorisations
are neither accurate in the present, nor helpful to an understanding of music in colonial life, when
the high/popular cultural divide was very different from that of today.
G Osborne and WF Mandle, in New History: studying history today, seek to address neglected
aspects of Australia's past.28 Included in their volume are chapters about medical history,
women's history, Aboriginal history, Australian urban history, and sports history, but there is no
music history. The neglect of music in histories of colonial Australia has, however, been
addressed in more recent edited historical volumes. Creating Australia: changing Australian
history, a collection of essays edited by Wayne Hudson and Geoffrey Bolton, emphasises
Australians' originality, independence and agency.29 Within this collection a notable chapter by
Bruce Johnson laments the lack of recognition given to music in everyday life.30 Johnson, a
performer and historian of jazz, has written widely on the theme of neglect of certain key areas
and he has a strong declared commitment to acknowledging the significance of the everyday
realm of music.31 In his chapter on 'Celebrating Australian music' he writes that the richness of
Australian music has rarely been noted in academic work and claims that an emphasis on high
culture has left a 'massive hole' into which the common, everyday experience of music has
26
Kerreen Reiger and Margaret James, 'Hatches, matches and despatches', in Burgmann & Lee (eds),
Constructing a Culture, pp. 1-17.
27
John Docker, 'Popular culture and bourgeois values', in Burgmann & Lee (eds), Constructing a Culture,
pp. 241-258.
28
G Osborne & WF Mandle, New History: studying Australia today, George Allen & Unwin, North
Sydney, 1982.
29
Wayne Hudson & Geoffrey Bolton, Creating Australia: changing Australian history, Allen & Unwin, St
Leonards, 1997.
30
Bruce Johnson, 'Celebrating Australian music', in Hudson & Bolton, Creating Australia, pp. 142-151.
31
See also Bruce Johnson, 'Towards a new cartography: rethinking Australia's musical history', in Nicholas
Brown, Peter Campbell, Robyn Holmes, Peter Read, Larry Sitsky (eds), One Hand on the Manuscript:
music in Australian cultural history 1930-1960, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National
University, Canberra, 1995, pp. 243-257.
30
disappeared.32 Yet as far as historical understandings are concerned, scholarly research into music
in colonial society has as yet given little foundation on which to build. As observed by Osborne
and Mandle, 'the more rarified, more speculative journeys must be based … on detailed
knowledge of the more mundane'.33
Recent studies encourage the pursuit of a variety of issues and research fields, taking new
directions, seeking the significance of the ordinary, and looking for new approaches to old
themes. In this climate it becomes easier to explore the relationship of music and everyday life.
Cultural History in Australia, edited by Hsu-Ming Teo and Richard White, has a chapter devoted
to popular culture by Richard Waterhouse, whose other work includes a history of the popular
stage, a social and cultural history of rural Australia, and a book about the history of popular
culture in Australia that is referred to later in this chapter.34 In discussing music as a leisure
activity, Waterhouse places it beside sport, drinking, gambling, theatre and circus, and considers
the way it interrelates with issues such as commercialisation, ethnicity, class, mobility and
institutionalisation. Waterhouse looks at the multiple influences that have contributed to the
complexity of Australian culture, with a brief history of the development from a shared
communal culture inherited from pre-industrial England, to a gradual split into high/popular
culture between 1850 and 1914. 35
In regard to the proportional space devoted to music, and the breadth of the coverage, the two
volumes of The Oxford History of Australia are more satisfactory for the music historian than
many other Australian histories. Volume Two, Possessions,36 by Jan Kociumbas looks at the
period 1770 to 1860. Sport surpasses music quantitatively, but six paragraphs in Chapter Nine are
devoted to music in society, with a discussion of the piano, the middle class formal concert, the
songs of the middle classes, the convict and bush ballads, the work of professional musicians, and
the composer Isaac Nathan. Volume Three in the series, Glad, Confident Morning,37 by Beverley
Kingston, covers the years 1860-1900, and this history presents a stimulating breadth of approach
to music, while at the same time placing it within a social context. A substantial section of the
book is devoted to music, and scattered references reveal music as important to the material
32
Johnson, 'Celebrating Australian music', pp. 144, 150.
33
Osborne & Mandle, New History, p. 9.
34
Richard Waterhouse, From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville: the Australian popular stage 1788-1914, New
South Wales University Press, Kensington NSW, 1990, The Vision Splendid: a social and cultural history
of rural Australia, Curtin University Books, Fremantle, 2005, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure: a history
of Australian popular culture since 1788, Longman, South Melbourne, 1995.
35
Richard Waterhouse, 'Cultural transmissions' in Hsu-Ming Teo and Richard White, Cultural History in
Australia, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2003, pp. 113-126.
36
Jan Kociumbas, The Oxford History of Australia, Volume 2, 1770-1860: Possessions, Oxford University
Press, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 255-258.
31
culture of the city, significant on ceremonial occasions, in home life, in military life and in
education. Kingston considers music in the theatre and the church, and sees music both as a part
of everyday life and as a form of high art. She feels that music was more a participant activity
than a spectator sport, and considers some of the implications of music in society, looking at its
influence on the social and cultural atmosphere of the day, and its link with tradition.
* * *
The work of music historians, discussed in the following section, suggests that these general
histories, with a few notable exceptions, underplay the significance of music in colonial
Australia. Hints at a vibrant musical life are found, and in some Australian histories a specific
role for music is acknowledged. It is seen, for example, to have played a part in establishing the
Australian ethos, in asserting and maintaining middle-class values and in maintaining continuity
with tradition. In some cases misconceptions have been promulgated, particularly with regard to
the extent to which music was practised in colonial society, and the way high and low culture
were experienced. In many cases music is treated broadly, and is not restricted to the music of the
Western classical tradition, while there are some fruitful suggestions that music might relate to a
wide range of significant experiences and values. Some stimulating multiple author studies have
chapters written by music scholars, addressing the comparative neglect of music in most single
author histories. But the 'colonial love of music' that so impressed Richard Twopeny38 rarely
shines through in the general histories of Australia.
GENERAL HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN MUSIC

Until the late 1960s, musicology was not taught in Australian universities, and most published
research in the history of music in Australia was written by amateurs, journalists and local
musicians. Within the academy the influence of British musicology was evident, and pioneer
scholars, mostly tied to the idea of progress, concerned themselves with individual notated works
of art and the development of the Western classical tradition.39
In a lecture on the development of Australian music given at the University of Melbourne in

1944, Lorna Stirling discussed the piano that came with the First Fleet, but did not mention the
drum and fife band that arrived at the same time. Her concern was with progress, and with
37
Beverley Kingston, The Oxford History of Australia, Volume 3, 1860-1900: Glad Confident Morning,
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1993 (first published 1988), pp. 222-233.
38
Twopeny, Town Life in Australia, p. 218.
39
Andrew McCredie, Musicological Studies in Australia from the Beginnings to the Present, Sydney
University Press, Sydney, 1979; Margaret Kartomi, 'Musicological research in Australia 1979-1984', Acta
Musicologica, vol. LV11, no.11, 1984, pp. 100-145.
32
musical works rather than musical practice. The lecture provides a useful survey of the art music
scene in Australia and reflects attitudes held by scholars of the day to 'non-serious' music—the
Victorian drawing-room ballad, for example, is described as 'a pest as inexterminable as the
rabbit'.40 Anne Wentzel's largely descriptive survey of Australian music identifies opera as the
genre most likely to attract élite performers and audiences in the mid-nineteenth century. While
mentioning school music, goldfields ballads and band music, Wentzel's focus is on the art music
of the time, in particular opera, chamber music, symphonic music, and choral music.41
In the 1950s and 1960s two authors tackled the writing of extended histories of Australian
music.42 W Arundel Orchard's book, the first comprehensive history of music in Australia, was
published in 1952 and is an account of the establishment of the European high-art tradition of
music in Australia. The lack of recognition of other musical cultures is exemplified in the
chapter entitled 'The beginnings of music in Australia'. Here Orchard writes about pianos and
other imported instruments, early concerts, early music teachers and the first opera. Aboriginal
music is mentioned only as a novelty. Orchard's world is one of opera, church, choral,
instrumental and chamber music. Although his history was published only six years before
Russel Ward's The Australian Legend, in which the significance of the Australian ballad is
recognised, it is clear that Orchard, as an educated musician of his time, had no interest in
popular music making. There is no discussion of folk music in his work, nor of music in the
home or street. W Vincent Wallace, John Phillip Deane and Isaac Nathan are considered to be the
first major figures in the establishment of Australian music.43 Their role as expert performers,
teachers and composers was one of laying the foundations for future development. Orchard
discusses visiting and resident musicians and composers, as well as Australian musicians who
won fame abroad. He disputes the idea that music standards in early Australia were negligible,44
and his modernist history of progress is a celebration of the achievements of the pioneers and
those who followed after them.
40
Lorna Stirling, 'The development of Australian music,' Historical Studies: Australia and New Zealand,
vol. 3, 1944, p. 60.
41
Anne Wentzel, 'The rapid development of music in Australia, 1851-1861,' Musicology, vol. 3, 1968-69,
pp. 69-73.
42
W Arundel Orchard, Music in Australia, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1952; Roger Covell, Australia's
Music: themes of a new society, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1967.
43
William Vincent Wallace, 1814-1865, was an Irish born musician and composer who spent several years
in Australia. Among his most popular works was the opera Maritana; John Phillip Deane, 1796-1849, was
a composer and performer originally from London. He played a major role in the musical life of Hobart
and Sydney; Isaac Nathan, 1790-1864, came to Australia in 1841. He composed music on Australian
themes, and took an interest in Aboriginal music.
44
Orchard, Music in Australia, pp. 210-211; see Serle, From Deserts the Prophets Come, p. 43; Stirling,
'The development of Australian music,' for a different view.
33
Fifteen years after the appearance of Orchard's work Roger Covell published the second of
Australia's major music histories. Covell's book represents the culmination of the tradition of
British school traditional musicology in Australia. As music critic of the Sydney Morning Herald,
Covell's focus is mainly on the music of the high-art tradition. Like Orchard, Covell saw his
work as a study of a transplanted European musical culture, yet his history is far more broadly
based than Orchard's, and includes some consideration of indigenous and working class music.
Music in the home is touched upon, as well as music of the concert halls, minstrel shows, opera,
comic opera and drawing room ballads. Covell refers to the piano as 'an emblem of gentility',
and notes the large number of them in colonial Australia.45
Because his work is based in the Western classical tradition, Covell is able to make the claim that
the convicts were mostly 'musically alien' even though he discusses the songs that were important
to them.46 He asserts that it was chiefly the more 'trite' music⎯quadrilles, waltzes, sentimental
airs, and patriotic songs⎯that was most helpful to the early settlers in their harsh surroundings,47
and assesses the music of composers Bishop and Wallace as insignificant, in spite of its
enormous popularity.48 The influence of music practised in early Australia on the development of
Australian musical composition is prioritised over its role in society. Covell regrets, for example,
the influence of the drawing room ballad: 'Shameful as it may be to have to say so, the drawing
room ballad must be counted as one of the major influences, if not the major influence until
recently, on the bulk of Australian composition'.49 Covell focuses more on the origin and
development of musical forms in the hands of high-art composers than on the role of music in
helping people relate to their environment or to each other. He dwells more on social influences
upon music than on the power of music to affect society. The rise of the middle classes and the
self-improvement ethic, for example, are seen by Covell as a stimulus to the development of
music, finding their fullest expression in the choral societies that flourished and remained strong
well into the twentieth century. The German influence of the time is noted in the establishment of
Liedertafel societies and on their choice of repertoire.
Both Orchard and Covell were writing in a period when the focus of most musical research was
on composers and compositions, and on the search for a composer of stature. This focus is now
felt to be only a part of the aim of musicology.50
45
Covell, Australia's Music, pp. 20-21.
46
Covell, Australia's Music, pp. 16, 42-43.
47
Covell, Australia's Music, p. 11.
48
49
50
See, for example, the discussion about the Currency Companion to Music and Dance, below.
34
Together with the introduction of musicology into Australian university curriculums, Australian
scholarly journals of musicology established in the late 1960s and early 1970s gave a further
impetus to Australian music studies. Scholars began to take an increased interest in areas of
music that fell outside the tradition of notated European art music, such as Aboriginal music and
the music of Southeast Asia, while folk music studies drew attention to Australian bush ballads
and folk songs.51 During the lead-up to the bicentenary in 1988 there was an emerging interest in
previously neglected fields of Australian music. New publications on Australian composers, on
folk and migrant music, on opera in colonial Australia, on music in Australian education and on
women's music began to appear. Since the bi-centenary in 1988 Australian musicology has
embraced multi-culturalism and postmodernism, and has reflected the influence of sociology and
cultural studies. Popular music has taken its place in the academy, and music is seen not only as
works of art, but also as an activity practised by ordinary Australians in their day-to-day lives.
Entertaining Australia: an illustrated history, by Katharine Brisbane, is an overview of the

history of the performing arts in Australia from 1788 to 1990, and includes images and accounts
of many of the musicians who entertained in the colonial era. Brisbane disputes the legend that
our colonial history was one of bush bands and itinerant balladeers, and reveals what she terms a
'hidden Australia⎯an international leisure culture with international tastes'. Far from being
culturally isolated, colonial Australians enjoyed stage successes and operas within a few years of
their international premieres, while professional entertainers performed to cosmopolitan and
discriminating audiences. Brisbane regards leisure as a creative part of life, and seeks to open up
this neglected area of Australian history. The way a society chooses to entertain itself is seen as
an important way of gaining insights into the character of that society. Brisbane looks at such
influences as growing prosperity, improved social conditions and changing technology, and
examines entertainment in the context of Australian lives.52
The Oxford Companion to Australian Music is the first comprehensive work of reference on
Australian music.53 Around half the volume consists of entries on individual musicians, while the
other half presents articles on particular aspects of musical life in Australia. Australian music is
defined broadly as music made in Australia or by Australians. The work seeks to cover a wide
spectrum of music, and includes entries on Aboriginal music, popular music, electronic music
and migrant music in Australia. There are, however, some surprising omissions in a book that
51
Kartomi, 'Musicological research in Australia', pp. 112-118.
52
Katharine Brisbane, Entertaining Australia: an illustrated history, Currency Press, Sydney, 1991, pp. 10,
12, 19, 45-73.
53
Warren Bebbington (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Australian Music, Oxford University Press,
Melbourne, 1997.
35
claims a wide focus. There are, for example, no entries for minstrel shows, hand bell ringing,
street music, barrel organs or Chinese opera.
Most of the entries present music as works, institutions or genres, rather than activity or process.
Mention is sometimes made of the social significance of music, but priority is usually given to
the musical significance of associations and institutions. 'Hymnody', for example, does not mean
the hymn singing of millions of Australian people, but the publications of hymnals. As in
Covell's history there is more attention given to influences on the development of music in
Australia, than on the impact of music upon individuals and society.
Like the Oxford Companion, the more recent Currency Companion to Music and Dance does not
restrict its discussion to the music of the Western classical tradition. The approach taken in the
latter work, however, is very different, and the focus is on music as practice, activity or process.
Described as a 'celebration of place', the theme is music and dance in Australia rather than
Australian music and dance. Accordingly, there is an acknowledgement of music and musicians
of a wide diversity of backgrounds and origins, while topics include places and cultural sites.
This bold experiment in a new type of reference work is notable for its use of contributions from
outside the academy, and includes sections written by amateurs with passionate interests and
involvement in a wide range of music.54 Rejecting a standard dictionary format, the work reflects
the postmodernist vision of the editors. Short definitions, descriptions and biographical details are
avoided in favour of longer articles of a more interpretive nature. In addition, there is a wealth of
background information on aspects of music that were prominent in colonial Australia. Articles,
for example, trace the history of minstrel shows, German bands, circus bands, hand-bell ringing,
sol-fa and Welsh choirs. A long entry on 'Chinese traditions' includes a discussion of the Chinese
theatre that was an important part of the lives of Chinese people living on the goldfields. The
Currency Companion, unlike many major publications on music in Australia, acknowledges the
significance of music that has meaning to the Australian people, whether or not it is central to the
development of the Western classical tradition.
Although it is unfortunate that Australia lacks a recent comprehensive music history, there is now
a diverse body of literature devoted to music in Australia. The following section looks at a
selection of Australian scholarship that has particular relevance for the main themes of this study.
54
John Whiteoak and Aline Scott-Maxwell (eds.), Currency Companion to Music and Dance in Australia,
Currency House, Sydney, 2003.
36
HISTORICAL DEBATES ABOUT MUSIC

Vast differences are displayed in the way Australian historians and musicologists have
approached music in colonial life. In some cases studies take a narrow focus, searching for
meanings and insights and looking beyond the chronological data. In other cases detailed
narrative accounts provide a basis for further analytical study. Many Australian studies have
given rise to lively debate, and the following section refers to areas of relevance for this thesis,
looking particularly at studies related to high and low culture, music in social life and music and
worship.
High and low culture

Australian historians differ in their perspectives on the high/popular cultural aspects of our
history. Russel Ward's The Australian Legend situates the origins of the Australian ethos in the
pastoral workers of the Australian outback. Bushmen, convicts, miners and bushrangers are
central to the legend as it was manifested and developed through literature, songs and ballads.55
Yet, as pointed out by Graeme Davison and Peter Goodall, the bushman myth was created and
transmitted largely by foreign observers, city dwellers and radical intellectuals.56 It is based partly
on distorted perceptions, such as a sentimentalised picture of working class life.57 Whereas Ward
saw convict society as closely bonded and self-reliant, later scholars have pointed to a convict
culture typified by qualities such as anti-authoritarianism, aggression, and a lack of personal
responsibility and self-discipline.58 The 'bushman' myth initiated by Francis Adams (1893),
propagated by the Bulletin, and intellectualised by Russel Ward (1958) was, observes Peter
Goodall, the antithesis of Victorian nineteenth-century values of home life and sober living.59
Goodall discusses the conflict between the tradition of 'high culture' and the way the essence of a
true Australian identity has been portrayed. The dominant populist model, he argues, takes into
account only one aspect of the historical formation of Australian culture, and undervalues major
achievements of nineteenth-century Australia in the field of high culture. He refers to writers
such as Vincent Buckley (1961), Peter Coleman (1962), Manning Clark (1962) and James
McAuley (1962) who have also subjected the populist myth to searching criticism.60
55
Ward, The Australian Legend, passim.
56
Peter Goodall, High Culture, Popular Culture: the long debate, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1995, pp.
88-93; Graeme Davison, 'Sydney and the bush: an urban context for the Australian Legend', in Historical
Studies, vol. 18, no. 71, October 1978, pp. 191-209.
57
Goodall, High Culture, Popular Culture, p. xviii.
58
Goodall, High Culture, Popular Culture, p. 84.
59
Goodall, High Culture, Popular Culture, p. 88.
60
Goodall, High Culture, Popular Culture, pp. 93-97.
37
Because of the close links between colonial and British society, the work of overseas scholars is
useful to an understanding of the culture inherited by colonial Australians. In mid-nineteenth
century British culture, boundaries between high art and popular music were less rigid than they
were to become in the twentieth century. Dave Russell's study of popular music in England
reveals the presence of a mix of classes at choral performances and opera, and the use of operatic
melodies and classical compositions in variety type entertainment.61 A study of the social
significance of music needs to address these differences in order to understand the type of music
that was linked with the identity of different groups and to prevent such assumptions as, for
example, the fact that attending the opera or oratorio necessarily meant that a person belonged
among the upper social strata, or was aspiring to do so.
Lawrence Levine, writing about the theatrical and musical traditions of nineteenth-century
America, refers to the elevation of the classical tradition as 'sacralisation', while a reverse process
resulted in the 'demonisation' of popular music. American audiences in the mid-nineteenth
century gradually learned to revere the works that had earlier been regarded primarily as a source
of pleasure, behaviour became respectful and refined, and artists and composers were viewed
with increasing veneration. As high art was elevated in these ways, popular types of
entertainment developed along separate paths, with a resulting division between the audiences
who attended different types of performances.62 Levine argues that sacralising music endowed it
with 'unique aesthetic and spiritual properties that rendered it inviolate, exclusive, and eternal'.63
Similar trends occurred in colonial Australia. Richard Waterhouse refers to the 'public culture' of
the pre-1850 period. He notes the popularity of Shakespeare and opera among both gentry and
plebeians, the failure to distinguish art from entertainment, and the readiness to adapt and alter
the 'texts' of such works. But Waterhouse identifies a trend after 1850 towards bifurcation and the
disappearance of a shared public culture. Shakespeare was elevated to the status of a demi-god,
opera continued to attract more élite and respectable audiences, and there was a growing
tendency to behave respectfully during performances. Waterhouse contends that the division
between high and low culture in Australia failed to become as clearly defined as in Europe or
America, and that high culture did not become so entrenched. The more wealthy and influential
colonials were less likely than their European or American counterparts to have the economic
61
Dave Russell, Popular Music in England 1840-1914: a social history, Manchester University Press,
Manchester, 1987, pp. 6-8, 204.
62
Lawrence Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: the emergence of cultural hierarchy in America, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988, Section 2, 'The sacralisation of culture', pp. 85-168.
63
Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow, p. 132.
38
means to support such ventures and, in any case, they were less likely to have the educational
backgrounds that created interest in high cultural pursuits.64
The perception of a clear division between the popular and high art musical traditions in colonial
Australia is enhanced because much of the literature related to music in colonial Australia is
dedicated to one or other tradition. Scholarship devoted to the choral societies and to opera
approaches these two genres as the significant high art forms of mid-nineteenth century Australia,
while work on popular culture has focused on music outside this tradition, and includes a large
body of work devoted to the study of Australian folk song and ballads. Richard Waterhouse
defines 'popular culture' as 'culture made by the majority of people in the community, in contrast
to high culture, which is created by a social and/or intellectual élite'.65 John Whiteoak defines
colonial popular music as 'those strands of music and music-making that were most aurally
accessible, meaningful to, and enjoyed by large non-élite groupings in colonial society'.66 It
should also be noted here that in the first half of the nineteenth century the term 'popular song'
was used by publishers to suggest widespread demand, and referred to a type of song associated
largely with the middle classes.67
Detailed narrative accounts of opera in Australia have been written by John Cargher, Harold
Love and Alison Gyger, while Robyn Holmes has edited a chronological register of opera
performed in South Australia between 1836 and 1988.68 These pioneering studies have paved the
way for more analytical approaches to the role of opera in the lives of colonial Australians.
Studies of individual opera singers who performed in Australia in the middle years of the
nineteenth century include Richard Davis' biography of Anna Bishop, Deborah Crisp's article on
Catherine Hayes and Anna Bishop, and Adrienne Simpson's books on the Simonsens and on
Alice May.69 Cargher sees opera in the early years as similar musically to that performed in
64
Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure, pp. 127-140.
65
Waterhouse, From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville, p. xiv.
66
John Whiteoak, 'Popular music, militarism, women, and the early "brass band" in Australia,'
Australasian Music Research, vol. 6, 2001, p. 30.
67
Scott, The Singing Bourgeois, p. ix.
68
John Cargher, Opera and Ballet in Australia, Cassell Australia Ltd, North Melbourne, 1977; Harold
Love, The Golden Age of Australian Opera: W S Lyster and his companies 1861-1880, Currency Press,
Sydney, 1981; Alison Gyger, Civilising the Colonies, Opera~Opera (Pellinor), Sydney, 1999; Robyn
Holmes (ed.), Through the Opera Glass: a chronological register of opera performed in South Australia
1836-1988, The Friends of The State Opera of South Australia Incorporated, Adelaide, 1991.
69
Richard Davis, The Adventures of an Intrepid Prima Donna, Currency Press, Sydney, 1997; Deborah
Crisp, 'Acted and sung in Italian', Catherine Hayes and Anna Bishop in Sydney, 1855-1856', Australasian
Music Research, vol. 4, 1999, pp. 33-58; Adrienne Simpson, Alice May: Gilbert and Sullivan's first prima
donna, Routledge, New York, 2003, 'The Greatest Ornaments of their Profession': the New Zealand tours
by the Simonsen opera companies, 1876-1889, School of Music, University of Canterbury, New Zealand,
1993.
39
Europe70 yet, as Love points out, difficulties with establishing and maintaining the venues and the
companies made a certain amount of compromise necessary.71 According to Robyn Holmes, the
story of opera in Australia is one of transplantation and cultural aspiration. While the touring
companies created an interest in opera, and alerted audiences to international standards before the
gramophone and radio made such awareness commonplace, the transplanted repertoire and the
use of international singers mitigated against the rise of a repertoire written by Australian
composers.72 Although the major studies on opera in Australia are basically detailed
chronological accounts, they make it clear that opera carried both a social and an aesthetic
impact. Regarded at the time as 'a powerful agent for the spread of civilising and refining
influences'73 opera could also bring 'an unforgettable memory of perfect bliss'.74
Covell sees in the choral societies of colonial Australia a representation of ethical zeal and
middle-class community inherited from Britain, where the choral society was the nucleus of
formal music making. Choral societies dominated much of Australia's organised music in the
mid-nineteenth century, and Thérèse Radic's work on choral music in colonial Australia looks at
the civilising influence of choral music, encouraged for the benefits it brought to society through
the cultivation of good taste and the improvement of morals.75 The social significance of choral
music has received more attention that its aesthetic impact. One writer to draw attention to the
latter is Elizabeth Silsbury, who feels that choral music was an important way for people to
participate in powerful and uplifting music, with participation in a major choral work both
fulfilling and exciting.76
Since the work of Raymond Williams in 1958 drew scholarly attention to the significance of the
'ordinary',77 writers in cultural studies have brought previously neglected areas of social life into
prominence and there is now a large body of recent scholarship devoted to the popular tradition.
These studies tend to see musical entertainment as related to, rather than divorced from, everyday
life. Richard Waterhouse's study of minstrel shows, for example, documents some of the ways
entertainment would touch on topical and local issues.78 Among the scholars who have
70
Cargher, Opera and Ballet in Australia, p. xiii.
71
Love, The Golden Age, p. 22.
72
Robyn Holmes, 'Opera in South Australia', in Andrew McCredie (ed.), From Colonel Light into the
Footlights: the performing arts in South Australia from 1836 to the present, Pagel Books, Norwood, S.
Aust, 1988, p. 102.
73
Herald, 6 September 1879, quoted in Love, The Golden Age, p. 263.
74
Henry Musgrove, Table Talk, 12 August 1926, p. 9, quoted in Love, The Golden Age, p. 225.
75
Radic, 'Aspects of organised amateur music in Melbourne', pp. 129, 151.
76
Elizabeth Silsbury, 'Secular choral music', in McCredie (ed.), From Colonel Light into the Footlights, p.
240.
77
Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1780-1950, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1961 (first published
1958).
78
Waterhouse, From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville, p. 36.
40
contributed to our understanding of music as popular culture in colonial Australia, John

Manifold, Ron Edwards, Hugh Anderson, Russel Ward, Nancy Keesing and Douglas Stewart
have written about the way ballads and folk songs reflected and expressed the experiences of
early Australians.79 The comic songs and ballads of the goldfields, and the practices with which
they were associated, had strong social influences. Philip Butterss claims that, in enacting certain
tensions, the songs performed a complex range of social functions: assisting assimilation,
resolving conflict, asserting cohesion and obscuring the strong desire to acquire riches.80
* * *
Work on opera and choral music emphasises the high art tradition of music in Australia as a
transplanted culture, and reflects both the aesthetic and the social significance of this type of
music. Research into popular music, embracing new approaches coming out of cultural studies,
and focusing on the non-élite forms of music, is more concerned with the music practised by
ordinary people in their leisure and entertainment, and music that relates to, rather than
transcends, everyday life. A broad study of music in society faces the challenge of addressing
music as part of both the special and the ordinary, the aesthetic and the everyday experience. A
critical understanding of music in society may benefit from this broad type of study, through
gaining a clearer picture of the popular/high cultural divide as it was perceived and experienced
in the music practices of the day. Addressing a wide spectrum of music practices, and looking at
music as both art and entertainment, such a study may also help to deepen our understanding of
the place of music in the bifurcation of culture in colonial Australia.
Music in social life

Studies of music related to leisure, the home, education, gender and ethnicity emphasise the role
of music in everyday life. When taken as a whole they provide convincing evidence that music
was a common way for people to relate to significant personal and social issues.
Leisure and rational recreation

Noel Wilmott emphasises the nineteenth-century view of choral singing as a respectable pastime,
with social benefits for the community.81 Thérèse Radic's research shows that the Melbourne
79
Hugh Anderson, The Colonial Minstrel, FW Cheshire, Melbourne, 1960; Ron Edwards, 200 Years of
Australian Folk Song Index 1788-1988, Rams Skull Press, Kuranda, 1988; JS Manifold, Who Wrote the
Ballads? notes on Australian folksong, Australian Book Society, Sydney, 1964; Douglas Stewart and
Nancy Keesing, Australian Bush Ballads, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1955; Ward, The Australian
Legend.
80
Philip Butterss, 'Longing for harmony: the resolution of conflict and contradiction in the songs of the
goldfields', Australian Folklore, vol. 5, 1990, pp. 7-35.
81
Noel Wilmott, 'Choirs and choral music', in Bebbington (ed.), Oxford Companion to Australian Music, p. 111.
41
Philharmonic Society saw its role as one of reformation of morals through music.82 'Respectable'
citizens were sent invitations to performances, and the conductor intended the choir to 'cultivate
that style which, by its superiority, would take the place of the low class music so much in
fashion at the present time'.83 Radic acknowledges the role of the Philharmonic in fulfilling the
need of a sign of progress and civilisation, and of providing a reminder of home. The Liedertafel
societies, in contrast, were less concerned with serious discipline, and offered different social
benefits, such as relaxation, pleasure and social contact.84 Peter Campbell notes the way choirs
acted as a force for social cohesion, particularly in rural areas where they became an avenue for
non-denominational social activity.85
Band music, whether brass, or mixed brass and percussion, was interwoven with many aspects of
early colonial life, and bands had strong associations with the communities that supported them.86
John Whiteoak's work on bands in Australia has drawn attention to meanings encoded in the band
movement, and the role of the bands in reinforcing contemporary values.87 The band movement
in Australia sprang from that in England, and was one form of the 'rational recreation' held to be
influential during the Victorian era in the promotion of a healthy morality.88 Trevor Herbert notes
the social significance of bands in England, insisting that although the band movement was
influenced strongly by the middle classes, working class people were far more than passive
recipients of a culture imposed from above. In making the culture their own, the working classes
invested it with a 'new and lasting identity'.89
In spite of their prominence and ubiquity, until recently bands have been overlooked in
Australian academic musical studies. This is partly because of the musical and social snobbery
attached to these amateur groups who did not play 'authentic' serious music.90 The rich social
history incorporated in the band movement is now, however, acknowledged by Australian music
scholars. Duncan Bythell has written about the role of bands in colonial Australia, recognising
their role on ceremonial occasions, annual rituals and entertainment, and in providing musical
education for both performers and audiences.91 John Whiteoak notes the military background to
82
Radic, 'Aspects of organised amateur music', p. 129.
83
Radic, 'Aspects of organised amateur music', pp. 126, 186.
84
Radic, 'Aspects of organised amateur music', p. 740. The Liedertafel is a male choral group in the
German tradition.
85
Peter Campbell, 'Choral singing', in Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell (eds), Currency Companion to Music
and Dance, pp. 124-129.
86
Whiteoak, 'Popular music, militarism, women, and the early "brass band" in Australia,' pp. 27-48.
87
See discussion on gender, below.
88
Trevor Herbert, (ed.), Bands: the brass band movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, Open University
Press, Buckingham, 1991, pp. 21-23.
89
Herbert, (ed.), Bands: the brass band movement, p. 49.
90
Duncan Bythell, 'The brass band in Australia', p. 147.
91
Bythell, 'The brass band in Australia', passim.
42
the development of band music, claiming that this provided structure, support and purpose.92
Roland Bannister regards military music as a powerful and widespread agent of colonisation, and
discusses the way it is, and was, used to promote military ideals. He finds it strange that there are
so few dissenting voices to the use of music for this purpose, and also strange that there are no
comprehensive contemporary histories of military music.93
Music in the home

Music was an important form of family entertainment in Victorian England,94 and much of the
music making of middle class families was centred around popular parlour songs. Often
described as 'drawing-room ballads', the emotional, nostalgic themes and the non-demanding
technical requirements of these songs provided a wealth of opportunity for musical participation
and entertainment in the home. There are frequent suggestions that this type of music making was
widespread among the middle class families who brought their pianos and their love of music
with them from England.95 Primary evidence is scarce and, as shown in the following section on
gender, scholars have used fictional sources to learn about contemporary practices. Etta Clark, in
her chapter about music in the homes of Adelaide, discusses the musical instruments brought by
early settlers, including pianos, and uses early advertisements for pianos and music to indicate the
music that was performed in homes.96
Parlour songs demonstrated the strong moral concerns of the Victorian era. Their sentimental
words and melodies enabled a certain release of the emotions that members of the bourgeoisie
were expected to hold strictly in control in their public and personal lives. The music provided
suitable material for the many thousands of people trained to sing in the popular tonic sol-fa
related movements.97 The lack of scholarly interest in parlour songs stems in part from modernist
musicological theory.98 Failing to meet the criteria of Western art music, the songs have attracted
'devastatingly bad press'99 and have been dismissed scathingly by Australian music historians.100
Yet it is increasingly felt that they deserve better treatment, whether by considering their social
role or their musical merit. Derek Scott has drawn the attention of the academic world to parlour
92
John Whiteoak, 'Brass bands', in Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell (eds), Currency Companion to Music and
Dance, p. 90.
93
Roland Bannister, 'How are we to write our music history? perspectives of the historiography of military
music', Musicology Australia, vol. 25, 2002, pp. 2-18.
94
Russell, Popular Music in England, pp. 140, 157.
95
96
Etta Clark, 'Music at home', in McCredie (ed.), From Colonel Light into the Footlights, pp. 445-452.
97
Michael R Turner and Antony Miall, Just a Song at Twilight: the second parlour song book, Michael
Joseph Ltd, London, 1975, pp. 10-13.
98
Scott, The Singing Bourgeois, p. x.
99
Turner and Miall, Just a Song at Twilight, p. 13.
100
See for example, Covell, Australia's Music, p. 23; Stirling, 'The development of Australian music,' p.
60.
43
songs, discussing their importance in establishing the modern music industry and the influential
role they played in society.101 Australian scholars have acknowledged the pleasure provided by a
piano in the home, and the role of music as a means of bonding between friends and family.102
Music as a moral force in education

In the Victorian era music was considered to have a powerful influence on morals and attitudes.
According to the Rev'd HW Haweis, the influence of music for good or evil was not restricted to
the text, but could be a direct result of music sound itself.103 The power of music, he claimed, lay
in its 'pitching high the plane of the emotions, and driving them home with the most efficacious
and incomparable energy'.104 John Ruskin also wrote extensively about music, developing the
views expressed by Haweis and expressing the opinion that music which encouraged the purely
sensual could be base and corrupting.105
Such English scholarly ideas were transported to the early Australian schooling system where
musical education was based on the English model.106 As well as being part of the inherited
tradition, music was introduced because of its humanising and civilising influence and also for its
recreational value.107 Singing masters appointed to the goldfields in 1857 were expected to
exercise a favourable influence on the morals of the localities.108 In their work on music in
Australian education, both Robin Stevens and Alexandra Cameron contend that music did help
develop the moral sense of children while Cameron's view that 'only the best' songs should be
presented to children because of their 'indisputable effect upon the character of the child'
witnesses to the enduring belief in the power of music to influence young minds.109
Children were the main focus of educational policies, but thousands of ordinary working people
were also introduced to the joys of choral singing in mid-nineteenth century England by
participating in movements such as 'Music for the Million'. In special evening classes they were
101
Scott, The Singing Bourgeois, passim.
102
Jennifer Hill, 'Aspects of Australian popular song, 1890-1941', PhD thesis, University of Melbourne,
2002, pp. 52, 63; Rickard, 'From pianos to panto', p. 66.
103
HR Haweis, Music and Morals, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1872, pp. 50-53.
104
Haweis, Music and Morals, p. 97.
105
William J Gatens, 'John Ruskin and music', in Nicholas Temperley (ed.), The Lost Chord: essays on
Victorian music, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1989, p. 81.
106
Alexandra Cameron, 'The class teaching of music in state-supported schools in Victoria, 1853-1905', B
Ed thesis, University of Melbourne, 1956.
107
Robin Stevens, 'Music: a humanising and civilising influence in education', in The Colonial Child,
Royal Historical Society of Victoria, Melbourne, 1981, pp. 67-68.
108
Victorian Parliamentary Papers, 1857-58, 'Denominational School Board Report for the Year 1856 &
1857', p. 10, quoted in Robin Stevens, 'Music in state-supported education in NSW and Victoria 1848-
1920', PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 1978, p. 49.
109
Cameron, 'The class teaching of music', p. 103.
44
able to learn sight-singing and join in performances of choral music.110 There has been little
research into the extent and nature of such adult classes in colonial Australia. Doreen Bridges
notes the existence of singing classes in Melbourne and Sydney from 1843,111 but most research
in music education has focused on music in schools.
Link to social structure: gender and ethnicity
Music practices on the goldfields reflected and influenced community attitudes to women.
Bronwyn Fensham observes, for example, that 'respectable' women would not attend the
organised entertainment available in the amusement halls.112 In spite of the opportunities taken by
some women to undertake what were generally considered to be male social roles,113 the
democratic and levelling influence of gold did not manage to break down many of the gender
barriers of mid-Victorian society, and Philip Butterss notes that the goldfields songs were a way
of asserting male power over women.114
A study of music in a particular community provides an opportunity to investigate the

relationships between music and gender across the spectrum of music practices. Scholarly debate
related to music and gender within both history and musicology has drawn attention to key issues
of interest. The division of roles for men and women, for example, relates in part to the
acceptability of certain instruments and the situations in which they could be performed. For
women, many musical instruments were considered unacceptable.115 Expressions such as the
'lockout' or the 'culture of exclusion' reinforce the lack of opportunity for women to learn,
perform and gain support for their musical endeavours to the same degree as men.116
John Whiteoak's work on brass bands makes it clear that there was more involved in gender bias
than the 'inelegant' appearance of certain instruments, or the disreputable locations where music
was often performed. He notes the maleness encoded in the band movement, in an age when
military values such as bravery and courage were highly respected, and the concept of the
110
Bernarr Rainbow, 'The rise of popular music education in nineteenth-century England,' in Temperley
(ed.), The Lost Chord, pp. 17-41.
111
Doreen Bridges, 'Sol-fa', Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell (eds), Currency Companion to Music and
Dance, pp. 620-21.
112
Bronwyn Fensham, '"Right handsome girls": women on the Ballarat diggings in the 1850s,' MA thesis,
Monash University, 1994, p.14.
113
Several examples can be found in Robyn Annear, Nothing but Gold, The Text Publishing Company,
Melbourne, 1999.
114
Butterss, 'Longing for harmony', p. 23; see also chap. 7 of this thesis.
115
Thérèse Radic, 'Adelaide Women Composers' Festival 1991', Sounds Australian, Summer 1991-92, p. 6;
Scott, The Singing Bourgeois, p. 49.
116
Thérèse Radic, 'Adelaide Women Composers' Festival 1991', p. 6; Whiteoak, 'Popular music,
militarism, women, and the early "brass band" in Australia', p. 47.
45
military hero and that of the stay-at-home supportive woman were held in high esteem. Whiteoak
also notes the gender symbolism of the thrusting, penetrating power of the brass instruments.117
The piano was an eminently suitable musical instrument for young ladies. Singing and playing
the piano were considered almost indispensable accomplishments in fashionable mid-Victorian
society.118 As an accompanying instrument, the piano reinforced the notion of woman's role as
ministering to the male.119 Its importance is reflected in the large number brought out to
Australia during the nineteenth century. Deborah Crisp uses a range of literary sources including
diaries, letter and novels to explore the extent to which the piano was a part of Australian life.120
Studies that deal with the piano tend to focus on the instrument as a symbol of social status and,
by seeing it as a significant symbol of domesticity, relate it strongly to the role of women in the
community.121 It is also recognised that in spite of its image as a symbol of domestic entrapment,
the piano may also have been a liberating influence for women, as it allowed them a degree of
self-expression.122 As a symbol of upward mobility and gentility123 the piano was particularly
important in the lives of women from the middle class. Thérèse Radic's study of women
composers has drawn attention to another possible advantage of the prevalence of piano playing
in the home. The piano could be heard all over the house, its sounds making it obvious that the
player was not seeking idle pleasures in other less moral ways.124
These studies of gendered instrumental practices alert us to the potential significance of gender
patterns to a study of music in history. There has been little written, for example, about the
enactment of femininity, and the associated power relationships, that were played out in amateur
concert performances in colonial Australia.
In their portrayal of attitudes towards people of non-European backgrounds, Australian and local
histories provide detail of discrimination, violence,125 and occasionally of support.126 As
transplanted cultures sought to establish themselves in the new colonies, their relationships with
each other and the hegemony of European culture helped to define their place in society, and
117
Whiteoak, 'Popular music, militarism, women, and the early "brass band" in Australia', pp. 32,45,46.
118
Penny Russell, A Wish of Distinction: colonial gentility and femininity, Melbourne University Press,
Carlton, 1994, p. 87.
119
Scott, The Singing Bourgeois, p. 50.
120
Deborah Crisp, 'The piano in Australia, 1770 to 1900: some literary sources,' Musicology Australia, vol.
XVIII, 1995, pp. 25-38.
121
Mary Burgan, 'Heroines at the piano: women and music in nineteenth-century fiction,' in Temperley
(ed.), The Lost Chord, pp. 42-67.
122
Anne O'Brien, 'Lifting the lid,' Eureka Street, 1995, pp. 30-33; Burgan, 'Heroines at the piano', p. 62;
Russell, 'A Wish of Distinction', pp. 87-89.
123
McQueen, A New Britannia, p. 118.
124
Radic, 'Adelaide Women Composers' Festival 1991', p. 8.
125
Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, p. 89.
46
cannot be disregarded in a historical study of music.127 Music was one way for an ethnic group to
situate itself within the social hierarchy.128 Racial discrimination was evident in song, particularly
in the songs of the goldfields129 and the black-faced minstrel ballads.130 Studies by Harold Love,
Wang Zheng-Ting and Anne Doggett that look at the music of the Chinese population suggest
ways in which practices associated with Chinese music contributed to, or reflected, social
attitudes towards the Chinese.131
General studies of ethnic communities in nineteenth-century Australia, and in some cases of

Ballarat, include the work of Eric Rolls and Kathryn Cronin on the Chinese, Robert Tyler on the
Welsh, Janice Croggon on the Cornish, Kerry Cardell and Cliff Cumming on the Scottish, and
Jillian Blee on the Irish.132 These works provide a context within which to approach the way
music practice reflected and influenced attitudes of, and towards, the various groups.
This wide body of scholarship addressing music and society in colonial Australia raises
interesting possibilities for the study of music in a local community, and suggests the importance
of recognising music's relationship to leisure, rational recreation, morality, education, gender,
European hegemony and attitudes towards people of ethnic minorities.
Music in worship
David Kinsela, in a recent article on organ-playing in Australia, reminds us that the church was
once a patron of the arts. Church organists were among the early pioneers and leaders of music in
all the Australian colonies, while cathedrals were often centres of musical teaching and
126
127
McCredie, 'Introduction', in McCredie (ed.), From Colonel Light into the Footlights, p.8.
128
Annegrit Laubenthal, 'Music in the German communities of South Australia, in McCredie (ed.), From
Colonel Light into the Footlights, p. 316.
129
Butterss, 'Longing for harmony', pp. 27-32.
130
Richard Waterhouse, From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville, pp. 100, 108.
131
Harold Love, 'Chinese theatre on the Victorian goldfields 1858-1870,' Australasian Drama Studies, vol.
3, 1985, pp. 45-86; Wang Zheng-Ting, 'Chinese music in mid-nineteenth-century Victoria,' Australasian
Music Research, vols 2-3, 1997-98, pp. 23-38; Anne Doggett, 'Harmony on the goldfields: Music and
identity in multi-cultural Ballarat, Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 75, no. 1, 2004, pp. 49-69.
132
Eric Rolls, Sojourners, Queensland University Press, St Lucia, 1993; Kathryn Cronin, Colonial
Casualties: Chinese in early Victoria, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1982; Robert Llewellyn Tyler,
'"A handful of interesting and exemplary people from a country called Wales"; identity and culture
maintenance: the Welsh in Ballarat and Sebastopol in the second half of the nineteenth century', PhD
thesis, University of Melbourne, 2000; Janice Croggon, 'Methodists and miners: the Cornish in Ballarat
1851-1901', in Kerry Cardell and Cliff Cumming (eds), A World Turned Upside Down: cultural change on
Australia's gold fields 1851-2001, Humanities Research Centre, ANU, Canberra, 2001; Kerry Cardell and
Cliff Cumming, 'Squatters, diggers and national culture: Scots and the central Victorian goldfields 1851-
61 1851-2001', in Cardell and Cumming (eds), A World Turned Upside Down; Jillian Blee, 'Giving the
laity a voice through fiction: Irish Catholic Ballarat in 1875 as portrayed in The Liberator's Birthday', PhD
thesis, University of Ballarat, 2002.
47
learning.133 David Swale writes about the importance of the church in the early years of Australia
as a provider of continuous and readily accessible music.134 The association between the church
and the musical life of the community was an extension of the role of music in worship, for some
form of music was integral to the services of all Christian churches as well as to the worship of
other religious institutions. Joan Mansfield's outline of the music of the four principal Christian
denominations in the first half of the nineteenth century reveals the dignity and restraint of
Anglican worship, the splendour and beauty of the Catholic tradition, the fervent emotional
nature of Wesleyan hymn singing, and the suspicion with which Presbyterians viewed any music
but their own unaccompanied congregational psalms. Mansfield claims that music gave identity
to denominations and emphasised differences. As a focus for deep feeling and strong opinions, it
was also instrumental in encouraging suspicion and rivalry between the denominations.135
Histories of the Christian denominations in Australia document the way clergy and congregations
strove to provide the music appropriate to their particular traditions. While there were vast
differences in these traditions there was little doubt that music was fundamental to the worship of
any given community.136
133
David Kinsela, 'Organ-playing', in Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell (eds), Currency Companion to Music
134
David Swale, 'Liturgical and choral traditions', in McCredie (ed.), From Colonel Light into the
Footlights, pp. 193-207.
135
Joan Mansfield, 'Music – a window on Australian Christian life', in Mark Hutchinson and Edmund
Campion (eds.), Re-visioning Australian Colonial Christianity: new essays in the Australian Christian
experience 1788-1900, Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity, Sydney, 1994, pp. 131-152.
136
There are several Anglican histories that help to set the scene for an understanding of the place of
music in religious life. These include: Bruce Kaye, (ed.), Anglicanism in Australia: a history, Melbourne
University Press, Carlton, 2002; David Hilliard, 'The Anglo-Catholic tradition in Australian Anglicanism',
in Hutchinson and Campion (eds), Re-visioning Australian Colonial Christianity, pp. 195-215. This article
outlines the history of Anglo-Catholicism in Australia, providing a background to the disputed role of
music in Anglican worship; George Goodman, The Church in Victoria during the Episcopate of the Right
Reverend Charles Perry, Seely and Co, London, 1892. Chap. XIII has a discussion of Bishop Perry's views
on sacred music; HW Nunn, A Short History of the Church of England in Victoria 1847-1947, Editorial
Committee of the Centenary Celebrations, Melbourne, 1947. See p. 23 for Bishop Perry's reaction to the
first surpliced choir in the diocese; A de Q Robin, Charles Perry, Bishop of Melbourne, University of
Western Australia Press, Nedlands, WA, 1967. Chap. 8 sets Bishop Perry's approach to ritualism and music
in a broader context; Vivienne Parsons, 'The Church of England in Victoria during the episcopate of
Bishop Perry 1848-76', MA Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1969, looks at the differences between
Bishop Perry's views and those of the choir of St James, also documenting ways Perry encouraged music in
the church, pp. 161-165; James Grant, 'The diocese of Melbourne (and Victoria)' in Brian Porter (ed.),
Colonial Tractarians: the Oxford Movement in Australia, Joint Board of Christian Education, Melbourne,
1989, pp. 63-74, discusses the hostility between Bishop Perry and those in the church who were influenced
by the Oxford Movement and its promotion of ritualistic worship. Opposition to Perry's attempts to prevent
services becoming mere musical performances came from several Melbourne churches. There are not so
many useful studies of non-Anglican churches, but among those consulted to provide a background are the
following: Rowland S Ward, The Bush Still Burns: the Presbyterian and Reformed faith in Australia 1788-
1988, Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia, St Kilda, Vic, 1989, pp. 145-149 outlines the development
of the three main streams of Presbyterian faith in Australia; WL Blamires and John B Smith, The Early
Story of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Victoria, Wesleyan Book Depot, Melbourne, 1886, emphasise
the love of singing and music in the early Wesleyan church communities of Melbourne and Ballarat;
48
A few detailed studies deal with the music of the different religious institutions in colonial
Australia. James Forsyth's doctoral thesis on the music of the Anglican church in Sydney and
surrounding regions before 1868 notes the readiness of the church to adapt to change. It traces the
development of music in worship as the evangelical services typical of the first decades of
settlement moved towards the more ritualistic practices that reflected the influence of the Oxford
Movement.137 Antiphonal singing, surpliced choirs, pipe organs and the chanting of liturgical
texts quickly became important elements in the services of the principal churches.138 Kelvin
Hastie emphasises the centrality of hymn singing, the gradual acceptance of organs and the
opposition to non-congregational singing in the Wesleyan Methodist churches of New South
Wales.139 An article by Dianne Gome shows the distinctive function of music in the Roman
Catholic church where it was used as an adornment of the liturgy of the eucharist and the sacred
offices. In the larger colonial Catholic churches mixed choirs sang an 'operatic' style repertoire,
with an emphasis on the works of composers such as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, while
congregations participated in the singing of Latin and English hymns.140 Bronia Kornhauser and
Aline Scott-Maxwell note the importance of music in Jewish life, attributing this to the fact that
music is integral to Jewish religious observance. Most of the Jewish music in mid-nineteenth
century Australia was religious, and consisted of a cantor or a representative from the
congregation chanting prayers and 'readings' from the Torah. Choirs were introduced into most
synagogues from the 1860s.141 Wang Zheng-Ting makes a brief reference to music in Chinese
religious ceremonies as part of his larger study of Chinese Music in Victoria. Ceremonial
occasions, particularly those held in the joss houses built in the 1850s and 1860s, made heavy use
of percussion and some wind instruments, and drew unappreciative comments from non-Chinese
observers.142
Patrick O'Farrell, The Catholic Church and Community: an Australian history, New South Wales
University Press, Kensington, NSW, 1992, notes the use of spectacular music in Catholic services in
Sydney, with the use of Haydn and Mozart masses. Congregational singing, however, was also encouraged,
p. 90.
137
The Oxford Movement, also referred to as Puseyism or Tractarianism, began in Oxford in 1833. It
sought to reform the church by re-asserting the values of the primitive church. There was an emphasis on
the dimension of mystery in religious knowledge and on ritualistic practices (see Porter (ed.), Colonial
Tractarians, pp. 5-6, for an outline of the movement).
138
James Forsyth, 'Music of the Anglican churches in Sydney and surrounding regions: 1788-1868, PhD
thesis, University of Sydney, 2002, see particularly pp. 195, 196, 200.
139
Kelvin Hastie, 'Music-making in the Wesleyan churches of New South Wales, 1855-1902: origins,
attitudes and practices', M Phil thesis, University of Sydney, 1991, chap. 5, part 1, 'Praise through music',
chap. 7, part 1, 'Attitudes to organs', chap. 8, part 1, 'Attitudes to choral music in worship'.
140
Dianne Gome, 'Roman Catholic church', in Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell (eds), Currency Companion to
Music and Dance, pp. 143-144.
141
Aline Scott-Maxwell and Bronia Kornhauser, 'Jewish traditions', in Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell (eds),
Currency Companion to Music and Dance, p. 386.
142
Wang Zheng-Ting, 'Chinese music in mid-nineteenth century Victoria', pp. 34-35.
49
Work on instrumental music in worship is largely devoted to the organ. Enid Matthews's book on
colonial organs and organ builders provides a history of organs and organ manufacture in
Victoria. There were around twenty pipe organs in Melbourne and suburbs before 1860, but as
churches became more settled and affluent the demand grew, particularly from the early 1860s.143
David Kinsela draws attention to the importance of the organ in the Roman Catholic and
Anglican churches, and the hesitation with which the Presbyterians adopted it. The chief
purposes of the organ were to support congregational singing, to provide solo music and to
accompany choral music.144 David Swale notes that these expensive instruments were seen as
symbols of prosperity and adornments for the sacred buildings.145 Elizabeth Bleby's book on bells
in Australia lists fifteen Australian churches with peals of bells hung for change ringing by 1871,
while Helen Pettet and Anne Doggett trace the history of change ringing in Melbourne, noting
that bells fulfilled the function of calling people to worship and acted as the public voice of joy or
mourning.146
Central to musical life in most churches was the congregational hymn. English scholar Nicholas
Temperley notes a huge increase in hymn production in nineteenth-century England.147
Australian scholar Dianne Gome has carried out extensive research into hymnody in colonial
Australia. A large number of hymn collections was printed in Australia during the colonial
period, most associated with the Anglican church, but also including the Roman Catholic,
Lutheran, Wesleyan, Presbyterian, Baptist and Jewish faiths.148 Gome claims a liturgical,
missionary, educational, social, personal and civic function for hymns, noting the richness and
diversity of the colonial sources and the prominence of hymn singing in religious and social
life.149
These studies witness to the prominence of music in worship, as well as to the role of the church
and church musicians in the broader musical life of the colonial community. While music was
143
Enid Noel Matthews, Colonial Organs and Organbuilders, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1969,
pp. 4, 7.
144
David Kinsela, 'Organ-playing', in Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell (eds), Currency Companion to Music
145
Swale, 'Liturgical and choral traditions in South Australia', p. 195.
146
Elizabeth Bleby, Their Sound has Gone Forth, ANZAB, Millswood, 2001; Helen Pettet and Anne
Doggett, The Bells are Ringing, self published, Melbourne, 2001, p. 80.
147
Nicholas Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1979, p. 296; See also Erik Routley, The Music of Christian Hymnody: a study of the development of the
hymn tune since the Reformation with special reference to English Protestantism, Independent Press,
London, 1957, for a history of the types of hymn sung in contemporary English churches.
148
Dianne Gome, 'Hymnody in the Australian colonies, 1788-1901: a preliminary investigation of sources
and functions of hymns,' Australasian Music Research, vol. 1, 1996, pp. 141-66; 'Australian colonial
hymnody, 1788-1901: how Australian?', Australasian Music Research, vols 2-3, 1997-98, pp. 1-21;
'Australian hymnody, 1821-1901: an annotated checklist of sources located in Australian libraries',
Continuo, vol. 24, 1995, pp. 1-28.
50
common to all the different religious bodies, there was a diversity of attitudes displayed by
church leaders and a diversity of ways that music enhanced the religious life of the people.
* * *
This section has indicated some of the areas in which historians and music scholars have sought
to understand the musical life of nineteenth-century Australians. Music was both art form and
entertainment, with clear aesthetic, social and spiritual significance in people's lives. The next
section looks at how that significance has been addressed by scholars who have focused on the
music of early Ballarat.
MUSIC IN BALLARAT
Local histories provide valuable opportunities to recognise the place of music in the lives of the
people. It is hard to dismiss music as insignificant in a local history, simply because it was so
integral to community life. The writer is able to focus on specific activities and events, allowing
observations of music practices to find their way into the narrative more readily than in histories
with a wider scope. Some local historians, however, note the centrality of music to the town, but
leave a discussion of its significance in the community for other scholars. In the first edition of
his History of Ballarat, published in 1870, WB Withers makes passing references to hymn
singing on the goldfields, to visiting singers, bands of music at protest meetings, the proposed
bells for the town hall, the pipers at the Caledonian sports, and concerts given by the Hibernian
Society.150 His paragraph devoted specifically to music is restricted to a brief chronology of the
choral societies. In the revised edition of 1887 this chronology is updated, and there are further
incidental references to music, including comic singer Charles Thatcher, the 'splendid orchestra'
associated with Ballarat's first theatre, and an account of the Welsh eisteddfod.151
Weston Bate's, Lucky City, a history of nineteenth-century Ballarat, was written 100 years after
Withers's book. Without making it a major focus, Bate weaves the music of the people into the
fabric of everyday life. Welsh miners, for example, sing on their way home from the mines,
musicians at a ball are 'plied with grog', and a German band is forced at gunpoint to play for the
march to Eureka. Bate refers to Ballarat as 'City of Song', observing that 'music seems to have
been one of the strongest pastimes in Ballarat society'.152 Nor does he restrict his attention to the
development of the Western classical tradition. Music is used by individuals and groups in a
149
Gome, 'Hymnody in the Australian colonies, pp. 157-166.
150
Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999 (first published 1870), pp. 39, 44, 54, 154, 170, 179, 180.
151
Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999 (first published 1870), pp. 79, 80, 288.
152
Bate, Lucky City, pp. 84, 46, 68, 229, 231.
51
multitude of ways, and is not tucked away in a few dedicated paragraphs. The vitality of the
music practices captured in Lucky City provides a basis from which to explore more deeply the
meaning and significance of music in early Ballarat.
Other scholars have incorporated Ballarat references into their more comprehensive music
studies. From Philip Butterss and Hugh Anderson we learn about the comic singers on the
goldfields, and from Harold Love and Alison Gyger something of the opera singers who
performed in Ballarat.153 Harold Love and Wang Zheng-Ting include the Chinese people of
Ballarat in their studies of the musical theatre of the Chinese miners.154 There are no detailed
comprehensive histories of Ballarat's major Christian churches, and John Spooner's history of the
Anglican diocese of Ballarat has little related to the early music of the church.155 A thesis on the
social history of St Paul's church by Robert Northey mentions some of the musicians associated
with the church and notes that St Paul's contributed to the musical life of the community,
providing singers and instrumentalists for community concerts as well as for church services.156
Dianne Gome's study of hymnody in colonial Australia lists two hymn books published in
Ballarat in the nineteenth century.157 Enid Matthews's history of colonial organs and organ
builders provides details about some of the pipe organs in the major churches of Ballarat, the first
of which was installed in 1860.158 Sacred music was not restricted to the Christian churches, and
the Hebrew and Chinese religions had their own musical traditions. Music was an integral part of
the Jewish orthodox rite, and the Ballarat synagogue was once regarded as having the most
orthodox congregation in Australia.159 Some evidence of that music can be found in Newman
Rosenthal's history of the synagogue, while Benjamin Segaloff's study of Jewish choral music in
Victoria refers to the music performed on special occasions in the Ballarat synagogue.160 In a
book about the life of evangelist Matthew Burnett, Henry Glenny recalls the time Burnett spent in
Ballarat and surrounding districts, the temperance choirs he initiated, and the enthusiastic
participatory singing that was integral to his mission.161
153
Butterss, 'Longing for harmony'; Anderson, The Colonial Minstrel; Love, The Golden Age; Gyger,
Civilising the Colonies.
154
Love, 'Chinese theatre on the Victorian goldfields'; Wang Zheng-Ting, Chinese music in mid-nineteenth
century Victoria.
155
John Spooner, The Golden See, Diocese of Ballarat: the Anglican church in Western Victoria, John
Ferguson Ltd, Surry Hills, NSW, 1989.
156
Robert E Northey, 'A social history of St. Paul's Church of England, Ballarat East 1858-1872: a study of
Anglican membership and its social dimensions,' MA thesis, University of Melbourne, 1976.
157
Gome, Australian hymnody, pp. 9-10.
158
Matthews, Colonial Organs, pp. 158-62.
159
Benjamin Segaloff, Jewish Choral Music in Victoria, self published, Melbourne, 1993, p.3.
160
Newman Rosenthal, Formula for Survival: the saga of the Ballarat Hebrew congregation, The
Hawthorn Press, Melbourne, 1979; Segaloff, Jewish Choral Music in Victoria, p. 3.
161
Henry Glenny, Reminiscences of the Life and Labours of Matthew Burnett: Yorkshire evangelist and
social reformer by the Australian Silverpen, ML Hutchinson, Melbourne, 1898, pp. 26-28, 100-03.
52
A more general perspective on local musical life is seen in three theses devoted to music in
Ballarat and the other Victorian goldfields. Roslyn Brereton's BA thesis, 'Entertainment and
Recreation on the Victorian Goldfields in the 1850s', has accounts of music, theatre, sport,
circuses, and dancing in Ballarat, Bendigo, Mt Alexander, Ararat and surrounding districts.
Brereton shows music to be central to the entertainment of the miners, arguing that the higher
standard of artists and theatres evident from 1856 encouraged audiences to adopt more
discriminating attitudes, while the growth of strong amateur societies in Ballarat destroyed
professional entertainment. In spite of the multicultural nature of the diggings, however, there is
little mention of the music of the different ethnic groups, and surprising omissions are the brass
bands and choral societies. This thesis does, however, look at the music halls, with their 'free-
and-easy' entertainments, and does not omit the more spontaneous types of music-making, such
as the singing of both coarse and refined melodies at miners' drinking parties.162
Pauline Righetti and Wendy Morrison have focused specifically on nineteenth-century Ballarat
and attempted to embrace music in the community. Both discuss an interesting range of music in
their theses, with, however, several notable omissions, such as, for example, music in the schools
and churches. Righetti has gathered a wealth of information from local papers and presented a
survey of early musicians, organisations and performances. She lists information about music
stores, choral societies, orchestras, brass bands, visiting musicians, music teachers, opera, Welsh
eisteddfods and the South Street competitions.163
Morrison argues that the types of music most popular in Ballarat were those of the English lower-
middle and working classes, and that the development of those forms of music was influenced by
local and national factors. Her thesis includes sections on theatres, bellringers, brass bands,
visiting artists, opera and choral societies. It is not intended to be a comprehensive account of
music in Ballarat, and there is no discussion of the music of the different ethnic communities.164
Although both Righetti and Morrison have contributed to the knowledge of music in colonial life,
the nature and scope of their theses are not such that they are able to explore the significance of
music in people's lives in any depth.
Research into later periods of Ballarat's musical life attributes some influence to the early
establishment years. Georgina Binns claims that the Welsh eisteddfods of Ballarat provided the
162
Roslyn Brereton, Entertainment and recreation on the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s, BA hons thesis,
University of Melbourne, 1967.
163
Pauline Veronica Righetti, 'The first fifty years of music in Ballarat,' Special Studies thesis, University
of Melbourne, n.d.
164
Wendy J Morrison, 'Some aspects of the English influence on music in Ballarat during the establishment
years,' BA hons thesis, University of Melbourne, 1984.
53
essential framework for the Ballarat Royal South Street Society Competitions, still one of
Australia's major music eisteddfods.165 Kay Dreyfus asserts a continuity with the past in the
musical life of twentieth-century Ballarat. Local concerts in the 1920s and 1930s preserved the
traditions of the nineteenth-century concert, and were nurtured by the conventions of domestic
entertainment and a tradition of choral singing in the churches. The energy of the South Street
competitions sprang from old traditions of music and concert life and was fed by the nature of the
competitive experience. It was manifest in a dynamic atmosphere of enthusiasm and excitement
that was particularly evident in the sections devoted to choirs and bands.166 Although his book
about the bands of Ballarat begins in 1900, Bob Pattie regards the band leaders of the nineteenth
century as pioneers who established the movement that eventually resulted in Ballarat being
known as the 'Bandsmen's Mecca in Australia'.167
* * *
For all its role in alerting readers to the diversity and breadth of music making in Ballarat,
research so far has been partial and limited, and there is something to be learned from other
attempts to look at the music of an Australian community. Four that have been found helpful are
discussed in the following section.
LOCAL MUSIC HISTORIES

Apart from the work of ethnomusicologists working with cultures other than their own, few
scholars have attempted to investigate the broad spectrum of music practised within a particular
community. There is a small body of work related to the music of particular Australian
communities based on place, displaying a wide diversity in approach and in the range of music
covered. This section on local music histories refers to histories of music in a particular locality
situated within a larger geographical and cultural framework.
One musical history of a small Australian gold-mining town covers a similar timeframe to this
thesis. The study of music in Tumut by Deborah Crisp paints a detailed picture of the music of
the middle-class residents of the town, while comprehensive appendices list musicians,
programmes and a calendar of musical events.168 Crisp notes the influence of an experienced and
165
Georgina Binns, 'Musical aspects of eisteddfods and the Royal South Street Society competition in
Ballarat to 1900', B Mus thesis, University of Melbourne, 1982, p. 14.
166
Kay Dreyfus, 'The South Street eisteddfod, and local music-making in Ballarat in the 1920s and 1930s',
Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 66, November 1995, pp. 106-09.
167
R Pattie, The History of the City of Ballarat Municipal Brass Band 1900-2000, Ballarat, 2000, p. 2.
168
Deborah Crisp, 'Amateurs and professional: a snapshot of musical life in a country town, 1860-1865',
Australasian Music Research, vol. 1, 1996, pp. 103-140.
54
dedicated musician in the community, while the extent of music in the town reinforces the
findings of other studies that music was central to the lives of colonial Australians. Although
Crisp's study is of journal article length, it says much about the importance of music in
community life. It does not, however, aim to present a comprehensive picture of all types of
music. There is no discussion of the music of the miners, of Chinese music, or of many popular
types of music making.
Comprehensive music studies that look at the broader picture of music in a particular community
often find it difficult to cover even the prominent aspects of music. Yet without this type of study
there would be little to inform us of the extent and amount of music practised in any community.
In looking at music in Melbourne between 1860 and 1880 as comprehensively as possible,
Harold Love refers to opera, orchestras, oratorio, visiting and local artists, festivals, choral
societies, music of ethnic communities, music halls, dance music, street music, church music,
music in the home, and music for the 1888 Melbourne Exhibition.169 The amount and diversity
are striking, prompting the question of why there was so much musical activity, and whether this
was typical in other colonial communities.
Jean Farrant's social history of music in Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie and Boulder from 1892 to 1908 is
an account of music on the Western Australian goldfields from the time of the 1892 gold
discoveries. As in the case of Ballarat, gold stimulated rapid urban development, forging a
remarkable contrast between the initial tent cities and the settled communities of sixteen years
later.170
A huge amount of music was discovered, intertwining with the fabric of society, and pervading
almost all communal activity. It was used for relaxation and pleasure, as part of the 'great' events
of the day, and to help others in its role as a fund raiser. It brought nostalgic memories and it was
used in protest. The conservative nature of the churches was seen as a stable environment for
music to flourish. In many cases music attracted a mix of classes, and people from all walks of
life often enjoyed the same repertoire. A noticeable thread running through the study is the
importance of leadership on the success or failure of organised groups.171
There was a need for mateship in the days of the gold rushes, for survival sometimes depended
on the associations formed with others. Farrant sees music as an expression of that mateship,
169
Harold Love, 'Drama and music in colonial Melbourne', in AGL Shaw (ed.), Victoria's Heritage, Allen
& Unwin, Sydney, 1986, pp. 179-200.
170
Jean E Farrant, 'A social history of music in Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie and Boulder 1892 to 1908', MA
thesis, Music Department, University of Western Australia, 1992.
171
Farrant, 'A social history of music', see for example, pp. 7, 18, 31, 65, 96, 98, 173, 192.
55
translated in the later years to comradeship and a common enjoyment of music. Music was
enjoyed both for its own sake and for its role in social contact. The increasing numbers of women
meant a need for improved behavioural patterns, and with the creation of familiar infrastructures
came a sense of pride and awareness of place, and an expectation of visual order and neatness.
The organised music that accompanied this development reflected the mores of nineteenth-
century England.172
Farrant emphasises the interrelationship of music and society, looking upon music as part of the
growth and development of the new communities. Her approach stems from a Western classical
based perspective in which the value of music is centred around the musical work. Much of the
music of her study is seen as 'light, inconsequential and empty', while the professional touring
companies were considered to be 'vitally important to raise the consciousness of the general
public to a wider range of music and its beauties'.173 Her study of progress culminates with the
building of the two town halls in Kalgoorlie and Boulder, symbols of great achievement, and
majestic venues in which to experience the arts.174
The rapid growth of music in a new community is witnessed again in an edited collection about
music in Adelaide, entitled From Colonel Light into the Footlights. A range of music and a broad
involvement with some form of music-making is documented by chapters on different aspects of
musical life from the founding of South Australia in 1836 until 1986. Topics include concert life
(Julja Szuster), secular choral music (Elizabeth Silsbury), liturgical and choral traditions (David
Swale), music in the German communities (Annegrit Laubenthal), opera (Robyn Holmes) and
music in the home (Etta Clark). Resonating with the work of Crisp and Farrant is the finding that
comes across in several of these chapters, in particular those of Swale, Silsbury and Szuster, that
a strong leader is important in the establishment and development of organised musical groups.175
* * *
The four local historical studies discussed in this section display diverse ways of looking at the
musical life of a particular locality. Harold Love saw his work as a pointer to areas of activity for
future scholars to explore in depth.176 His broad overview, while unable to delve deeply into any
one aspect of music, underlines the extent of music in the community as it crosses and extends
172
Farrant, 'A social history of music', pp. 8, 36, 37, 62, 63, 134.
173
Farrant, 'A social history of music', p. 135.
174
Farrant, 'A social history of music', pp. 184-87.
175
Andrew McCredie (ed.), From Colonel Light into the Footlights: the performing arts in South Australia
from 1836 to the present, Pagel Books, Norwood, S. Aust, 1988.
176
Love, 'Drama and music in colonial Melbourne', p. 190.
56
the social boundaries of class and ethnicity. As seen in Deborah Crisp's article, the decision to
focus on part of the musical life of a community enables a more detailed exploration of musicians
and repertoire, yet precludes wider cross-cultural and cross-class observations. Andrew
McCredie's edited collection, in drawing on a range of authors, is able to encompass different
approaches and viewpoints, but has limited value in providing an understanding of the whole
musical culture of a locality, in that there is little room for the overlap between the various topics,
or the understanding of the relationships between different genres and institutions. This is easier
to achieve in a single author study, and Farrant's thesis achieved the more integrated approach,
while the longer length meant it was possible to trace the development of music in more detail
than in a single article. But such was the amount of music performed, the range of situations in
which it was used, and the numbers and diversity of those who practised it, that insights based on
close detailed investigations remain limited.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The potential to see music as a vital, important force in society is revealed when the literature on
music in Australian history is taken as a whole. Yet as this chapter has argued, music is too often
marginalised, or considered in a unidimensional manner, while many aspects of music-making
have been neglected.
As demonstrated above, the literature reveals conflicting messages about the place of music in
people's lives. General historians have acknowledged its presence in varying degrees, but have
rarely seen it as an influential force in society. The existing histories of Australian music were
written several decades ago. Representing a modernist tradition of high culture, they consider
much of the music listened to by colonial Australians as trivial and unimportant. More recent
works on Australian music are reference volumes rather than complex histories, and while some
music studies (eg. the Currency Companion, and the local music histories) recognise the
multidimensional nature of music in society, there is still a need for musical historians of place to
integrate into their work some of the understandings revealed in current musicological and
historical debate. While local music histories highlight a commonality of themes and
observations, a greater awareness of difference will emerge when local music scholars take a
closer look at issues such as the links between music and the local social structure, the role of
music in English hegemony, the contribution of music to the interrelationship between religious
and secular life of the community and the way the high/popular divide was played out in the
musical life of local people. Such a study of music in a particular locality, drawing on the work of
previous scholars, has potential for new insights into the place of music in the lives of colonial
Australians.
57
In contrast to much traditional musicology, the social significance of music is integral to this
approach. Music can not be thought of as 'inferior' simply because it does not conform to the
parameters of any particular tradition, although attention may be drawn to occasions when it was
considered as such in the period being investigated. In attempting such a study, this thesis
contextualises music practices within the contemporary setting rather than placing them on a
continuum of progress, and the human response to music is seen to be integral to the functioning
of music in society. The need to present a more detailed look at the music of a particular
community than has been achieved in other studies is addressed by documenting what we know
about Ballarat's music and musicians in detailed appendices. This information is presented
alphabetically (in a few cases chronologically) in Volume Two, and serves to illustrate and
underline the arguments presented in the thesis.
Some survey of ideas is useful before attempting a framework in which to analyse the music of
early Ballarat. The next chapter considers the work of scholars in the fields of ethnomusicology,
musicology and philosophy who have looked closely at issues related to music in society.
Drawing on that work, the chapter outlines the development of a framework designed to relate
music to the lives of those who formed part of the early Ballarat community.
58
3
MUSIC IN SOCIETY
As demonstrated in Chapter Two, few Australian studies have examined the music practices of a
colonial community with a view to ascertaining broad themes relating to the role music played in
that community. A study of this type, however, has a contribution to make in the fields of
Australian history and musicology, offering insights into issues such as relationships and
causality that are not possible in studies with a narrower focus. This chapter argues for the
heuristic value and continuities in approaches of aspects of both modernist and poststructuralist
scholarly traditions. It draws from the work of scholars in these traditions, as well as a large body
of evidence collected locally, to propose a framework to use as a basis for exploring the music
practices of early Ballarat. The process of theory building for this study required a constant
engagement between the empirical data and the theoretical literature. While each informed the
other in the establishment of the proposed framework, this chapter, for clarity, will deal
principally with the literature, leaving the empirical data for the substantive chapters. The
proposed framework represents the individual and community response to music, the social,
cultural and physical influences on that response, and the impact of music on the community.
MUSIC AND HUMANITY

Despite a relative neglect by Australian historians, the extent and variety of music practice in
colonial Australia underlines its importance in contemporary life. People from all ethnic and
social groups made music, often in circumstances that made the very task of day-to-day living so
challenging that one would think there would be little time left for amusement and pleasure. But
the significance of music lies in more than its role as a distracting amusement. Among the
scholars who have sought to understand and explain the meaning of music to humanity, John
Blacking was notable for his claims for music's fundamental significance.
Blacking regards the experience of music as a key factor in human life, a biological as well as a
cognitive phenomenon, a 'primary modelling system of human thought and a part of the
infrastructure of human life' as well as 'a basic human mode of thought by which any human
action may be constituted'.1 He claims an evolutionary role for music in the development of homo
erectus into homo sapiens sapiens. Blacking's theory of 'bio-social dance' asserts that music and
1
John Blacking, Music, Culture, and Experience: selected papers of John Blacking, University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, 1995, pp. 223-224.
59
CHAPTER 3: MUSIC IN SOCIETY
dance were once everyday modes of communication. With the emergence of verbal language
around 70,000 years ago music and dance lost their role as the primary mode of factual and
practical communication, but survived as non-verbal language, and still remain as one way of
processing information. Music is seen as a means of bridging gaps of understanding between
people's lives and their bodily experiences.2
Blacking's hypotheses about the evolutionary and biological foundations of music making have
been called ambitious and audacious, and are presented here as the work of an acknowledged
musician and scholar whose work has been highly influential to later ethnomusicologists.3
Although his theories have been thought extreme, they have the support of other scholars at least
in their claim for the basic importance of music to humanity.
Ian Cross accords with Blacking in his claim for an innate biological musicality among all
peoples. He suggests that music is one of the competences displayed by infants that emerge too
quickly to be explained as learning processes involving interaction with the environment. Cross-
cultural research, he claims, has found that elements related to the intonations, stresses and
rhythms of music are displayed in interactions between very young infants and caregivers, and
these involve not only listening, but also sound production and motion. Such proto-musical
behaviours, writes Cross, play an important role in processes of cognitive and social
development, and form the basis for mature musical competences, actualised culturally as music.4
While these scholars are concerned with the inherent musicality of all humanity, others claim
significance in the fact that some form of music is present among all societies of the world.
Bruno Nettl's work in comparative ethnomusicology has shown that all societies practise some
form of music and that, while elements such as aesthetic and social values, sounds and forms,
vary from culture to culture, there are certain universals. All known human societies, for
example, have singing, and all have singing accompanied by percussion. Moreover music
everywhere is presented in the form of something corresponding to 'songs' or 'pieces'—so in that
sense it is composed of artefacts. This contrasts with dance, which may exist simply as an
activity, for people often dance without necessarily dancing 'something'. Everywhere dance is
accompanied by musical sound, and in every society religious ritual is accompanied by music.
Nettl also states that music in all cultures reinforces boundaries between social groups, helping
2
Blacking, Music, Culture, and Experience, pp. 237, 241.
3
Reginald Byron, 'The ethnomusicology of John Blacking', in Blacking, Music, Culture, and Experience,
pp. 16, 26.
4
Ian Cross, 'Music and biocultural evolution', in Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton
(eds), The Cultural Study of Music: a critical introduction, Routledge, New York, 2003, pp. 19-30. See
also Ian Cross, 'Is music the most important thing we ever did? Music, development and evolution', in Suk
Won Yi (ed.), Music, Mind and Science, Seoul National University Press, Seoul, 1999.
60
not only to integrate society, but also to show its distinctiveness. Music in all cultures is used to
transform experience in some way, such as producing trance in religious ritual, or edification in a
concert.5 Nettl thus draws attention not only to the universality of music, but also to its profound
social significance, and its use as a way of transforming human experience.
Philip Bohlman asserts that thinking about and experiencing music are basic human practices. He
claims that the ontologies of music 'reside in the physical and the everyday, the beautiful and
spiritual, past histories and myths about the future. They are spread across the entire spectrum of
human experience'. Bohlman contends that a connectedness between music and nature is present
in most cultures, and draws attention to music's 'embeddedness' in nature, language, time, space,
history and culture.6
Despite these claims for its ubiquity and its fundamental importance to humanity, music should
not be thought of as a type of 'universal language', nor as a means of facilitating communication
between people of different social groups. Such theories have long been rejected by
musicologists.7 Bohlman's many musical 'ontologies' are an indication that the musics of the
world present themselves in vastly different and often incompatible ways.8 Music that has
meaning within a particular culture may be incomprehensible within others, or may carry entirely
different messages.
In the years subsequent to the initial gold rush of 1851 people began to settle in Ballarat and to
establish homes and businesses in the area. Ballarat, like other colonial settlements, was built
according to the conventions of the dominant cultural group. Business and government
organisations were modelled on those of England and, within a few years, many of the larger
buildings resembled those of English cities. Musical expression too took the forms with which
people were familiar yet, as we are aware from the work of scholars discussed above, music has
more than simply a nostalgic function. This story of music in Ballarat supports the large body of
musicological research that regards music as a human universal with deep significance to
humanity.
5
Bruno Nettl, 'Studying musics of the world's cultures,' in Excursions in World Music, Prentice-Hall,
Upper Saddle River, 2001, pp. 8-9, The Study of Ethnomusicology: twenty-nine issues and concepts,
University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1983, pp. 39-41.
6
Philip V Bohlman, 'Ontologies of music', in Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (eds), Rethinking Music,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997, pp. 17-34.
7
For example, Alan Merriam, The Anthropology of Music, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1964,
p. 10.
8
This point has also been made by Ian Cross, 'Music and biocultural evolution', p. 19.
61
A BROAD SPECTRUM APPROACH

Large amounts of detail regarding dates, places, events and people may contribute little to the
existing understanding of the role of music in people's lives. In presenting a framework to explore
the ways the people of the time experienced their music, this study, although broadly based, aims
to become more than a simple chronological survey, or an assembly of musical genres and
personalities. It proposes, rather, a theoretical perspective on the breadth and diversity evident in
a musical life that involved listening, singing, playing, dancing, marching, discussing,
worshipping, remembering, forgetting, socialising, parodying, rebelling, wondering, admiring,
criticising, controlling, helping, evangelising, learning, laughing, and countless other activities.
Dave Russell, writing about popular music in England, covers a range of musical genres, and he
argues that there is much to be gained from a broad contextual view. His inclusive approach
helps Russell to achieve 'a social history of, rather than a mere social background to, popular
music' (Russell's italics).9 Russell notes that many writers position music in its social and
economic setting, yet fail to acknowledge music's own potential to shape and structure society.10
By taking a comprehensive approach in this thesis it is possible to consider the power of music to
shape and structure the society of mid-nineteenth century Ballarat, and to learn more about the
specific ways this was achieved.
The consideration of the full spectrum of genres itself, however, may still result in an unbalanced
view of music in society. A close study of a public performance, for example, would typically
incorporate an investigation of the venue, the artists, the rehearsal schedule, the actual
performance, the audience reactions and other closely related issues. But to consider a
performance in its full musical context would also require looking at the ways in which music is
learned and transmitted within the relevant culture. These are paths along which the musicians
and the audiences have travelled in order to arrive at the performance itself, and have a profound
impact on both the performance and its reception.
Musicologist Peter Platt reinforces the importance of having a clear view of the whole and of
seeing performance, composition, scholarship and music education as mutually supportive
elements. He argues the importance of investigating the significance of music, the part music
plays in people's lives, the respect or disrespect with which people regard their music and
musicians and how music's structures are related to get-togethers, ceremonies and work
9
Russell, Popular Music in England, p. xii.
10
Russell, Popular Music in England, p. xii.
62
patterns.11 Although Platt's recommendations are grounded firmly within a Western cultural
framework, they could equally well apply to the ways music is created, learned, transmitted,
enacted and conceptualised in cultures of all times and places.
In accordance with this approach the thesis also aims to be musically inclusive, allowing for the
incorporation of all forms of music. This will help to counter any unbalanced perceptions that
have arisen from previous scholarship, for among the existing studies of Australian colonial
music certain genres have attracted more scholarly attention than others. This, however, need not
mean that they were the most prominent, nor the most influential, in the society in which they
developed, nor that they were perceived as such by that society.
The broad perspective involves looking at both the classical and the popular traditions as they are
known to have existed at the time. Until now the popular tradition in Ballarat has received the
greater amount of scholarly attention, and the more popular forms of musical entertainment are
possibly regarded as the typical music of its early years. It is, however, important that the scholar
does not have a blinkered view of the significance of the high cultural tradition, or have the
impression that there was no concept of great works of art. This thesis takes a perspective on
musical life through the development of a framework in which both the high and popular musical
traditions are shown to contribute in various ways to the functioning of music in society.
An inclusive study must aim to incorporate music of people from all levels of society and all
ethnic groups. Ethnomusicology has informed us of the inherent musicality of all people rather
than just a talented minority.12 It is thus important to accommodate the practices of the musically
educated and the uneducated, and to allow for a consideration of the contact between the various
cultural groups within the community. The multicultural nature of early Ballarat provides a rich
area for investigation because the cultural backgrounds of some minority groups bore no
relationship to the traditions of the British or European settlers. Not only did the music of these
people have meaning for the participants themselves, but it was one of the windows through
which they were perceived by the rest of the community. Studies of music in society have often
neglected the smaller ethnic groups within a community. As Mark Slobin points out, Ruth
Finnegan's detailed study of music making in the town of Milton Keynes, England, in 1989 gives
only a token glance at the music of the ethnic minority groups.13 This approach leads to the
assumption that such music has meaning only within the ethnic community itself. But because
11
Peter Platt, 'A common attitude to the pursuit of music: an Australian opportunity,' Musicology Australia,
vols X1-X11, 1988-89, pp. 2-13.
12
John Blacking, How Musical Is Man? University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1974, pp. 89-116.
13
Mark Slobin, Subcultural Sounds: micromusics of the West, Wesleyan University Press, Hanover, 1993,
pp. 49-50.
63
the music of the smaller cultural groups help shape the views of the entire community, this music
needs to be addressed in any comprehensive study. The challenge of how to interpret the music
practices of the ethnic groups in relation to those of the dominant culture leads to the need to
incorporate issues of identity, control and hegemony, into the study.
The musical and social diversities of early Ballarat are reflected in the variety of ways in which
people used music, and the different places in which it was experienced. In mid-nineteenth
century Ballarat, for example, these included the home, the school, the place of worship, the
theatre, the dance hall, the concert hall, the street, and other out-door locations. The diversities
revealed in this study are themselves significant, and the interplay of the different elements
provides insights not possible in a study with a narrower focus.
The framework proposed for this study incorporates those aspects of music that have been
discovered about the early Ballarat community, and allows for the wide spectrum of detail that is
not yet, or may never be, known. It has, for example, been impossible to learn of any children's
spontaneous or learned singing games, and there is relatively little information about music
within the family, yet the framework does help us understand some of the implications of these
very important areas of music in society. While it is not possible to investigate fully all the ways
music presents itself within a particular community, or all the influences upon that music, the
framework itself, as proposed and articulated, must be open enough to encompass all the possible
components contributing to the whole, whether or not they can be documented fully.
Music is not experienced in a vacuum and, because of its interrelationship with society, it is
necessary to refer to relevant scholarship in other human studies. Ethnomusicologist Alan
Merriam made the point in 1964 that the study of music in society must take a multifaceted
approach, for its aspects include the historical, social, psychological, structural, cultural,
functional, physical, psychological, aesthetic, symbolic and others.14 Among those whose work
provided insights for this study are scholars in the disciplines of history, sociology, cultural
studies, ethnomusicology, philosophy and education.
MUSIC IN SOCIETY
The work of ethnomusicologist John Blacking was influential in drawing attention to the
significance of the social and the cultural settings within which music is experienced. For
Blacking, music was a special kind of social action that people use to make sense of their worlds.
Meaning, he claimed, is not to be found in musical analysis, but in the constructions that people
14
Merriam, The Anthropology of Music, p. 31.
64
put upon that music within their own particular culture and society. Since Blacking this approach
has been regarded as basic to contemporary ethnomusicological theory and method.15 It is
primarily within the field of ethnomusicology that scholars have asserted the value of considering
music in the context of human life, and as human activity rather than 'just a sequence of
organised sound'.16
Alan Merriam drew our attention to the way both music sound and related activity should form
part of a study of music in society, while Jeff Todd Titon and Mark Slobin incorporated the social
and the aesthetic, the sound and the practice of music, into their music-culture model. The work
of these scholars is discussed in the following section related to models of music in society.17
Writers in other disciplines also support the study of music in its social context. Australian
scholar Bruce Johnson claims that the 'discourse of excellence' in academic literature relating to
Australian music has excluded the majority of Australian music-making. This discourse is
concerned with music that is 'divorced from the chaotic, unruly uniqueness of life in a particular
place at a particular time'. Johnson urges the study of music in, rather than divorced from,
society. Music as social practice, he claims, cannot reveal its meaning through formalist analysis.
Rather than writing of music as a finished and largely fixed product, Johnson suggests writing
about music and its history in ways that acknowledge music as a form of social practice.18
Ruth Finnegan, in the 1980s, was also concerned to counteract the assumption that the
importance of music lay solely within musical works. Her study of amateur music making in an
English town finds significance in such aspects of music as travelling to rehearsals, contributing
to the uniform fund of the local brass band, and the annoyance caused by a drummer rehearsing
in the neighbourhood.19 In writing about day-to-day activities related to the practice and
performance of various types of music, Finnegan provides a scholarly corroboration of the way
activity associated with music is entwined within the fabric of society.
Bruno Nettl claims that the culture of a society determines the kind of music it has. He suggests,
for example, that the prestige afforded to large ensembles in the Western classical tradition may
relate to a desired social structure. Nettl draws many parallels between social structure and music,
looking at such elements as the grouping of instruments into families, the hierarchical structure of
15
Byron, 'The ethnomusicology of John Blacking', p. 26.
16
Jeff Todd Titon, 'Preface', in Jeff Todd Titon (ed.), Worlds of Music: an introduction to the music of the
world's peoples, 3rd edition, Schirmer Books, New York, 1996, pp. xxii-xxiii.
17
Merriam, The Anthropology of Music, p. 6; Jeff Todd Titon and Mark Slobin, 'The music-culture as a
world of music', in Titon (ed.), Worlds of Music, pp. 1-16.
18
Johnson, 'Celebrating Australian music', pp. 142-151.
19
Ruth Finnegan, The Hidden Musicians: music-making in an English town, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1989, pp 8, 330-331.
65
the symphony orchestra and the popularity of works involving a leader and followers. It 'makes
sense', he writes, 'to believe that music reflects important features of society and does not come
about in isolation'.20
John Shepherd and Peter Wicke note that traditional musicology has tended to regard social and
cultural forces as immaterial to music's meanings, or as external forces that are capable only of
exerting an influence on a central aesthetic musical core. Sociology, communication and cultural
studies have, on the other hand, tended to view music sound as phenomena extrinsic to social and
cultural forces and the affects and meanings they generate. Affect and meaning through music,
the authors claim, actually come through relationships in which the sounds are significant and the
meanings are mediated socially and culturally.21
As demonstrated in the work of the above scholars, the meanings encoded in the musical life of a
community must be sought in, and not in isolation from, society. The significance of music
cannot be found in the music sound alone, but in the relationships people form with and through
that music. Because this depends on particular social and cultural environments, there are
multiple meanings encoded within any music act. This thesis aims to look at the music of Ballarat
within the context of time, place, class, ethnicity and cultural beliefs, and to demonstrate some of
the social and cultural forces that influenced the relationships people made, through music, with
their world. But whereas Finnegan's study focused largely on the non-sonic aspects of music-
practice, this thesis prefers to place more emphasis on the centrality of music sound and the
human propensity to respond to it. It is not the intention to carry out detailed analyses of works
performed, and we cannot access the sounds themselves, but central to the framework proposed
in this chapter is the concept that the embodied response to music sound is basic to the
functioning of music in society.
The musical experience gives rise to an interplay of elements involving the social and cultural
environment in which the music is experienced. An understanding of the possible import of that
experience must, therefore, address the totality of that interaction. It seems that music everywhere
carries both a social and an aesthetic impact, so no comprehensive study of music can ignore the
significance of either. While music brings meaning in a human and personal way, it must also be
considered as an agency of social organisation and a way of delineating cultural distinctiveness.
In the framework developed for this study it is possible to look at these elements as part of a
larger picture, in order to understand the way they interrelate and impact upon society.
20
Bruno Nettl, Heartland Excursions: ethnomusicological reflections on schools of music, University of
Illinois Press, Urbana, 1995, pp. 8, 120-29.
21
John Shepherd and Peter Wicke, Music and Cultural Theory, Polity Press, Oxford, 1997, p. 16.
66
The following section looks at three studies that have found different types of model helpful for
understanding and explaining the functioning of music in society. This leads to the presentation
of the framework proposed for this thesis, with a discussion of key scholarship that has
contributed to its development. It includes some issues raised in recent post-modern approaches
to musicology, such as meaning, process and embodiment, as well as other ways scholars have
attempted to understand and explain the great diversity of the musical experience.
MODELS OF MUSIC IN SOCIETY

In 1964 Alan Merriam proposed a model for music in society that emphasised the relationships
between music and culture. As an ethnomusicologist, Merriam was working in a field that had
been developed largely to study 'the other', yet he did not limit his observations to non-Western
cultures, and his approach may be usefully applied to 'the self' or, indeed, to the self in another
time. Merriam's work, with its emphasis on music in context, had a far-reaching influence on
ethnomusicology. While later scholars have preferred to modify his emphasis from music in
culture to music as means of constructing and enacting culture,22 his model has been utilised over
many years as a basis for looking at music in society.23 Strongly influenced by the functional
anthropology of his day, Merriam suggested looking at music as a system, attributing
significance to both the social and the aesthetic. His approach helps us understand the way basic
concepts affect the musical activity of a community and how this activity then affects the musical
sound found meaningful to that community.24
Merriam's system proposes three levels. The base level is conceptualisation about music. This
level includes beliefs about music, ideas about the correct sources of music, and methods of
sound production. The musical values of the society are found here and these determine how the
second level is manifested. The second level is that of behaviour. The three major kinds of
behaviour are physical, social and verbal. The physical aspect involves both the production of
music sound, and that of responding to the sound. Social behaviour applies to the way the
performers and audience are required to behave at a music event. Verbal behaviour provides
verbal constructs about the music system itself. The final level is that of sound. This is a product
of the second level and cannot exist independently of human behaviour. Merriam's model shows
how a change in one part of the system will bring about changes in the other parts. Because
reactions to the final product of music sound can be either positive or negative, the underlying
concepts will be either reinforced or changed, and the resultant behaviour either reapplied or
22
Anthony Seeger, Why Suyá Sing: a musical anthropology of an Amazonian people, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1987, pp. xiii-xiv.
23
See for example Nettl, 'Studying musics of the world's cultures,' p. 7.
24
Merriam, The Anthropology of Music, pp. 32-33.
67
altered. This constant feedback is what accounts for the change or the stability of the music
system.
This thesis takes from Merriam's modernist, functionalist approach the concept that this type of a
model can provide helpful insights into the functioning of music in society. In recognising
continuities in scholarly commitment to his emphasis on music in context, it acknowledges an
integral role for the cultural and social as well as for the sonic aspects of music. It is based on
response to music sound, and the influences and implications of those responses.
The proposed framework begins with the moment of contact between the individual and music
sound. Jeff Todd Titon and Mark Slobin achieved their focus on the actual musical experience
when they gave the central role to 'affect' in their 'music-culture' model.25 They define affect in
music as 'its radiating power, its emotional impact, whatever makes you give assent, smile, nod
your head, sway your shoulders, dance'. Titon and Slobin placed affect at the centre of four
concentric circles.
Affect, in the centre, is surrounded by the performance circle. In the latter appear the issues that
relate to performance. These include the 'special' nature of a performance, its purpose, its
interpretation, and the agreed-on rules and procedures that determine the behaviour of audience
as well as performers. Encompassing the performance circle is the 'community'. The community
is the bearer of the traditions within which the performance occurs. The relationship between the
community and the performers has a profound effect upon the music. How the community relates
to itself is another aspect, and this influences the different ways people experience music.
Memory and history constitute the fourth and outer circle, for the community is situated in
history. This history reflects changes in the inner parts of the model. It also alters the effect of
music, for as historians write about music they influence the body of thought in society.
The Titon and Slobin music-culture model draws our attention to the importance of integrating
individual difference, the community, and the role of memory in the study of music in society.
These find a place in this thesis. But by giving more emphasis to the link between response to
music and the way music is used to fulfil individual and communal purposes and needs, it is
hoped to further our understanding of how music functions as a formative influence on a
community.
Both the embodied response to the music sound, and the cultural milieu of which the individual is
a part, are vital to the meaning of a musical experience. The importance of considering all such
25
Titon and Slobin, 'The music-culture as a world of music', pp. 1-16.
68
aspects is emphasised in the work of John Shepherd and Peter Wicke. In a study that
demonstrates a continuity of the holistic approach in conjunction with influences of
postmodernism, they propose a semiological model that explains music as a structure, with
features and ways of communicating that differ from those of language. Their work addresses
lacunae in earlier musicological and cultural studies with regard to the relationship between
music's sounds and music's meanings. Shepherd and Wicke deny that music sound is, like the
sounds of words, arbitrary in its relationship to music's meanings, for this suggests that music is
the product of processes and forces extrinsic to it. Yet there can be no fixity of meaning to music
sound, for the social and the cultural have a significant influence on that meaning. While there is
no fixed one-to-one relationship between music and meaning, it is wrong to ignore the
immanence of music sound, for not all meanings are possible in all musics. The model proposed
by Shepherd and Wicke explores and explains the relationships between music sound and music's
meanings, drawing our attention to both the immanent and the arbitrary in the signifying
processes involved.26
Each of the models discussed above emphasises the importance of both music sound and social
and cultural processes. As observed earlier in this chapter, traditional musicology has until
recently tended to consider music's meaning as phenomena that do not depend on social and
cultural forces, while sociology, communication and cultural studies have neglected the role of
sound in studying questions of affect and meaning in music.27 By making the embodied
experience integral to the framework proposed for this study, and by acknowledging a range of
social, cultural and physical factors that contribute to that musical experience, it is hoped that
such misconstructions will be avoided. The study uses both sound and culture, both individual
and communal response, to gain insights into the musical experience, and through that to the
shaping power of music in society.
26
Shepherd and Wicke, Music and Cultural Theory, pp. 2-3, 15-16, 169-203.
27
Shepherd and Wicke, Music and Cultural Theory, p. 15.
69
THE FRAMEWORK
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSE
EMBODIED
EXPERIENCE
FORMING
RELATIONSHIPS
CONNECTING
COMMUNITY RESPONSE
SITUATING TRANSCENDING
SHAPING
SOCIAL, CULTURAL, PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
The framework is based on the premise that the significance and power of music lie in human
response rather than being contained within the music sound itself. The study takes the
constructionist view that meaning is not naturally determined, or inherent, in things, events, ideas
or activities. Meanings are constructed and communicated by people, using the conceptual
systems of their culture, and through representational systems such as language. So cultures and
individuals will differ in the way they assign meaning to the world.1 Denying that a musical work
has any inherent meaning, however, does not mean that it has no meaning to people. Music is
highly significant in any human community, and within that community some forms of music
have more meaning than others.
The environment within which the response occurs is integral to that response, and this
environment incorporates the sound, the people who respond to it, and all other social, cultural
and physical elements. The framework thus consists of two basic elements, response and
environment, the former occurring within the latter. The outer, lightly shaded area, represents the
environment, while the inner, more deeply shaded areas represent response to music, both
individual and communal. The interrelationship between response and environment is indicated
by the two-way arrow representing 'shaping'.
1
Stuart Hall, Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices, The Open University,
Milton Keynes, 2001 (first published 1997), chap. 1.
70
Although it is necessary to isolate the various elements of the framework in the following
explanation, the elements are not themselves isolated for, as will be seen during the discussion,
they also interrelate with each other, and all may be present within a single musical experience.
This is not a model intended to view the functioning of music in society within boundaries, but a
diagrammatic presentation of the main themes of this study, showing broad interrelationships that
help to create the multiplicity of ways music is experienced. The use of shading rather than
borders indicates the lack of clearly defined boundaries in either the response to music, or the
environment within which it occurs. It should also be noted that in discussions related to the
power and influence of music that follow, 'music' is considered in a broad sense, and refers not
only to music sound, but to the whole experience of music, centred around the musical response.
RESPONSE
The inner part of the diagram representing human response to music incorporates both individual
and community response. Through the embodied experience of music sound individuals form
relationships with their world. Those relationships are represented here as the processes of
connecting, situating and transcending, and will be discussed below. Community response
interrelates with individual response, with the forming of relationships common to both. As
Christopher Small observes, ideas held about relationships by members of the same social group
whose experiences are broadly similar will themselves tend to be broadly similar, and so will
tend to reinforce one another.29 Because everyone's world is different, relationships formed
through music also display great diversity yet, as will be seen in the ensuing chapters, there was a
commonality in the way those relationships were formed and a strong sense that the relationships
were shared with others.
The embodied experience

'Music begins', claims Blacking, 'as a stirring of the body'.30 The framework takes as its starting
point the individual embodied experience occurring within a particular social, cultural and
physical environment.
American ethnomusicologist Bonnie C Wade acknowledges the view that meaning does not
reside in the musical materials themselves. Yet in claiming that it is not the lullaby that puts a
child to sleep, but something else (such as loving attention),31 she ignores the link between music
29
Christopher Small, Musicking, Wesleyan University Press, Hanover, 1998, p. 131.
30
Blacking, How Musical is Man? p. 111.
31
Bonnie C Wade, Thinking Musically: experiencing music, expressing culture, Oxford University Press,
New York, 2004, p. 10.
71
sound and human physicality that is seen here as the basis for the interplay of music and society,
and a common factor in the construction of meaning.
This thesis claims, with scholars such as Blacking and Cross (see above), that humans share a
basic predisposition to relate physically to the elements of music sound. Music is a force that
becomes part of us, for when we hear music its vibrations actually enter our bodies and we can
engage with the rhythm, pitch, timbre, and dynamics of music through our own embodied
processes and activities. As well as the involuntary rhythm inherent in our heartbeat, we display a
naturally regular rhythm as we walk, run, swim or carry out other activities. We, together with
people in all other human societies, use vocal pitch as part of the process of communication. The
variations in tone and the dynamic changes that we produce vocally may reflect our emotional or
our physical state. 'Our daily actions', writes Bruce Johnson, 'belong to music-
making⎯humming, whistling, adjusting the rhythm of our walk'.32 We become aware of such
elements as they relate to our own lives at a very early stage of our human development. In many
cases these are related to survival needs of the infant in a stage before language. The familiar tone
of the mother's voice, for example, suggests safety, comfort and fulfilment of needs. An
unfamiliar tone may suggest danger, leading to a wary response, or a desire to escape. Certain
tones can indicate anger or intention to attack. These natural links between physicality and sound
help to explain the centrality of the embodied experience in any musical culture. They also help
to explain why music's meanings are not entirely arbitrary for, as noted by Shepherd and Wicke
(see above), not all meanings are possible in all musics.
Such links between the elements of music and the human body also suggest that, as the human
body resonates with the vibrations of music, people align themselves with music in direct and
physical ways. Alignment to our environment is integral to our own physicality, for our existence
depends upon the way we synchronise our bodies with something other than ourselves. Tia
DeNora, in her study of music in everyday life, claims that the human body and its processes
must necessarily be articulated with some properties that lie outside it. She suggests that the body
should not be considered simply as a bounded object, but as reflexively linked to the
environment. The body continually appropriates materials such as air, water and temperature for
state maintenance activities. A new-born baby very quickly learns to 'latch' on to the nipple in
order to feed. Creatures orient and organise themselves in relation to environmental properties:
humans tend, for example, to remain awake during the hours of daylight and sleep during
darkness. Homeostasis, or the regularity of physical and behavioural processes the new-born
infant needs to achieve, is also now increasingly looked upon as being linked to environmental
32
Johnson, 'Celebrating Australian music', p. 150.
72
factors. One key mechanism for achieving homeostasis is 'entrainment', described by DeNora as
'the alignment or integration of bodily features with some recurrent features in the environment'.33
DeNora extends the concept of 'latching' to refer to the synchronising processes through which
people engage with music. Movement to music, such as toe tapping, finger snapping, and
dancing, shows music acting as an entrainment device for bodily processes and embodied
conduct. Although no single type of music will invariably move all listeners, those who latch in
this way enter into a type of 'visceral communion' with the music.34 Physically latching onto the
music is commonly observed when people hum, sing or whistle, attempting to align themselves
with the rhythm and pitch of the music. People often synchronise their emotional states with the
timbre, tempo and dynamics of the music, while singing a lullaby to a baby is an attempt to
synchronise its behavioural patterns with a particular sonic element of the environment. Music
has been shown to have great benefits for medical therapy through these processes, as it can
sometimes alter pulse, regulate breathing, and lessen the sensation of pain. Music is also used in
this way to alter working production rates, and has been shown to increase productivity in both
Western and non-Western cultures.35
In any musical experience this embodied physical response to music merges with aspects of the
total environment. Because everyone has a unique biological, emotional, psychological and
cultural makeup, any one musical performance can mean many things. Even those who propose
some degree of universality in music emphasise this diversity. 'A piece or performance is
simultaneously capable of bearing many different meanings', observes Cross; 'music is about
something, but its aboutness⎯its intentionality⎯can vary from context to context, within a
context, and from individual to individual'.36 The complex mix of factors that determines the way
we respond to that music can never be reproduced exactly and, as most people would be aware,
we can respond very differently to the same music heard in different settings. The great diversity
in the ways people respond to music has prompted contemporary scholars to recommend the
study of the individual experience rather than the pursuit of universals. 'Current studies', writes
Finnegan, 'look at the complex and subtle intertwining of cultural expectation, specific setting,
and individually embodied practice'.37
33
Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 77-88.
34
DeNora, Music in Everyday Life, pp. 85, 161.
35
DeNora, Music in Everyday Life, pp. 82, 104.
36
Cross, 'Music and biocultural evolution', p. 23.
37
Ruth Finnegan, 'Music, experience, and the anthropology of emotion', in Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert,
Richard Middleton (eds), The Cultural Study of Music: a critical introduction, Routledge, London, 2003, p.
187.
73
This type of historic study of music practice thus becomes a challenge. We have only limited
access to the individual musical experiences of people living in the mid-nineteenth century, and
the specificity of the personal response to music is swamped by the rich amount of detail about
community based musical activities. We can never observe or consult the players in the unfolding
drama, and it will never be possible to investigate in detail even one individual musical
experience of the past. This study acknowledges the experience of music sound as fundamental to
the functioning of music in society, using it as the basis for the proposed framework, and
highlighting instances when the embodied experience of music was clearly evident. The diversity
inherent in the musical experience will be incorporated into the framework through the overlap
and interaction of personal, social and cultural elements, while the empirical chapters will
highlight important differences in perceptions and experiences.
Forming relationships
Christopher Small claims that taking part in any capacity in a musical performance establishes a
set of relationships, and that the meaning of the act lies in those relationships.38 The framework
proposed here symbolises the concept that as people respond physically to music sound they
become enmeshed within a web of relationships with the world around them.
While acknowledging the diversity of the responses and relationships formed through music, the
framework has been developed with the belief that a search for themes and patterns is a valid and
useful way to approach the study of music in the community. The sources suggest that, in this
one particular historical community, the ways relationships were formed through music can be
viewed within certain overarching categories. The thesis is developed around the proposition that
an exploration of those particular categories can deepen our understanding of the functioning of
music in any human community. The three categories are represented here by using the gerund, a
verbal noun that carries the meaning of process, action or state.
Connecting
Arising initially from the embodied musical experience are the connections people make with
aspects of their world. Because music permeates so much of the human environment, those
connections are manifold. Connections depend on particular environmental, biological, social and
cultural factors, and in this study relate to words, concepts, emotions, time, place and people.
Chapter Four will explore the connecting process as it applied to the lives of people living in
early Ballarat.
38
Small, Musicking, pp. 9, 13.
74
Situating, transcending
As the evidence for this thesis was collected and compiled in the light of the theoretical issues
discussed above, two main themes emerged that give insights into the way people form
relationships through music. Both are natural extensions of the connecting process and represent
very diverse aspects of the musical response. Through music people negotiate spaces, mark
boundaries, and situate themselves within the world. Through music, they also transcend their
worlds through the experience of the beautiful, the spiritual and the sublime. Despite this
apparent contradiction, both 'situating' and 'transcending' may work simultaneously and, while
one aspect may have prominence in a particular musical situation, both can be a part of a single
musical experience. The various ways the two processes interrelate contribute to the variety and
diversity of music in society.
Music situates individuals and groups in a multitude of ways, and draws them in or out of the
boundaries of their existence. As people relate to aspects of their world through music, they
negotiate and establish their place in the world. Music also marks people as outsiders, carrying
messages of where, and with whom, they do not belong. The evidence gathered for this thesis
suggests that music helped situate people in a culture, and in a community. It situated them in a
hierarchy, suggesting strong implications for its hegemonic powers. Music also situated people in
a locality, and within other boundaries related to such areas as gender, class and age. These ideas
are discussed in Chapter Five.
The impact of music, however, is not restricted to its social significance, and the position taken in
this study differs from that of Bruce Johnson. Johnson condemns the academic musicological
tradition that regards music as a finished product, a set of sounds considered in isolation from the
society of which it is a part. 'Art', he writes, 'is not really the terrain of transcendence – though
that is the convenient wisdom. Art discourse is also, and perhaps primarily, a means of class
articulation'.39 This study attempts to look at music in, rather than divorced from, its social
context. This does not mean, however, that issues of identity, power, control, or class necessarily
receive more attention than the aesthetic, or the transcendent. In this evidence based study, the
latter elements must be acknowledged as a real part of musical life. Louis Roy defines the
transcendent experience as an event in which individuals, by themselves or in a group, have the
impression that they are in contact with something boundless and limitless, which they cannot
grasp, and which utterly surpasses human capacities.40 Elsewhere he describes it as the awareness
of being in contact with something that lies beyond one's normal control, power, or
39
Johnson, 'Towards a new cartography', p. 249.
40
Louis Roy, Transcendent Experiences: phenomenology and critique, University of Toronto Press,
Toronto, 2001, p. xi.
75
understanding.41 Here transcending is used to mean 'going beyond', recognising the intensity of
the transcendent experience as defined by Roy, but also acknowledging the myriad of ordinary
and special ways in which music enabled people to 'go beyond' the experiences of their everyday
lives. Even the distancing from the everyday experienced in concerts and recitals, and the
enormous amount of sacred music with its links to the spiritual, make this an important part of
the study. As seen in Chapter Six where these ideas are explored in more detail, this thesis does
not view 'transcending' as a separation from the world, but as a response to music involving
relationships formed with particular aspects of one's own environment.
The concepts of situating and transcending help to explain something of the diverse ways music
manifests itself in society. This diversity has sometimes been explained through the articulation
of dichotomies. Opposites like aesthetic/social, object/process, formalist/expressionist,
extensional/intensional, works/practice, mind/body, special/ordinary, Apollonian/Dionysian,
suggest and reinforce the view that music brings such divergent messages that these are best
described in terms of opposition or polarisation.42
Charles Keil claims a strong significance for the contending Dionysian and Apollonian forces in
music. Referring to the two concepts as articulated in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, Keil
considers that both the Apollonian 'frozen moment of dreamlike perfection' and the Dionysian
'immersion in fellow man and nature', contribute to the growth of musical styles.43
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) did not regard the two metaphysical forces,
or categories, as mutually hostile.44 Usually violently opposed, they did however 'walk side by
side … inciting one another to ever more powerful births'.45 Nietzsche used the terms 'dream' and
'intoxication' to explain the concepts in physiological terms. The Apollonian evokes our delight in
appearances and is necessary, for although illusory and impermanent, the 'truly existent, the
primal Oneness, eternally suffering and contradictory, also needs the delightful vision, the
pleasurable illusion for its constant redemption'.46 The Dionysian force, on the other hand, is the
'blissful ecstasy which … rises up from man's innermost core'. It represents enthusiasm, ecstasy, a
complete submergence of the individual into a greater whole. 'Each man feels himself not only
41
Roy, Transcendent Experiences, p. 3.
42
These terms are found throughout the literature. See for example, Bohlman, 'Ontologies of music';
Finnegan, The Hidden Musicians; Johnson, 'Celebrating Australian music'; Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
out of the Spirit of Music, Penguin, London, 1993, p.14.
43
Charles Keil, 'People's music comparatively: style and stereotype, class and hegemony,' in Music
Grooves, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994, pp. 210-217.
44
Michael Tanner, 'Introduction', in Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p. xv.
45
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p. 14.
46
Tanner, 'Introduction', p. xviii.
76
united, reconciled, and at one with his neighbour, but one with him … he has forgotten how to
walk and talk, and is about to fly dancing into the heavens'.47
Nietzsche associated the Apollonian force with the visual arts and epic poetry, and the Dionysian
with music and tragic drama. Michael Tanner claims that this absolute alignment was flawed, and
was due partly to Nietzche's own adoration of music.48 Keil applies both to his discussion of
music, claiming that 'it is the two principles acting upon each other that insure continued stylistic
vitality'.49
In fact not only the musical experience, but the very concept of music itself presents itself in
vastly different ways. Philip Bohlman claims music's existence as both object and process. As
object, music exists as a product that can assume specific forms, and be given names.50 Bruno
Nettl showed us that all human societies perform 'something' in their musical practices,51 and we
cannot ignore the significance of the European high art tradition with its vast body of musical
works, particularly in a community where this was a common way for people to think about
music. As process, music is unbounded and constantly changing, and exists in a state of flux.52
Music as process is experienced in acts of rehearsing, performing, and listening.
Scholars have written passionately about one or other of these approaches. Christopher Small
protests strongly against the tendency of European society to objectify music. He proposes the
term 'musicking' to emphasise his view of the priority of music as process, claiming that pieces or
works of music only exist 'in order to give performers something to perform'.53 Intense feelings
about music are not unusual, and scholars are not immune to the view that one approach to music
carries more value than another, or that one particular way of experiencing music is somehow
superior to all others. The preferred approach here, however, is to look at the diversity of the
musical experience, to be inductive rather than prescriptive and, if possible, to look at the music
practices of early Ballarat in ways that will further our understanding of the significance of music
in people's lives.
The empirical evidence gathered for this project suggests that the concepts of 'situating' and
'transcending' are able to contribute to such an understanding. Apparently divergent by nature,
both may be part of the same musical experience, with the extent to which one is privileged over
47
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 17-18.
48
Tanner, 'Introduction', p. xxix.
49
Keil, 'People's music comparatively', p. 217.
50
Bohlman, 'Ontologies of music', p. 18.
51
Nettl, 'Studying musics of the world's cultures', p. 9.
52
53
Small, Musicking, pp. 2-8, 218.
77
the other dependent on the particular relationships formed at the moment of contact. These two
concepts also provide a perspective on the seemingly polarised ways music is often conceived of
and experienced and have particular relevance to the social and the aesthetic.
SHAPING
The final part of the framework represents the relationship between human response to music and
the environment. 'Shaping' is presented as a two-way process, showing that response to music
shapes, and is shaped by, the environment in which it occurs.
Response to music depends on the person, the sound, and other factors related to the
environment. Because social, cultural and physical factors determine the nature of the musical
response, people from very different backgrounds are less likely to share similar responses than
are those from similar social and cultural groups.
Music can change the environment in which it occurs because it is used by people, working
consciously and unconsciously through the power of the musical response, to exert a shaping
force on individual lives and the community. Because people make connections to different
aspects of their world through music, music can be used to influence the way they think about
their world. Because music is so effective at situating people within boundaries, it is used in a
multitude of ways to shape the way they relate to each other. Because music offers aesthetic and
spiritual experiences that enable people to transcend their lives, societies develop spheres that
increase and enhance those experiences.
The formative influence of music has long been an emphasis in musical scholarship. In 1893
Richard Wallaschek argued that dancing and making music increase group solidarity, organise
collective activities and facilitate association in action.54 At the beginning of this chapter we read
Bruno Nettl's claim that music helps to integrate society and to reinforce social boundaries.55
According to Merriam, music is seen to 'shape, strengthen and channel social, political,
economic, linguistic, religious and other kinds of behaviour'.56 Music making is regarded by
Blacking as an indispensable tool for heightening and transforming consciousness as a first step
to transforming social forms. He suggests looking at music as an active force which helps to
54
Richard Wallaschek, Primitive Music: an inquiry into the origin and development of music, songs,
instruments, dances, and pantomimes of savage races, Da Capo Press, New York, 1970 (reprint of the
1893 edition).
55
Nettl, Studying musics of the world's cultures, p. 9.
56
78
shape ideas and social life, bringing people together, expressing sentiment and promoting group
solidarity.57
Shepherd and Wicke also claim a central rather than a peripheral role for music in the formation
and persistence of human societies. In its capacity to evoke and symbolise the 'emotional and
somatically experienced dimensions of people's lives' it has shaped important aspects of their
social worlds. Functioning iconically and concretely, it foregrounds people's involvement with
'their biographies, their societies and their environment'.58
Martin Stokes asserts a significant role for music in our understanding of modern life and in how
we articulate our knowledge of self and the world. While ethnomusicologists have shown that
music and society are inextricably interwoven, it may appear that in our modernised Western
society we have pushed music away from a central position and relegated it to the gaps created in
our working lives. Stokes makes a strong assertion to the contrary. Music, he claims, has far more
than a reflective role, for it is a powerful means of generating and manipulating meaning.59 This
force is influential, according to Stokes, because through musical activity as well as discourse
and thinking about music, 'ethnicities and identities are constructed and mobilised'. Through
music people recognise identities and places, and the boundaries that separate them. Through
music they negotiate and transform hierarchies of place. Stokes makes extreme claims for the
power of music. Boundaries constructed by music, he writes, can be considered as much a part of
the violence in the political turmoil of Northern Ireland as are shooting and bombs. While
admitting the impossibility of always being able to trace the influence of music through simple
cause and effect terms, Stokes encourages its study as a vital form of social creativity.60
The shaping force of music is closely linked to its hegemonic influence. Mark Slobin suggests
that hegemony is about the 'overarching, dominating⎯if not domineering⎯mainstream which is
internalised in the consciousness of governments, industry, subcultures, and individuals as
ideology'. He identifies three components of the music of a 'superculture'61 that help to show how
values are imposed upon society through music. As an industry, music employs advertising to
justify the ways of the superculture. The state and its institutions use such aspects as the
indoctrination of school children, the erasure of certain musics, the promotion of stereotypes, and
regulation and control. The third component is identified as the 'quiet aspects of ideology that
57
Blacking, Music, Culture, and Experience, p. 10.
58
Shepherd and Wicke, Music and Cultural Theory, pp. 3, 183.
59
Martin Stokes, 'Introduction', in Stokes (ed.), Ethnicity, Identity and Music, pp. 2-4.
60
Stokes, 'Introduction', pp. 4, 5, 10, 24.
61
A term coined by Slobin to refer to 'an umbrellalike, overarching structure that could be anywhere in the
system⎯ideology or practice, concept or performance' (Slobin, Subcultural Sounds, p. 29).
79
define the everyday and circumscribe the expressive'. These include the provision of a set of
standardised styles, repertoires and performance practices.62
These insights apply to the past as well as to the present. The issues of identity, hierarchy and
control in colonial society can be better understood through an awareness of the way music was
embedded in each of these processes. One task of this thesis is thus to consider the way music
empowered people to make associations, distinguish difference, negotiate hierarchy and assert
control. While the four following chapters all introduce issues raised in this section, the process
of 'shaping' is specifically addressed in Chapter Seven.
* * *
The framework represents response to music as a complex of processes arising initially from the
embodied experience of music sound. Through that experience, people and communities make
connections to aspects of their world, are situated within their world and are able to transcend
their world. Shaping is represented as a two way process in which response to music influences,
and is influenced by, the world in which it occurs. The framework thus reflects the way a
particular set of beliefs and circumstances, in conjunction with the human propensity to relate to
music sound, brings about any distinctive musical culture.
MUSIC AS A WINDOW ONTO SOCIETY

The social and cultural elements involved in music practice mean that one outcome of studying
the music of a community is the opening of a window onto the society of the period. The four
chapters that follow provide a glimpse through that window as they consider the music practices
of early Ballarat in the light of the proposed framework. Merriam claimed that 'the functions and
uses of music are as important as those of any other aspect of culture for understanding the
workings of society'.63 More recently, Philip Bohlman has written that 'we study music to
understand more about cultural contexts, about ideology and politics, about the ways in which
language functions, about gender and sexuality, and about the identities of cultures ranging from
the smallest group to the most powerful nation'.64 A study of music in society can thus help us to
understand how people of a particular community relate⎯or related⎯to many of the confronting
issues of their day, and it is hoped that some aspects of social life in mid-nineteenth century
Ballarat will be understood more deeply as a result of this study.
62
Slobin, Subcultural Sounds, pp. 29-33.
63
64
Philip V Bohlman, 'Music as representation', Journal of Musicological Research, vol. 24, no. 3-4, 2005,
pp. 205-226.
80
While any one aspect of music could have been explored within any or all of the proposed
categories, in order to write a clear narrative account it was decided to treat each type of music in
the category (occasionally two categories) that it best exemplified. Chapter Four looks at the way
people connected to aspects of their environment through music, with special reference to
minstrel troupes, street musicians, bands and bells. In Chapter Five the music practices of various
groups in the community are shown to be a way of situating people within and without
boundaries, with a focus on the music of the indigenous population, women's music practices,
music in the home, and the music of the different ethnic groups. Chapter Six considers the
different pathways to the transcendent provided by opera, choral music and sacred music. In its
investigation of music as a way of shaping society, Chapter Seven looks at the shaping influences
of goldfields ballads, drawing room ballads, the music of the Eureka uprising, and music in the
education of children and adults. Finally it considers music as a way of helping the needy,
spreading the word of God, and developing the material heritage of the city.
81
4
CONNECTING
One of the things that all human beings do is to turn to

1
the world around them with music.
When miners gathered together after their days' work to listen to the music of the 'bugle, and the
cornopean and the flute'2 they were undoubtedly seeking human companionship and a distraction
from the dirt, smells and discomforts of their immediate environment. Within the context of
goldfields life music meant social contact and diversion, a relationship with the world and a way
of distancing oneself from it.
Ruth Finnegan's study of music in the town of Milton Keynes suggests that these two facets of
the musical experience have more than local significance. Finnegan attributes such import to both
the social and the aesthetic aspects of music that, while on one hand music is seen as contributing
to the way society is bound together, it also brings rewards 'which must be sought in the aesthetic
domain, something akin perhaps to the spiritual meaning in religion'. Finnegan found that music's
many non-musical implications were to a certain extent similar to those of other special interest
groups, differing mainly in the widespread distribution of musical activity. But participants also
experienced something difficult to define, but closely related to 'the aesthetic and symbolic
experience of the beauty of artistically controlled and created sound'.3
The social and the aesthetic elements of the musical experience carry certain contradictory
messages. The former concerns relationships formed with the world, while the other is a form of
departure from the mundane reality of the everyday. In his ethnomusicological study of Western
classical music in the United States, Bruno Nettl notes a similar apparent contradiction in the
music of American and many other societies. Music, he observes, is closely associated with
people's conception of the supernatural, yet it also reflects human relationships and the human
condition.4 As articulated in Chapter Three, this thesis proposes that it is the 'connecting' force of
music that enables such seemingly contradictory experiences.
1
Bohlman, 'Music as representation', p. 220.
2
WB Withers, 'Our past and present', M & W Star, 12 September 1856, p. 89.
3
Finnegan, The Hidden Musicians, p. 332.
4
Nettl, Heartland Excursions, p. 145.
82
CHAPTER 4: CONNECTING
Christopher Small suggests that music is a way of knowing the world, 'not that pre-given physical
world, divorced from human experience, that modern science claims to know but the experiential
world of relationships in all its complexity'.5 He claims that people relate to their environment
through an active process of engagement rather than through passive reception. They receive
information through the senses, by the perception of difference, and from this information they
create meaning.6 This helps explain the way music can 'connect' to the beautiful and the spiritual,
for these can be regarded not as objective realities set apart from humanity in some supernatural
way, but as human constructs. Through music we connect by means of our senses to elements in
our environment that, within our own conceptual framework of reality, are defined as belonging
to the worlds of beauty or spirituality.
Small notes that the process of creating meanings in response to an engagement with music is
affected by inherited dispositions and previous experience, and that those meanings will differ
between individuals and cultures.7 Response to music is an individual one yet, as Small contends,
within the same social group whose experiences are broadly similar there are certain shared
assumptions, and it is these shared assumptions that hold social and cultural groups together.8
While they do reflect the diversity of the musical experience, Ballarat sources also suggest
certain overarching themes that give insights into the musical and social life of the community.
This chapter argues that through music the people of mid-nineteenth century Ballarat forged
significant relationships with their physical and conceptual worlds. Music was an effective way
for them to do this for, as noted in Chapter Three, humans have a basic predisposition to align
themselves with the elements of music sound. Added to this, connections made through music
carried the directness and intensity typical of an era before the advent of recorded sound. This
was a time when all music sound was produced in a particular place, for a particular purpose and
for a particular group of individuals. The musicians were invariably present, visible and active,
creating that sound.
As Small observes, while people are able to experience a complexity of relationships and patterns
simultaneously in their music, concepts and relationships must be dealt with one at a time if they
are articulated in words.9 So this chapter will look at the initial 'connecting' part of the music
experience, leaving the other elements for Chapters Five and Six. It begins by discussing the
extent to which words were conveyed to people through music in its role as the carrier of the text.
5
Small, Musicking, p. 50.
6
Small, Musicking, pp. 53-54.
7
8
9
Small, Musicking, pp. 132, 139.
83
Next, music is considered as a way of connecting to aspects of the environment that related to
some of the concepts of contemporary society. The following section considers the way music
enabled people to experience something of their personal and cultural past, and also the role of
music in marking the passage of time. In the section on place, musical sounds are shown to be a
way of connecting physically and symbolically with locality. The final section explores
connections made with people. It begins with the way music brought contact across boundaries
and stimulated social interaction. Performing and listening together is then discussed as a way for
people to share experiences, to unite in significant moments, and to become enveloped within a
common sonic environment of heightened intensity.
WORDS
Most of the music performed in Ballarat between 1851 and 1871 was associated with words.
People sang, and listened to, hymns, psalms, ballads, folksongs, popular songs, patriotic songs,
parlour songs, operas, oratorios and the national anthem. Much of the contemporary instrumental
music comprised arrangements of well-known vocal or choral music, so even this could bring
words to mind, and through those words people could connect to the beliefs, assumptions,
prejudices and other cultural concepts those words were understood to convey.
As an introduction to the four chapters dealing in detail with the musical life of Ballarat, four
typical occasions involving music are presented below. Each represents a particular type of
organised entertainment that would have been very familiar to the greater part of the population.
As in most of the musical events of early Ballarat, while people were regaled with the
sophisticated blends of melody, harmony and rhythm that spoke to them as 'music', they were
also confronted with the words that were associated with those sounds.
In March 1859, between 250 and 300 parishioners and friends of St Paul's church, Ballarat East,
attended a church soirée. The tables in the old school room were well supplied with all the
customary paraphernalia and guests crowded in to partake of the good things provided. Everyone
then adjourned to the church where a hymn was sung, and a prayer offered by the incumbent, the
Rev'd Mr Searle. The church choir began the entertainment by singing 'Comfort ye my people'
from Handel's Messiah, whereupon Mr Bonwick addressed the meeting, drawing parallels
between the charms of music and the 'sweet concord of sounds and feelings' he encouraged
people to cultivate. This was followed by the glee 'When time is entwining', sung by the choir.
Next came a speech by the Rev'd Mr Seddon, and a choral performance of 'Miriam's Song', or
'Sound the loud timbrel'. After the Rev'd Mr Searle had spoken at considerable length, touching
upon the value of these gatherings in the life of the parish, and on the financial position of the
church, the choir sang 'Winds gently whisper', and £10 2s was collected. Two brief speeches
84
followed, and a performance of 'What are the wild waves saying', by the choir. The local
Presbyterian minister, the Rev'd Mr Henderson, spoke about Christian union, some other pieces
were sung, and the meeting closed with the usual formalities.10
Such tea meetings were a regular part of local church life. Held annually, or twice yearly, music
provided by the church choir, soloists, or an invited choir, was nearly always a highlight.
Instrumental soloists were rare on these occasions, and most of the musical entertainment at tea
meetings consisted of vocal or choral music.
Two visiting professional musicians, one a singer and one an instrumentalist, performed in Bath's
Hotel Assembly Rooms on Monday 16 April 1860. Robert Farquharson, a bass singer who had
achieved considerable success in London before coming to Melbourne in 1856,11 sang ten songs,
including 'I'm afloat!', 'The tight little island', and 'The maniac'. John Winterbottom, a bassoonist,
formerly of Jullien's famous London Orchestra, who had been performing in Melbourne since
1854,12 played airs from La Sonnambula and a fantasia on Ethiopian melodies on the bassoon. He
also performed 'Fantasia on American Airs' (which included 'Yankee Doodle') on the 'bush
pianoforte', an instrument constructed from a number of pieces of deal. The entertainment was
very well patronised, despite the 5s admission cost. One of the bassoon pieces and 'one or two' of
the songs were rewarded with encores.13
L. Singer Robert Farquharson performed in opera, oratorio and concerts.

R. John Winterbottom impressed with his bassoon solos.
Images from Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.
10
Star, 15 March 1859, p. 2.
11
Love, The Golden Age, pp. 16, 21.
12
Love, The Golden Age, p. 29; Gyger, Civilising the Colonies, p. 67.
13
Star, 16 April 1860, p. 3, 17 April 1860, p. 3; Times, 17 April 1860, p. 3.
85
In October 1866 an amateur concert was held in the Mechanics' Institute in aid of the Ladies'
Benevolent Clothing Society. Local musicians performed eighteen items of instrumental and
vocal music to a full hall, and over £100 was raised for the local charity. A band played the
overture to Tancredi and a selection of airs from Lucrezia Borgia. Montague Harvie from
Melbourne was encored for a rendition of airs from Il Trovatore and 'English airs' on his silver
cylinder flute. Mrs Newman and Madame Oury played the piano solos 'Il barbiere', and 'airs from
Lily of Killarney'. Twelve vocal solos, vocal ensembles and choruses made up the rest of the
program.14
Band performances were among the few opportunities the people of Ballarat had to listen to
programs of purely instrumental music. After the erection of the Sturt Street band pavilion in
1869, it was customary for the brass band of the 1st Ballarat Volunteer Rifles to give their regular
weekly performances in that location. Large numbers of people would gather in the evening,
standing or promenading, and listening to the music. On Friday 27 August the band performed
nine pieces. There were two waltzes, one polka, a galop based on a melody from La Traviata, a
march based on 'Let me like a soldier fall' (Wallace), 'The death of Nelson' (Braham), 'Anthem'
from the 132nd psalm (by request), 'Cujus animam' from Stabat Mater (Rossini), and 'God save
the Queen'.15 The last six of these were arrangements of vocal music, among which the pieces by
Wallace, Braham and Rossini were particularly popular with Ballarat audiences in their original
vocal form.
Each of the above occasions was typical of many hundreds that took place in early Ballarat. It
was rare for a solo artist to present an entire recital or, apart from band performances, for
programmes to consist entirely of instrumental music.16 Of the steady stream of visiting
musicians that poured into Ballarat from the early 1850s, singers far outnumbered the
instrumentalists. Popular instrumentalists to perform in Ballarat included Miska Hauser (violin),
Julius Siede (flute), Pietro Canna (percussion), Martin Simonsen (violin), John Schott (oboe), and
the Lancashire Bellringers.17 But, in spite of their popularity, concerts given by these
instrumentalists usually included vocal music by associate artists. It is also notable that, in spite
of having a competent organist present at the celebration of the new pipe organ at St Paul's
14
Star, 4 October 1866, p. 3.
15
Star, 27 August 1869, p. 2.
16
A piano recital in Clunes by Hugo Alpen, the former organist of St Paul's church, Clunes, may have been
an exception. It is not clear if Mr Alpen sang 'The Gambler's Wife', or performed it in an instrumental
arrangement. See the entry on Hugo Alpen in Appendix B.2.
17
References to these and other instrumentalists are given in Appendices B.2 and B.9.
86
church in 1865, there were only two organ solos played during a choral concert lasting nearly
four hours.18
Although these examples are taken from organised 'respectable' cultural entertainment, most
other forms of music practised in Ballarat displayed similar close relationships with words.
School children, for example, were far more likely to learn singing than instrumental music,
while hymns and psalms were the most prominent aspect of music in worship. Miners attending
the entertainment venues on the goldfields listened to original and traditional ballads sung by
visiting and local comic singers, and even the Chinese, whose instrumental sounds had quite an
impact on certain important occasions, were often heard performing their own traditional vocal
music.19
The close association between words and music sound in early Ballarat was due to the
predominance of vocal and choral music, and also to the fact that much contemporary
instrumental music was based on well-known songs, arias and choruses. Music thus brought a
wealth of words, and its role as the carrier of the text meant that music could be a significant
connection with cultural beliefs, ideals and perceptions. Some outcomes of that connection will
be considered in Chapters Five, Six and Seven.
CONCEPTS
It was noted in the introduction to this chapter that concepts of the beautiful and the spiritual are
culturally determined. The previous chapter referred to Stuart Hall's work on representation, in
which meanings are shown to be constructed by people, and not inherent in things, events, ideas
or activities. As people relate to elements in their environment they form meanings in accordance
with their own individual and cultural backgrounds.20
Music is one of the systems of representation through which people form relationships and
understand their worlds. In the previous section it was noted that people could relate to cultural
beliefs through the words of their vocal and choral music, but connections made through music to
these beliefs were not restricted to words. Stuart Hall defines the practice of representation as 'the
embodying of concepts, ideas and emotions in a symbolic form which can be transmitted and
meaningfully interpreted'.21 So because symbols serve as an embodiment of what is being
represented, they can themselves provide a meaningful experience. As a system of representation,
18
Star, 24 June 1865, p. 2.
19
The music of the Chinese is discussed in chap. 5, music in worship in chap. 6, and music in education in
chap. 7.
20
Hall, Representation, chap. 1.
21
Hall, Representation, p. 10.
87
music brought real experiences of the beautiful and the spiritual, for it was an important way of
connecting to elements in the environment that were culturally designated as such. Music brought
many situations and sounds that were considered to be sad or funny and, as in other cultures,
prompted a range of emotions. In this particular cultural environment these connections were
actively encouraged and promoted in the press and elsewhere. The very detailed press reports that
followed the more important musical events helped people to construct their own meanings, and
became a factor in the way people related, through music, to their world.
The beautiful
As noted by Philip Bohlman, the expectation that music should be beautiful is not common to all
cultures, and in some communities beauty may indeed serve to hinder what is regarded as the real
function of music.22 But in Ballarat good music and beauty were frequently equated, and
contemporary sources leave no doubt that beauty was one of the more highly valued aspects of a
musical performance.
There was no clear-cut statement of what was meant by beauty in music. Regular reports suggest,
however, that the frequent references to beautiful music were more likely to relate to the human
voice than to instrumental music. 'The excellent orchestra is one of the great attractions of the
operatic performances', observed a reporter in 1864, but this was eclipsed by the 'still greater
charms of the leading vocal passages'.23 Beautiful performances were often said to exhibit purity
of tone, perfect blending of vocal and instrumental parts, smooth rather than staccato singing,
control rather than abandon, sweetness rather than harshness, and the full realisation of the
emotional potential of the music.
Vocal and choral music brought many beautiful moments, and singers were often judged by the
beautiful sounds they produced. Instrumental players were more often noted for their versatility
and brilliance. A disappointing attendance at a performance given by the Hungarian violinist
Miska Hauser drew the following comment: 'not thirty persons to hear those beauties of sound
discoursed with all that potent witchery of effect, that purity of tone, elevation of sentiment, and
wonderful perfection of manipulation for which Miska Hauser is deservedly famous!'24 The
message was typical of most reports of instrumental music in that technical ability and the power
to impress appear to have been valued as much, or more than, the production of beautiful sound.
22
Bohlman, 'Ontologies of music', pp. 30-31.
23
Star, 27 July 1864, p. 3.
24
Star, 1 April 1857, p. 3; one popular instrumental work was Paganini's 'The Carnival of Venice', a
performance of which can be heard on the accompanying CD.
88
Hungarian violinist Miska Hauser gave many performances in Ballarat between 1855 and 1858.
Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.
But for singers beauty was paramount. Opera singer Anna Bishop's performance in La
Sonnambula was said to be particularly beautiful.25 'The most enthusiastic applause greeted her
splendid delivery of the many choice morceaux which gem this opera with such transcendent
beauty', wrote the Star, Her voice 'seemed to vibrate upon the ear as strung pearls shook before
the eye, and to drop and glitter like dew drops in the morning sunlight'.26 When Signora Bianchi
first appeared in Ballarat the 'delicious music as it trilled in dulcet tones from her lips seemed to
entrance all ears'.27 Many years later people still remembered the beautiful voices of visiting
opera singers. Mr AT Morrison thought tenor Armes Beaumont sang 'like an archangel', while
William Furley admired the 'beautiful and mellow' voice of John Gregg.28
Beauty lay also in the musical work. After a performance of Rossini's opera Semiramide, we
read that 'over and around all, wrapping as it were in a celestial beauty infinitely more divine than
anything we can conceive of as known to the ancient ones of the orient, there was the sublime
25
The story of opera in Ballarat appears in chap. 6.
26
Star, 11 October 1856, p. 2, 21 October 1856, p. 2.
27
Star, 5 February 1861, p. 2.
28
'Thespian reminiscences', Courier, 15 March 1899, p. 1; William Furley, Some Recollections of Plays
and Players of the Ballarat Stage in the Fifties and Sixties, W & J Barr Printers, Melbourne, 1906, p. 9.
89
music of the Italian master'.29 After a disappointing attendance at The Seasons in 1866 the
reporter strove to capture something of its beauty in words:
Volume after volume of harmony rolled through the hall as the choruses rang out their
majestic music, alternating with the symphonic movements of the band, and the airs,
recitatives, and minor concerted pieces. A constant succession of ever varying melodies,
harmonies and movements, in which the master has so eloquently interpreted the changeful
aspects of nature—animate and inanimate—brought out in responsive vocalisation, now
trebles and altos, now tenors and basses, with ever the airy beauty of the accompaniments
and symphonies hovering about and over all, and then at frequent intervals the whole force
of the orchestra uniting in chorus, and filling the whole space with flood after flood of
resonant harmony. Surely so much musical beauty should have crowded the hall each night
with admiring listeners.30
Hundreds of such reports testify to a close relationship between music and beauty. Written
reports encouraged and promoted that association, at the same time revealing something of the
contemporary meaning of beauty as found in music, and the extent to which music became a way
for people to experience the beautiful.
The spiritual
'Divine service is performed every Sunday in the morning at Golden Point, at the New-diggings
at one o'clock, and here in the afternoon at three'.31 These words were written in October 1851,
less than two months after gold had been discovered in Ballarat. Itinerant priests and ministers
who brought the word of God to the goldfields were forced to conduct their services outdoors, or
in tents, but such was the association of music and the spiritual that, even in this rough and ready
environment, hymns were sung in some, at least, of the early religious observances. The few
surviving accounts of worship on the goldfields tell us a little of the music practices in these first
religious meetings. In one early Anglican service a choir was led by a violin and a flute, while the
miners chanted Jackson's Te Deum and sang the hymns 'All hail the power of Jesus' name' and
the 'Old one hundredth'. The diggers, it is said, asked for more, and so in the evening by the light
of slush lamps32 they met again and sang 'Great God what do I see and hear?' and 'Glory to Thee
my God this night'.33 For six days of the week the soundscape was dominated by the secular
sounds associated with the acquisition of wealth, but on Sundays a spiritual dimension became
evident, as the voice of the preacher was heard, and miners lifted their voices to God.
It is not surprising that the use of music in religious observance was established from the earliest
days of European settlement in Ballarat, for a connection between music and religion has been
29
Star, 28 June 1867, p. 3.
30
Star 27 October 1866, p. 2.
31
Argus, 27 October 1851, p. 2.
32
A slush lamp is made by filling a tin with fat, then inserting a rag or piece of rope for a wick.
33
In Commemoration of the Centenary of St Paul's, 1958, based on the researches of Ballarat historian
Keith Rash.
90
noted in all known human societies and, as Bohlman observes, music is particularly good at
representing the sacred.34 The striking development in the musical life of Ballarat's religious
communities in the twenty years between 1851 and 1871 is a resounding witness to the strength
of that connection. Music was regarded as an important part of worship in the Christian, Jewish
and Chinese communities of Ballarat. Some of the development of that music is recorded in the
appendices. Appendix B.6 lists the known choirs that were formed to lead religious worship,
while in Appendix B.2 the list of instrumentalists includes many men and women who played for
regular weekly church services. In Appendix C.1 there is a list of the pipe organs installed in
Ballarat churches during the period. This music will be explored further in Chapter Six, which
documents some of the different ways the connection between music and the spiritual was
expressed, and maintained.
Even people who did not attend organised religious services had many opportunities to relate,
through music, to the spiritual. Appendices A.1 and A.2 include large numbers of sacred pieces
that formed part of the regular concert repertoire, and Appendix A.3 shows that most of the music
performed by the Choral Societies was based on religious themes. Band performances generally
included at least one sacred item, many of which are listed in Appendix A.5. Although concepts
of the spiritual varied between cultures and individuals, as did the use of music in worship, the
widespread use of sacred music in early Ballarat, and the extent to which it was fostered in the
ensuing decades, tells us something of its importance in the way people made their own
connections to the spiritual.
The tragic and the comic

Professional and amateur vocalists drew much of their repertoire from the parlour songs that were
so popular with Victorian audiences. These songs are discussed in more detail in Chapter Seven,
but are introduced briefly here as an example of the music that would arouse intense emotional
responses through the presentation of tragic and heart-rending situations.
So many of the Victorian drawing room ballads gave people opportunities of 'wallowing in the
morbid',35 that later generations have often found it hard to relate to them, or to a musical culture
based around their performance and appreciation, except through a combination of condescension
and humour. Yet this approach fails to place the songs, or the musical life of the community in
which they found a place, within an appropriate context of time, place and culture. Michael
Turner and Antony Miall point out that, until the nineteenth century, most people of the Anglo-
34
Nettl, The Study of Ethnomusicology: twenty-nine issues and concepts, p. 40; Bohlman, 'Music as
representation', p. 221.
35
91
Saxon race tended to display their emotions in public and, for example, both men and women
would weep openly and unashamedly. When social correctness began to demand control over
emotional response, such violent exhibitions were no longer considered acceptable. Song was
able to provide one avenue for the manifestation of emotion that was frowned upon elsewhere,
and sentimentality started to blossom.36 The parlour songs were particularly rich in their portrayal
of sadness and grief. Songs such as 'The Arab's farewell to his favourite steed', 'Let me kiss him
for his mother' and 'The skipper and his boy', with their moments of intense sadness, were among
many such songs performed in Ballarat.37 The play upon the emotions in this type of music was
strong, and Mr AT Morrison observed that when Anna Bishop sang 'Home, sweet home' in the
Montezuma Theatre 'the audience wept bitterly'.38
Sadness was not the only emotion experienced through music, for music practice also generated
an enormous amount of laughter. From the early 1850s theatres provided a range of dramatic
entertainment, the tragic and the comic often appearing on the same program. On 6 March 1857
actress Kate Warde appeared 'in tragedy and farce' at the Charlie Napier Theatre, presenting the
mad scenes from Hamlet 'with all the original music' followed by the comedietta The Loan of a
Lover 'with songs, duets etc'.39 Music was often used in Shakespearian tragedy and comedy.
Locke's music was incorporated into many complete or partial performances of Macbeth by local
or visiting musicians and, in 1862, both As you like it and The Tempest featured music, the latter
by Purcell and Arne.40 Appendix A.6 contains a list of shows in which music was mentioned
specifically as part of a complete work, but this represents only a fraction of the dramatic
entertainment that involved music for, even when it was not used in the actual production, music
was part of the whole theatrical experience.
Theatres employed their own orchestras that entertained before, during and after performances.
These orchestras provided regular employment for instrumental musicians, and Harold Love
stresses the dependence of these musicians on the theatre during the same period in colonial
Melbourne.41 The professional musicians who acted as leaders would conduct, arrange and
compose music, and often act as soloist. Jacques Paltzer, whose band was playing at Bentley's
Eureka Hotel when it was burned down prior to the Eureka rebellion, was a noted early leader.
He later became leader of the Charlie Napier orchestra. Achille Fleury, another prominent leader,
acted in a similar capacity at various times in the Victoria, the Montezuma, the Charlie Napier
36
37
These and other similar songs are listed in Appendix A.1.
38
'Thespian reminiscences', Courier, 16 March 1899, p. 1; songs are discussed in more detail in chap. 7;
performances of 'The Arab's farewell' and 'Home, sweet home' can be heard on the accompanying CD.
39
Star, 6 March 1857, p. 3.
40
These performances are listed in Appendix A.6.
92
and the Theatre Royal.42 Thomas King was a professional musician who, as well as teaching,
performing and selling musical instruments, also directed the orchestras in the Montezuma and
later in the Theatre Royal. References to his
own arrangements and compositions include the
music for the pantomime Jack the Giant Killer
in 1862, and the Irish drama Crohoore-na-
bilhoge, or, the Echo cave of Dunmore
performed in 1867, both in the Theatre Royal.43
The range of variety entertainment that involved

music included baby shows, tableaux, moving
dioramas, impersonations, pantomimes, ballets,
burlesques and extravaganzas.44 Of all forms of
popular entertainment, however, the black-faced
minstrel shows were certainly among the most
regular and enduring. Minstrel performances
were stimulating, highly entertaining, and very Professional Ballarat musician Thomas King.
Photo courtesy Marie Dunlop.
funny.
Troupes from the USA and the United Kingdom, as well as colonial and local groups, provided a
steady stream of minstrel entertainment in Ballarat between 1854 and 1871. This type of
entertainment sprang from the minstrel shows originally appearing in the USA in the 1840s.
Typical performances would include serious, sentimental and comic songs interspersed with
'nigger' conversations, instrumental music, dances, and burlesques on well-known operas. Their
faces blackened with burnt cork, members of the group would play the traditional instruments of
banjo, bones, violin or tambourine. Other instruments used in Ballarat minstrel shows were the
harp, the Japanese fiddle, the concertina, the cornet-a-piston and the flutina. Whiteoak notes that
songs usually combined popular British melodies with themes taken from African-American life,
and were often sung in a version of African-American dialect.45
References to minstrel troupes date from 1854 when the Empire Serenaders performed in
Creswick, and Rainer's Original Ethiopian Serenaders in Ballarat. Other groups to perform in the
41
Love, 'Drama and Music in Colonial Melbourne', p. 190.
42
See Appendix B.4.
43
Star, 23 December 1862, p. 3, 21 May, 1867, p. 3.
44
Times, 9 October 1858, p. 3; other examples can be found in Appendix A.6.
45
John Whiteoak, 'Minstrel shows', in Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell (eds), Currency Companion to Music
93
1850s were the Alpine and Tyrolese Minstrels, the Backus Minstrels, the Monumental
Serenaders, the Negro Delineators, and White's Ethiopian Serenaders. Troupes would often re-
form, and there was a certain amount of overlap of membership.46 There were several local
amateur groups, including one troupe of juvenile performers, and others formed in outlying
districts, including Ascot, Carngham, Creswick, Happy Valley and Smythesdale. The Buffalo
Gals was a female minstrel troupe that performed in Ballarat in 1860, the members bearing such
names as Miss Rosa Lee, Miss Topsy and Miss Dianah.47
Richard Waterhouse claims that the popularity of the minstrel shows was due to the variety of
entertainment they presented, the familiarity of the characters and values they embodied, their
cross-class appeal and their incorporation of local elements.48 With the anonymity of the
blackened faces the characters appear to have been given a special licence to mock those in
authority, and much of the humour lay in disrespectful references that would have been
inappropriate without the minstrel masquerade.49
The minstrel troupes were conscious of maintaining high musical standards.50 'Good singing and
dancing, good instrumentation, and good fun'51 was what people found in the minstrel shows, and
because it was 'respectable' entertainment, they also brought their families along to enjoy the
experience. People who would not enter a theatre were also catered for. 'Those who wish to hear
some good vocal and instrumental music, and to have a little harmless fun without going to a
theatre proper, have now an opportunity of indulging their tastes', wrote the Star in 1864 when
the Christy Minstrels transferred from the Theatre Royal to the Mechanics' Institute.52
Minstrel performances generated a range of emotions. Songs such as 'Mother, I've come home to
die', or Stephen Foster's 'Gone are the days', were typical of the sadder type of sentimental ballad.
But the humour of the minstrel performances made the shows particularly popular. Songs with
titles such as 'Sall, a gal that winked with me', 'Oh lud gals', and 'Am fat man' brought the typical
minstrel type of humour that people enjoyed. Burlesques of familiar operas and plays usually
formed one part of the entertainment. Words of the original show were adapted in humorous
46
Whiteoak, 'Minstrel shows', p. 415; minstrel troupes that performed in Ballarat are listed in Appendix
B.8.
47
48
Waterhouse, From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville, pp. 101-103.
49
For a discussion of the significance of the black face mask in minstrelsy see Michael Pickering, 'White
skin, black masks: "nigger" minstrelsy in Victorian Britain', in JS Bratton (ed.) Music Hall: performance
and style, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1986, pp. 70-91.
50
Whiteoak, 'Minstrel shows', p. 416.
51
Star, 30 April 1868, p. 2.
52
Star, 23 May 1864, p. 2.
94
ways, while parody, pun and gender reversal of the principal characters made the burlesque
shows extremely amusing.
'The audience was kept in a continued roar of laughter', observed the Star after a performance of
the San Francisco Minstrels in 1860. 'The burlesque dancing, and the operatic burlesque of the
"Bohemian Girl" elicited peals of laughter' at the Mechanics' Institute when the Christy Minstrels
appeared there in 1864.53 The audience enjoyed the 'ambiguous compliment' when the Christy
Minstrels compared the military volunteers to Lord Nelson. The minstrels joked that just as the
last thing Lord Nelson did was die for his country, it would be the last thing the volunteers would
do too.54 It was particularly funny to hear local references such as the 'Frightful calamity on the
Firing of the first French Gun Mitrailleuse, by an Irishman in Ballarat', or songs such as 'An
uncomfortable night's rest at Lester's Hotel'.55 When the burlesque of Maritana was given by the
Christy's Minstrels in 1866 at the Theatre Royal it was said that 'the music of "Maritana" under
Mr Norman's direction was given very enjoyably, the beauties of the opera being by no means
smothered in the broad absurdities of the burlesque which force the hearer to laugh in spite of the
most determined intentions of sobriety'.56
Emotions of sadness and mirth were integral to the minstrel experience and, as suggested in this
section, evident too in other aspects of contemporary musical culture. Music brought many
opportunities for people to encounter sounds and situations they regarded as tragic and comic,
just as it brought many ways for them to relate to the beautiful or the spiritual.
TIME
As a temporal art, music is inextricably linked with time. According to Bohlman, music defines
time through sonic calibration and the physical performance of music. Music helps us to
remember, and also acts as a fundamental act of remembering. In the music of the Australian
Aborigines, for example, the past becomes the present as the ancestral past crosses from a
timeless state to a condition bounded by song.57 This section will consider the music of Ballarat
as a way of bringing the past into the present, giving people the opportunity to relive in the
present, or even to experience for the first time, aspects of their personal or cultural history. It
looks at music's role in life cycle rituals, as a marker of personal time, and its role in helping
people relate to the passing of both cyclical and linear time through calendrical ceremonies and
notable community events.
53
Star, 27 October 1860, p. 2, 13 December 1864, p. 2.
54
55
Star, 26 January 1871, p. 3, 27 October 1871, p. 3.
95
The past in the present

Ballarat in the mid-nineteenth century was a place in which nearly everyone's past had been
formed elsewhere. Music practices and repertoire too had, in nearly every case, been developed
in places people had left behind. The availability of personnel, instruments and music; the time
and effort needed for organisation; and issues related to buildings, costs, musical skills and
personal preferences all contributed to the way most performances offered people something
from their past, whether this related to content, genre or practice. Genres and styles were mostly
those with which people were familiar, and new local compositions appear to have been
composed almost entirely within the parameters of the past. The church music composed by
professional Ballarat musician Austin Turner was, he admitted, written in the style of Tallis,58
while three of his surviving songs in the author's possession display little innovation in either
lyrics or musical content.59 Musical performances were a symbolic convergence of other places,
events and people, experienced through a diversity of individual and cultural memory.
Scholarly debate about the role of memory in Australian culture has tended to neglect music, or
to relegate it to a minor role. Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton, writing on the transmission
of the collective memories of a community through time, claim that ritual, ceremony and bodily
practices reflect and reinforce collective memory, while the past can also be explained and
expressed through myth.60 Songs can carry group memories, and are sometimes used politically
to re-invent memory.61 But the present study suggests that the link between music and memory is
much stronger than represented in the work of Darian-Smith and Hamilton.
Tia DeNora contends that while music may initially have an arbitrary presence in a given
situation, it becomes symbolic and evocative of that situation when it is heard again. This is only
partly due to its power to bring to mind other non-sonic elements of the past moments, such as
scenes, events and people. DeNora argues that since music unfolds through time, unlike material
objects, it can replay the temporal structure of the past moment, enabling people to live that
moment again as an emerging experience. Moreover, when music⎯whether arbitrary or
not⎯helped create a special moment in time by contributing to the perceived resonance between
56
Star, 12 September 1866, p. 2.
57
58
Star, 8 May 1868, p. 3.
59
'Land o' the Leal', National Library of Australia, MUS N m 780 AA v.147; 'When the Roses Bloom
Again', National Library of Australia, MUS N m 780 AA v.147; 'Work and Win', Shelf 5G, Liedertafel
Collection, Local Compositions, Centre for Studies in Australian Music, University of Melbourne.
60
Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton, 'Introduction', in Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton (eds),
Memory and History in Twentieth-Century Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1994, p. 2.
61
Paula Hamilton, 'The knife edge: debates about memory and history', in Darian-Smith and Hamilton
(eds), Memory and History, p. 13.
96
the various elements of that experience, music was more than just an accompaniment. Music
penetrated experience, and so could become informative of that experience.62
DeNora's work provides insights into the way music performed in this newly established
community could become an important way for people to relive, rather than merely recall, former
experiences. Song tests, visual elements, material culture, sound and associated music practices
all enabled people to have actual emotional and physiological experiences of the past.
When a peal of bells was first heard in Ballarat at the end of 1871 they drew the following
comment in the press:
The bells are mighty in their magic. They open to us the old homes, throw wide the gates of
the gardens, the meadows, the fields, the graveyards that lie beyond the seas, and cause to
pass before us the long lines of "friends and old affections".63
The comment presents an oppositional viewpoint on the experience of the past from that
expressed by Graeme Davison in his discussion of the popularity of living history museums.
Davison sees these institutions as offering a 'time travel' approach to history, allowing visitors to
be virtually taken back to a former era so they can experience the sights, sounds, smells, tastes
and activities of the past. 'If "the past is a foreign country,"' he writes, 'then it must be possible to
visit it'. 64 By contrast, the bells are not represented as taking people back in time, but as bringing
the past forward into the present, allowing people a contemporary experience of former
landscapes, emotions, people and images, and helping them to construct their past worlds.
The past became the present in a multitude of ways. Song texts brought a wealth of images and
associations. Memories of the past were evoked in such songs as 'Home, sweet home', 'The bonny
hills of Scotland', 'Come back to Erin', and 'The vacant chair'. While the theme of nature was
particularly prominent in the songs taught to school children and those sung by local amateur
musicians in their concerts, it was nature from their personal or cultural pasts about which people
sang, and not that of the present. Children, for example, sang about 'Buttercups and daisies', and
adults listened to 'The robin's return', 'Hark, the lark', and 'Ye banks and braes'.65
The dedication of the various ethnic groups to their distinctive music practices was a prominent
aspect of the musical life of Ballarat.66 The Welsh enjoyed their regular eisteddfods, the Scottish
their Highland gatherings, the Chinese their opera, and the English their choral societies. The
62
DeNora, Music in Everyday Life, pp. 66-67.
63
64
Graeme Davison, The Use and Abuse of Australian History, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2000, chap. 9,
'Living history: touring the Australian past', see in particular p. 172.
65
These and many other similar songs performed in Ballarat are listed in Appendix A.1.
97
multiplicity of pasts embedded in these practices will become more evident throughout Chapters
Five, Six and Seven. The extent to which music carried the past into the present suggests that
connecting with the past was one of the ways music impacted upon the way people lived in their
new environment.
The passage of time

Throughout the two decades covered by this study a standard repertoire of musical works was
performed on notable personal and community occasions. Psalm 100,67 for example, was sung on
joyful occasions, 'God save the Queen' on patriotic ones, while Handel's 'Dead march' and 'The
Sicilian mariners' hymn' were played for funerals. The repetition of this music would help to
categorise such occasions, linking them with other similar times, and setting them apart from
others.
The most frequently reported of the life cycle rituals practised among the people of Ballarat was
the public funeral.68 The distinctive funeral rites performed in Ballarat related directly to the
religious, institutional and cultural affiliations of the deceased, and Ballarat witnessed a range of
funerals from Catholic, Protestant, military, Chinese and Masonic traditions. Examples given
below suggest that music was one part of those ritual-filled ceremonies that helped people
connect to the passing of personal time.
As the sexton of St Paul's church and a member of both the Ballarat Fire Brigade and the
Fitzclarence Lodge of Odd Fellows, William Henry Dalton was a respected member of the
community. His funeral, in December 1864, was attended by his widow and eight children, the
members of the Fitzclarence, Pioneer, Prince of Wales, St Andrew and Victoria Lodges of Odd
Fellows, the members of the two fire brigades, forty private friends, a dozen occupied vehicles, a
few horsemen, and around two thousand spectators. The funeral sounds were a way for all these
people, as well as others in the community, to share physically and emotionally in the funeral
ceremony. The bell of the Ballarat Fire Brigade tolled for one hour before the service to summon
people to St Paul's church, after which the procession made its way to the cemetery, led by the
fire brigade band playing the 'Sicilian mariners' hymn'. As the procession passed across the
boundary from Ballarat East into Ballarat West the bell of the Ballarat West brigade began to toll.
66
This music will be discussed in more detail in chap. 5.
67
'O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands'.
68
Music was sometimes reported at weddings, but accounts gave little information about the type of music
performed.
98
At the cemetery the band remained at the gate playing a 'solemn air', while the chief mourners
preceded those who bore the body to the grave. 69
Mr Dugald Grant, a member of the Volunteer Cavalry Corps, died in January 1865. At three
o'clock on the afternoon of Thursday 5 January, mourners assembled at the George Hotel, and
shortly afterwards the funeral procession started for the cemetery, taking a long route through the
centre of town. The procession was headed by a firing party of twelve, followed by the drum and
fife bands of the Volunteers and the Band of Hope. Next came an open carriage bearing the
coffin covered with the Union Jack, and also the deceased's sword and cavalry uniform. Mr
Grant's horse, fully caparisoned, followed the carriage. Then came the volunteer troops and the
cavalry, followed by a private mourning carriage, behind which walked the employees of the
deceased. Next were the police, a long train of vehicles and a number of horsemen. During the
procession the bands played the 'Sicilian mariners' hymn'. The Reverend William Henderson read
the burial service over the grave, three volleys were fired, and the mourners retired.70
Mr Jeremiah Coffey, a Catholic, died in February 1867. Father O'Donnell celebrated mass in the
chamber where the body lay prior to the procession to the cemetery. The coffin was carried to
the gate by six immediate friends. They were relieved by six members of the local agricultural
societies, and then, in turn, by six members of the Creswick Hospital Committee, and finally by
six of the Creswickshire Council who placed the coffin in the hearse. Four horses drew the
carriage in the procession, followed by two mourning coaches bearing members of the family.
Then came sixty-seven vehicles and three hundred horsemen. At the gates of the cemetery the
coffin was taken from the hearse and borne to the grave. It was preceded by Fathers O'Donnell,
Slattery, Moore and Skehan chanting the De Profundis.71
In October 1869 Mr John Ahrens was buried with military honours. Mr Ahrens had been a
sergeant with the Volunteers and a Freemason. The funeral procession commenced at the
Orderly-room and proceeded through the principal streets of Ballarat to the cemetery. The
carriage was followed by Masons from four different lodges and the firing party with arms
reversed. Then came the band playing Handel's 'Dead march'. Between five and six thousand
people followed the procession. The Masonic burial service was said over the grave by the
Masonic chaplain, after which three volleys were fired to the beat of the drum.72
69
70
Star, 6 January 1865, p. 2.
71
Star, 13 February 1867, p. 2; De Profundis: 'Out of the deep', Psalm 130.
72
99
These funerals were recorded because of the prominence of the deceased in the community. We
have less information about the funerals of people without this level of community support. Even
so, it seems that music was a way for friends, family, and the church community to come together
in loss. We read, for example of the wailing (keening) of Irish women in Edward Dyson's
fictional tale of a Ballarat funeral, and the chanting of the minister at a Welsh funeral service in
1860.73
The Wesleyans and the Cornish were noted for their singing during funeral processions.
Considering the number of deaths in mining disasters, the sounds and sights of such events must
have been fairly common in Ballarat. Clarke, Mathews and Bone, three members of the
Wesleyan faith, were killed when they fell down a mine shaft in October 1866. Their funeral was
attended by 'a great concourse of people' and they were carried to their graves amid the
customary singing of hymns.74 Daisy Phillips reports her mother's observations of a miner's
funeral in Ballarat:
The coffin was carried on a bier, and hundreds of miners marched behind, singing, singing,
singing, all the way to the graveside. When they reached a corner the funeral was stopped
and the bier lowered while the minister called on all present to prepare for Heaven. Then on
they went, still singing.75
On one level music was a physical link, a synchronising medium that maintained an appropriate
degree of togetherness and pace in the processions. It was a form of sonic focus, keeping people
tuned in to the occasion. Sound carried, and those who could see nothing could still share in the
event through their auditory connections. Even those who were unacquainted with the deceased
person could, through music, respond personally to the death of a fellow citizen.
Music also brought a wealth of personal associations, and the responses it generated were as
diverse as the people who experienced it. The melodies, the presence of the sonically and
kinaesthetically synchronised band of musicians, the body of miners singing of their religious
beliefs, the priests chanting in Latin, all carried their own memories, messages and meanings, and
became a way for people to connect, through the senses, to the passage of personal time.
In music related to religious, ethnic and civic ceremonies, people also performed and participated
in the passage of both cyclical and linear time. Regular band parades and performances, and the
singing of hymns on Sundays, were a form of ritual that marked the passing of the weeks. Among
the recurrent festivals occurring during the high points of the calendar, the monarch's birthday
73
Edward Dyson, 'The funerals of Malachi Mooney', in Walter Murdoch and H Drake-Brockman (eds),
Australian Short Stories, Oxford University Press, London, 1964, pp. 58-67; Star, 10 August 1860, p. 3.
74
75
Daisy Phillips's unpublished memoirs, quoted with permission of her daughter, Ruth Hill.
100
was celebrated by the whole community, Christmas and St Patrick's Day by Christians, Yom
Kippur by Jewish people, and New Year by the Chinese.76 Because these are discussed in more
detail in Chapter Five, here it is sufficient to note that music was recorded as an important part of
all of these festivals, and that this music meant that people themselves experienced the recurrent
time cycles physically, by engaging with the sounds, sights and meanings of their respective
cultures.
In this rapidly developing community, time also meant a steady progression from the disorder of
the early years to the ordered community that followed. To mark that progression there were
frequent ceremonies in which foundation stones were laid, and new buildings dedicated. Whether
they related to the wider community, or to smaller community groups, music was a way of
'connecting' to such significant moments through communal and personal response.
A memorable occasion for Ballarat was the laying of the foundation stone of the Ballaarat
Mechanics' Institute in September 1860.77 A general holiday was announced, the weather was
superb, and the city decked with flags and greenery. Crowds of people lined the streets and filled
hotel balconies as the hour drew near for the procession. One by one the various participating
groups gathered at the appointed meeting place, before filing off for the long walk around the
municipalities of Ballarat East and Ballarat West. At the head of the procession were two
mounted troopers and three policemen on foot. Twenty-eight adults from the Total Abstinence
Society followed, and three hundred boys and girls from the Band of Hope, carrying banners. The
Caledonian Society came next, most wearing Highland dress, and accompanied by pipers. The
Western Fire Brigade with their band and fire trucks came behind, and then the Ballarat Fire
Brigade with a band and a fire engine drawn by six horses. Then came some mounted troopers
and the Foresters in full regalia. The various lodges of the IOOF were next with their band, and
the members of the Eastern and Western councils in carriages. The Freemasons followed, in full
regalia, together with their band. Then came the committee of the Mechanics' Institute, the
members of the Mining Board and other local bodies. More policemen, mounted troopers, troops
of citizens on horseback and vehicles of all sorts completed the procession. 'Band after band
discoursed music, both good and bad', as the huge body moved along its prescribed route to the
Mechanics' Institute reserve. 78
76
See Newman Rosenthal, Formula for Survival: the saga of the Ballarat Hebrew congregation, The
Hawthorn Press, Melbourne, 1979, p. 7, for a reference to Yom Kippur, and Star, 26 January 1857, p. 2, for
the Chinese New Year. References for the other festivals appear in chap. 5 where they are discussed in
more detail.
77
This spelling of Ballarat was once fairly common, and is still used by the Mechanics' Institute.
78
Star, 29 September 1860, pp. 2-3.
101
At least 10,000 people gathered to witness the ceremony, which commenced with the singing of
the 100th psalm led by Br D Oliver. The stone was laid according to tradition with the
appropriate Masonic ritual and, the ceremony completed, the national anthem was sung, the
multitude standing uncovered. Speeches followed and the proceedings terminated, after which
the various groups returned to the respective localities 'with their bands playing and banners
flying'.
Celebrations continued in the evening with a performance in the Charlie Napier Theatre. To
usher in the concert in grand style, the bands of the two fire brigades played 'spirit-stirring airs' as
they led their firemen in a march to the theatre. A packed audience enjoyed the performances of
comic singers, a ballet, performing dogs, a panorama of the day's procession, and musical
performances from members of the Philharmonic Society and the German Liederkranz.79
Eight years later, in September 1868, the foundation stone of the Common School was laid in the
little outlying township of the Springs, Mount Bolton. The school committee had been untiring in
its efforts to obtain land and raise funds. The usual speeches were followed by a tea meeting,
which was numerously attended. The tables were well furnished with the usual good things. Mr
John Coutts, the teacher of the school, presided, and Mr Joseph Nicholson, teacher of the
Common School at nearby Weatherboard, delivered an address entitled 'Twelve months in the
reign of Mary, Queen of Scots'. This was listened to with much interest and attention.
Proceedings were interspersed with a selection of musical pieces performed by Mr Sivert on the
harmonium. This in turn was followed by a ball held in Mr Butterly's capacious store, at which
dancing to the strains of an excellent band continued until nearly daylight.80
Community occasions such as these, whether great or small, were marked by some form of
music.81 The physical attributes of sound gave organisers a means of maintaining a connection
with large numbers of people. The rhythm of the bands, whether marching in procession or
providing dance music, helped synchronise movement and keep the spirits high. Singing together
was one of the ways that thousands of people could themselves become a part of the event. While
physiological and psychological differences meant that each person's listening experience was
different, the associations music carried also varied. But whatever the individual response, music
was a particularly effective means for people to relate to these significant moments in the passage
of personal, cultural and community time.
79
80
81
Other community events in which music played an important part included the laying of the foundation
stone of the Benevolent Asylum (Star, 18 March 1859, p. 2), the laying of a memorial stone at the Hospital
(Star, 2 January 1866, p. 2), and the opening of the Orphan Asylum (Star, 7 July 1866, p. 2).
102
PLACE
Outdoor music transformed streets and market places from ordinary thoroughfares and mere
places of commerce into sites of aesthetic experience and pleasure⎯undoubtedly sometimes of
irritation as well. Much of the music that was performed in Ballarat took place in the streets,
gardens and sports grounds, colouring them with the sounds of street music, bands and bells.
Street music
The soundscape underwent fairly dramatic changes
during these two decades. In 1852 the goldfields were
dominated by 'the rhythmic din of cradles being
rocked⎯perhaps a hundred of them in view and
hundreds more within hearing⎯to the accompanying
pock of pick-blows, the scrape of shovels, the
trundling rumble of barrows and carts, and the odd
discordant shout between mates'.82 Contrasting with
the noise of the diggings in the early years, and the
sounds of civilisation that were soon to follow, music
continued to punctuate the auditory environment with
the melodies, harmonies and rhythms of a diversity of
cultures.
In the 1850s itinerant German bands were said to be

found 'almost at every corner'.83 The members of the
Hanoverian Band, engaged in street playing in early
1854, had an unfortunate encounter with the law, and
were fined heavily by the troopers for failing to
produce a gold licence⎯apparently a requirement for
even temporary residents on the goldfields.84 Most of
Joe the Bellman in 1880. Ballarat
the German bands, reported the Times, were badly Historical Society Collection.
organised, and it was with pleasure that people
listened to a new one that appeared in February 1858. This band performed a variety of tunes, its
beautiful harmony suggesting long and careful practice.85 'Joe the Bellman' and 'Bill Lungs' with
82
Annear, Nothing but Gold, p. 79.
83
Times, 9 February 1858, p. 3.
84
CC Mullen, 'Brass bands have played a prominent part in the history of Victoria', The Victorian
Historical Magazine, vol. XXXV1, February 1965, p. 31.
85
103
their handbells were well-known figures around Ballarat and much in demand at auctions.86 Joe
the Bellman was Joseph Cheswick who, in addition to performing the duties of town crier, was
also an itinerant musician. He earned his keep by pulling around an eight-hundredweight barrel
organ (around 406 kilos) and playing in the streets of the city as well as at events such as shows
and races. Joe was missed from the streets of Ballarat when he went on a return visit to England,
and was unfortunate enough to be on the Queen of the Thames when it was shipwrecked. He lost
his £300 barrel organ in the shipwreck, but upon his return to Ballarat in 1871 residents noted
that he had not only a new bell, but also a fine new organ by Imhof and Co., London. His
experiences in the shipwreck were written on a placard and placed upon the organ when he made
his reappearance in the streets on 20 December 1871.87
ST Gill, 'Subscription Ball, Ballarat, 1854', Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. String, woodwind, brass and
percussion players appear to be entering wholeheartedly into the spirit of the occasion.
Small orchestras bearing the name of their leader played for dancing in the theatres and concert
rooms, and also for the more formal and less frequent balls. These instrumental groups were
sometimes described as 'string bands' or 'quadrille bands'. Two of the more prominent were the
bands of Achille Fleury and S Schraeder, both of which made many outdoor appearances, playing
86
Bate, Lucky City, pp. 135-136; Star, 11 October 1866, p. 2, 12 October 1866, p. 2.
87
Star, 9 December 1868, p. 2, 7 December 1871, p. 2, 21 December 1871, p. 2.
104
music for entertainment and dancing at specific outdoor events. Unlike the music of the street
musicians, this organised music was directed inwards to one particular group of people, yet the
sounds would also spread out through the locality, adding their own distinctive resonances to the
sonic landscape.
Among the many outdoor events at which these bands performed were the annual picnics and
anniversaries held by different organisations. Fleury's band, for example, played in 1858 for the
New Year's Day sports at the Windsor Hotel, and in 1861 for the Volunteer Rangers' picnic at
Lake Burrumbeet. Schraeder's band played at the Botanical Gardens for the joint fire brigades'
anniversary in 1870, and on the steamer 'Victoria' in 1871 for a moonlight fete and ball at Lake
Wendouree.88
Christmas was a time for extra music in the streets. On Christmas Eve, 1856, William Robinson
of the Duchess of Kent Hotel, together with six or seven others, perambulated Main Road
performing tunes on his new set of imported handbells. A considerable crowd followed,
apparently very pleased with the performance.89 On Christmas Eve, 1871, strolling musicians
called 'waits' played hymn tunes and lively airs in various parts of the town after midnight. At
most places where they stopped they received a hearty welcome.90 On the same night the
Daylesford Brass Band performed a similar activity in Daylesford, setting out at around
midnight, and finishing at 5 am with a rendition of Gloria in Excelsis outside the home of
Archdeacon Slattery.91
Bands
Within eight weeks of the initial gold discovery in 1851 there were already at least two bands
entertaining the miners:
Two bands of music on each side [of] the creek, parade with lively, but it must be confessed
antiquated tunes; but yells, whoops and shrieks, with dogs barking and fighting, 'make the
night hideous'.92
Compare that picture with the scene in December 1869, on a moonlit night in the Sturt Street
rotunda:
The sight presented was really a very pretty one. The band in uniform, filling up the
brilliantly lighted rotunda, and the crowd promenading or collected in groups beneath the
88
Star, 1 January 1858, p. 3, 25 December 1861, p. 5, 9 December 1870, p. 2, 6 April 1871, p. 2.
89
Star, 25 December 1856, p. 2, 18 January 1857, p. 3.
90
Courier, 27 December 1871, p. 2.
91
George Page, 'Daylesford memories', Daylesford Advocate, 24 July 1917, p. 4.
92
105
trees made up a pleasant picture. An excellent programme of music capitally played was
another charm.93
As suggested in the above accounts, the story of band music in Ballarat is one that mirrors the
rapid development of Ballarat itself. The uniforms, music, instruments, building and lighting
indicate that the development was a conscious one, obviously involving a considerable amount of
time, effort and money. The large audience and the appreciative comments of the newspaper
reporter indicate the approval of the community as people enjoyed their outdoor musical
experience.
Names of Ballarat's principal bands can be found in Appendix B.7, together with a brief comment
about their activity.94 The term 'band' was commonly used to describe any group of
instrumentalists, and it referred not only to military and brass bands, but also to dance bands and
theatre orchestras, small casual orchestras organised for particular events, and larger instrumental
groups used to accompany major choral performances. The brass and military bands of Ballarat
and surrounding districts were particularly active, and displayed a level of organisation and
continuity that made them a significant part of community life.
The first band to be heard in Ballarat was possibly the one that set out from Geelong towards the
end of September 1851, playing 'The girls we left behind us'. It was felt that the band would
provide enjoyment for the hard-working miners.95 Ballarat historian WB Withers, writing five
years after the gold discovery, mentions the informal groups of instrumentalists who came to
Ballarat to dig for gold. These musicians were members of town bands in Geelong and
Melbourne who brought their instruments with them to the goldfields. They would gather
together in the evenings and provide entertainment for the miners. 96
Itinerant German bands were plentiful in the early years,97 but it was the formation,
instrumentation and repertoire of British band culture that determined the way the bands in
Ballarat were to develop. Before the end of the 1850s the music of Ballarat's own bands could be
93
94
The only history of band music in Ballarat is that of the Ballarat City Brass Band, written to celebrate its
centenary in 2000, and with little reference to bands of the mid-nineteenth century (Bob Pattie, The History
of the City of Ballarat Municipal Brass Band, Ballarat, 2000). An honours thesis by Wendy Morrison has a
chapter devoted to early brass bands in Ballarat, based on the entertainment columns in contemporary
newspapers. The scope of Morrison's thesis allows little more than a brief look at the instruments and
repertoire of early bands, and some occasions on which they performed (Wendy Morrison, 'Some aspects
of the English influence on music in Ballarat during the establishment years', BA hons thesis, University of
Melbourne, 1984, chap. 3).
95
Argus, 29 September 1851, p. 2.
96
Withers, 'Our past and present', 12 September 1856, p. 89.
97
106
heard in the streets, eclipsing with their discipline, regularity and uniformity the desultory nature
of earlier band entertainment.
It was to be expected that Ballarat would devote time, money and energy to developing its bands.
The cultural climate from which the dominant majority originated was one in which band music
had permeated public ceremony, entertainment, sporting events and outdoor life. Dave Russell's
work on popular music in England refers to the brass band as one of the most remarkable
working-class cultural achievements in European history. He notes the special success of bands
in smaller communities and the prevalence of miners among the members,98 so it seems that
Ballarat had at least two of the ingredients for band activity to flourish. For convenience, the
bands are discussed here in four categories: those associated with institutions, towns, temperance
organisations and the military.
Institutional bands were represented by the bands of the two fire brigades, both established within
the first year of the brigades' existence.99 Although these were active in performing for civic
events, the prominence of other bands in Ballarat by the mid 1860s tended to eclipse the efforts
of the fire brigade bands, and their part in public life diminished. Other groups to have their own
bands included the Oddfellows of both Ballarat and Smythesdale, the Freemasons and the
Hibernian Society.100
Town bands were represented by the Ballarat Brass Band and the Ballarat District Band, although
this does not necessarily mean any form of financial support from the municipality. Many of the
smaller settlements, including Buninyong, Cambrian Hill, Clunes, Daylesford, Linton and
Sebastopol had their own bands. The Ballarat Brass Band first appeared in 1861 under Mr
Thomas Ellis, and played in the late afternoons and evenings in a variety of locations around the
city.101 The name of Samuel Prout⎯popularly assumed to be a prominent bandleader in early
Ballarat102⎯appears very rarely in contemporary accounts. He was, however, the leader of the
Ballarat Brass Band in 1865 after Thomas Ellis had transferred to another band leadership
position.103
98
Russell, Popular Music in England, pp. 162, 165-67, 171.
99
Ivor L Harvey, 125 year History of the Ballarat Fire Brigade, printed by R Fletcher & Sons, Ballarat,
1981; Star, 19 December 1857, p. 3, 25 December 1860, p. 2.
100
See Appendix B. 7.
101
Star, 6 November 1861, p. 2, 9 November 1861, p. 2, 30 November 1861, p. 2.
102
See for example 'Prout's Ballarat brass band', The Australian Band Leader, vol. 1, no. 2, March-June
1972, cover page; Star, 13 January 1922, p. 2; Pattie, The History of the City of Ballarat Brass Band, p. 3.
103
Star, 19 April 1865, p. 3.
107
This advertisement appeared in Birtchnell's Ballarat, Creswick's, Buninyong, Clunes,

Smythesdale and Brown's Directory, compiled by JW Butler, Ballarat, 1862, p. 90.
Although Duncan Bythell claims that temperance bands were almost non-existent in Australia,104
Ballarat did have a uniformed temperance band for at least a few years. It appeared under the
leadership of professional musician Mr Sim in 1867, and played for various temperance and
public functions.105 In 1869 the Temperance band changed its tune and became the brass band of
the 3rd Ballarat Volunteer Rifles.106
The contribution of the above bands to the musical life of Ballarat was, however, of far less
magnitude than that of the bands associated with the Volunteer Rifle Rangers. The Ballarat
Volunteer Rifle Regiment was formed in July 1858, and a 'very respectable band of musicians'
wearing a uniform ('of sorts') accompanied its first military display in May 1859.107 From early
1861 under bandmaster Thomas Ellis, and later in the year under Alfred Labalestrier, the band
played an active part in the musical life of Ballarat, giving public performances in the town and
leading the Volunteers in parades through the streets.108 On the Queen's birthday in 1861 the band
numbered nearly a score, and by 1869 there were said to be 25 members.109 In 1861 the company
104
Bythell, 'The brass band in Australia', p. 154.
105
For example Star, 2 January 1867, p. 2, 12 February 1867, p. 2, 17 February 1869, p. 2.
106
107
Star, 25 May 1859, p. 3.
108
Star, 15 March 1861, p. 2, 9 May 1861, p.2.
109
Star, 25 May 1861, p. 2, 22 March 1869, p. 3.
108
also formed a drum and fife band, a group of youngsters who drilled two or three times a week
under the leadership of Bugler Gunn.110
The 2nd Ballarat Rifle Corps was based in Creswick and Clunes, and each detachment had its
own band. Records associated with the 3rd corps, based in Ballarat, date from 1866.111 After this
date references suggest that the brass band remained with the 1st corps, while the drum and fife
band became attached to the 3rd corps. In 1869 the 3rd corps also acquired its own brass band
when it acquired the services of the former Temperance Band.
Ballarat's two military brass bands and the drum and fife band performed a wide range of
functions and, in fact, acted as the leading town bands for, as well as performing their military
duties, they took part in ceremonies, civic events, public outdoor entertainment, concerts and
church picnics. Weekly military drills took them marching through the streets of Ballarat, and
Sunday afternoons were sometimes spent at church parades.112 It was an unfortunate day on 18
October 1871 when for some reason the bands were not present at the regular drill, and the
dissatisfaction this caused was of sufficient import to be noted in the press.113
Although some were described as brass bands, this does not necessarily mean that they were 'all-
brass'.114 A rather indistinct photo of the Clunes detachment of the 2nd Ballarat Rifle Corps dated
around 1870 appears to show only brass instruments and drums.115 Cullis's nine-piece band in
Clunes consisted of three cornets, two althorns, two bass horns, a bass drum and a side drum.116
There are several references to instruments belonging to the saxhorn family.117 Bandleader
Labalestrier played the cornet-a-piston, Thomas Ellis the trombone and cornet-a-piston, while a
cornet, ophecleide and baritone formed part of the Ballarat Brass Band.118 One distinctive group
was the trombone band led by Mr Ellis. Performances by this band were recorded before the end
of 1866 and, in May 1869 when a complete set of new trombones arrived, it was noted that the
band was practising nearly every night.119 According to the reminiscences of W Gray, the
110
111
George F Ward, Victorian Land Forces 1853-1883, Croydon, 1989, p. 92.
112
113
114
See Whiteoak, 'Popular music, militarism, women, and the early “brass band” in Australia', p. 29;
Duncan Bythell, 'Brass bands', in Bebbington (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Australian Music, p. 69.
115
The photograph is displayed in the Rangers Military Museum, Ballarat.
116
Claire Hinton, 'Clunes's first band', Ancestor, Autumn 1991, pp. 26-28.
117
Star, 22 October 1864, p. 3. The saxhorns were instruments developed by Adolphe Sax in Paris in 1844
and 1845, and introduced to English bands before 1851 when they appeared in the Crystal Palace
Exhibition (Russell, Popular Music in England, p. 175).
118
Star, 12 October 1858, p. 3, 15 March 1861, p. 2, 6 November 1861, p. 2.
119
Star, 11 September 1866, p. 2, 8 May 1869, p. 2.
109
members were all first class trombonists. The band was composed entirely of slide trombones of
various pitches, described as bass, tenor and smaller ones. Before this the valve trombone had
been popular, and the new slide trombone was referred to by local Cornishmen as a 'forth and to
ee'.120
Members of Cullis's Recreation Band, Clunes, 1866. Images courtesy Clunes Museum. A decision was made
in April 1866 to have photographic likenesses of the band taken to distribute among members and
wellwishers as a lasting memory (from minute book of band, quoted in Claire Hinton, 'Clunes's First Band').
The band repertoire was a broad one. As can be seen in Appendix A.5, bands performed tunes
that people had heard in music halls, theatres, homes, churches, concert halls and opera houses.
Russell's categorisation of band music in nineteenth-century England as sacred music, art music
and light music121 applied equally to the band repertoire in Ballarat. Programmes of six
consecutive weekly public performances by the band of the 1st Volunteer Rifles in 1869 included
six different sacred items including Gounod's 'Ave Maria' and Handel's 'Fixed in His everlasting
seat'. Art music was represented by selections from Lucrezia Borgia and Il Trovatore. The 'light'
120
W Gray, 'Ballarat and bands', unpublished reminiscences in the Ballarat Historical Society Collection.
121
Russell, Popular Music in England, pp. 185-193.
110
music category formed the largest section in Ballarat, and this too reflected English practice.122
The six performances in 1869 included six marches, six waltzes, six quicksteps, six quadrilles,
two popular songs, four galops, one schottische and one polka.123
The familiar repertoire was maintained in spite of the difficulty of obtaining music and
instruments. It was claimed that bandmaster Thomas Ellis copied every part of every piece by
hand—a time consuming activity, particularly when programmes indicate the large and varied
repertoire of his two bands.124 Local compositions, such as the quickstep composed by Ballarat
musician N Hallas, occasionally appeared in concerts,125 but formed only a very small part of the
band repertoire. The arrival of new music was exciting enough to be noted in the press on several
occasions, and must have made a welcome change in rehearsals and performances.126 In June
1869 when rain prevented the weekly outdoor drill the band of the 3rd BVR was dismissed but,
rather than returning home, members preferred to spend three hours practising their new music
just received from London.127
The large crowds who gathered to listen to the outdoor performances indicate the popularity of
the bands. A 'thousand or so' listened to the brass band playing in the Sturt Street rotunda in
October 1870, and there were even more in the following week when the number was said to be
'greatly in excess'.128 Several thousands listened to the three bands playing for army drill after a
church parade at St Andrew's in May 1871.129 Numbers were even greater when visiting groups
came to Ballarat. Between 12,000 and 15,000 people watched the military review in November
1869 when the Bendigo, Castlemaine, and Melbourne corps visited, and 'the town seemed full of
military uniforms and military music'.130
Band music was unbounded, enveloping the buildings and streets of civilisation as it spread
outwards towards the peripheries of town, carrying clear messages of human presence into a
wider area as it penetrated the surrounding bushland. The buildings and infrastructure created by
white settlers were visible and tangible changes in the landscape, yet they were, in themselves,
signs of former, rather than current human activity. Outdoor music heard at almost the instant of
creation carried the impact of immediate and active human presence.
122
Russell, Popular Music in England, p. 192.
123
Star, 8, 15, 22, 29 October, 5, 12 November 1869, all on p. 2.
124
Gray, Reminiscences.
125
Star, 13 November 1869, p. 2, 19 February 1870, p. 2.
126
For example Star, 30 December 1865, p. 2.
127
Star, 11 June 1869, p. 2.
128
Star, 8 October 1870, p. 2; 15 October 1870, p. 2.
129
Star, 15 May 1871, p. 2.
130
Star, 10 November 1869, p. 3.
111
Moreover, unlike many other activities through which people established their presence in the
area, music was itself the reason for the activity, unlike the sound of sawing of timber, for
example, that was merely a by-product. Felling trees, building houses and roads, and other areas
of human encroachment were carried out in order that people might live and move through the
landscape with ease. Music incorporated its own outcomes, and embodied a directness and
purpose that enhanced its intensity by drawing the primary focus of meaning to the sound itself.
Reports of outdoor music performances give clear indications of their location, suggesting a
direct association of sound and place. Thus the first bands heard in Ballarat paraded 'on each side
[of] the creek',131 while Withers describes the position chosen for the miners to play their musical
instruments as the 'hill top, in front of the site now occupied by the Clarendon Hotel, on the
Township'.132 The route followed by marching bands was often described in detail. On the
Queen's birthday in 1861, for example, the band set out from the parade ground on Camp Hill
together with the Volunteers marching four deep. The streets were crowded as they moved into
Lydiard Street, along Sturt Street to Errard Street, then back along the south side of Sturt Street,
Bridge Street and Main Street as far as the United States Hotel. Here the front changed and the
company returned along Main Street into Barkly Street and then into Victoria Street. The march
continued along Bridge Street and Sturt Street, finishing at the Mechanics' Institute. 133
Certain sites became known as regular venues for musical performances. Before the Sturt Street
rotunda was constructed in 1869134 band performances were often advertised as taking place in
front of particular business premises, sometimes on the various hotel verandahs around town.135
The market places in Sturt Street, Eureka Street and Bridge Street were popular locations.136
Gardens around the city provided other regular entertainment spots, and the Cremorne Gardens in
Plank Road, the Victoria Gardens in Melbourne Road as well as the Botanical Gardens all
witnessed numbers of band performances.137 On occasions bands took music to outlying districts
such as Lal Lal Falls, Lake Burrumbeet, Learmonth and Dead Horse.138 While band music was a
feature of sporting events, the sporting grounds also provided open spaces where bands could
perform on purely musical occasions. Bands played at the races, in the Copenhagen Grounds, the
Eastern Recreation Reserve, and the Western Recreation Reserve in Eyre Street,139 their presence
131
132
Withers, 'Our past and present', 12 September 1856, p. 89.
133
Star, 25 May 1861, p. 2.
134
135
For example Star, 9 November 1861, p. 2, 6 November 1861, p. 2, 23 December 1864, p. 2, 7 January
1865, p. 2.
136
Star, 5 April 1864, p. 2, 8 April 1864, p. 2, 18 September 1867, p. 3.
137
Star, 21 November 1861 p. 3, 13 November 1862, p. 3, 8 December 1863 p. 3.
138
Star, 15 November 1862, p. 3, 15 February 1862, p. 2, 25 November 1863, p. 3, 4 March 1865, p. 2.
139
Star, 23 November 1866, p. 3, 1 December 1862, p. 3, 17 February 1866, p. 2, 2 January 1867, p. 2.
112
in these and other localities around Ballarat helping to establish a heightened connection to place
through the embodied physical experience of music sound.
1 Botanical Gardens 6 Parade Ground, Camp Hill 10 Victoria Gardens

2 Copenhagen Grounds 7 Mechanics' Institute 11 Eureka St Market
3 Western Recreation Reserve 8 Eastern Recreation Reserve 12 United States Hotel
4 Band Rotunda 9 Bridge St Market 13 Cremorne Gardens
5 Sturt St Market
Numbers indicate sites in Ballarat that were venues for outdoor band performances. Number 13 was actually
around three kilometres south along Main Road. The red line marks the route taken by the Ballarat
Volunteer Rangers as, led by their band, they marched through the central streets of Ballarat West and
Ballarat East on the Queen's birthday, 1861. Map GF5, Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
Tower bells
Bells in pre-reformation England were an important feature of any community. It was said in
1552 that if all the bells in England were rung at one time, there would be hardly anywhere that
they could not be heard.140 In the early eighteenth century a foreign visitor noted 'I do not
suppose there is a country where bell-ringing is brought to such an art as it is here … the people
are so fond of the amusement that they form societies among themselves for carrying it out'.141
English bells, whether in city or country, were usually hung in the church tower. As the symbolic
heart of the town or village, the church was the visual and auditory focus of the community, and
cathedral towers and spires dominated the city skyline. From medieval times the sound of bells
140
Bishop Latimer in 1552, quoted in Ernest Morris, The History and Art of Changeringing, EP Publishing,
Wakefield, 1974 (first published 1931), p. 25.
141
'Letters of César de Saussure to his Family', quoted in Morris, The History and Art of Changeringing, p.
27.
113
radiating from the church tower had informed travellers that they were approaching a town, and
ringing for important visitors had long been a means of accepting them into community space.142
Traditional links between bells and locality are seen in the familiar rhyme of 'Oranges and
Lemons', which attributes to the voice of the bells in the different areas of London comments on
the typical activities that took place in the districts where the churches stood.143
Alain Corbin, in a study of the sound and meaning of country bells in nineteenth-century France,
argues that the sound of bells helped define the territory of those who lived within its range. Bells
were the 'auditory markers of the village', affording a sense of belonging, reinforcing divisions
between inside and outside, and delineating an area related to the notion of walking distance. It
was important that bells could be heard throughout their territory. Whether or not the community
was devoutly religious, bells marked, and served to protect, an area emanating from the heart of
the village. One function of a bell was to orient travellers, and Corbin notes the practices in
several communities to provide for special ringing in times of difficult conditions such as snow
or bad weather.144
Even the single tower bells of Ballarat were closely associated with locality. Their primary
functions were to summon to worship, alert for fire, and ring for mourning or rejoicing. The
necessity of having a loud bell to ring the alarm in the case of fire was an early concern of
Ballarat's two fire brigades and, because several early bells, including the 'Leviathan' cast in the
local Victoria Foundry, were not sufficiently loud, they were eventually discarded in favour of
imported bells from the English foundry Naylor, Vickers & Co, Sheffield.145 The 'Lady of the
West' (diameter 3 feet 7 1/2 inches) was hung in the tower of the Western Brigade in 1861 and
the 'Lady Barkly' (diameter 4 feet 2 inches) in the tower of the Ballarat Fire Brigade in 1863.
These large bells were heard regularly throughout the city, their system of numbered rings
indicating the area in which fires were located.146 Churches sometimes had unrealised plans to
increase the number of bells in their towers but, while the large bell at St Patrick's was intended
142
Morris, The History and Art of Changeringing, pp. 11, 23.
143
For example, 'When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey', refers to the sound of bells hung near
the debtor's prison, and 'When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch' indicates the very poor district in
which these bells were hung.
144
Alain Corbin, Village Bells: sound and meaning in the 19th-century French countryside, Columbia
University Press, New York, 1998, pp. 95-101.
145
See Star, 23 January 1863 and 22 August 1863 for the foundry where the bell of the Ballarat Fire
Brigade was cast; the bell in the Ballarat West Fire Brigade still clearly shows the name of the founder.
146
Star, 5 January 1860, p. 2, 29 May 1861, p. 2, 22 August 1863, p. 2, 9 November 1863, p. 3; History
sheet printed by the Ballarat Fire Brigade; Harvey, 125 Year History of the Ballarat Fire Brigade, p. 36.
114
to be the first of a peal, as was the bell at St James's, Little Bendigo, these projects did not come
to fruition.147
The Alfred Memorial Bells, installed in the Ballarat Town Hall in 1871, rest with
mouths uppermost, ready to be swung in the full circle method of English change
ringing. Photograph by Anne Doggett, 2001.
When a peal of bells was proposed for Ballarat it was felt that although several churches were
prepared to house the bells, it was more appropriate to place them in a tower with no
ecclesiastical connections. In a country where all creeds were mixed together there was a strong
movement in favour of 'democratic bells, secular bells, cosmopolitan bells, public bells'.148 The
new town hall was decided to be the appropriate site. Although the bells themselves, together
with the method of hanging and ringing them, were strictly English, the fact that they were hung
147
Star, 25 May 1866, p. 5, 28 January 1869, p. 2.
115
in a secular tower was a remarkable break with the tradition of bellringing in both England and
the continent. Even today the bells are one of only four change-ringing peals anywhere in the
world to be hung in a town hall.149 When they were first heard in Ballarat towards the end of the
second decade after the discovery of gold, there was a dramatic difference in the soundscape, for
even the sound of the ringers practising on muffled bells was clearly audible in the city. The
unmuffled sound of the Alfred Memorial Bells in the Town Hall covered a large area, and they
could be heard 'fully two miles beyond Dead Horse' as well as in Buninyong.150 As a symbol of
Ballarat itself, the bells rang out towards the peripheries of settlement, marking the territory of
the city and, at the same time, drawing the focus inwards and upwards towards its visual,
auditory and administrative centre.
PEOPLE
In the mid-nineteenth century music was nearly always communal, and the human element was
emphasised by the presence of an active and visible performer. Emotions stirred by nostalgic and
sentimental ballads were not felt in isolation, responses to beauty and virtuosity were made in the
company of others, and the inspiration from religious and patriotic song received as one of a
crowd. While the communal dimension of music practice suggests that the stimulus of other
people and the influence of their reactions may have been a major factor in individual musical
response, music sound and music practices were, in their turn, a means of establishing
connections and relationships with other people. These connections can be considered on several
levels. First, there was a general overarching sense in which groups who may never have had any
form of contact were brought together in musical performance. Then there was the complex web
of social relationships enacted within a musical culture and, finally, the intimate sense in which
the personal response to music became a physical, emotional and symbolic link with others.
The connecting power of music functions amid the differences and conflicts that are part of the
total environment within which the music is experienced, and its effect is tempered by the people
and circumstances of the actual situation. This section looks at the connections brought about by
music, arguing that this aspect of the collective musical experience and its related activities was
an important element in the functioning of music in the community. Difference and conflict were
also conspicuous in Ballarat's musical life, and many instances of this are incorporated into the
discussion in the following three chapters.
148
Star, 30 March 1868, p. 2. Some correspondence related to the bells can be found in the Public Records
Office of Victoria, PROV, VPRS 2500/P3, units 16 and 38.
149
The others are in Adelaide, Manchester and Berwick-upon-Tweed (Dove's Guide for Church Bell
Ringers, www.cccbr.org.uk/dove, accessed 2 January, 2006).
150
Star, 29 December 1871, p. 2, 28 December 1871, p. 2, 3 January 1872, p. 2.
116
A common pursuit
During these two decades the range of available hobbies and interests grew, together with
Ballarat itself. By the beginning of the 1870s the principal sporting activities practised were
swimming, athletics, rowing, horse racing, football and cricket. Weston Bate also mentions
hunting, royal tennis and croquet.151 People attended religious services, theatrical performances,
improving classes, volunteer activities, ethnic clubs and picnics. Some spent their spare time
drinking, while libraries catered for those who preferred to read. But in spite of this apparent
wealth of opportunity, many activities excluded women and the poorer members of the
community. The greater part of the population had far fewer leisure choices than did people of
later generations.
Opportunities for participation in musical activities in mid-nineteenth century Ballarat were

heavily dependent on one's class, gender and race, and music practices certainly reinforced some
of the rigid boundaries of Victorian society. But some form of music was one cultural activity
accessible to all. Music was part of the life of wealthy and poor, male and female, child and adult,
European, Asian and indigenous Australian. It was frequent and regular, and it happened in spite
of the fact that many people had little leisure time and no means of transport other than walking.
The difficulty of obtaining instruments and music and the scarcity of suitable venues did not
mean a lack of musical activity, and there were very few daily newspapers that did not contain
reports of some form of musical entertainment. There were times that music brought together
groups of people who might otherwise have had little or no contact with each other, and music
was a way for even the most disparate groups to see and hear each other, to share a common
purpose and to unite symbolically within the here and now.
Middle class respectable citizens often shared the same music as the poor and destitute. The less
affluent area of Ballarat East had its share of free outdoor performances. Market places in Eureka
Street and Bridge Street, the Victoria and the Cremorne gardens, all in Ballarat East, were sites
for evening concerts. Street parades took the bands marching across the boundary between
Ballarat West and Ballarat East, playing to the wealthier inhabitants of the West as well as the
workers and miners in the East. People who listened to the first ring on the Alfred bells in the
new Town Hall included the mayor and councillors, the architect, the contractor, members of the
bells committee, several well-known citizens, women and children, middle aged and older men,
drunkards and a 'lost woman'.152 All age groups came together in musical audiences, small babies
151
Bate, Lucky City, pp. 240-270.
152
Star, 27 December 1871, p. 2, 30 December 1871, p.3.
117
often creating unwanted noise during indoor concerts and operatic performances, and small boys
equally troublesome during some of the outdoor band recitals.153
A certain amount of interaction between those from different religious denominations took place
through music. In spite of some heated controversy at the time among members of the Church of
England about the differences between Protestant and Catholic doctrine and liturgy,154 on the
whole there appears to have been a fairly open ecumenical attitude, as can be observed in the way
Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations sometimes attended each others' services on
special occasions.155 This interaction was particularly prominent among the musicians of the
various churches. Most places of worship gave music an important place in the liturgy and,
possibly to ensure adequate musical standards, it was the usual custom to invite musicians from
other churches and denominations to take part in important and ceremonial services. Thus Austin
Turner performed not only at Christ Church (Church of England) where he held the position of
organist and choirmaster, but sometimes helped at the Lydiard St Wesleyan church, St Andrew's
(Presbyterian) and St Patrick's (Catholic).156 Peter Cazaly was a frequent performer in both St
Patrick's and Christ Church.157 Choir members moved around the different churches as the need
for their services arose. And when Ballarat first considered purchasing a peal of bells in 1866,
trustees were appointed not only from the major Christian churches, but also from the Hebrew
congregation.158
Music sometimes brought together groups of people from widely different cultures. Those
participating in the concert given in the Alfred Hall in February 1868 in aid of the victims of a
fire, included a brass band, a drum and fife band, male and female vocalists, a Chinese band and
a Chinese vocalist.159 Distinguished visitors were welcomed in many musical ways. In Prince
Alfred's few days in Ballarat in 1867 music was performed in his honour by a brass band, a dance
band, Chinese bands, Chinese vocalists, German choirs, children's choirs, six Scottish pipers, a
Welsh harpist, a glee club and a choral society.160
153
Star, 17 September 1870, p. 4, 1 January 1870, p. 2.
154
For example a series of letters to the Star, in November and December 1866, and again in May 1868.
See also the Star, 1 July 1869, p. 2.
155
For example when in 1868 St Patrick's held special services to conclude a retreat, it was noted that the
crowded congregation included Protestants and Jews (Star, 27 April 1868, p. 2).
156
Star, 24 September 1860, p. 2, 29 January 1864, p. 2, 8 June 1864 p. 2.
157
For example Star, 29 March 1864, p. 4, 15 November 1864, p. 2.
158
159
160
Star, 24 December 1867, pp. 5-6.
118
Musical networks
Ruth Finnegan's 1986 study of music in an English town revealed an extensive structure
underpinning the actual music making of the community.161 In one of the first academic works
dealing comprehensively with the amateur music practices of a contemporary Western
community, Finnegan looked not only at music performance, but also at the structures that
provided foundations and support for those involved in music. By focusing on practice rather
than works Finnegan was able to consider many of the wider implications of music in society.
While musical rewards were found to be of high value for participants, Finnegan gave a strong
emphasis to the social implications of amateur practice.
Many of the organisational aspects addressed by Finnegan could have equally applied to other
leisure activities such as sport. There are clear parallels between associated activity in the two
fields, such as choice of activity, personal networking, learning conventions, support and
organisational structures, rehearsal/training schedules, patronage, administration, and the role of
audiences/spectators as well as that of performers/participants. While a surprising amount and
variety of music was found162 numbers participating in music would probably have been
surpassed by those involved in sport. This was less likely in early Ballarat, where music was
more widespread and regular than organised sport, and this suggests a relatively high significance
for the support structures behind musical activities.
Reports of the organisational aspects of music were less likely to find their way into
contemporary documents than the performances themselves. Even so, there is enough evidence to
suggest a strong network of underlying support structures. The work of women was often
mentioned in connection with charity concerts, soirées, and collecting subscriptions.163 Mothers
and teachers were responsible for the well-dressed children whose appearance was so admired at
the singing festivals.164 Annual reports of the choral societies tell of committee meetings,
rehearsal schedules, engagement of soloists, financial matters, music libraries, donations and
subscriptions.165 In order to purchase and install the Alfred Memorial Bells in the Town Hall,
representatives from the major religious and civil bodies, influential members of the community
and interested citizens came together regularly in community meetings, committees and sub-
committees. Fund-raising concerts for the bells featured both amateur and professional
musicians, while paid and unpaid helpers, both men and women, helped with the collection of
161
Finnegan, The Hidden Musicians, passim.
162
In Milton Keynes with a population of around 112,000 there were 6000-7000 players or singers and
many more helpers and audience members.
163
For example, Star, 16 June 1866, p. 3.
164
Times, 31 December 1859, p. 2; Star, 19 December 1860, p. 3.
119
subscriptions.166 Such activities, together with the actual performances, formed a system of
considerable magnitude, impacting significantly on the way people lived together and how they
related to others both within and without their immediate circle of associates.
Making music together afforded further opportunities for meeting people, social interaction,
working together, networking, recognition and personal support. The need for regular rehearsal
brought people together for a common purpose. Marriages were sometimes initiated because of
common membership of a choral group. One such partnership was that of Miss Frances Jones and
Mr William Thomas, members of both the Sebastopol Welsh Choir and the choir at the Welsh-
language Presbyterian Church in Sebastopol. Frances became one of Ballarat's leading Welsh
soloists, while William's musical activities included singing, teaching, conducting, composing
and adjudicating.167
Concerts were given to help fellow musicians who were suffering illness or hardship. Among the
many examples reported in the press are a recital given by the band of the 1st Ballarat Volunteer
Rifles in aid of a member who was suffering from a painful illness that rendered him incapable of
work, and a concert given by the Welsh choir when member Mr Hugh Jones Owen met with an
accident in the Phoenix mine.168 Special performances were given for respected leaders or group
members. Bandmaster Mr James Evans was the beneficiary of a Grand Complimentary Concert
in 1866 when some of Ballarat's leading singers and instrumentalists joined the band in a
performance in his honour.169 Assistance was also given to musicians who had contributed to the
musical life of the wider community. Mr Burns, a member of the Christ Church choir, and pianist
Mr Frank Richardson were among others who received complimentary musical performances
from their friends and associates.170 Even Joe the Bellman had his moment of glory with a comic
concert in the Mechanics' Institute to raise money for a journey home to England to see his aged
mother.171
Music brought public recognition, for most concerts were advertised in detail in the local press.
Reviews of major concerts mentioned soloists by name, describing and assessing their
performances. Successful performers would receive the applause of their audiences in the form of
clapping, cheering and the throwing of bouquets. Musicians were generally highly respected,
165
Rules and Annual Reports of the Ballarat Harmonic Society and the Ballaarat Philharmonic Society in
the archives of the Ballarat Historical Society.
166
Anne Doggett, The Alfred Memorial Bells: a history and heritage study, 2001, unpublished study held
in the Central Highlands Corporation Library, Ballarat.
167
Information supplied by Peter Griffiths.
168
Star, 14 October 1870, p. 2, 14 November 1871, p. 2.
169
170
Star, 22 October 1870, p. 3, 18 May 1871, p. 3.
120
although the degree of respect was influenced by factors such as the type of music they
performed, their readiness to donate their services when required, and the degree of competence
demonstrated. Professional musicians such as Austin Turner and Thomas King, as well as
amateurs such as Peter Cazaly, John Robson and David Lloyd, were involved in a range of
musical activities and constantly in the news, their names familiar to all who read the local
newspapers. Some Ballarat women also received considerable public attention for their musical
achievements. Pianist Catherine Cazaly and singer Mrs James Bunce were among the more
prominent of the solo performers who became well-known figures in the community.
'Everybody is connected'
In respectable mid-Victorian society music offered a way of connecting with people that was
discouraged in other forms of social contact. The physical presence of the performer and the
knowledge that the music was being directed solely to those who were present lent weight to the
directness of the link between performer and listener. The embodied musical performance was a
visible one, and this lent its own slant to individual response. It was possible to observe the
energy involved in making music, the physical movements, the breathing, and something of the
ease or difficulty with which the performer produced musical sounds. The performance of vocal
and choral music far exceeded that of instrumental music, and such music, generated and
amplified within the human body, was directly related to gender, body type, and mood. A stream
of professional singers and the even greater numbers of ordinary members of the community who
sang solos in local functions regularly put themselves on display, revealing something of their
intimate selves before friends and strangers. Solo voices were personal and unique, and allowed
audiences to share a physical experience with the singer, as though the Victorian age, frowning
upon public displays of visual and tactile intimacy, brought compensations of its own by
allowing the communal sharing of sonic sensuality.
Alfred Schutz, in 1951, used the example of music in order to explain how a 'mutual tuning-in
relationship' forms the basis of all communication. Music, for Schutz, is 'a meaningful context
which is not bound to a conceptual scheme'. It is different, for example, from poetry, which may
have both poetical meaning and conceptual meaning. While the poetical meaning is only found
by reciting or reading the poem from beginning to end, it is possible that the conceptual meaning
could be grasped in a moment. But for music, meaning can be grasped only through the listening
experience. There is a 'tuning-in process' involved in sharing a musical experience with others, a
171
121
sense of living through a vivid present in common, of growing old together.172 Ruth Finnegan
refers to the shared sonic experience as a means of creating and enacting human community.
'Through sound', she writes, people 'join together and in profound ways reach out to one another
as individuals and groups'.173
In the early-to-mid 1850s, when Ballarat was still a male dominated mining community, miners
would flock to the concert rooms after their day's work, eager to relax in the company of others.
In order to attract custom, hotels opened concert rooms and offered musical entertainment. By
May 1854, shortly after hotels were permitted on the goldfields, there were twenty-two hotels in
central Ballarat and eighteen on the diggings. The most important of those on the diggings were
Bentley's, the Charlie Napier, the Star and the United States, all of which offered musical
entertainment.174 Even in the 1860s, when amateur concerts, choral performances and opera were
well established, concert rooms continued to provide less formal musical evenings for those who
enjoyed the 'free and easy', or the more bawdy type of entertainment.175
Philip Butterss claims that the goldfields ballads sung in the concert rooms offered fictional
resolutions of the 'conflicts, contradictions and tensions' that riddled goldfields life.176 In Chapter
Seven some of these conflicts are discussed in more detail, together with the way they were dealt
with in song. The impact of the songs, however, lay not only in the issues they addressed directly
in the song lyrics. Much of their effectiveness was due to the opportunities they provided to share
problems and assert group solidarity through the common listening experience.177
In his study of the Irish in Australia, Patrick O'Farrell claims that song generated an 'emotional
commonality', a unity of feeling that served a healthy psychological purpose.178 When human
voices combined musically, the resulting choral sound brought its own impact, adding new
dimensions of strength and solidarity to the sound of the human voice. It has been suggested that
172
Alfred Schutz, 'Making music together', in Janet L Dolgin, David S Kemnitzer, David M Schneider
(eds), Symbolic Anthropology, Columbia University Press, New York, 1977, pp. 106-119, reprinted from
Social Research, 1951, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 76-97.
173
Finnegan, Ruth, Communicating: the multiple modes of human interconnection, Routledge, London,
2002, pp. 90-91.
174
175
The 'free and easy' was a type of informal concert in which audience members could participate in the
entertainment. Hotels that conducted concert rooms included the Auld Reekie (Times, 31 March 1856, p.
1), the Australia Felix, Specimen Hill (Times, 15 April 1856, p. 3), the Free Trade Hotel, Eureka (Star, 22
July 1856, p. 3), the Washington Hotel (Times, 27 October 1856, p. 3), Collier's Hotel (Star, 6 December
1856, p. 3), the Lyceum (Star, 25 November 1859, p. 3), the Blue Jacket Hotel (Star, 2 July 1861, p. 3), the
Great Britain (Star, 13 January 1862, p, 3), the Earl of Zetland, Main Road (Star, 5 October 1863, p. 3),
and the John O' Groats (Star, 26 January 1858, p. 1).
176
Butterss, 'Longing for harmony', p. 32,
177
Butterss, 'Longing for harmony', p, 17.
122
singing together is one of the few ways a community can actually experience unity, group
cohesion, and a feeling that 'everybody is connected'.179 In a study of five different worship
communities of the Jewish religion, Jeffrey Summit found that singing together was of vital
importance to the feeling of togetherness in each group. He discusses the 'community in harmony'
created through the blending of voice and breath, and the conscious use of music in worship to
'make a sacred community of the moment'.180
Much communal singing of the day was informal, of the type John Chandler enjoyed on the way
to the Ballarat diggings.181 Massed singing was customary on ceremonial occasions when people
would join together in standard pieces such as the national anthem, or Psalm 100.182 Church goers
regularly sang together in congregational worship and church choirs offered extra opportunities
to sing with others. Choirs were formed in all the major places of worship, and also in the smaller
churches of Ballarat and outlying districts. Many of these choirs are listed in Appendix B.6. As
noted earlier in this chapter, it was the custom for churches to hold regular soirées, or tea
meetings, at which members of the church community would come together to drink tea, eat
delicacies such as fruit and cake, and listen to speeches and music. These occasions were
opportunities for the church choir to perform for those present, often singing items from outside
the normal church repertoire. Ballarat also had large choral societies for those who were prepared
to audition and make a firm commitment to their choir.183
There were other environments within which a musical experience could create the feeling that
'everybody is connected'. One particular incident in 1868 demonstrates the power of music to
stimulate and express a sense of unity in the face of a perceived evil.
In March 1868 the people of Ballarat were stunned by the news that there had been an
assassination attempt on Prince Alfred, son of Queen Victoria. It was particularly distressing to
learn that the 'blood-thirsty miscreant' who had made the attempt was a former Ballarat
resident.184 The news reached Ballarat by telegram on Thursday evening, 12 March and, on
hearing the announcement, opera patrons at the Theatre Royal immediately called for the band to
play 'God save the Queen'. But if the assassination attempt had distressed people, the words of
Mr Frederick Lyster, musical conductor of the Lyster opera company, turned horror into outrage.
178
Patrick O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia, New South Wales University Press, Kensington NSW, 1988
(first published 1986), p. 193.
179
Jeffrey Summit, The Lord's Song in a Strange Land, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000, pp. 34, 45.
180
Summit, The Lord's Song in a Strange Land, p. 57.
181
John Chandler, Forty Years in the Wilderness, Loch Haven Books, Main Ridge, 1990, pp. 39-41.
182
See the account of the laying of the foundation stone of the Mechanics' Institute earlier in this chapter.
183
Music of the choral societies is discussed in chap. 6.
184
123
Allegedly Mr Lyster was heard to remark 'That he was glad of it; that if the whole family were
served the same way it would be a good job; that he did not believe in any *** son of a *** of a
Royal Highness being over him—it was derogatory to him as a man'. The people of Ballarat were
appalled. Mr William Lyster, the director, and brother of the offender, did his best to remedy the
situation on the following night by making a conciliatory speech at the beginning of the opera
and calling again for 'God save the Queen'. But the people were not satisfied. As Frederick was
leaving the orchestra at the end of the first act he was stopped and questioned, and in the second
half of the show the audience demanded both 'Rule Britannia' and 'God save the Queen'. After the
performance a large number of people went to Cherry's Victoria Hotel where Frederick Lyster
was staying, demanding an explanation and singing together 'God Save the Queen'. At a public
meeting on the following day around 1000 people heard Frederick made a public apology. He
took no further part in the Ballarat season, and on Monday night's performance one of the band
wielded the baton in his place. This performance began with 'God Save the Queen', and the
audience again demanded 'Rule Britannia'.185
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Philip Bohlman has claimed that all human beings 'turn to the world around them with music',186
and this chapter highlighted many of the ways the people of Ballarat did just that, using their
music practices to relate to their environment by connecting and forming relationships with
aspects of their physical and conceptual worlds.
The chapter has explored, through the local music practices of mid-nineteenth century Ballarat,
Christopher Small's argument that music is about relationships, and a way for people to
experience their world. It began by considering connections with words, and with elements of the
environment that were culturally defined as beautiful, spiritual, tragic and comic. Music meant a
closer relationship with time, enabling people to experience aspects of their past and, through
music associated with significant personal and community occasions, offering ways for them to
relate to the passage of time. Outdoor music could transform streets and buildings, bringing,
through the embodied experience of music sound, symbolic and aesthetic connotations to the way
people experienced place, and helping to establish personal and communal connections to the
locality. Music was one of the more common reasons for people to gather together, and a means
of uniting people in physical, symbolic and emotional ways.
185
Star, 14 March 1868, p. 2; Courier, 17 March, 1868, p. 2; see also Love, The Golden Age, pp. 167-177
for another account of the episode.
186
124
Both the inherent nature of the musical experience and the particular practices of the period made
music an effective way to form these connections. A human tendency to align oneself physically
with the rhythms, pitches, tones and moods of the music has universal significance, but when
music was always performed on location for a specific occasion and for one particular group of
listeners, it carried a directness typical of all live musical performance.
Such claims indicate the importance of recognising music as a vital element in our individual and
social existence. By focusing on the role of music in one particular community, the chapter has
attempted to show that by initiating and enhancing relationships with their environment, music
impacted upon the way people connected to their worlds. Yet this does not constitute a claim that
music was primarily a binding influence on society, for music also created divisions and set up
barriers. This is due to the fact that as people established connections to something they were at
the same time situating themselves as outsiders in relation to something else. The process of
'situating' is the topic of Chapter Five.
125
5
SITUATING
When a miner … sang as he crossed the paddocks homeward, you knew

1
that he came from Wales―and gloried in it.
In October 1856 visiting soprano Anna Bishop presented a 'cosmopolitan' entertainment in the
Montezuma Theatre, incorporating music from several different nations of the world. At the end
of the show Madame Bishop descended from the clouds dressed as Britannia, trident in hand and
shield by her side. The audience rose as she sang 'God save the Queen', and expressed their
delight by showering her with bouquets.2
The performance highlighted music as a marker of nation and, by presenting a range of national
songs, a way of placing nationhood within a larger global context. The larger context becomes
important in this discussion of 'situating'. Chapter Four looked at the connecting power of music,
and this chapter develops that notion further by exploring the way music allowed people to see
their own social and cultural affiliations in relation to those of others. The chapter considers
music as a way of understanding where, and with whom, one belonged, and as a way of
establishing, asserting and negotiating one's place in the world. Music became a way of looking
at both self and other, and of placing oneself within a web of intersecting and hierarchical
relationships, its hegemonic function symbolised by the strong statement of English supremacy
with which Anna Bishop concluded her cosmopolitan entertainment.
An association between music and ethnicity was evident in much of Ballarat's entertainment and
public life, but music was also a situating force with respect to many other aspects of society.
Music was practised by all social groups in a wide range of contexts, and influenced people's
relationships to location, gender, class, religion, and other interrelated and multiple fields. The
'connecting' aspect of the musical experience was a strong factor in its power. Stokes notes the
communal nature of music, and its capacity to bring people together in specific alignments.
Referring to the 'tuning in' process of Schutz,3 he claims that the 'tuning in' through music of
1
'REW' in the Ballarat Courier, St David's Day, 1 March 1935, p. 8.
2
Star, 21 October 1856, p. 2; Times, 20 October 1856, p. 2.
3
See chap. 3 for Stokes's claims for music as a form of social creativity, and chap. 4 for an outline of
Schutz's 'tuning in' process.
126
CHAPTER 5: SITUATING
these specific social alignments 'can provide a powerful affective experience in which social
identity is literally embodied'.4
As music situated people within their worlds it became part of the way they established both
individual and social identities. Identities depend on the convergence of many factors, and are
constantly reshaped and redefined through the interplay of social and cultural experience. Janice
Croggon, in her study of Celtic identities in nineteenth-century Ballarat, found that a degree of
convergence and accommodation to both new Australian nationalism and broader British loyalty
helped define the nature of Ballarat society.5 Identities do not exist in isolation. As Linda Colley
observes, identities are not like hats for people can and do wear several at a time.6 While
acknowledging this complexity and multiplicity, for the purposes of this chapter the role of music
is best explored by focusing separately on certain strands within the processes involved in the
shaping and assertion of identity.
Identities are relational. They construct and negotiate themselves in opposition to other existing
identities, and are defined essentially in relation to something that they are not.7 This occurs
because the classificatory systems through which each culture constructs meaning and makes
sense of the social world are based on the marking of difference, and it is through the awareness
of difference that we learn to understand our own worlds.8 Strong statements of difference were
made through the music practices of the various ethnic and social groups of early Ballarat.
Differences were expressed in public speeches and the press, in the diverse ways people
experienced their music, and in the actual music sound found meaningful by the different groups.
Stokes draws our attention to the multiplicity of ways in which music is linked to the process of
identity. 'Musical performance,' he writes, 'as well as the acts of listening, dancing, arguing,
discussing, thinking and writing about music, provide the means by which ethnicities and
identities are constructed and mobilised'.9 The accounts that follow document many of the ways
music created and shaped spaces within which people could comfortably articulate some of their
more deeply felt beliefs and emotions. At the same time, there were many ways in which it
erected barriers of separation and exclusion.
4
Stokes, 'Introduction', in Stokes, (ed.), Ethnicity, Identity and Music, p. 12.
5
Janice Croggon, 'Strangers in a strange land': converging and accommodating Celtic identities in Ballarat
1851-1901', PhD thesis, University of Ballarat, 2002, pp. 357-58.
6
Linda Colley, Britons: forging the nation 1707-1837, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1992, p. 6.
7
Kathryn Woodward, 'Introduction', in Kathryn Woodward, (ed.), Identity and Difference, The Open
University, Milton Keynes, 1997, pp. 2, 35.
8
Hall, 'The work of representation', in Hall, ed., Representation: cultural representations and signifying
practices, pp. 27, 31-32; Woodward, Identity and Difference, pp. 35, 38.
9
Stokes, 'Introduction', in Stokes, (ed.), Ethnicity, Identity and Music, p. 5.
127
Like all discourses and systems of representation that produce meaning, music practice is used to
negotiate positions of power in society.10 The music practices of the different groups in early
Ballarat not only provide clear indications of where cultural hegemony was situated, but were
themselves part of the process that established that hegemony and ensured its survival within a
particular cultural group. This chapter will indicate some of the ways music in early Ballarat
acted to situate the various groups in a form of social hierarchy. It will look at the contribution
music made towards establishing one particular group in the dominant position of power.
The chapter is structured into sections highlighting the role of music as a way of situating people
within social spaces related to locality, gender, gentility, time, and ethnicity. The final section, in
its discussion of the music of the English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Germans and Chinese,
concludes by considering music's contribution to the hierarchical relationship of these cultures.
SITUATING IN A LOCALITY
As white settlers moved into the area they brought not only visual changes, but also a completely
new soundscape. A new outdoor musical culture gained ascendancy, and Aboriginal music was
relegated largely to the peripheries of settlement. Chapter Four considered the way music
transformed the everyday environment, defined territory, and proclaimed the symbolic heart of
the new city. This chapter extends the discussion of music and place by considering the new
music as a way of situating the settlers in relationship to the former inhabitants of the area. The
imposition of a new musical soundscape is seen as a strong assertion of colonisation and
possession. As Ruth Finnegan observes, 'those in positions of power commonly seek to control
sound and silence so that the dominating noises are their own'.11
In mid-nineteenth century London a campaign was waged against the ubiquitous itinerant street
musicians. Professional writers whose homes served both as their residential and work places
were particularly antipathetic to the sounds that made their working conditions difficult. John
Picker regards the London anti street-music campaign as more than simply a desire to create a
quiet working environment, looking upon it as a territorial issue and a protest against the invasion
of both the professional and the domestic environment. The struggles of those Victorian
intellectuals against the sonic impregnation of their worlds are seen as attempts to maintain
control over the auditory landscape. 12
10
Woodward, 'Introduction', in Woodward, (ed.), Identity and Difference, pp.14-15.
11
Ruth Finnegan, Communicating: the multiple modes of human interconnection, Routledge, London,
2002, p. 89.
12
John M Picker, 'The soundproof study', Victorian Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, Spring 1999/2000, pp. 427-453.
128
Picker's work suggests that both the physical and symbolic presence of sound can impact
significantly in a situation of colonisation or invasion. European music introduced into colonial
Australia became both a physical domination of the soundscape and a symbol of white
supremacy. As European sonic boundaries extended, former sounds were erased or driven away.
Changes in the soundscape of the area were dramatic and, while the introduced sounds helped
settlers relate to their new environment, previous inhabitants were alienated aurally from
territories in which they had once been the only musicians.
Remnants of a musical culture
William Barak, Ceremony, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. The Woiwurrung people, of whom Barak was
an elder, would often join with the neighbouring Wathawurrong of the Ballarat area to perform their
corroborees (Fred Cahir, personal communication, 23 January 2006).
Unfortunately there has been no major study of Aboriginal music in or around Ballarat, but
paintings of William Barak and accounts of AW Howitt tell us something of the music practised
by the Aborigines of the wider region.13 The didgeridoo was not known in the area. Rhythms
were played on boomerangs and possum skin rugs, or on clapping sticks made from dry wood.
Body percussion was an important element in ceremony and ritual. Vocal music was ubiquitous.
'Songs,' wrote Howitt, 'are connected with almost every part of the social life, for there is but
13
AW Howitt, 'Notes on songs and songmakers of some Australian tribes,' Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, vol.16, 1887, pp. 327-35.
129
little of the life of the Australian savage, either in peace or war, which is not in some measure
connected with song'. Among the types of song he noted were those used in dances, those that
described events, those used for the practice of magic, and lullabies. The makers of the songs
were the poets, or bards, and these were held in such esteem that their names were known not
only to their own tribes, but to neighbouring tribes as well. Songs travelled from tribe to tribe,
making it difficult to trace their sources. 14
But thousands of years of musical heritage were swept aside with other aspects of Aboriginal
culture when white colonisers arrived in Ballarat in 1837. By the time of the gold discoveries of
1851 the indigenous people had already suffered the devastation of their lifestyles. Aboriginal
music that found its way into the European experience was only a poor remnant of the rich
musical culture once practised in the area, and was commonly regarded by the newcomers as
unpleasant noise or an unusual novelty. A young English man travelling around the goldfields in
February 1852, for example, commented on the Aboriginal people in the area and their 'strange
doleful noises during the night'.15 The reaction was quite different when a group of Aborigines
first heard the music of an itinerant band of musicians. French visitor Antoine Fauchery observed
the Aboriginal audience 'laughing, foaming, twisting in a general fit of epilepsy'.16
Accounts of corroborees in the 1850s and 1860s provide a glimpse of the Aboriginal ceremonies
that were held in the local area, the presence of white observers suggesting a certain modification
of purpose and setting that distanced these events from more traditional Aboriginal practices. In
March 1857 a corroboree was performed at the 'Swamp'. Half a mile from town, this place still
retained something of its former soundscape. The 'absolute stillness, uninterrupted, save by the
croak of the bullfrog, the bark of the watch-dog, or the scream of the wild fowl' was a marked
contrast with the 'noise of the hotels, casinos, music, theatres, the rattling of carriage wheels, and
the crowded thoroughfares' of the more populated areas of Ballarat. On this particular occasion,
the 'wild and unearthly sounds, the uncouth screams and rude merriment of the black fellows'
were a strong assertion of Aboriginal presence. The accompaniment to the dance was played
using two sticks and dried hide, while the dancers themselves added both vocal and percussion
sounds to the performance.17
A large number of Aboriginal men, women and children from Port Fairy, Mount Elephant,
Mount Cole, the Hopkins, Warrnambool and the Wimmera visited Ballarat in March 1861.
14
Howitt, 'Notes on songs and songmakers' pp. 328-29.
15
William Brown, letter written on 28 February 1852, in W & G Standard, 31 July 1852, p. 7.
16
Antoine Fauchery, Letters from a Miner in Australia, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1965 (first published
1857), p. 98.
17
Argus, 13 March 1857, p. 5.
130
Among their leaders were King Koonawarn of Warrnambool, John, King of Enuk, and King
Wattie. Towards evening they began to prepare for a corroboree at the Copenhagen Grounds,
removing their clothing and painting their bodies with white stripes. Small tree branches were
tied to their knees and ankles. They took 'some considerable time in getting the music to a proper
pitch', but finally the performance was underway to the 'intense delight' of around 500
spectators.18
By the mid 1860s such occasions were occurring with the joint management of the local white
community. In February 1865 about thirty-five Aborigines from various tribes around Ballarat,
including about twelve women, performed a corroboree at the Copenhagen Grounds. Nearly
naked, and covered with paints of every hue, they were watched by a large audience. The
corroboree was followed by a display of fireworks and a balloon ascent.19
'To them perhaps it is sweet music': Corrobory or Native Dance, State Library of Victoria,
Sketches of Australian Life and Scenery, no. 6, Corrobory.
More fireworks accompanied another corroboree at the Western Cricket Ground in April 1867.
The Aborigines decorated their bodies with white streaks of paint, and wore leggings of gum
18
Star, 12 March 1861, p. 2.
19
Star, 20 February 1865, p. 3, 21 February 1865, p. 2.
131
leaves. It was noted that the 'sort of modification of the kilt and pillabeg of the Gaul' added an air
of civilisation unknown in ancient corroborees. The performers used pairs of sticks to beat time,
the women assisting.20
Aboriginal musical sounds had lost the supremacy they once commanded, and these occasional
corroborees are among the few traces of the musical culture that existed before European settlers,
through their extensive outdoor music practices, began to inscribe their own auditory imprint on
the landscape. Through the imposition of a new soundscape, white settlers were, by mid century,
asserting their own possession of the Ballarat area. The confidence of their assertion was
emphasised by the regimentation and uniformity of band culture and the discipline and solidarity
inherent in outdoor band performances. The Ballarat Brass Band considered such discipline
important enough to claim 'unrivalled organization' in its most prominent headline.21 The
colonisation of the central spaces of the city by the marching bands was also aggressively
reinforced by the military connotations of the uniforms and marching, lending strong suggestions
of invasion, possession and defence.22 The togetherness displayed by band members through their
harmony, rhythm, dress and movement carried messages of a unity that made no concessions for
dissenting voices, and symbolised the unanimity with which white settlers saw their possession of
the areas through which bands made their regular parades.
SITUATING WITHIN GENDER BOUNDARIES: MUSIC AND WOMEN

'Women are the great listeners', asserted the Rev'd HR Haweis in 1872, 'The woman's
temperament is naturally artistic, not in a creative, but in a receptive sense'.23 Women's musical
horizons in the mid-nineteenth century were vastly different from those of men, and local musical
activity bears witness to a strong reflection of the Victorian belief in gender-related musical talent
in the musical lives of Ballarat women.
Because a Victorian woman was expected to look attractive and to act with decorum, there were
severe restrictions placed upon her choice of musical instruments. Jamie C Kassler, in discussing
the gulf between women's and men's music, claims that a traditional 'rule of grace' meant that
women of a certain social rank were effectively barred from playing certain instruments.
Distorting the face to play a wind instrument, or 'straddling' a cello or an organ were considered
unacceptable. Biological differences between the sexes were also regarded as an indication that
20
Star, 2 April 1867, p. 2.
21
See advertisement for Ballarat Brass Band in chap. 4, where bands are discussed in more detail.
22
Whiteoak, 'Popular music, militarism, women, and the early "brass band" in Australia', draws attention to
the quasi-military connection of various types of band, due to their public image as disciplined services.
23
132
boys and girls should receive different types of education, and so women grew up in a world in
which they could not access many of the opportunities available to men.24
Australian scholars have used terms such as the 'lockout', and the 'culture of exclusion', to
describe the restrictions traditionally faced by women in musical life.25 The current study
confirms a vast world of difference between men's and women's music practices, yet claims that a
focus on the concept of a 'culture of exclusion' belongs to a later era, and may tend to mask the
way colonial cultural practices could empower, as well as subjugate women. Such a focus may
also act to erase the voice of the observed insiders. Ethnomusicologist Ellen Koskoff advocates
an integrated perspective when studying a culture, whether approaching it from a historic or a
currently ethnographic perspective.26 In order to metaphorically hear the voice of the people
whose practices are being considered, this study prefers to move from the position described by
Koskoff as 'the analyst looking in' to the one she calls 'out and in together', to look at the culture
as a whole and to see it as a system with its own distinctive social order and balances. For this
purpose it is appropriate to relate women's music practices to the rest of the contemporary world,
rather than to the practices of a different age. It then becomes easier to observe and understand
the power and agency that women demonstrated within the gender boundaries of their culture.
This study argues that while music practice confirmed society's compartmentalisation of gender
roles, it also placed women in a situation in which they could achieve personal, social and
aesthetic rewards, gain a measure of control over their own lives, help to shape their own
identities, and assert and negotiate their place in the world. Without challenging accepted
contemporary notions of respectability, women could assume a position of power both in the
performance situation and in the community, and they could publicly celebrate their femininity.
In the early 1850s there were few opportunities for local women to participate in Ballarat's public
musical life, but by the latter part of the decade Ballarat women were making regular public
appearances. Most of their opportunities, however, came in the second decade, with the
development of the buildings, infrastructure and general respectability of Ballarat society.
Girls from families who could afford to pay for lessons were able to study music in the young
ladies' educational establishments or as private pupils. The list of teachers in Appendix B.5
24
Jamie C Kassler, 'Matters of history and philosophy: the "women question" in music', in Sounds
Australian, no. 21, Autumn 1988/89, pp. 22-25.
25
Thérèse Radic, 'Adelaide Women Composers' Festival 1991', in Sounds Australian, no. 32, Summer
1991-92, pp. 5-9; Whiteoak, 'Popular music, militarism, women, and the early "brass band" in Australia', p.
47.
26
Ellen Koskoff, 'Miriam sings her song: the self and the other in anthropological discourse', in Ruth Solie
(ed.), Musicology and Difference: gender and sexuality in music scholarship, University of California
Press, Berkeley, 1995, pp. 149-163.
133
indicates some of these opportunities. Most teachers offered singing and piano, but the young
ladies of Somerset House could also choose guitar as an extra subject in 1862, and private
students were able to study guitar with Miss Mooney in 1863 and later from J Reisky.27 As was
the case in contemporary England, this form of musical education for girls helped to emphasise a
woman's place within the home and family.28 The ability to sing or play an instrument was a
desirable one for young ladies, for it provided a respectable means of attracting the attention of
potential suitors. Music performance also assisted women to fulfil their role as good wives and
mothers as it enabled and encouraged them to participate in domestic music making, thus making
the home a better and more beautiful place. The piano provided women with an ideal means of
making music, for a woman could appear graceful as she sat at the keyboard, and she could act as
a supporting partner for instrumental and vocal soloists.29
According to available records, the usual instruments played by women in Ballarat were the
piano, harmonium, organ and harp, while a few instances are recorded of women playing the
guitar and concertina.30 For each of these instruments, however, it was men who dominated the
concert platform. Ballarat Welsh harpist, Llewellyn Thomas, was a highly respected performer
and, together with John Williams, the blind harpist from Williamstown and later of Ballarat, he
gave many successful and popular performances. Yet when Mr Thomas decided to sell his old
instrument it was to the 'Ladies of Ballarat' that he addressed his advertisement.31 Appendix B.2
shows that men were the more prominent soloists, yet it seems that there was also a culture of
harp playing among the women of Ballarat.
Some women managed to attract considerable attention for their instrumental skills and their
willingness to take part in public events. Among these was Catherine Cazaly who arrived in
Victoria in 1856, aged eighteen. Her obituary states that she had studied with Griesbach.32
From the day she made her Ballarat debut in December 1860, Catherine Cazaly, later to become
Mrs Little, was frequently in the news:
On Sunday last at the Wesleyan Church, Lydiard street, a change occurred which was
particularly visible, and which appeared eminently satisfactory to the congregation. The
services in the morning and the evening in the orchestra were, so far as the organ is
concerned, presided over by Miss Cazaly, in place of Mr Pope, who has another engagement.
The young lady now presiding at the organ, and evidently of superior talents, renders her
27
Star, 17 January, 1862, p. 3, 19 June 1863, p. 3, 9 July 1870, p. 3.
28
Rainbow, 'The rise of popular music education', p. 36.
29
See discussion of music and gender in Australian musicology in chap. 2.
30
See Appendix B.2 for a list of instrumentalists who performed in Ballarat.
31
Star, 8 March, 1861, p. 3.
32
Star, 26 October 1903, p. 3; see Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
Macmillan, London, 1980, vol. 7, p. 726, for a short article on John Henry Griesbach (1798-1875), a
pianist, composer and teacher based in London.
134
services gratuitously. As ladies frequently preside at the organ in our home churches, and the
custom is now introduced here, it is to be hoped the present organist will be permanently
33
retained.
It would be necessary to be a part of mid-nineteenth

century colonial life to appreciate the impact of such a
report. Miss Cazaly married William Little34 in 1862,
and became well known in Ballarat as a pianist and
organist. She played the organ in St Paul's Church for
five years, and regularly performed in public as both
soloist and accompanist.35
While Miss Cazaly/Mrs Little was one of the more

prominent of Ballarat's female instrumentalists of the
period, there were many others who played the piano
or harmonium in public, particularly from the mid
1860s when women began to take their place in the
Mrs Little, Ballarat's first female ranks of Ballarat's notable accompanists. Apart,
organist. The portrait, probably dating
from the 1860s, appeared in the however, from visiting professionals, it was not usual
Spectator, 7 September 1906, p. 1466.
for women to accept money for performances, and Mrs
Little regularly had her salary from St Paul's returned to the church by her husband.36 Other local
instrumentalists included Mrs FA King who gave the first performance in Ballarat of Beethoven's
Sonata Pathétique, and Mrs J Bunce who made many public appearances as soloist and
accompanist.37
Apart from references to women playing the piano or harmonium with the orchestral groups
accompanying choral performances, there was no suggestion that any women played in
orchestras or bands.38 It was largely in the area of vocal and choral music that women found their
performance opportunities, and far more appeared as singers than as instrumentalists.
33
34
A future mayor of Ballarat.
35
Courier, 26 October 1903, p. 3; Star, 25 December 1860, p. 2.
36
Letters from W Little in St Paul's archives.
37
See for example, Star, 17 August 1863, p. 2, 9 November 1866, p. 3, 25 March 1867, p. 2.
38
Misunderstandings have occurred in some studies due to the fact that the term 'orchestra' was often used
to refer to the entire body of performers, both singers and instrumentalists. This has led to the assumption
that there were women instrumental players, whereas they were actually singers in the choir.
135
Five well-known female singers who performed in Ballarat. Top L. Catherine Hayes, National
Library of Australia, nla.mus-an 5350554-s68-v; Top R. Anna Bishop, Annenberg Rare Book &
Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania; Bottom L. Fannie Simonsen, La Trobe Picture
Collection, State Library of Victoria; Bottom R. Maria Carandini, La Trobe Picture Collection, State
Library of Victoria; Centre: Sara Flower, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.
136
Women vocalists offered music that could not be supplied by men, and their contribution
spanned the spectrum of vocal and choral entertainment. Women appeared as amateurs and
professionals, in concert rooms, choirs, theatre, minstrel shows (occasionally), and opera.
Ballarat was fortunate enough to hear some of the more famous women entertainers and singers
in Australia at the time, many of whom had already achieved fame overseas. Appendix B.1
includes such names as Catherine Hayes, Sara Flower, Anna Bishop, Emma Howson, Maria
Carandini, Lucy Escott, Fannie Simonsen and Lucinda Chambers.39
Hundreds of local women from middle-class families appeared as amateur soloists, usually in
fund raising concerts or as soloists in large choral works. Some sang regularly in the oratorios
performed by the choral societies. Mrs Turner and Mrs Moss sang the solo parts in Ballarat's first
performance of Handel's Messiah.40 Mrs FA King with her 'remarkably sweet voice' made her
first appearance in 1861.41 Other prominent women soloists included Miss Hoffmeister, one of
the leading singers with the Harmonic Society,42 and Miss M Binder, a local music teacher.43 By
1871 Miss Emanuel's solo work was attracting a good deal of favourable attention.44
Comments in the press give us some indication of contemporary perceptions of attractive features
in the female voice. Visiting professional soloists were appreciated for the power and sweetness
of their singing, and for displaying extraordinary technical ability. When Miss Lucy Chambers
sang in Il Trovatore on her first Ballarat appearance in 1870 it was said that 'her robust figure and
robust voice and great dramatic ability gave to the part an unwonted completeness. Her range is
considerable, the voice being sweet, strong, and pure, and reaching to the depths and volume of
almost manly sonorousness'.45 After taking the role of Amina in La Sonnambula, Geraldine
Warden was commended for the 'purity, freshness and flexibility' of her voice, 'as well in the
ornate as in the plainer passages'.46 Local women soloists were commended more for beauty than
brilliance. A typical report described a concert in aid of the bell-tower fund of the Ballarat Fire
Brigade, in which Mrs Turner sang 'very sweetly' and Mrs King 'with much taste'.47 It is
extremely likely that the visiting professionals had more highly developed techniques than the
amateur ladies, but such comments can also tell us something about the way Ballarat men liked
39
Background detail regarding these singers can be found in Love, The Golden Age; Gyger, Civilising the
Colonies.
40
Times, 24 June 1858, p. 3.
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
Star, 31 May 1864, p. 2.
137
their women to sing. When Miss Emanuel of Ballarat gave too much emphasis to displaying her
technical skills she received a reprimand:
Her voice has a great deal of flexibility, and it is natural that she should exhibit its faculty for
ornate execution, but we think that she would be more welcome to the general ear if she
practised a plainer style. What her ability is in ballads we do not know, but we should like,
possibly the public would also, a change sometimes in the direction of homelier music, than
48
the more flowery passages so often selected from opera.
In most cases, women who sang in public were members of choirs, and here Ballarat provided
many opportunities for, in addition to the large choral societies and the Welsh choirs, there were
also choirs attached to most of the churches.49 In choral music women did not need to compete
with men. They took a different and necessary role in the ensemble, and their voices, in fact,
offered something literally over and above those of the tenors and basses. As was the case in
society as a whole, men and women contributed to the effectiveness of the harmonic ensemble
through their separate and distinct contributions. Men provided the firm basis upon which the
harmony was built, and women sang the melody, displaying the beauty and decorative function
that was also expected of them in their social life.
Another musical role for women was that of teaching, both privately and in schools. As teachers
women could find a thoroughly respectable role in public life, gain recognition, income, self-
fulfilment, and provide a useful service to others. In many cases the report of a young performer
would also mention the name of the teacher.50 Roughly equal numbers of males and females
advertised as teachers of piano and singing in the local paper and, in addition to Ballarat's
recognised music teachers, large numbers of 'governesses' offering to teach music placed hopeful
notices in the press, seeking positions in respectable families.51
Leadership positions were undertaken in nearly every case by men.52 Non-performing women
contributed from behind the scenes, and were particularly active in providing suppers and acting
as fund-raisers.53 Yet in spite of the restrictions women faced, music provided a surprisingly high
degree of prominence for women.
This is borne out by an analysis of forty-two newspapers representing the first week in July from
seven different years between 1858 and 1870. The aim was to learn which activities were most
48
49
Choirs are listed in Appendix B.6, and the choral societies are discussed in chap. 6.
50
See for example Star, 21 February 1868, p. 2.
51
For example Star, 18 February 1862, p. 1.
52
Appendix B.4 lists only four women in any form of musical leadership.
53
Star, 9 February, 1867, p. 2, reports that a woman, Mrs Wright, was the most successful collector of
subscriptions for the proposed peal of bells.
138
likely to result in a woman being mentioned by name in the press.54 Omitting only the members
of the British royal family, the total number of women named was broken down into various
categories. Court proceedings and inquests, with women appearing as complainants, defendants,
witnesses or victims, represented the highest number. This was followed by women associated
with music, either as performers or music teachers. While this small sample is not used to make
definitive conclusions, the figures do suggest that music brought women a certain amount of
public recognition. The gradual increase in the numbers of women named for their musical
activities also parallels the growing population more closely than do the court appearances.
Table 3:
Total numbers of women mentioned by name in the Star during Week One of July in seven different years.
Women involved in musical activities include professional musicians and local women who participated in
opera, musical theatre, amateur concerts, soirées and teaching.
Reason for publishing name 1858 1860 1862 1864 1866 1868 1870
appearing in theatrical or other entertainment 1 – 1 4 8 2 4
being famous, or being married to a famous person – 1 – 1 – 1 8
conducting businesses – – 2 3 3 2 5
conducting schools – 2 1 3 5 9 8
giving birth, dying or marrying 1 9 7 4 10 2 5
involvement in court proceedings or inquests 13 12 26 28 22 19 24
meeting with accident or misfortune 1 2 1 2 – 4 7
participating in musical activities 7 5 6 12 12 14 28
total other reasons 7 7 5 10 6 12 9
Music brought its own aesthetic rewards, for in their performances women could become part of
something beautiful. This was particularly the case for vocalists, for singing was music generated
within the human body. There were also personal advantages for women who could make music.
Penny Russell draws attention to the personal liberation Grace Rusden found through her music
in the 1860s.55 Anne O'Brien claims that for girls who learned to play the piano in convents,
music meant personal empowerment and a 'sensual engagement unparalleled in other subjects'.56
As the culmination of practice and rehearsal, a performance represented the achievement of a
personal goal. But music could also bring challenges, for performing required a certain amount of
54
References such as 'Mrs Henry Smith' are included, but not 'the wife of Henry Smith'.
55
Penny Russell, A Wish of Distinction, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1994, pp. 87-89.
56
Anne O'Brien, 'Lifting the lid', Eureka Street, August 1995, pp. 30-33.
139
courage and risk-taking. This was a culture in which music was a window through which people
were observed and judged,57 and neither the press, nor audiences, were always kind to amateurs.
When, for example, Miss Frances Jones, a nineteen-year-old singer recently arrived from Wales,
performed her solo 'He was despised' in the 1863 eisteddfod, she drew the following comment in
the press: 'She sang the air much too fast, out of the proper key, out of tune, and so much without
expression that, but for the familiarity of the air, no-one could have recognised what was
intended'.58 When they did succeed, however, women could gain recognition and acclaim for
themselves rather than for their supportive role, while facing and overcoming challenges gave
them a measure of control over their own lives.
Music could also situate women in a position of power, both in society and within the
performance context. Nearly all the amateur concerts in Ballarat were held to raise money for the
needy, for the victims of natural and mining disasters, or for charitable and public institutions.
The increasing numbers of women who participated in these concerts, as the male-dominated
society of the goldfields gave way to a more equal gender balance, made a real difference to the
social and material development of the community.59
Performance itself was about power. American musicologist Carolyn Abbate shows how a
female singer distorts the neat active/passive dichotomy our culture has traditionally attributed to
male/female. While visually a woman singer is the passive object of gaze, aurally she assumes
the active role, eclipsing everything else through the resonance of her voice.60 Leslie C Dunn and
Nancy A Jones, in their edited volume Embodied Voices, take various perspectives on the female
singing voice as an instrument of empowerment. In particular, Rebecca Pope's article 'The diva
doesn't die' shows how George Eliot's Armgart, a character inspired by singer Pauline Viardot, is
one of the divas represented in women's writing who 'garners the attention, admiration, and
respect of the world with her singing voice, a voice which, importantly, men cannot reach, usurp,
or displace. Moreover, thanks to this singing voice, she has a "voice" in the music she makes, in
her own destiny, and in the larger world'.61 The work of Abbate and Pope has implications for the
way we regard the power that came through the gendered sensual performance in a historical
setting. All live performance was a sharing of the sensual, for everyone could watch the bodily
movements, be aware of the deep controlled breathing, and the effort that was required to play or
57
See the discussion of a musical event in Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
later in this chapter.
58
M & W Star, 1 January 1864, pp. 3-4.
59
This is discussed in more detail in chap. 7.
60
Carolyn Abbate, 'Opera; or, the envoicing of women', in Ruth Solie (ed.), Musicology and Difference,
pp. 225-258.
140
sing. Singing was intimately related to gender and body type, and women drew attention to the
embodied experience, taking pains to look, sound and behave differently from men in their
music. They stood in the front rows of the choir, wore bright colourful clothes and put flowers in
their hair.62 The gendered performance was certainly appreciated. Men would watch and admire
their favourite female performers, both visiting professionals and local amateurs. It was not
unusual for them to call out in delight, and to throw bouquets.63
* * *
By expressing and perpetuating a strong division between acceptable male and female behaviour,
and limiting opportunities for women to participate in public life, music contributed to the notion
of gender defined social roles and helped to situate women primarily within the home and family.
Wives and daughters of Ballarat citizens were encouraged to perform a supportive role in their
music and, as fund-raisers and music teachers, to provide a nurturing service to the community.
Vocal qualities of purity, beauty and good taste were highly valued, with suggestions that these
were more important in a woman than brilliance and dexterity.
But while music situated men and women differently, women were far from the passive
recipients suggested by Haweis.64 As shown above, music meant that women could work to
achieve personal, social and aesthetic rewards, gain recognition, and make a difference to their
community. Within a performance context they could take their place as a necessary and vital
part of the whole. For a few capable women, instrumental music was a means of pushing the
boundaries slightly into male dominated precincts, and of sharing some of the public recognition
usually reserved for men. Women could use music to situate themselves in the forefront of
activity, and in active positions of power.
SITUATING WITHIN GENTEEL SOCIETY: MUSIC IN THE HOME

While most of the music discussed in this thesis took place in the public spaces of the city, there
are also signs of a flourishing domestic musical culture within the homes of a significant number
of Ballarat families. This section looks at the way music in the home situated residents in a
middle class or genteel status group, or became a pathway for those who aspired to belong there.
61
Rebecca Pope, 'The diva doesn't die: George Eliot's Armgart', in Leslie C Dunn and Nancy A Jones,
Embodied Voices: representing female vocality in western culture, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1994, pp. 139-151.
62
For example, Star, 2 September 1871, p. 3. Sometimes they would wear white, with coloured ribbons or
trim, for example CCA, 12 April 1861, p. 2.
63
For example Star, 11 October 1856, p. 2, 15 November 1865, p.2.
64
141
John Rickard acknowledges the significance of music making in the home as a way of uniting
friends and family in the fellowship of music.65 Clearly there were also aesthetic rewards.
Jennifer Hill draws attention to the pleasure provided by a piano in the home, feeling that this has
been underplayed in the literature.66 There is also a body of scholarship based on home music
making and social status, focusing particularly on the piano as a symbol of refinement and
elegance.
As observed by Cyril Ehrlich, in the Victorian era the piano was a symbol of respectability and
status, and a means of social emulation.67 Australian music historian Roger Covell calls the piano
in colonial Australia the 'emblem of gentility and cultivated aspiration'.68 Humphrey McQueen
refers to the piano as the symbol of upward mobility and the inevitable accompaniment of
colonial hopes and despairs, pointing out that ownership of a piano was not only the preserve of
the middle classes, but also the aspiration of the working classes.69 These aspirations were
directly linked with European culture and values, and Deborah Crisp claims that these were likely
to have been more important in Australia than in Europe, due to the perceived barbarism of the
surroundings.70
In this discussion of music in the home it has not been possible to take into account the domestic
music making of very poor working-class families of Ballarat. In spite of searches in libraries and
archives, no evidence of this musical activity was found. Rather than suggesting that the poor had
no music in their homes, this tells us that it was of no particular interest to those who created the
records, or that those for whom it did have meaning were not literate. Very poor homes were
unlikely to house a piano, and music that was enjoyed in them may have carried very different
meanings from those discussed here.
Even the music that took place in the homes of middle-class families rarely found its way into
written records, and it is necessary to learn what we can from other sources. Jennifer Hill and
Deborah Crisp are among contemporary Australian scholars who have drawn attention to
fictional sources as a background to discussing music in the homes of colonial Australians, and
65
Rickard, 'From pianos to panto', p. 66.
66
Hill, 'Aspects of Australian popular song, pp. 52, 63.
67
Cyril Ehrlich, 'Social emulation and industrial progress: the Victorian piano', an inaugural lecture
delivered before The Queen's University of Belfast, 5 February 1975, p. 8.
68
69
McQueen, A New Britannia, pp. 117-119.
70
Crisp, 'The piano in Australia, pp. 25, 32.
142
this account considers both fiction and advertisements in the press to indicate something of the
nature and extent of music in the homes of Ballarat.71
References to domestic music making in Australia in the 1850s and 1860s can be found in the
works of writers such as Henry Kingsley, Louisa Atkinson and Catherine Spence. In The Hillyars
and the Burtons by Kingsley, singing ballads is seen as a redeeming feature for a 'woman of low
origin', and in Myra, by Louisa Atkinson, playing the piano was regarded by some as one way to
make a young woman into a lady.72 Spence claimed that her first novel, Clara Morison, was a
faithful transcript of life in the colonies. The work includes reference to a good deal of music in
the home, and we learn that the ability to perform well before guests brought admiration, while a
home with a large room suitable for singing was felt to be highly desirable.73
There are a few fictional accounts of domestic music making in Ballarat, one of which Hill
estimates as taking place in the 1860s or 1870s.74 This description of a musical card party appears
in Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. Richardson conveys the social
desirability of being able to perform competently before family and friends, depicting music as a
means of observing and evaluating others.75 A further suggestion of domestic music-making in
the homes of the social elite of Ballarat appears in a work by Ada Cambridge. Cambridge lived
for a time in Ballan, twenty miles from Ballarat, where her husband was the incumbent of the
local parish. She delighted in the company of the well-educated and refined, and in Ballan she
enjoyed associating with a small exclusive circle of families. On one of her occasional visits to
Ballarat she was guest at the home of Colonel Rede, who had been resident commissioner on the
goldfields at the time of Eureka. Cambridge described Rede as 'the most witty and world-cultured
71
Hill, 'Aspects of Australian popular song'; Crisp, 'The piano in Australia'.
72
Henry Kingsley, The Hillyars and the Burtons, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1973 (first published
1865), p. 273; Louise Atkinson, Myra, Mulini Press, Canberra, 1988 (first published 1864), p. 19.
73
Catherine Spence, Clara Morison, Wakefield Press, Netley, 1986 (first published 1854), pp. 35-37, 48.
74
Hill, 'Aspects of Australian popular song', p. 81.
75
Henry Handel Richardson, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1954 (first
published 1930), pp. 244-254; Hill, 'Aspects of Australian popular song', pp. xix, 63. Songs performed
during the evening, either mentioned by name or given an easily identifiable reference, were 'The last rose
of summer', 'Rosalie, the prairie flower', 'Willie we have missed you', 'Silver threads among the gold', 'The
old armchair', 'Ben Bolt', 'What is home without a mother', 'Home they brought her warrior dead', 'Robert,
toi que j'aime', and a comic song. Six of the songs mentioned were sung in Ballarat during the time frame
of the thesis (appendices A.1, A.8) and all were composed before 1870 except 'Silver threads among the
gold' which was composed in 1873, so unless the song title refers to an earlier song of the same name, the
fictional event could not strictly have taken place until after 1873. The following websites provided
information re composition dates: www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibit-bio.asp?exhibited=197,
accessed 20 July 2005, www.pdmusic.org/winner.html, accessed 20 July 2005,
www.contemplator.com/america/rosalie.html, accessed 31 August 2005, catalogue.nla.gov.au call number
MUS Snell mb.783.542 L749, accessed 7 July 2005.
143
of them all', making the comment that his singing of French songs was 'as un-English as it could
be'.76
Programs of amateur concerts provide an indication of the type of music that was performed in
'respectable' homes. Amateur performers would have practised at home, many probably taking
the opportunity to perform for family and friends before appearing in public. The names of
hundreds of Ballarat people appear in these programs, including some of Ballarat's more notable
citizens.77 Songs were mostly ballads, parlour songs, comic songs, and items from opera and
oratorio, contrasting with the bawdy songs often performed by professional singers in the concert
rooms. The desirability of giving a fine performance at social gatherings, such as that described
in Richard Mahony, probably also inspired many families to purchase harmoniums or pianos.
The piano was said to be ubiquitous in early Australia. Trollope claimed in 1873 that there was
one in every household, and Oscar Comettant, a French critic at the Melbourne International
Exhibition of 1888, wrote that 'custom despotically demands that there be at least one piano in
every Australian home'.78 While it is not possible to learn just how many pianos were placed
within the homes of Ballarat, indications of their availability and evidence of their existence
suggest a fairly widespread ownership. This is supported by the claims of contemporary
observers of colonial Australia, and by the wealth associated with the gold discoveries in
Ballarat.
Some evidence of pianos and harmoniums in Ballarat homes can be found in sale notices, for
pianos and harmoniums were regularly disposed of when people moved to another part of the
colony, or returned to England. Many were claimed to be valuable instruments, such as the
'Piano, in Rosewood, by Broadwood and Son' that was advertised with other 'Superior Household
Furniture' in 1870.79 Not all such sales were from larger more affluent homes. When draper S
Coupland advertised his cottage for sale in 1861 it was described as having three rooms and a
kitchen. In his little home Mr Coupland had a five octave harmonium by Alexandre and Sons
with five stops, and a seven octave cottage piano.80
76
Ada Cambridge, Thirty Years in Australia, University of New South Wales Press, Kensington, 1989
(first published 1903), pp. 111-115.
77
Some Ballarat identities and their wives who took part in amateur music making were Dr Lindsay of
Creswick (Star, 2 October 1868, p. 2), WB Rodier (Star, 14 June, 1867, p. 3), Mr Dawson (Star, 15 June
1866, p. 3), Mr Drummond (Star, 19 February 1870, p. 2), Mrs Little (Star, 16 June 1866, p. 3) and Mrs
Clissold (Star, 4 October 1866, p. 3).
78
Quoted in Crisp, 'The piano in Australia', p. 26.
79
Star, 22 July 1870, p. 3.
80
Star, 8 May 1861, p. 4.
144
Domestic entertainment was well served in

Ballarat by a number of music and general
stores that supplied both instruments and
music. The first music store was probably
that of Richard Henry Sutton. Sutton arrived
in Ballarat in 1854, intending to seek for
gold. A small concertina he constructed to
entertain his family and fellow workers was
such a success that he sent for a consignment
of musical instruments from Melbourne to
sell to the miners. Sutton's tent store soon
gave way to a music warehouse in Plank
Road, and a thriving music business.81
But although its long history has assured it a

place in accounts of music in colonial
Australia, Suttons was not the only place
where people could buy music and
instruments in Ballarat. In November 1854
Auctioneers Tyree, Green and Co advertised
'500 vols of Song Books', and in 1856 F
Humffray, bookseller and stationer, sold
musical instruments.82 By 1857 Huxtable's
Music Warehouse had opened in Lydiard St,
catering for the new community growing up
in the western part of Ballarat. In the same year L Hyman, bookseller and stationer, carried 'a fine
selection of Sacred Music', and Evans Bros sold musical instruments. It was even possible to
have one's piano front fluted with silk at Atkins and Taylor, House Furnishing Establishment, in
Main Road.83 In 1859 Birtchnell's Book and Stationery Depot opened in Sturt St, advertising
81
Suttons later became one of Australia's leading music warehouses, with branches in Melbourne,
Bendigo, Geelong and Newcastle (The History of Suttons, the House of Music, 1854-1956, Suttons,
Melbourne, 1956; George Sutton, RH Sutton, 1830-1876, Suttons, Melbourne, 1954; Anne Beggs Sunter,
'Henry Sutton: the Eureka man', in Australian Heritage, Summer 2005, pp. 36-39). Richard Sutton was also
a keen inventor, and claims were made for his 'improved celestial toned concertinas' (Times, 12 November
1859, p. 3), his 'organ harmonium' (Star, 4 November 1861, p. 1) and his 'steel-note halophone' (Star, 18
October 1871, p. 2). It was also said that he invented steel instead of brass tongues for concertinas and
accordions (Star, 6 March 1869, p. 2).
82
Times, 18 November 1854, p. 1; Star, 8 November 1856, p. 1.
83
Star, 5 March 1857, p. 4, 5 October 1857, p. 1, 9 December 1857, p. 1.
145
'Music and Musical Instruments, Introductions, Anthems, Tuners, etc, Harmoniums, Concertinas,
Flutinas etc'.84
Meanwhile RH Sutton continued to provide musical goods and services. An 1859 advertisement
reads:
Pianofortes, Harmoniums, from £10 upwards. Every description of Music and Musical
Instruments. Sutton's improved celestial toned Concertinas reduced to 30s each. All kinds of
85
musical instruments repaired. Cheap sheet music of all the favorite songs, 6d each.
Music offered for sale reflected the popular taste for repertoire from Britain. In 1861 William
Vale, bookseller, offered 'Moore's Irish melodies … Union Tune Books, all kinds. Union Hymn
Books, a large supply'. Holmes bookseller in Bridge St was selling works such as 'Dixies' Land
Polka', 'Dixies' Land Ballad', 'Burlesque Gallop', 'Ecoutez Moi', 'The Hundred Pipers', Mozart's
'Agnus Dei', and Talexy's 'Sweet Briar Polka'.86 In 1863 Robert Nicholson, Bookseller and
Stationer of Sturt St was offering the Melodeon Music Book for 2s.87
In 1863 professional musician Austin Turner advertised new pianofortes for sale from his home
in Lyons St.88 Fifteen months later Mr Turner opened a business in Sturt St, as importer and
dealer in music and instruments. In the following year he expanded to larger premises on the
other side of Sturt St, where ladies and gentlemen could try music in a private room before
purchasing.89 Ballarat also had its own piano manufacturer. John Cathie of Soldier's Hill, whose
cabinet and coffin making business had failed after he entered parliament, set up his pianoforte
factory in premises opposite the railway terminus. Cathie sold, hired and manufactured pianos,
and also repaired instruments.90
By 1868 the main commercial centre was in the western part of town. Here people could visit
Tepper's West Ballarat Stationery, Book, and Music Depot of 119 Sturt St and purchase English
concertinas at £3 15s (twelve keys 40s) and harmoniums by Alexandre (five octave with oak case
for £11 11s, or a rosewood model with one stop and wind indicator for £10 10s). In 1868
Tepper's opened a new Pianoforte and Harmonium show room, advertising that they kept in stock
pianos by Erard, Collard, Broadwood, Aucher and other principal makers.91
84
85
Times, 12 November 1859, p. 3.
86
Star, 15 July 1862, p. 2, 15 November 1862, p. 4, 21 November 1862, p. 1, 18 December 1862, p. 3.
87
88
89
Star, 4 March 1865, p. 3, 27 August 1866, p. 3.
90
Bate, Lucky City, pp. 134, 136-37; Star, 2 July 1866, p. 3, 22 April 1870, p. 3, 15 September 1870, p. 3.
91
Star, 12 March 1868, p. 1, 28 December 1868, p. 1.
146
In 1870 Mr Turner had pianos for sale at £30 and advertised himself as the Ballarat agent for
Mason and Hamlin Metropolitan Organs.92 Mr Fanner, from Wilkie, Webster and Allan, a music
warehouse in Melbourne, visited Ballarat to tune and regulate pianos and harmoniums.93 Even
Mrs Francis, in Armstrong St, offered 'Piano, Concertinas, [and] Harmoniflute' for sale, together
with 'Berlin wools, Cushions, Slippers, Smoking Caps, Braids, [and] Tassells'.94 E Steinfeld
offered Aucher Frere's pianos ('worth £55') for £45, Bonds pianos ('worth £35') for £30, and
English pianos ('worth £38') for £28 10s.95 In 1871 a new 'Pianoforte and Music Repository'
opened in Raglan St, where Mr Emanuel offered music and also instruments for sale or hire.96
Sutton's and Turner's continued to provide music and instruments for many years, whereas
Huxtable's appears to have survived for little more than twelve months.97 Some piano businesses
advertised regularly over extended periods. EJ Piper on the corner of Dawson and Urquhart
streets sold and tuned pianos in 1863, and was still advertising in 1870 when he announced his
recently imported Collard and Collard pianos.98 Clearly, those who could afford it had no lack of
opportunity to purchase music and instruments in Ballarat.
* * *
The wealth of Ballarat, the strength of the piano and sheet music market, and the large number of
amateur performers in the community suggest that a considerable amount of music making took
place behind the closed doors of Ballarat residences. The evidence from wider scholarly
literature, contemporary fiction and primary data on Ballarat confirms the role of music in the
home as a potential social situator, and an indicator of membership or aspired membership in the
genteel status group of the middle classes of the Ballarat community.
SITUATING WITHIN A TIMEFRAME: MUSIC IN THE VICTORIAN ERA

Angus Trumble, in his book Love and Death: art in the age of Queen Victoria, develops a
discussion relating Victorian beliefs and values with the literature and art of the day, exploring an
interest in the supernatural, and the deep fascination with past ages and civilisations that finds
expression in the works of GF Watts and Frederic Leighton. In art, as in literature, home and
family were idealised, while there was an emphasis on the need for social reform. An awareness
92
93
94
95
Star, 1 December 1870, p. 3. Steinfeld's furniture business has since been reconstructed at Sovereign Hill
Historical Park,
96
Star, 19 April 1871, p. 3.
97
Star, 17 March 1858, p. 1.
98
Star, 19 November 1863, p. 1, 4 August 1870, p.3.
147
of the charms of the countryside was a way for people to focus on the beauties of nature, already
under threat from the spread of industrialisation.99
If the art of a particular age reflects the values of that age, we can expect to find many of the
features that represented the way Victorians thought and felt about the important issues of the day
in the music practised in mid-nineteenth century Ballarat. This was a music culture that belonged
to a particular timeframe, reflecting and helping to establish the attitudes and beliefs of the
period. Michael R Turner, in his introduction to A Volume of Victorian Parlour Poetry, draws
attention to the popular poetry of the emergent middle class as a variety 'that had not existed
before, and probably never will again'.100 The statement could equally apply to much of the music
practised in Ballarat, as evidenced in repertoire, song texts, instruments, performance practices,
and beliefs about music. Chapter One of the thesis referred to some of the features of nineteenth-
century musical life that set it apart from that of a later time. Here the discussion will focus on
attitudes and behaviour related to certain music practices that helped to define members of the
community as Victorians.
Harold Perkin refers to the change in English national character that accompanied the Industrial
Revolution as a 'Moral Revolution'. Changes were profound. Cruelty to animals, criminals,
lunatics and children was diminished, Sunday became a day of prayer, and 'obscene' classics
(including Shakespeare and Gibbon) were bowdlerised. England was transformed from a brutal,
cruel and bloodthirsty nation to one that was inhibited, polite, prudish and hypocritical.101 This
was the background from which the majority of Ballarat settlers had come, and the musical
activities they engaged in helped to make the community more intensely aware of attitudes to
contemporary morality.
Immorality was a constant concern of community leaders and, with the emerging respectability of
Ballarat society from the late 1850s, this concern was frequently raised in the press. In some
cases associations were made between music practices and morality, although efforts to improve
the community through drawing attention to certain music practices, or through attempts at
reform, appear to have been rather ineffectual. Often the more disreputable places of
entertainment in Ballarat came under attack. One of these was the Great Britain hotel, where the
concert hall was
99
Angus Trumble, Love and Death: art in the age of Queen Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia,
Adelaide, 2001, pp. 17-52.
100
Michael R Turner, 'Introduction', in Michael R Turner (ed.), Victorian Parlour Poetry: an annotated
anthology, Dover Publications, New York, 1992 (first published 1969), pp. viii-ix.
101
Harold Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780-1880, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London,
1976 (first published 1969), p. 280.
148
devoted to music, dancing, theatricality, prostitution, and immorality generally. Low art held
dominion there, and doleful comic singers, Negro minstrels, prima donnas of doubtful
repute, and danseuses of graceless indecency entertained a company of prostitutes, thieves,
102
and vicious people generally.
Other such venues were the Parisian Café in Sturt Street, the Circassian Café in the Star of the
West Hotel, the White Sensation, and the Café Turque and Music Hall in Bridge Street.103 These
were often small sordid places that contrasted markedly with the houses of entertainment
frequented by the more respectable members of the community. They would typically consist of
a room containing a bar, chairs, tables, and a piano. Young girls acted as waitresses and, in
addition to the pianist, there was usually a singer, with sometimes an instrumentalist or dancer.104
In the 1870s the issue of immorality in these places became a particular concern for local
ministers of religion. Protestant clergymen met in July 1870 to take into consideration the
'prevailing immorality', and to devise means for its suppression. The Rev'd J Watsford
condemned the 'low houses' he had seen on a visit with the police. In the houses of Ballarat East
he had witnessed young men and boys and girls dancing, and knew it represented vice, actual or
imminent, and the ruin of many youths of both sexes.105 At a second meeting the clergymen
found that 'in no place do greater dangers present themselves than in the dancing saloons and
gambling houses and concert rooms, which are to a most alarming extent increasing'.106 Among
the suggestions raised at the conference were to call a public meeting, to increase police
vigilance, and to send a memorial to parliament asking for the reform of public houses and
dancing saloons.107
When, in 1871, the Great Britain Concert Hall changed its name to the Canterbury Music Hall,
and announced its intention to conduct its business along strict temperance lines, the Evening
Mail was suspicious, referring to the place sarcastically as a 'perfect hall of innocence' and
commenting on the 'lemonade corks popping'.108 A visit by the reporter resulted in a lengthy
article about the vice-ridden establishment, where a man played the piano and performed Negro
melodies, while a young girl did her best to sing to the depraved mob within. The Canterbury did
102
103
Star, 4 July 1870, p. 2; Courier, 30 December 1870, p. 3; Ballarat Evening Post, 11 January 1871, p. 2;
Ballarat Evening Mail, 5 January 1871, p. 3.
104
See Star, 4 July 1870 p. 2 for a report on one such venue.
105
Star, 5 July 1870, p. 2.
106
Star, 15 July 1870, p. 2.
107
Star, 5 July 1870, p. 2.
108
149
not receive any bouquets for its attempt, real or stated, to conduct its affairs according to anti-
drinking principles.109
In other cases there appears to have been a gradual acceptance by both press and the community
of the depiction of immorality in certain types of music. Verdi's La Traviata, an opera about the
courtesan Violetta who, in spite of her questionable lifestyle, is portrayed as a sympathetic and
tragic figure, was produced five times in Ballarat in the years of this study.110 'As a work of art
the operatic production will doubtless be a great achievement', commented the Star before the
first performance in 1860, 'of its moral tendency we can speak with less certainty or approval'.111
At the time of the second performance the Star objected to using 'social evil' as a topic, feeling
that it was 'not calculated to do anybody much good and may do some a good deal of evil'.112 The
press was still dubious when Traviata was performed for the third time in the same year: 'No
doubt there will be a good audience', it wrote, 'most likely better than the libretto of the opera
deserves'.113 By the following year attitudes had softened, and the Star had only praise for the
excellence of the performance.114 In 1865, when the opera was presented again, the Star played
down the issue of immorality with the following comment: 'The opera will always hold its place
on the lyric stage, and be estimated so highly by all real judges of music that there is no chance of
its falling into oblivion, let ultra-moralists say what they may'.115
Attendances at Traviata for each of the five performances were reported respectively as good,
meagre, not very large, very fair, and filled in every part.116 Audience numbers at the opera were
related to a number of factors, among which the weather and the reputation of the artists were
paramount. But perhaps the steady increase in numbers attending Traviata also reflected an
emerging change of attitude towards great works of art, and a distancing of opera from matters
related to everyday life. It did not suggest a general softening of attitudes, for issues related to
music and sexual morality continued to be of concern throughout the period, particularly when
related to scantily dressed women appearing in public. There was a general reluctance among the
middle classes to attend events that threatened to compromise their Victorian ideals of decency
and decorum.
109
110
See chap. 6 for a more detailed account of opera in early Ballarat.
111
112
Star, 12 March 1860, p. 3.
113
Star, 23 March 1860, p. 2.
114
115
116
Star, 9 March 1860, p. 2, 12 March 1860, p. 3; Times, 24 March 1860, p. 2; Star, 9 February 1861, p. 2,
10 November 1865, p. 2.
150
Lola Montez who performed in Ballarat in the 1850s was famous for her Spider Dance, a type of
tarantella that afforded tantalising views when the dancer raised her skirt. The dance was also
performed in Ballarat by a succession of other performers, including Madame Strebinger, Mrs
Clarance Holt, Fraulein Fannie and Mademoiselle Therese.117 But even the Spider Dance did not
trigger the strong objections of the 1870s when a new dance was announced by the management
of the Theatre Royal. The 'notorious Can Can dance' was first performed in Ballarat in 1870 by
the sisters Heloise and Rosalie Duvalli, the performance taking place between two dramatic
pieces. Police attended the theatre and informed the management that if the bounds of decency
were breached they would have to take action. When it happened, however, there was little to
complain about. It was not objectionable 'to anyone used to ballet dancing', and 'the quantum of
nudity' was far from excessive. The only suggestion of immorality appears to have been a 'hint
now and then of more than usual lasciviousness'. Although the dress circle was nearly empty, the
stalls, pit and gallery were crammed to excess, and the performance was a great success. The Can
Can was encored and, adding an undisputable touch of respectability, the band of the 3rd Ballarat
Volunteer Rifles performed part of Mozart's Twelfth Mass.118
* * *
As a pervasive part of contemporary life, music was one way the people of the day were
constructed as Victorians, their lives determined and shaped by significant elements of the age in
which they lived. Music practices, repertoire, and beliefs about music made constant statements
to contemporaries that they lived in a period that differed markedly from that of their
predecessors. Music is also one of the ways historians and others are able to learn about and
understand the Victorian era, and a way of distinguishing the ethos of the period from that which
went before, and from that which came after.
SITUATING WITHIN A CULTURE: MUSIC AND ETHNICITY119

When gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851 there was a rush of people from many parts of the
world, all converging on the goldfields in search of wealth. Weston Bate names 24 ethnic groups
represented in Ballarat during the early years: Aboriginal, Algerian, American, Armenian,
Belgian, Canadian, Chilean, Chinese, Cornish, Danish, English, French, German, Irish, Italian,
Jewish, Mauritian, Norwegian, Polish, Scottish, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss and Welsh.120 By 1856
Ballarat prided itself on its mix of cultures. It was a 'microcosm unique, an epitome of all
117
Times, 12 September 1856, p. 3; Star, 28 February 1857, 8 October 1860, p. 3, 28 February 1860, p. 3.
118
Star, 9 July 1870, p. 2.
119
Some of the content of this section was published in the Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 75, April
2004, pp. 49-69, as 'Harmony on the goldfields: music and identity in multicultural Ballarat'.
120
151
humanities, civilised and savage', boasted the editor of the Star.121 Rarely had people of such
entirely different backgrounds lived, worked and entertained themselves in such close proximity,
yet the significance of Ballarat's multicultural musicality has rarely been explored. This section
considers the way people used music to situate themselves in relation to their own and to other
cultures⎯an area in which Ballarat can offer a special contribution.
Thomas Eriksen draws attention to several approaches that have been taken to defining the
concept of ethnicity, observing that all these methods of approach are concerned with the
classification of people and with group relationships. While the term has often been used to refer
to minority groups, dominant peoples can also be considered ethnic. The terms 'ethnic' and
'national' are distinguished by the fact that while both refer to cultural similarities, 'ethnic' does
not necessarily imply the relationship to the state that is typical of national ideologies.122 Here the
term 'ethnic identity' refers to the way people perceived themselves, and were perceived by
others, as having some form of common descent and culture, both of which marked them as
different from other community groups.
The discussion that follows will focus on the music of six different peoples whose music
practices were of such prominence in the community as to receive considerable attention in the
local press and other sources. Because of the richness of the data and the dominance of music in
the social life of the ethnic communities, the section on music and ethnicity is the longest in this
chapter. It argues that music was a means of establishing, asserting and maintaining a person's
place within a particular ethnic culture, and a way of negotiating cultural hierarchy within the
community
Ethnic Groups
Groups selected for this study are the English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, German and Chinese. There
is less evidence of the musical activity of other ethnic groups, but when found this was listed in
the appendices. The following tables provide details of the percentages of the Ballarat population
born in the relevant countries.
121
122
Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism, Pluto Press, London, 2002 (first published 1993),
p. 7.
152
Table 4: Percentage of 1861 Ballarat population born in relevant countries

Place of birth Ballarat East Ballarat West Sebastopol
England 33.07 40.44 27.87
Wales 1.37 2.23 12.58

Scotland 9.56 12.59 15.61
Ireland 13.34 11.43 6.21
Germany 1.85 0.90 5.41
China 9.98 0.64 -
Table 5: Percentage of 1871 Ballarat population born in relevant countries

Place of birth Ballarat East Ballarat West Sebastopol
England 25.99 26.64 17.30
Wales 1.41 1.28 8.99
Scotland 6.29 7.87 6.26
Ireland 9.95 12.59 12.74
Germany 1.32 0.65 1.14
China 4.51 0.46 0.61
Information in the above tables is from the Weston Bate files in the
Central Highlands Regional Library, Ballarat. Original figures were from
the Census of Victoria.
Most of the people living in Ballarat were of English descent. Census figures for 1861 show that
in each of the three municipal districts of Ballarat East, Ballarat West and Sebastopol, the number
of people born in England outnumbered those born elsewhere, including within Australia.123
Governed by British rule, and reigned over by an English monarch, multicultural Ballarat was
dominated politically and socially by a strong English presence.
Among the non-English people living in Ballarat, one group in particular was closely identified
with a musical tradition. Ballarat was a major centre of Welsh settlement in Victoria. About 2000
Welsh people were living in the city by the early 1860s, the heaviest concentration being in the
123
153
mining district of Sebastopol.124 While the majority came from the working classes, some of
Ballarat's business and professional men were also from Welsh backgrounds.125
Scottish people who were identified as such in contemporary accounts were mostly middle class
'respectable' citizens and, of all the ethnic groups in the area, appear to have related most closely
to English values. The Irish were reported as a more distinctive element in the Ballarat
community, and attention was frequently drawn to their attitudes and their customs. Many were
struggling working class families, forced to emigrate after the failure of the potato crops in
Ireland.126 Patrick O'Farrell suggests that of all the ethnic minority groups in Australia, the Irish
were the least content to sit easily within the dominant British system, their refusal to be content
with a subordinate role in Australian society leading to continued tension and conflict. Whether
convicts, Catholics, rebels, workers, Fenians or Sinn Feiners, they faced continuing hostility that
generated an Irish determination to assert a separate and distinctive identity.127 Irish music, and
the music practices of the Irish community, were part of that process.
The presence of German street bands was noted in the previous chapter. One small group of
German musicians came from Salzgitter, a town in the Electorate of Hanover that was renowned
for its musical activity. Musicians from Salzgitter were present in Ballarat from 1854, and
witnessed the tension between miners and officials that eventually led to the Eureka uprising.128
Germans who settled in Ballarat, though small in numbers, formed a prominent and successful
group.129 A Lutheran Church had been established by 1855 when approximately 2000 German
people were living in the district.130 German clubs and associations appear to have been active,
and regularly advertised in German in the local press.131
Weston Bate makes the comment that the most numerous, as well as the most self-contained, of
the foreigners on the goldfields were the Chinese.132 The Chinese maintained a distinctive visual
and auditory presence in early Ballarat. Desperately seeking a solution to the poverty and misery
of their homeland, large numbers of them had borrowed money to make the journey to
124
Bill Jones, 'Welsh identities in Ballarat, Australia, during the late nineteenth century,' The Welsh History
Review, vol. 20, 2000, pp. 283-307.
125
These included Mr R Lewis (Mayor of Ballarat) and Mr JB Humffray (politician and leader of the
Ballarat Reform League). For other names see Jones, 'Welsh Identities in Ballarat, Australia'.
126
For further information about the Irish community in Ballarat see Blee, 'Giving the laity a voice through
fiction'; Croggon, 'Strangers in a strange land'.
127
Patrick O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, 1987, pp. 9-
11.
128
Alfred Dieck, Die Wandermusikanten von Salzgitter, Heinz Reise, Gottingen, 1962, pp. 354-361.
129
130
Gerald Jenzen, 'The Lutheran church in Ballarat', The Ballarat Historian, September 1981, pp. 4-12.
131
For example Times, 28 April 1856, p. 4; Star, 6 August 1857, p. 3.
132
154
Australia⎯the 'new gold mountain'.133 The greatest concentration of Chinese was in Ballarat East
where, in 1861, they numbered nearly ten per cent of the population.134
Samuel Huyghue, 'The Black Hill Ballarat Sept 1857', showing the arrival of Chinese prospectors,
and the distinctive clothing and method of travel that instantly marked them as different. La Trobe
Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria.
As this chapter will demonstrate, all these ethnic groups used music to maintain contact with their
respective cultures and, in a multi-cultural environment, this helped to situate them in a
distinctive ethnic community. The music practices of their own and other groups drew attention
to difference and reinforced insider/outsider status. This discussion on 'situating' will begin by
looking at some of the music practices of the ethnic groups of early Ballarat, focusing upon
sounds, visual images, words, community and celebrations.
Sonic rivalries
Sounds were one way people could maintain contact with their cultural roots. Travel was slow,
and news took many weeks to arrive, but sounds could link people directly with the lands they
133
Rolls, Sojourners, p. 116.
134
155
had left behind. Music literally carried the sounds of home, and one sound in particular had a
special resonance for those who had come from England.
It has been said that 'England, alone in the world, has perfected the art of change-ringing and the
true ringing of bells by rope and wheel, and will not lightly surrender her unique heritage'.135 For
hundreds of years, Sunday mornings in England had sounded different from those anywhere else
in the world. The sounds of the changes calling people to worship, celebrating their joy, and
expressing their sorrow, was something that English people had grown up with, in their villages
and cities. Bells, both large and small, and in particular the change-ringing associated with those
bells, were regarded by the English as being part of their own exclusive culture.136
The Lancashire Bellringers made many visits to Ballarat and surrounding townships. Ballarat
Punch, 16 February 1867, p.18.
Ballarat's association with bellringing began on Christmas Eve in 1856 when Mr Robinson of the
Duchess of Kent Hotel, together with six or seven others, paraded through the streets, performing
on the handbells he had recently imported from England. Claimed to be the first set of handbells
in the colony, these bells were the first of several to entertain the people of Ballarat. Soon a local
135
Dorothy Sayers, 'Foreword', in Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, 1949.
136
Change-ringing is a traditional system of ringing a fixed number of bells in various mathematical
sequences. Change-ringers must follow strict rules and learn the complex patterns from memory. See
Appendix C.2 for a more detailed explanation. An example of change-ringing can also be heard on the
accompanying CD.
156
group called the Ballarat Amateur Bellringers was formed, performing both tunes and change-
ringing. The bellringers became a popular feature of local entertainment, 'their chimes and other
melodies bringing back memories of the old land'.137 Other handbell groups to perform in Ballarat
included the Australian Bellringers and the Lancashire Bellringers, a group brought to Australia
by entrepreneur George Coppin.138
Memories of the old land (and the knowledge that nearby Geelong had already ordered its own
peal of bells) inspired the Ballarat community to campaign for funds to purchase a peal of tower
bells. Many citizens like 'Tintinnabulum' were in favour of the movement. 'I am perhaps stupidly
English in my notions,' he wrote, 'but have great belief that the more the softening influences of
our British home are given to our boys so much the more will it favourably affect them as
citizens'. A decision was made to purchase the bells as a thanksgiving for the recovery of Prince
Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, after an attempted assassination. The bells were ordered from Mears
and Stainbank bellfounders, London, and the new town hall decided on as the venue. The bells
rang out for the first time at 6 am on Christmas morning, 1871. 'While those pealing Alfred Bells
in the City-hall tower bring tears of sweet sadness into some eyes now, they will always speak
the language of reverence and love for the old lands,' wrote the Star. 'It was not a mere phantasy
that drew hundreds of men, women, and children out of their houses at six o'clock on Christmas
morning to listen to the first chimes from those English bells'. 139
While English people heard in the bells 'the old familiar music which brought before their eyes
the far-off homes they might never see any more',140 the harp brought the sound of Wales to
Ballarat. It was noted that the Welshman 'glories in an instrument whose soft melodies and
harmonies are eloquent of love and all that the Greek at his best ever dreamed of divinest
beauty'.141 Harp music became part of the regular eisteddfod programmes. Mr Williams, a blind
harpist from Williamstown, and local harpist Mr Llewellyn Thomas were particularly popular
with Ballarat Welsh audiences.142
137
Star, 25 December 1856, p. 2, 18 January 1857, p. 4, 20 September 1866, p. 3, 8 July 1868, p. 2.
138
These are listed with references in Appendix B.9.
139
Star, 7 July 1866, p. 5, 14 July 1866, p. 5, 8 June 1869, p. 5, 27 December 1871, p. 2.
157
ST Gill, 'Dancing Saloon, Welshmen', Main Road, Ballarat, 1855. Welsh people dance
exuberantly to the sounds of a single harp.
Although the banner of the Hibernian Society depicted a golden harp on a green background, the
Irish harp rarely made news in Ballarat.143 Paddy the Piper with his Irish bagpipes, however, was
well known in the community, performing in the 1866 and 1867 Caledonian games as well as in
local venues. The Star found the music of the Irish pipes to be
softer, sweeter, more suggestive of love and the soft delights of romance than of the spirit-
stirring reminiscences of 'glorious war', whereof the sons of 'Caledonia stern and wild',
possibly dream as they listen to the wild shrill notes and mystic drone of their beloved
144
national instrument.
Their beloved national instrument was often heard in the Scottish gatherings of Ballarat.
Bagpipes were played in the Highland games and in processions to and from the grounds. Some
of the pipers, such as Andrew Wattie, performed regularly and became well known to the public.
Wattie was a popular figure and, on hearing that he had been burned out by a bushfire in January
1863, the Buninyong Highland Society held a benefit performance for him and the Star suggested
140
141
142
143
But see Star, 15 March 1869, p. 3.
144
Star, 18 March 1870, p. 2, 15 December 1866, p. 3, 2 January 1867, p. 2, 2 December 1869, p. 3, 2
January 1867, p. 2.
158
the Ballarat people also do something to help.145 Competent performers had the opportunity to
win substantial prizes in the Scottish games. In 1860 the first prize in each section was £5 5s. In
1871 the winner in the piobaireachd won a champion cup or medal with a value of £10. In 1862,
as well as the usual cash prizes, a set of bagpipes was awarded to the best player.146
Awards for pipe music were usually given in three sections: piobaireachd, marches, and dance
music in the form of the slow strathspeys and the faster reels. The names of the pieces alone were
able to evoke images of Scotland and its history. In 1865 D Rowan won the piobaireachd for
playing 'McIntosh's lament' while A McDonald played 'Prince Charlie's salute'. In the
piobaireachd in 1869 A McDonald came first with Sian le Ceantiera (Farewell to Kintyre) and D
Rowan came second with Bhoilich (The vaunting) In the Buninyong games at the end of 1862 A
Finlayson won the piobaireachd playing 'The Laird of Garlick'.147
In order to maintain their own musical traditions in the new land, Chinese people brought fiddles,
flutes, drums and cymbals with them on the journey to Australia.148 Chinese instruments known
to have been used on the goldfields include the erhu, a two stringed bowed instrument and the
sanxian, a three stringed plucked instrument with a long neck. Wind instruments included a horn,
or suona, and a bamboo flute, or dizi. There was also a variety of percussion instruments,
including cymbals, drums and gongs. Chinese musicians performed both instrumental and vocal
music, their male vocalists incorporating higher pitches into their music than did European male
singers, and frequently singing in falsetto. The Chinese have an ancient and complex musical
tradition, with extreme regional variations, and there is no certainty about the exact music
performed by the Chinese in Ballarat. The custom was for the musicians to play from memory,
and probably for that reason no notated Chinese music from the period has been found in the
area. Chinese music of the period was based on the pentatonic or five-note scale. Pentatonic
music was encouraged by the Emperor because it was felt to be peaceful and harmonious. It is
also likely that most of the music was played in unison, but that when harmony was used it was
horizontal rather than vertical, and based on intervals of fourths and fifths.149
145
146
Star 3 January 1860, p. 2, 3 January 1871, p. 2, 28 December 1861, p. 3; Tyrone Heade, 'Piobaireachd:
"The Big Music"', www.bagpipe-entertainment.com/piobaireachd.shtml, accessed 31 August 2005, states
that the piobaireachd, pronounced in English as 'pibroch', is regarded as the classical music of the
Highland bagpipes and dates back five centuries. Gentler in mood than the marches and dance tunes, many
examples are laments or commemorations of famous battles.
147
Star, 3 January 1865, p. 2, 2 January 1869, p. 2, 27 December 1862, p. 2.
148
Rolls, Sojourners, p. 116.
149
Wang Zheng-Ting, Chinese Music in Australia-Victoria: 1850s to mid 1990s, Australia Asia
Foundation, Melbourne, 1997, p. 25; personal communication, 15 April 2002.
159
Visual images
Ethnic instruments differed visually as well as aurally, while observations of Scottish pipers,
Welsh harp players, and particularly Chinese percussionists, also drew attention to the distinctive
embodied performances of the players:
A gong, a small drum, and a 'musician,' with two sticks, were amongst the most observable
of those of whom the band was composed. The individual with the 'sticks' struck right and
left, beat time, and motioned most malignantly with his head, as if in ecstasies with the
150
melody which he sent forth.
Costumes brought particularly evocative visual images. One item that aroused the enthusiasm of
the Welsh audience to a high pitch was the song 'O say not a word to my laddie', performed by
Miss Frances Jones in full Welsh costume, complete with conical hat and full-bordered frill cap.
She was greeted with a cry of delight and a shower of bouquets.151 Colourful costumes were a
feature of Scottish and Irish celebrations. Scottish pipers in Highland dress regularly led
processions through the streets to the annual games and, after 1870, the Irish incorporated
uniformed musicians into their own ceremonial parades. In September 1870 a juvenile drum and
fife band was organised by the Hibernian Society for sons and brothers of members of the
society. By March of the following year the twenty young members were ready to perform in
public and, dressed in their green and gold uniforms, they led the St Patrick's Day procession
from the church to the City Recreation Reserve.152 The gorgeous costumes of the Chinese
musical theatre were particularly colourful and drew frequent comments:
The get-up of the characters generally really was in truth astonishing. One of the serenest of
the Celestials was resplendently attired in garments of many colors, and had a forehead of
azure. Another with robes as beautiful, seemed to be a sort of arch-Druid, with an extremely
florid complexion and magnificent beard, his cheeks vermillion, and his forehead purple.
Another wore a black beard, grand and glowing, and surmounted by a face brilliant in many
"loud" hues. Others were painted in comic masks, while all the leading characters had
beautiful dresses, and were glorious with crown, and feathers, and dragons' heads, and flags,
and fans, and spears and swords, and one lady had a chignon so splendid, big, and glossy,
153
that many a fashionable European would have been desolée at the ravishing vision.
Words
An association between words and music was common to the music of all ethnic groups. As the
carrier of the text music could assert a range of cultural values. For some people, songs may have
been the only contact people had with their history and, in the days before photography was
widespread, they could provide clear images of the beauties of their homeland.
150
Star, 30 December 1859, p 3.
151
152
Star, 19 September 1870, p. 3, 24 March 1871, p. 2.
153
Star, 16 May 1868, p. 2.
160
Welsh songs were usually sung in the Welsh language, and in songs such as Awelon Eryri
('Breezes of Snowdon') and Difyrwch gwr Harlech ('March of the men of Harlech') the Welsh
could assert their linguistic, geographic and historical identity. 'The death of Nelson' with its
vivid images of a dramatic historical moment, performed a similar function for the English.154
English people, too, were frequently told in song of the worthy ideals they were expected to
embrace, such as loyalty to the British throne ('God save the Queen') and dedication to domestic
life ('Home sweet home').155
In spite of the new opportunities they encountered in Australia, the Irish were noted for retaining
a close attachment to their native land. In that context Irish song played a specific role. O'Farrell
claims that the dominant assimilatory urge of the Australian Irish meant that they did not actually
wish to retain their own cultural traditions. He draws attention to the importance of Irish song in
an emigrant situation. Song offered opportunities to identify with feelings of sadness, loss and
parting, and brought echoes of a highly romanticised Ireland, which was the only Ireland these
emigrants really wanted.156 At first it was the songs of visiting Irish entertainers and casual
singing among the local Irish population that provided the Irish with the majority of their musical
experiences. Details of the convict and bushranger ballads such as those of Francis Macnamara,
or songs that were sung in the music halls and in rough company, did not often find their way
into contemporary accounts of music in Ballarat.157 While acknowledging the fact that the anti-
British themes of many of these revolutionary songs would have reinforced Irish solidarity in
Ballarat as it did as elsewhere, the lack of primary evidence means that it is in the more refined
ballads, such as those of Thomas Moore, that we must look for expressions of Irish sentiment in
Ballarat. These songs were immensely popular, with a strong emphasis on nostalgia ('The last
rose of summer'), legend ('Rich and rare were the gems she wore'), past glories ('The harp that
once through Tara's halls'), humour ('Finnegan's wake') and love ('Believe me if all those
endearing young charms').
Scottish songs sung in Ballarat gravitate around similar themes, but with a greater emphasis on
historical incidents. Particularly popular were songs referring to the Jacobite rebellion of 1745-
46. Through them people were able to feel themselves part of a notable incident in their own
history, experiencing the anticipation ('Who'll be king but Charlie?' 'Welcome royal Charlie') the
important incidents in the campaign ('Cam' ye by Athol?' 'Hey, Johnnie Cope') and finally the
sadness of defeat and departure ('Flora McDonald's lament', 'Will ye no come back again?').
While Bonnie Prince Charlie featured prominently in the Scottish songs, different periods and
154
Star, 30 December 1863, p. 4, 18 December 1861, p. 3.
155
All songs mentioned in this section are listed with references in Appendix A.1.
156
O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia, p. 178.
161
historical incidents were also recalled in songs such as 'Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled'. Other
Scottish songs related to the beauties of the home country ('The bonnie hills of Scotland'), love
('John Anderson, my Jo'), specific Scottish themes ('Come under my plaidie', 'Pibroch o' Donyll
Dhuib') and distant happy homes ('Our own auld hame', 'My ain fireside'). The use of dialect in
conjunction with the familiar and sentimental melodies intensified the nostalgic experiences of
such links with the home culture.
In no song can there have been a portrayal of the whole experience of life in the home country,
and in many cases much of what was portrayed in song was a fabrication or a distortion of
reality. Beauty was more likely to be pictured than ugliness, the excitement rather than the horror
of combat, the loving rather than the unhappy relationship. Yet even though this may have been
obvious to those who sang, or listened, the experience of song could be powerful and effective.
People carried within themselves their own different homelands created by a complex of
processes, one of which involved their own particular musical heritage.
Community
Community is used here in the sense of a group of people who share some significant aspect of
their lives. This could the place where they live, their cultural background, a shared religion,
language or interest. In one sense music contributed to a notion of a wider Ballarat community,
for it frequently brought together people of different ethnic and social groups and, through its
charitable functions, created at least a symbolic link between the privileged and destitute.158
Musical rehearsal, performance and entertainment, perhaps more than any other activity, also
brought people of similar ethnic origins together regularly in large numbers.
A considerable amount of time and energy was devoted to the act of performing or listening to
music in the company of others from similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds. In the
multicultural setting of early Ballarat this was one way of finding and reinforcing a sense of
belonging and, regardless of any other contribution music made to the process of identity, this
was a significant one. As music situated people within their ethnic communities, it defined them
as a group, stating and encouraging ethnic values, attitudes and interests.
Because English musical traditions formed the mainstream amateur music of Ballarat, the choral
societies were rarely described as 'English' groups, yet they had sprung from the large choral
movement of nineteenth-century England. Wendy Morrison's study of the English influence on
music in Ballarat found a close relationship between the Ballarat choral societies and the English
157
See Ward, The Australian Legend, pp. 52-55, for a discussion of Irish revolutionary folk song.
162
groups that inspired them. The choral societies were highly respected, their performances
regarded as the high point of Ballarat amateur entertainment.159 The Philharmonic Society (est.
1858) and later the Harmonic Society (est. 1863) were the two principal choirs in Ballarat and
will be discussed in Chapter Six. Like the choirs, brass bands also had their origins in nineteenth-
century England.160 The Ballarat Brass Band, as well as those associated with the fire brigades
and the military volunteers, played a prominent role in Ballarat's public life and provided much of
the popular music of the day. Choral societies and bands gave many hundreds of singers and
instrumentalists opportunities to make music with others, to form friendships, and to belong to a
group associated with the dominant English culture of early Ballarat.
At least one Welsh choir was established by 1855, and in 1857 there were Welsh choirs in
Sebastopol, Welshtown and Ballarat.161 No definite evidence was found of any all-male Welsh
choirs. For some years males outnumbered the females in Welsh choral groups, but by the end of
the 1860s male/female numbers were roughly equal. Numbers participating ranged from forty
members in the Sebastopol Welsh Choir in 1863 to seventy-eighty in the Gomer choir in 1869. In
1865 the combined Gomer and Cambrian Vocal Union choirs numbered around one hundred, and
in May of 1871 there were fifty-sixty voices in the United Welsh Choir.162 These figures can tell
us something about the practice of Welsh music at the time. It seems that one aim was to
experience the impact of large choirs, as the numbers were often used as a drawcard in
advertisements. It also means that there must have been well-organised structures in place to
organise music scores, rehearsals and all the associated detail necessary for dealing with a large
group of performers.
During the 1864 Christmas period members of the Sebastopol Welsh Choir undertook a
performance tour. The choir won a prize in the eisteddfod in Castlemaine and sang for charitable
purposes in both Melbourne and Geelong. In 1866 the Cambrian Vocal Union sang in the
Exhibition Building, Melbourne. The Argus noted that the choir was composed entirely of
working miners from Ballarat with their female relatives. Proceeds were given to the funds of the
Melbourne Hospital.163 Later in the same year 'Welsh choirs' of Ballarat took part in the
Intercolonial Exhibition, Melbourne, when their contribution was said to be 'very agreeable'.164
158
See chaps. 4 and 7 for a discussion of these issues.
159
Morrison, 'Some aspects of the English influence of music in Ballarat', p. 46.
160
Russell, Popular Music in England, chaps. 9 and 10.
161
Letter from John Jones dated 11 February 1856 in the Welsh language newspaper Y Diwygiwr, vol. 21
no. 252, July 1856, pp. 212-13; Times, 29 December 1857, p. 2. The location of Welshtown has not been
identified.
162
Times, 29 December 1857, p. 2; Star, 11 December 1863, 3, 23 November 1869, p. 2, 31 May 1871, p.
2.
163
Argus, 1 June 1866, reported in the Star, 2 June 1866, p. 3.
164
Argus, 28 December 1866, p. 4.
163
The Welsh were frequently noted for their contribution to charity and for civic causes, and choral
concerts were given in aid of institutions such as the Mechanics' Institute, the Welsh Presbyterian
Church and the Benevolent Asylum.165 There are also references to Welsh children's choirs. In
1865 the Sebastopol Juvenile Choir won a prize in the eisteddfod for choirs of children under
fourteen. Two children's choirs competed in 1868, the successful choir winning with a
performance of Ehedydd bach mwyn. 166
An early German choir, known as the German Chorus Society, was established in Ballarat by
May 1856. Then in July 1857 the first step in the formation of a new group was taken when a
'very numerously attended' meeting of Germans was held in the Prince Albert Hotel. About 80
subscribers (presumably all male) signed up during the evening as members of the German verein
(society), and a literary and singing club called the Deutscher Liederkranz was formed for
promoting social life, and general benevolent purposes.167 Perhaps this Liederkranz was the same
as the German Philharmonic Society that performed at the tea meeting of the German Lutheran
Mission on 2 December 1857. The 'choral harmony of the singers' was found infinitely preferable
to 'the efforts of the many too audible babies present'.168 A group referred to as the 'Harmonia'
may or may not have been identical with the Liederkranz. In 1861 this choral group performed a
number of double quartets 'by the best masters'.169 Like many other amateur groups, the
Liederkranz also performed for charitable purposes. The hazards of living in mid-nineteenth
century Ballarat are reflected in two of its benefit performances, eleven years apart. One took
place in December 1857 for the sufferers in a fire, and the other in the Alfred Hall on 29 January,
1869, in aid of the victims of severe floods. On the latter occasion the Liederkranz sang 'Vocal
march' and 'Bill of fare' by Zöllner.170 The Liederkranz was an active group that maintained a
fairly consistent public profile.
In June 1871 the German community decided to form a new association with the aim of
combining the objects of a friendly or benefit society with those of a social, educational and
musical character. An associated choir was established, with thirty trained male voices under the
direction of Mr Ludwig Seiffert. The study of some new part music commenced, including Die
Wacht am Rhein. The new choir called itself Der Gesangverein (singing society). For the
inauguration of the new association, a festival was organised in the hall of the Ballarat Fire
165
Star, 21 December 1864, p. 2, 29 December 1864, p. 2, Star, 11 December 1863, p. 3, 19 November
1866, p. 4, 29 November 1870, p. 2.
166
Star, 27 December 1865, p. 4, 29 December 1868, pp. 2-3.
167
Times, 15 July 1857, p. 3.
168
Times, 24 May 1856, p. 1; Star, 3 December 1857, p. 2.
169
170
Star, 14 December 1857, p. 3, 30 January 1869, p. 2.
164
Brigade, in which only the German language was permitted, and at which the 'splendid vocal
music' of the new singing group was experienced.171
Reports of Chinese musical gatherings date from 1855 when there was at least one Chinese
concert room in Ballarat. On a visit to Ballarat in 1861, Mr James Smith, Melbourne theatre critic
and editor, described an earlier visit to a Chinese concert room in Ballarat where he heard a
performance given by 'an accomplished musician playing an attenuated banjo with three
strings'.172
The most extensive form of cultural entertainment for the Chinese people was the Cantonese
opera that they had enjoyed in their own land. This was a form of drama and music that dated
from the mid-seventeenth century, and was extremely popular in Guangdong province, the
homeland of many of Ballarat's Chinese miners. Cantonese opera was a means of social contact
and an enjoyable form of musical and dramatic entertainment. It is also said to have performed an
important moral and ethical function.173 References show that Chinese people in Ballarat attended
in large numbers, with audiences of a thousand people not considered unusual.174
Cantonese opera on the goldfields was presented by troupes of professional actors and musicians
from China. According to a study by Harold Love, fourteen of these companies applied for
theatrical licences in Victoria, the first dating from 1858. These professional companies toured
the various gold-mining communities, sometimes doing two complete circuits in a year. They
were usually forced to provide and erect their own tent theatres, but this was not the case in
Ballarat, where in 1858 a 'sort of permanent circular theatre' had been erected on Golden Point.175
Here the Chinese people gathered for their entertainment and relaxation:
On the Golden Point, right in the centre of the Chinese encampment, may be seen a large
oval canvas tent, from the interior of which the most hideous noises imaginable emanate at
night. This structure the follower of Confucius dignifies with the high-sounding name of
'theatre,' and the discordant jumble of noises he elegantly terms 'music.' On entering the
circular erection the modest sum of four shillings is demanded. Seated around in a variety of
forms, and closely packed together, are no less than a thousand pigtails, or at least the owners
of these adornments of 'the human form divine,' smoking opium, puffing cigars, and drinking
gingerbeer in unmistakeable quantities … At length out rushes a burlesque looking
Chinaman, in the most grotesque garb imaginable, and a sort of feather, six feet in length,
sticking out of his poll and swinging to and fro. He shouts, and presto! out fly eighteen of the
most horrid looking beings imaginable, dressed in a variety of forms, who shout, run, yell,
tumble, throw a few summersaults, and immediately disappear. Their places are supplied by
about a dozen officerly-looking pigtails, dressed somewhat like a French soldier, with a sash
round one of their shoulders. They are followed by the 'actor' with the large feather, who this
171
Star, 13 October 1871, p. 2, 19 October 1871, p. 2.
172
James Smith, 'Ballaarat past and present,' Victorian Review, vol. X1, 1861, pp. 161-62.
173
Wang, Chinese Music in Australia-Victoria, pp. 20-21.
174
175
Star, 18 December 1858, p. 3; Harold Love, 'Chinese theatre on the Victorian goldfields 1858-1870'.
165
time is accompanied with the representative of a celestial beauty. The individual with the
'two sticks' now gives evidence of his proficiency in the 'divine art,' and the most uproarious
yells imaginable are blended with the notes of the musical coterie. Actors and band now vie
with each other, as if attempting to drown the discord of each other. The man with the feather
jumps over a chair, and the whole body of actors disappear behind the curtain. By this time
the place becomes stiflingly hot. The clouds of smoke curl gracefully upwards, and we
176
disappear by the door, and are glad once more to breathe the pure air.
While the value judgements and inferences ('pure air' could only be found outside the Chinese
theatre) can tell us much about the perpetuation of racism and the process of hegemony, we can
still attempt to look through the bias and see something of a popular cultural practice of great
colour and animation. Cantonese operas were based on ancient Chinese stories, and at the time
there was a repertoire of over 300 of these in current use. Professional actors and musicians were
expected to know all of these from memory. A band of instrumentalists would play throughout
the performance, accompanying the songs, providing a musical commentary, and highlighting the
movements of the actors. Although modern Chinese opera uses females, this was very unusual in
the 1850s, and women's parts were nearly always played by men.177 Another distinctive feature
of the drama was the acrobatic fighting, a form of martial arts accompanied by music, often
regarded very favourably by non-Chinese visitors.178
Celebrations
Rituals and festivals celebrated community, marked the high points of the calendar, and provided
an important way for people to relate to the ancient traditions and spiritual beliefs of their home
cultures. The impact of ritual and ceremony as a carrier of cultural meaning was intensified by
the almost invariable presence of music. In many cases it was because of the music that accounts
were written, suggesting not only that music was a particularly prominent and important part of
the festivities, but also that it was one of the principal ways for people to become aware of the
cultural practices of others.
The euphoria associated with ceremony, particularly as experienced and expressed through
music, has been noted in such diverse communities as the Suyá of Brazil and the Jewish
communities in Boston.179 Suggestions of similar euphoric experiences are found in accounts
describing the excitement and the enthusiasm of the early Ballarat celebrations.180 As a major
element in these events, the musical experience was a means of creating an atmosphere of
176
Star, 30 December 1859, p 3.
177
Wang, Chinese Music in Australia-Victoria, p. 29; personal communication, 15 April, 2002.
178
For example Star, 16 August 1858, p. 2.
179
Anthony Seeger, Why Suyá Sing, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987, pp. 15, 127; Summit,
The Lord's Song in a Strange Land, p. 48.
180
See for example the account of governor Sir Henry Barkly's visit in 1858, Star, 20 January 1858, pp. 2-
3.
166
heightened receptivity in which people could feel themselves linked closely to their own
distinctive traditions and customs.
The most characteristic way for Welsh people to celebrate their culture was in the eisteddfod,
regarded by Welsh historian Bill Jones as 'the most emblematic of Welsh cultural institutions'.181
In their annual eisteddfods the Welsh manifested their traditional love of music and literature.
They were proud of their 'high festival', looking upon it as an ancient tradition inherited from the
bards and minstrels of their history.182 The Welsh character of the eisteddfod was very important.
'The Eisteddfod,' announced the Rev'd Mr Farr in 1865, 'is our only national institution where we
forget all our distinctive peculiarities and disagreements to the great fact that we are Welsh'.183
On Christmas Day 1855, 200 Welsh people attended a literary and singing meeting in the Welsh
church. The musical part of the proceedings included items by solo singers, an anthem by the
choir, and massed singing of a Christmas carol and the Old Hundredth.184 Ballarat's early
181
Jones, 'Welsh identities in Ballarat, Australia', p. 289.
182
183
184
Letter from John Jones dated 11 February 1856 in the Welsh language newspaper Y Diwygiwr, vol. 21
no. 252, July 1856, pp. 212-13.
167
historian WB Withers refers to this gathering as the first Welsh eisteddfod in Ballarat.185 Local
eisteddfods became a feature of Welsh community life, and Welsh people would regularly gather
together to compete for prizes, and listen to speeches and music.186
As well as these local gatherings, the larger state-wide Victorian Welsh Eisteddfod ran from 1860
to 1869. The first three of these were held at Forest Creek, near Castlemaine, where there was a
large Welsh population. In 1864 the Eisteddfod was held in Castlemaine and in 1866 in
Melbourne. The other Victorian Eisteddfods were held in Ballarat.187
The 1863 Victorian Welsh Eisteddfod, the first of the large eisteddfods to be held in Ballarat,
took place over two days and attracted large audiences, almost exclusively Welsh. Prizes were
awarded for choral, vocal and harp performances, as well as for original musical composition.
Sacred and secular music was performed, including items from Handel's Messiah and Israel in
Egypt, and many songs were sung in the Welsh language. Both music and speeches were greeted
with enthusiastic applause. Particular favourites with the audience were 'The old bachelors' sung
'in character' by Mr D Lloyd and Mr E Jenkins, and the Sebastopol Welsh Choir's rendition of
Hob y deri dando, which was received with 'unbounded manifestations of delight'.188
The enthusiasm displayed by audiences indicates something of the attachment felt towards this
link with their cultural past. The love of literature and music was frequently emphasised. The
impressive rhetoric that encouraged the love of Welsh cultural traditions was an important part of
each eisteddfod and was greeted with applause and cheers. Not only was Wales a country 'full of
poetry, eloquence and music', but the Welsh were said to have a natural talent for literature,
music and the arts. The Hon JB Humffray, MLA, proclaimed this Welsh characteristic to the
1868 eisteddfod audience, together with inspirational examples of Welsh poetry:
Strike, strike the harp and lyre,

With glowing hearts and souls of fire,
189
On Cymru's holiday.
Formal recognition of St David's Day began in 1868 when seventy guests representing 'all, or
very nearly all the leading Welshmen of Ballarat and its neighbourhood' met for a banquet in
Craig's Royal Hotel. The banquet then became an annual event, in 1869 taking place in the Alfred
Hall. These occasions involved toasts, speeches and music. A harp player was invariably present,
185
Withers, The History of Ballarat, 1887, p. 288.
186
Times, 29 December 1857, p. 2; M & W Star, 31 December 1858, p. 426; Star, 21 May 1864, p. 3, 17
October 1864, p. 3, 6 January 1866, p. 3.
187
Star, 29 December 1864, p. 2, 27 December 1869, p. 2; see Tyler '"A handful of interesting and
exemplary people from a country called Wales"', for accounts of the eisteddfods.
188
189
Star, 27 December 1865, p. 4, 29 December 1868, pp. 2-3.
168
and members sang Welsh songs in the Welsh language, with 'Land of our fathers' usually
featuring prominently. In 1869 the whole company joined in the singing 'with great spirit'. Prior
to the 1870 St David's Day banquet, a procession through the streets was headed by a buggy
carrying not only the harp player, but also 'the inevitable goat'. Druids in costume and around 150
people followed the procession to the Sebastopol Town Hall. In 1871 between 200 and 300
attended the function in the Alfred Hall lecture room, and a Welsh choir provided much of the
musical entertainment.190
The Scottish community found opportunities for festivity and celebration through the
commemoration of two notable historic figures. The anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns was
held regularly and became a traditional annual event, while the centenary of the birth of Sir
Walter Scott in 1871 attracted a crowd of 2000 people. The first Burns festival, on 25 January
1858, was held in honour of the 100th birthday of Burns in the Miners' Royal Exchange, and took
the form of a grand dinner and full dress ball. Given that Burns was born in 1759 this was
actually somewhat premature, but it did not seem to matter, and Ballarat celebrated the event
again anyway in the following year. The chairman in 1858 was also a little confused about what
was being celebrated, referring in his speech to 'the green sod that for 100 years had covered all
that remained of the poet Burns'. But these details did not spoil the enjoyment of the evening.
While the 120 guests, chiefly Scotsmen, waited for the food to appear, 'a Highland piper,
gorgeously dressed, paraded the hall, playing some of the stirring melodies rendered memorable
by Burns' verses'. His performance was greeted with loud cheering. Vocal soloists contributed to
the occasion by performing a selection of Scottish songs.191
In the following year Burns' 100th birthday was celebrated (again) simultaneously in two
different venues. 'The lovers of Scottish song and the admirers of the life and genius of Robert
Burns' paid one pound to dine together at the John O'Groat Hotel, while another fifty gentlemen
enjoyed a dinner at Bath's Hotel, followed by a ball. Scottish songs formed a part of both
celebrations, but only at the John O'Groat was a piper present.192 Reports highlight attitudes
emerging from both within and without the Scottish community. The three musicians at Bath's,
wrote the Star, played music 'far less welcome to a Scotchman's ear, than the sounds of the most
inharmonious pipes ever tortured into the semblance of melody'.193 On the other hand, Mr AW
Semple, in his speech, having honoured Burns for his genius, his interest in the poor, his trust in
God, his humour, and his lack of hypocrisy, felt that 'what we most admired Burns for, was the
190
Star, 4 March 1868, p. 4, 3 March 1869, p. 4, 2 March 1870, p. 3, 2 March 1871, p. 3.
191
192
Star, 21 January 1859, p. 3, 26 January 1859, p. 2.
193
169
association of his poems with the most beautiful of Scottish airs, which he had married to words
that would hand his name down to immortality'.194
The Scott centenary in 1871 was a very different affair, taking the form of a musical and literary
entertainment in the Alfred Hall. Piper McDonald accompanied the procession from the City Fire
Brigade-house to the hall. Many of the 2000 people present wore Highland bonnets and tartan
scarves, but it was said that all creeds, classes and countries had sent their representatives. The
band of the 1st Ballarat Rangers began the proceedings with an overture, and this was followed
by vocal music under the direction of Mr AT Turner. Mr W Rees sang 'The bonny hills of
Scotland' and members of the Harmonic Society performed 'All hail! thou lovely queen of night'.
The hunting song 'Waken lords and ladies gay' performed by the Glee and Madrigal Union was a
setting of words by Scott to music composed specially for the occasion by Mr Turner. 195 Not all
of the music chosen for the occasion had a Scottish theme and the broad British focus of the
event indicated the flexible boundaries seen fitting for the occasion.
Celebrations of Irish culture were usually centred around St Patrick's Day. At first these did not
take the form of formal community events. Ken Inglis's history of St Patrick's Day in Australia
mentions both the dinners and balls conducted by the 'respectable' Irish colonists in Australia, and
also the 'less inhibited tributes' of the lower classes.196 There were plenty of the less inhibited type
of tribute in Ballarat. While it was said that the Irishman 'must keep St. Patrick's Day or bust',197
his method of keeping it appeared to consist mainly in drinking and enjoying the company of
other Irishmen. At midnight on the previous day the peripatetic bands would start up, and the
celebrations would continue until the small hours of the following day. It seems that unruly
behaviour was not uncommon, for its absence was regarded as newsworthy. On St Patrick's Day
1858 the conduct of the Ballarat Irishman gave no cause for concern. 'He drank and sang and
laughed', observed the reporter, 'but we are happy to say he did not fight'.198
By the 1860s there were more organised forms of Irish celebration. The first annual Ball of
Ballarat's St Patrick's Society was held in 1860 in the Yarrowee Hotel.199 Theatres would
generally present special St Patrick's Day attractions with Irish themes, and well attended church
services were always a part of the day's proceedings. In 1865 the special music provided for St
Patrick's Day by the choir of St Patrick's was Haydn's Imperial Mass. Mr Millar, the organist,
194
195
196
Inglis, Australian Colonists, pp.103-04.
197
Star, 18 March 1858, p. 3.
198
Star, 18 March 1858, p. 3.
199
Star, 17 March 1860, p. 3, 20 March 1860, p. 2.
170
organised another musical celebration on St Patrick's Day in the following year with a secular
concert in which local ladies and gentlemen performed a programme of glees, madrigals and Irish
songs. After the Ballarat Hibernian Society was formed in 1868 the Irish events, like those of the
Welsh and Scottish, became more public, and attracted large numbers. Around 3000 people
attended the St Patrick's Day picnic in 1869 and the same number attended the St Patrick's Day
sports in 1871. Both were preceded by Mass in St Patrick's Church and processions to the
grounds, complete with accompanying bands. On St Patrick's Day 1871 Mr R Wrigley directed a
well-attended concert in the Mechanics' Institute.200
Unlike the Irish and the Welsh, who celebrated their respective saint's days with national
festivities, the English had no special celebrations for their own saint. 'The English do not, as a
rule, care very much for demonstrations about patron or any other sort of saints', wrote the Star in
1868, 'Thursday was Shakespeare's and St George's Day, but no flag marked the day in
Ballarat'.201 The English, however, did celebrate one of the Christian festivals as the high point of
their year, relating to it through their own customs and traditions, and looking upon it as an
English occasion. Ken Inglis, in his book Australian Colonists, discusses the peculiarly English
way that Christmas was celebrated in Australia, observing the fact that wherever English people
went they took their Christmas with them.202 A Ballarat Christmas was an English festival, a time
to enjoy the 'cheerful glow of Christmas-tide—according to good old English use and wont'.203
Christmas meant concerts and pantomimes. There was a tradition of attending the theatre on
Boxing Day for the opening night of the pantomime. A show without music would have been
unthinkable. When the mythological fable Pluto and Proserpine was advertised for Boxing Day
1860, it was not only the bewildering array of scenes, complete with costumes, coloured lights,
transformations, gods, goddesses, angels and fairies, that were presented as an attraction, but
also the fact that it was accompanied by the most 'delicious' music.204
For the Boxing Day celebrations in 1862 a musical entertainment was presented in the New
Adelphi Theatre by members of the Howson family.205 The Ballarat Brass Band performed
outside as 1500-1800 people made their way into the theatre. The program included the overture
to William Tell (arranged as a trio by Mr Howson) as well as vocal and instrumental music. Items
200
Star, 17 March 1864, p. 3, 17 March 1865, p. 2, 19 March 1866, p. 2, 18 March 1869, p. 3, 18 March
1871, p. 4.
201
Star, 24 April 1868, p. 2.
202
Inglis, Australian Colonists, p. 125.
203
Times, 24 December 1858, p. 2.
204
205
The Howson family is introduced in more detail in chap. 6. The New Adelphi was the former Charlie
Napier Theatre.
171
after interval were the second act of Norma and an operetta composed by Mr J Howson called
Pierette, or the Village Rivals. In 1868 a Ballarat citizen had the choice of attending the
Christmas pantomime of Harlequin Jack the Giant Killer at the Theatre Royal, or going to the
Alfred Hall to hear the band of the 1st Ballarat Volunteer Rifles and the Carandini family troupe
in a programme of songs and operatic selections.206
The religious aspect of Christmas was observed by attendance at church services and in the
annual performances of sacred choral masterpieces. The traditional choral work at Christmas was
Handel's Messiah, although other oratorios were sometimes substituted with apparently no
adverse effect on attendances.207 Before the Messiah on Christmas Day 1868 it was said that 'the
performance of this sublime work on Christmas night is now an institution, and attendance
thereupon reckoned a duty'. Apparently there were many dutiful people living in Ballarat that
year, for although it was held for the first time in the spacious Alfred Hall, the crowds were so
thick that there was not room for another person to gain admission, whether to 'sit, stand, or lean'.
Nor did the numbers show any sign of abating, for when on Christmas night in 1871 the
Harmonic Society presented Samson, the Courier estimated the attendance at around 2500
people.208
Music was thus an important part of a Ballarat Christmas, and central to the traditional English
celebrations. Another important day for the English was the Queen's birthday on 24 May. Ballarat
people had a high degree of affection for their Queen, seeing her as an inspiring monarch, and a
champion of peace and domestic virtues. As a beloved leader and an important symbol of
England itself, her birthday was a day of happiness and rejoicing, with concerts and balls
featuring prominently among the festivities.209 While music was always part of the celebrations,
it tended to take on a more English nature as the years progressed. The 1870 concert included
such English songs as 'The death of Nelson', 'The oak and the ivy', 'The British lion', 'Sing me an
English song' and 'Jolly John Bull',210 their inclusion in the Queen's birthday concert marking an
awareness of the English nature of the occasion.
Other Queen's birthday celebrations took the form of military demonstrations. The first field day
of the Ballarat Rifle Regiment took place on the Queen's birthday 1859, the newspaper noting
206
Star, 27 December 1862, p. 2, 28 December 1868, p. 3, 25 December 1868, p. 3. Madame Carandini
and her two daughters Fannie and Rosina were among the more prominent of Australian singers to perform
regularly in Ballarat; see further details in chap. 6.
207
Choral music is discussed in more detail in chap. 6.
208
Star, 28 December 1864, p. 3, 27 December 1867, p. 2, 23 December 1868, p. 2, 28 December 1868, p.
4; Courier, 27 December 1871, p. 2.
209
See Bate, Lucky City, p. 162, for a discussion of Ballarat's affection for Queen Victoria, and Inglis,
Australian Colonists, pp. 77-86, for an account of the monarch's birthday in Australia.
172
that the Anglo-Saxon race 'delights to give its loyalty vent in military displays'. By 1861 there
were 150–160 volunteers participating, with around twenty in the band. Ballarat troops also
regularly attended the Queen's Birthday Military Review in Melbourne, their Drum and Fife band
winning the band contest in 1869.211
The Chinese sometimes invited non-Chinese citizens to attend their festivals. One such event
took place in the Charlie Napier theatre, and was attended by over 2000 people:
The Chinese Feast of Lanterns

On Monday, November 3rd, 1856, the Room will be brilliantly illuminated with 3,500
mandarin lights; also revolving Ching-hais, Dragons &c &c. The celebrated Chinese
musicians O-Wai and A-Fou! Principal Musicians to the O-ho of Thibet Lassa will perform
solos, duets, &c., During the evening, on the Kai-pi and the Huc-muc … This is the Greatest
212
Treat of the season!
Chinese joss houses were the venues for many other Chinese festivals and ceremonies. At one
time there were five joss houses in Ballarat East, the one built at Golden Point in 1860 erected at
a cost of £600, artistically decorated with varieties of fowls and animals, and dedicated to the god
Quang Kong. In 1869 a larger joss house was built for the New Year celebrations. This was
brightly coloured, with much gold leaf, and the spectacular opening ceremonies involved the
extensive playing of gongs.213
The sound of Chinese musical instruments alerted Europeans in the neighbourhood to the
commencement of the Chinese New Year.214 In other Chinese festivals there were processions
through the streets of Ballarat East. A report in 1857 described one of these processions as it
made its way to the joss house accompanied by a band of Chinese musicians performing on
'gongs, tom-toms, cymbals, and other lively instruments of music'.215
Negotiating position
Historic, political, and economic factors were influential in shaping the social inequalities of
early Ballarat, but the role of cultural practices must also be acknowledged. The diversity of
musical experience means that there was no one way for music to situate people within ethnic
boundaries. Whether providing a medium through which people could pay lip service to the
home culture, satisfying the desire for nostalgia, or stimulating deeper ethnic ties, the music of
the different groups was central to the way both insiders and outsiders viewed the ethnic
210
Times, 24 May 1856, p. 1; Star, 25 May 1870, p. 2.
211
Star, 25 May 1859, p. 3, 25 May 1861, p. 2, 27 May 1869, p. 2.
212
213
Star, 4 February 1860, p. 3, 5 February 1869, p. 2, 6 February 1869, p. 2; Keith Rash, 'Chinese joss
house,' Ballarat Historian, vol.1, no.3, 1981, pp. 17-18.
214
Star, 26 January 1857, p. 2, 3 February 1859, p. 3.
173
affiliations of the community. Music performance regularly brought ethnic groups before the
general public, shaping their awareness of others, and underlining difference.
The Welsh were conscious of their differences, and conscious also that they were perceived as
different by the rest of the community. 'Some of our neighbours may smile at these gatherings of
Welshmen', observed Mr R Lewis in 1868, 'They may laugh at our Druidical lore and our bardic
contests, and we can pardon them for so doing, because they don't understand such things'.216
Music was a means of bringing this group of mostly working-class people into a prominence it
may not have enjoyed otherwise. Even their musical leaders came from working-class
backgrounds. For many years Mr David Lloyd was a leader of Welsh music in Ballarat, not only
teaching singing and training choirs, but also performing, composing, and taking a prominent role
in eisteddfods. His contribution was a remarkable one as, unlike Ballarat's English middle-class
professional musicians, Mr Lloyd was a working miner.217 Attitudes expressed in the press were
often patronising towards these miners and their families who performed much of the same
repertoire as the English middle classes. 'As we look and listen we cease to be of this world of
Christmas and picnics and plum pudding, and become etherialised into Welshmen doing an
Eisteddfod', observed the Star reporter in December 1867, 'the force of transformation can no
further go'. The condescension was obvious: 'We vulgar moderns may smile at such things, but
where are our Eisteddfods?'218
English-language newspapers were critical of the Welsh choral sound, and made repeated
comparisons with English practices.219 In 1863 it was said that the Sebastopol Welsh Choir sang
with vigour and precision, but that certain 'over robust' voices prevented the perfect blending of
the sound. In November 1864, the same choir was regarded as 'massive and forcible', but guilty
of the 'occasional indication of superfluous vigour'. While the reporter could not find the choir
equal to the Harmonic Society or the Choral Society, he believed that for their position it would
be hard to find their equal in the colony. Choruses in 1866 were sung with vigour, but again
blending was a problem This was still the case in 1867 when the reporter commented on the ill-
balanced vocal forces. The Welsh were, however, forgiven for these 'faults'. It was noted by the
reporter of 1869 that the Welsh Choir was a self-made one, and independent of professional
215
216
Star, 29 December 1868, pp. 2-3, 4 March 1868, p. 4.
217
218
219
According to Jones, 'Welsh identities in Ballarat', p. 292, two Welsh language newspapers were
published in Australia in the nineteenth century, Yr Australydd and Yr Ymwelydd, the former edited in
Ballarat. Sections of Yr Australydd available in translation were consulted for this study.
174
assistance. This helped explain the 'good many little defects in the way of tone, and ill
subordination here and there of individual voices'.220
The ubiquitous German bands were visiting itinerant groups, commonly heard playing on street
corners. Whiteoak notes the general appreciation felt for these bands, with their waltzes, their
fine uniforms and general appearance.221 This was not always the case in Ballarat, for it was said
that most of them were 'so badly organised that we should gladly pay them to go'.222 A German
band that played for a ball in the Ballarat Arcade in 1854 was said to have 'great execution', but
to be 'greatly deficient in "time"'.223
The singing of the local German choirs was very highly regarded. The German Liederkranz was
popular among the rest of the community, often forming the major attraction in concerts. This
was the case, for example, in May 1864 when a performance in aid of the bell-tower fund of the
Ballarat Fire Brigade filled the hall of the Mechanics' Institute. Choral items included part songs
and the 'Frog cantata'. The 'capital singing of the Liederkranz', observed the reporter, was 'loudly
applauded, as it always is, and always deserves to be'.224
Many national groups took part in the welcome to Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in
December 1867. The German community held a torchlight procession of over 200 residents who
serenaded the Prince outside his hotel. The three songs which were carried out 'very effectively'
were Der Gesang, Die KapeIle and Der Deutschen Vaterland. At the banquet held in honour of
the prince between 400 and 500 guests listened to eight members of the Liederkranz singing the
French Cantate and the Wein Galopp.225
The musical window through which the Irish were usually observed was that of song. Irish song
abounded in the concert rooms and theatres, while Irish songs were even sung by prisoners as
they passed the night in police cells. Music helped to shape the popular image of the Irishman as
a lover of good company, good whisky and song.226
Scottish songs and dance music generally drew favourable comments. When George Case
performed on the violin and concertina in the Mechanics' Institute in 1865 the Star commented
220
Star, 11 December 1863, p. 3, 10 November 1864, p. 2, 19 November 1866, p. 4, 27 December 1867, p.
2, 22 November 1869, p. 2.
221
John Whiteoak, 'Popular music, militarism, women, and the early 'brass band' in Australia', p. 38.
222
223
Times, 2 September 1854, p. 2.
224
Star, 31 May 1864, p. 2.
225
175
that 'in playing Scotch dance music Mr Case accentuates so distinctly that it is difficult for
anyone to keep his feet at rest, and his Ballarat auditors don't try to restrain themselves, but beat
time so emphatically as almost to drown the music'.227 The pipes, however, were frequently
depicted as unpleasant to non-Scottish people. 'Mons. Fleury and his band discoursed other
sounds', wrote the Star after an event in 1861, 'whether or not they were as musical in the ears of
the Gaels as those of the bagpipes we wot not, but we know they were far more to the taste of the
southern'.228 Reports infer that the music was intrusive and the performance comical. 'The pipers
startled the quiet residents of the neighbourhood with the dulcet tones of their pipes …
Wonderful songs were sung, stories racy of mountain and heather were told, and the exertions of
the piper were alarming'.229
Many thousands of people heard the pipes during the Highland games, and in the associated
processions. The first of these was held in a paddock behind the Red Lion Hotel in January 1857.
The reporter was not impressed with the performance of the solitary piper in Highland costume,
although he admitted that it may have been 'thrillingly enchanting amid the wild hills and
beautiful glens of Auld Caledonia'.230 After the Caledonian Society of Ballarat was formed in
1858 the games became a regular annual event. Numbers of people present ranged from around
1000 at the first games in 1857 to between 6000 and 7000 people on 1 January 1867. The
Buninyong Highland Society, formed towards the end of 1857 for the 'preservation of the music,
dress, and athletic games of the Highlands of Scotland', also held its own games throughout the
same period.231
Music, both as personally experienced and as mediated through the press, underlined differences
between these different cultures, and encouraged people to situate ethnic groups in relation to
each other. Marked differences between European and Chinese music also impacted upon the
way people perceived the Chinese. There were many opportunities to witness Chinese music, for
the Chinese frequently took part in important civic events. It seems that they were very ready to
participate on such occasions. Perhaps they felt that their music had something special to offer to
226
For example Star, 18 March 1858, p. 3, Star, 28 March 1870, p. 2; O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia, pp.
90-91.
227
Star. 2 January 1865, p. 2.
228
229
230
231
Star, 1 December 1858, p. 3, 31 December 1858, p. 2, 27 December 1866, p. 2, 12 January 1857, p. 5, 2
January 1867, p. 2, 17 December 1857, p. 3, 27 December 1865, p. 4. In Appendix B.2 appear the names of
Scottish pipers who performed at the games, and names of some of the music they performed can be found
in Appendix A.4.
176
the rest of the community—or perhaps, as suggested by Weston Bate, they were crying out for
understanding and acceptance.232
Racial prejudice was a fact of life in Ballarat,233 but this cannot entirely explain the negative
attitudes towards Chinese music. People were encouraged by the press to attend Chinese
celebrations, and records show that many of them did so. When music was not involved there
was considerable interest shown in the unusual Chinese cultural performances. The theatrical
costumes were admired and the female impersonations and acrobatic demonstrations were
generally greatly enjoyed. A full theatre in 1864 was 'delighted with a series of extremely clever
acrobatic feats' and in 1867 the 'novelty and remarkable excellence' of the acrobats was
commended. It appears that in spite of the racial prejudice they felt, Europeans were not
altogether dismissive of Chinese culture. The Buninyong Grammar School for the 'sons of
gentlemen' even offered the Chinese language as an extra subject.234 But Chinese music, it seems,
had no redeeming features.
Events such as the farewell to the governor of Victoria, Sir Henry Barkly, in 1863 were
opportunities for the Chinese to demonstrate their skills. 'The Chinese residents', observed the
Star, 'were prominent, in a gaily decorated coach, and on horseback … their instruments as noisy
and discordant as ever'. In 1867 large numbers of Chinese took part in the welcoming procession
for Ballarat's first royal visitor, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. Sixteen Chinese musicians and
eight vocalists also performed in the Duke's honour. Their efforts drew the following comment:
'The Chinese, a numerous group, struck up a celestial concert of whistle-pipes, tom-toms, and
other excruciating instruments'.235
On several occasions the Chinese donated proceeds of their performances to worthy causes such
as the Ballarat District Hospital and the Benevolent Asylum. On Friday 15 May 1868 they
solicited 'the presence of European Ladies and Gentlemen' to a theatrical performance in aid of
the funds of the Benevolent Asylum.236 As usual, the reporter was unable to find anything good to
say about the music:
there was hardly a moment's pause in the infernal din of the orchestra. One jolly old buffer at
one end of the stage would now and then blow a tremendous blast with a trumpet, and once
232
233
Evidence of racism abounds. For example, a report condemning the ill-treatment of Chinese appearing
in the Star on 2 November 1869, p. 2 asserted 'The Chinese cannot help their peculiar appearance, and the
fact of their being to a certain extent defenceless ought to deter young men from ill-using them or taunting
them'.
234
Star, 3 February 1859, p. 3, 4 February 1859, p. 3, 28 December 1864, p. 2, 10 December 1867, p. 3;
Times, 12 November 1859, p. 1.
235
Star, 24 September 1863, p. 5, 9 December 1867, p. 2, 10 December 1867, p. 3.
236
Star, 9 July 1866, p. 3, 16 May 1868, p. 2, 6 June 1868, p. 2, 12 June 1868, p. 2, 15 May, 1868, p. 3.
177
another mounted a stool at the opposite end, and blew a vigorous salute from a bullock's
horn, while in the centre, near the orchestra proper, kept up a concert that sounded like
chaotic mingling of bagpipes and fiddles out of tune, with two or three lunatics for ever
beating upon gongs and cymbals in a hopeless endeavor to drown the wind and string music.
But he hastened to assure readers that the performance was appreciated:
We feel that we have only given imperfect notice of what the whole thing was, but we can
assure our readers that, as a novelty, this theatre is really well worth a visit by all who have
not seen what is displayed there. For the good spirits of the Chinese, who have given this
substantial benefit to one of our most useful charities, we have only commendation. The
benefit was nearly all clear profit, and that is more than can be said of many such
237
endeavors.
Chapter Three noted the tendency for humans to align themselves physically with the elements of
music sound. This 'latching' process was less likely to occur in music that bore little resemblance
to the music of one's own culture, and which fell outside the boundaries of what was normally
classed as music. Observing the Chinese people reacting to their own musical sounds thus helped
to mark them as different, quaint and inferior. A cultural expectation that music should bring
pleasure, when it was actually doing just the opposite, further heightened the sense of
disorientation and inappropriateness.
It is difficult to ascertain the extent to which newspapers influenced perceptions of other cultures.
Most of our information comes from the dominant English language press, complete with its
value judgments and stated and implied comparisons with 'normal' British practices. It is likely
that the newspapers were highly influential in shaping people's perceptions, particularly among
the literate middle classes. But however viewpoints were shaped, music practices became a clear
marker of both difference and status. Music was evaluated in relation to that of the English, and
often seen as unpleasant, below standard, or even (as in the case of the Chinese) denied the status
of music altogether.
Because of their relationship to the dominant social group, English music practices became the
unmarked music of the community. Other styles of music were identified by their national
associations, but English music was essentially 'music', and society evaluated music of minority
groups according to its distance from that of the English. In the English/Welsh duality, Welsh
music in Ballarat became the 'other', its position a subordinate one. Chinese music was usually
compared to that of the Europeans ('Luckily, all this confusion, this Babel of sounds, this
complete collection of what a European does not like, pleased somebody. The Celestials enjoy it
hugely').238 By situating Chinese music in the European/Chinese duality, the Chinese were placed
in a lower hierarchical position than any of the European groups. The constant play of musical
237
Star, 16 May 1868, p. 2.
238
178
differences experienced throughout the period became one way of asserting the supremacy of the
English, and an influence on the perception of just how high or low on the hierarchical ladder the
other groups were situated.
Through their own music the English received a constant reminder of their position at the head of
the social hierarchy. Their national anthem, 'God save the Queen', was played or sung regularly at
public events, concerts and outdoor band performances. The significance of the words in the final
line ('God save the Queen') lay in the fact that Victoria was hailed as more than just 'our' queen,
but as 'the' Queen. In reigning over the glorious British Empire, the monarch of England was the
symbol of English supremacy and, in asserting their allegiance, her subjects took on something of
that supremacy themselves. When the Alfred Memorial Bells rang out from the Town Hall in
1871 they proclaimed a clear message, reinforced by their close association with the British royal
family. Ballarat, the multicultural, was now able to assert loudly and clearly the supremacy of the
English spirit that had been at the forefront of its development since gold had first been
discovered, two decades earlier.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Chapter Four claimed that music was a connecting medium through which people related to
aspects of their world. In developing that discussion further, this chapter has argued that, through
its power to connect, music helped people to learn where and with whom they belonged.
'Situating' added a new dimension to the concept of 'connecting', by incorporating a relational
aspect that was emphasised through the markers of difference highlighted throughout the chapter.
Music helped to define and shape the various boundaries within which people lived in the
community, and became one way for people of all social and ethnic groups to establish and assert
their identity. At the beginning of this chapter it was noted that identity is neither static nor
unidimensional and, while the discussion involved looking separately at a number of social and
ethnic fields, it became clear that in reality music was engaged in the complex and overlapping
worlds of everyday life. Music acted on many levels and in interrelated ways, its multiple
trajectories forging links with different aspects of the world, and with many of the social spaces
within which people lived. A song that reinforced the gender and genteel status of the performer,
could simultaneously, through its textual and musical content, assert a sense of belonging within
a particular ethnic group. At the same time, through the performance context, it could involve the
singer actively as a committed member of a Christian society.
Because of its prominence within all different ethnic and social groups, music became a
conspicuous element in the community and a way of perceiving and learning about people from
179
different backgrounds. Through its messages of 'belonging' and 'not belonging', it became clear
that while music was instrumental in situating people within certain boundaries, it also excluded
them from others. The sounds, visual elements, words and practices associated with the music of
a particular group of people were strong markers of difference, in some cases so marked that
music became an alienating factor. It was not easy, for example, to feel close to the Chinese
people when they so obviously enjoyed a type of music that was seen to be 'malignant',
'grotesque', and 'infernal'. Where musical differences were less obvious, as between the English
and the Scottish, music may still have marked the latter group as the 'other', but it was an 'other'
with whom the English could be far more comfortable.
Finally, music was considered as a means of establishing positions of power, negotiating

hierarchy, and establishing English hegemony in a multicultural environment. English music
practices attracted large audiences, asserted territorial dominance, took first place in public
ceremony, and constantly reinforced English beliefs and values through ritual and song. The
conviction that their own practices incorporated some sort of absolute musical value led the
dominant cultural group to make patronising, or derogatory remarks about the music of others.
Our evidence has been mediated by the local press, itself a powerful factor in the hegemonic
process. Even through the biased Anglo-centric accounts, however, differences in cultural
practices, and the attitudes those practices helped to shape, emerge as influential elements in the
process of English cultural hegemony.
This chapter has argued for a strong social significance of music in the community, and this was
one clear outcome of the study. A very different outcome that emerged from the evidence relates
to a distancing, through music, from the everyday world. In order to learn more about the
importance, ubiquity and influence of music in society, it is necessary to understand that music
could also provide special moments, and help people to transcend boundaries and restrictions of
their everyday lives. This other function of the 'connecting' power of music is the subject of
Chapter Six.
180
6
TRANSCENDING
I used to love to sit and hear them sing. It was more like heaven
1
than anything I could think of.
Constraints on our physical, emotional and intellectual activities help to define our bodies and
personalities, establish identities, and prescribe our behavioural patterns. Histories describe ways
in which people have sought to remove such constraints by pushing existing boundaries to the
limit, and seeking to break through into new worlds and new experiences. A strong yearning to
go beyond our everyday worlds underlies world religions and sends people into space. Struggles
against discrimination, oppression and lack of opportunity are fuelled by a desire to break away
from the established order and to open paths into new and better worlds.
The longing to reach out beyond our horizons reveals itself, and finds resolution, in different
ways, determined in part by circumstances relating to time, place and culture. This study focuses
on an era in which musical preferences were strongly shaped by the influence of Romanticism.
During the nineteenth century much of the work of artists, musicians and writers represented a
longing for the unattainable. Romanticists sought the exotic and the visionary, reacting strongly
against existing formal conventions, and promoting freedom. Stories were frequently set in
distant times and places. Admiration for the exceptional gave rise to the romantic hero of
literature and the brilliance demanded by the great concertos and operas of the period.2 While
these tendencies were given particular prominence at the time, however, it cannot be claimed that
they were limited to the period commonly referred to as the Romantic era, and Romanticists were
not alone in seeking to surpass the limits of their own horizons.
The verb 'transcend' is used here in the sense of 'go beyond', and music is considered as a way for
people to go beyond in a variety of ways, with particular emphasis on their emotions, their
concepts, and their imagination. Like the situating process discussed in Chapter Five,
transcending is also an outcome of the connecting power of music, for it was a connection with
certain aspects of the environment that facilitated a departure from the everyday. People
connected, through music, to words used to communicate with a spiritual being. They connected
1
John Chandler, Forty Years in the Wilderness, Loch Haven Books, Melbourne, 1990 (first published
1893), p. 38.
2
John Warrack, 'Romantic', in Stanley Sadie (ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
Macmillan, London, 1980, pp. 141-144.
181
CHAPTER 6: TRANSCENDING
to the sounds and sights associated with rare technical proficiency, and to those culturally
designated as representing the beautiful or the spiritual. Encounters with the transcendent were
enhanced by experiencing music in specially constructed buildings, architecturally far removed
from those in which people spent their domestic and working lives. This chapter looks at three
key exemplars that illustrate this facet of music practice, indicating something of the esteem in
which such music was held, and its prevalence in the community. The chapter begins with a
discussion of the visiting opera companies, and this is followed by sections dealing with the
Ballarat choral societies and with sacred music. Given the variety and complexity of the musical
experience, there is no suggestion that responses to the music discussed here were limited to the
transcendent, nor that the only musical paths to the transcendent were found in the genres
discussed in this chapter.
A GLIMPSE OF OTHER WORLDS: THE EXPERIENCE OF OPERA3

'Opera on the gold diggings!' exclaimed a Ballarat resident in 1864, 'Can it be possible that we
find it among a rough mining population, in a new country, where it might be thought hard work
to obtain the common comforts of life?'4 The comment suggests that opera was regarded as
something of an anomaly in this developing community, a luxury that citizens could regard with
pride, but one that sat strangely within the environment of goldfields culture.
While most of the scholarly research on the history of opera in mid-nineteenth century Australia
and New Zealand has centred on the larger cities, this research contributes to the existing
literature by revealing something of the significance of opera in a smaller regional centre.5 Much
of the evidence is supplied by accounts presented in newspapers. Other contemporary sources
include the various writings of Ballarat historian, WB Withers, some early operatic programmes
in the records of the Ballarat Historical Society, and the reminiscences of two contemporary
theatregoers.6
3
An earlier version of this section was published as '"The resistless fascination of the unknown": fifteen
years of opera in Ballarat's "other" golden age', in the Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol. 5, 2004,
pp. 73-99.
4
5
Studies of opera in Australia during this period include: Harold Love, The Golden Age of Australian
Opera; Alison Gyger, Civilising the Colonies; Deborah Crisp, 'Acted and Sung in Italian'; John Cargher,
Opera and Ballet in Australia; Elizabeth Wood, 'Australian opera, 1842-1970', PhD thesis, University of
Adelaide, 1980.
6
William Furley, Some Recollection of Plays and Players of the Ballarat Stage in the Fifties and Sixties by
an old Playgoer, W & J Barr Printers, Melbourne, 1906; Unpublished memoirs of William John Furley,
courtesy of Peter Moon, Furley's great grandson; 'Thespian reminiscences', Courier, 15-18 March 1899;
WB Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999 (first published 1870), 'The fine arts', supplement to the Star,
October 1889-January 1890.
182
It is likely that there was a strong bias on the part of the press in favour of opera—a valued aspect
of the dominant British middle-class culture. Reports frequently reflect a sense of pride that
Ballarat was able to host operatic performances during its formative years. There were also
monetary advantages to the press when visiting professional musicians inserted large pre-season
notices and daily advertisements once the season had commenced.7 It is hard to know if there
were other pecuniary incentives for providing favourable reports. Relationships between press
and visiting artists may well have determined the extent and type of publicity received. Harold
Love, Alison Gyger and Adrienne Simpson have all made reference to this in their studies of
opera in Australia and New Zealand, but evidence of opera managers or artists giving money to
the newspapers was found only on one occasion in 1856 when a gift of money was refused by the
Melbourne press.8 If handing over money as insurance, or appreciation, was the custom
elsewhere, there is every likelihood that it also occurred in Ballarat. There are, however, certain
contra indications—a singer praised one day and criticised the next, an entire performance
reported to be superb and the following performance by the same company dismissed as below
standard—but as no evidence one way or another has been found, it cannot be ruled out. As
demonstrated in this chapter, however, opera was a vibrant and thriving part of Ballarat's musical
culture and, regardless of its promotion by the newspapers, undoubtedly carried a good deal of its
own momentum.
Between 1856 and 1871 Ballarat audiences witnessed entire operas complete with elaborate
scenery, costumes, theatrical stage effects, full orchestras and large choruses. At other times
operas were drastically abridged, performed with little or no scenery, two or three instruments
and a minimal chorus. While some of the operatic performances discussed here were truncated
versions, there was a clear distinction between these and the popular operatic concerts.9 This
discussion refers to the operas that included, at the very least, a substantial number of musical
items from the work, presented dramatically, with the intention of unfolding all, or at least most,
of the story.
These were the years when Ballarat, together with Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and other
regional centres, witnessed the era described by Harold Love as 'The Golden Age of Australian
Opera'. Singers who had been acclaimed in the opera houses of Europe, England and America
performed for Ballarat audiences. From the main centre of operatic activity in Melbourne,
companies made regular extended visits to Sydney, and between major seasons held in these two
7
See Adrienne Simpson, 'Footlights and fenians: the adventures of a touring concert party in gold-rush
New Zealand', Australasian Drama Studies, April 1994, pp. 182-196.
8
Gyger, Civilising the Colonies p. 89; James Smith, 'Reminiscences of the Melbourne stage by an old
playgoer', Australasian, 18 September 1886, p. 570.
9
See Love, The Golden Age, p. 121 for a discussion about the contemporary custom of abridging operas.
183
cities they visited Adelaide, Hobart, New Zealand and regional areas. Scenery, choruses and
orchestras were not always as large or elaborate as those provided in Melbourne, but the principal
singers who came to Ballarat were the leading operatic artists in Australia at the time, many with
established international reputations. Ballarat historian, WB Withers, referred to them as 'the
operatic host whose name is legion'.10 Aware of the desire to see and hear these singers in action,
and seeking to profit from the wealth generated by gold, opera companies always brought their
leading artists on their Ballarat visits. Operas performed were those that had aroused enthusiastic
responses in Europe and America. Nostalgic memories recorded in surviving memoirs give
credence to journalistic claims of the deep impressions made by both music and artists. Many
masterpieces were heard in Ballarat within a few years of their European premiere, and within
weeks of their first Australian performance.11
The artists
In September 1856 the 'First production of Grand Opera on Ballarat' was announced. For fifteen
nights people packed the Montezuma theatre to hear the English soprano Anna Bishop, together
with French tenor JB Laglaise, French bass Emile Coulon and flutist Julius Siede under their
conductor George Loder.12 There appear to have been seven nights on which an opera was
presented, and eight nights of operatic selections, songs and ballads. A 'full and efficient chorus'
and an 'enlarged orchestra' were announced. This first opera season in Ballarat was 'disjointed,
imperfect, and even its advertising and its press relations were out of joint as compared with the
fuller and more methodical displays of later times', but the music was enchanting and, in her
performance of 'Casta diva' from Bellini's Norma, Madame Bishop's 'rapid and facile vocalisation
hung such festoons of florid beauty around the pathway of her song as captivated every ear'.13
Scenic arrangements were said to be excellent, and Madame Bishop's costumes and jewellery
magnificent.14 It is not surprising that Anna Bishop made such an impact in Ballarat. The forty-
five year old singer was an experienced performer when she first arrived in Australia at the end
10
Withers, The fine arts, 9 November, 1889, p. 5.
11
For example Verdi's Il Trovatore which premiered in Rome in 1853 was first performed in Ballarat by
the Howson family in 1858, while Gounod's Faust which received its first performance in Paris in 1859
was performed in Ballarat by Lyster's company in 1864. See Michael Raeburn, The Chronicle of Opera,
Thames and Hudson, London, 1998, for details of European premieres. Within Australia, Verdi's Un Ballo
in Maschera was first performed in January 1868 in Melbourne, and in February 1868 in Ballarat. Verdi's I
Due Foscari was performed in Ballarat in March 1868, after its Australian premiere in February 1868 in
Melbourne. Benedict's The Lily of Killarney was performed in Ballarat in December 1862⎯not however in
its complete version⎯over six months before its Australian premiere in Sydney in July 1863. Verdi's Attila
was performed in Ballarat (apparently this was the full four act opera) four months before the performance
claimed by Gyger to be the Australian premiere. The latter took place in Melbourne in August 1860. See
Gyger, Civilising the Colonies, pp. 247-254, for details of Australian premieres.
12
Star, 23 September 1856, p. 3, 11 October 1856, p. 2.
13
Withers, 'The fine arts', 11 January, 1890, p. 5; Star, 4 October 1856, p. 2; a performance of 'Casta diva'
can be heard on the accompanying CD.
14
Star, 11 October 1856, p. 2; Times, 13 October 1856, p. 2.
184
of 1855 with a career spanning thirteen countries, including a 27 month period as prima donna at
San Carlo in Naples. She came to Ballarat after appearing in both Sydney and Melbourne before
increasingly large and enthusiastic audiences.15 Even before this first attempt at grand opera,
however, Ballarat audiences had not been starved of good singers, nor of operatic music. Irish
soprano Catherine Hayes and English contralto Sara Flower had both appeared at the Star
Concert Hall, and programmes show that it was not unusual for concerts to include overtures,
scenes and arias from opera along with popular comic songs and ballads.16
Anna Bishop's costumes impressed Ballarat audiences in 1856. Anna Bishop in

Lucrezia Borgia, National Library of Australia, nla.mus-an 5350554 – s52-v.
Six months after the Anna Bishop season, soprano Julia Harland and tenor Walter Sherwin
visited with the English Opera Company, performing five operas at the Victoria Theatre under
the direction of Linley Norman. Since their arrival in Australia in 1856 Harland and Sherwin had
performed in Sydney and Melbourne, together with bass Robert Farquharson and local assistant
15
Gyger, Civilising the Colonies, pp. 80-81, 84; Davis, Anna Bishop: The Adventures of an Intrepid Prima
Donna, chaps 5-15.
16
Furley, Some Recollections, p. 15; WB Withers, 'The fine arts', 9 November 1889, p. 5.
185
artists.17 They returned to Ballarat in 1858 with a larger troupe for a twenty-two night season in
the Charlie Napier theatre, and in 1859 they presented the first opera season in the new Theatre
Royal. It is not certain whether the 'large efficient chorus' of 1859 was recruited locally, or
whether it travelled with the company, but the ten piece orchestra was made up of both local
players and visiting instrumentalists. Among the singers who took part in the 1859 season was
Australian singer Madame Carandini who took the leading role in Auber's Fra Diavolo.18
Madame Carandini was already well known to Ballarat audiences, having performed in the
Golden Fleece concert room together with associate artist Emile Coulon in May 1855.19
Carandini had made her debut in Hobart in 1843, after which she had sung in Sydney, attracting
the favourable attention of composer Sir Isaac Nathan who admired her voice, her intonation and
her style.20 In 1859 she performed in a ten night series of operas directed by Monsieur Lavenu in
the Charlie Napier theatre, the first night attracting a full house in spite of the fact that it
coincided with the grand dramatic and musical presentation celebrating the opening of the new
Theatre Royal. Carandini's 'Grand Opera Company', presented five different Italian operas,
featured a 'chorus of ladies and gentlemen', an eleven piece orchestra (including some local
instrumentalists), good mechanical effects and beautiful scenery by Mr Holmes. 21
Eugenio and Giovanna Bianchi visited in 1860 with their Italian Opera Company, comprising
conductor John Winterbottom, the chorus from the Theatre Royal (Melbourne), and singers
Robert Farquharson, Minnie Clifford, Enrico Grossi, Walter Sherwin and Mrs Winterbottom.
Julia Harland took part in some performances. The Bianchis, a soprano and tenor, had lived and
worked in San Francisco since 1858. Their first Australian appearance took place in January
1860 at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, where Argus critic James Smith proclaimed Signor
Bianchi to be 'far and away the best tenor we have heard in Australia'. The Bianchis specialised
in Verdi, and presented Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Ernani and Attila in Ballarat, as well as
Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, Balfe's Bohemian Girl, and Bellini's Norma and La Sonnambula. In
1861 the Italian Opera company returned for further performances. 22
17
Gyger, Civilising the Colonies, pp. 97-98.
18
Others included tenor W Sayers, mezzo soprano Octavia Hamilton, Melbourne bass John Gregg and
French bass Emile Coulon. Details appeared in the Star and the Times in April 1857, June/July 1858,
January/February 1859.
19
Argus, 18 May 1855, p. 6.
20
Gyger, Civilising the Colonies, pp. 40, 52.
21
Details of the opera season appeared in the Star and the Times in December 1858 and January 1859. In
particular see the Times, 28 December 1858, p. 2.
22
Star, 28 February 1860, p. 3, 28 January 1861, p. 3; Love, The Golden Age, p. 29; Gyger, Civilising the
Colonies, pp. 107-108.
186
Giovanna and Eugenio Bianchi performed Italian opera in Ballarat in 1861 and 1862, and
presented what was possibly the first Australian performance of Verdi's Attila. San Francisco
Performing Arts Library and Museum.
Between 1862 and 1866 the Howson family presented fourteen different operas in Ballarat,
including well-known works such as Il Trovatore and lesser known operas such as Verdi's Attila.
In most cases these were truncated versions, presented with minimal chorus, and often sharing
the programme with contrasting musical items. The group consisted of baritone Frank Howson
together with his brother John, a tenor, his two sons, two daughters, and additional artists.23 Frank
and John had been prominent in the musical life of Sydney since the 1840s. In 1866 the Howson
family left for America where they travelled around California with their small company. Emma
Howson was later to become a popular prima donna in London where she created the role of
Josephine in HMS Pinafore, while her brother John also had a successful career as a light opera
singer in London and America.24
Martin and Fannie Simonsen had toured extensively in Europe and America before coming to the
colonies. Fannie had sung with the Opéra Comique in Paris, while Martin made his living as
conductor and violinist. Their first Melbourne appearance was in 1865, and in May 1866 Fannie
won the admiration of Melbourne critics and audiences for her title role in Lucia di Lammermoor.
23
Information from the Star and the Times between December 1862 and February 1866.
24
Love, The Golden Age, p. 29; Gyger, Civilising the Colonies, p. 139.
187
The Simonsens performed in Ballarat in 1867 before making a five-month tour of New Zealand
and a journey back to San Francisco. After their return to Australia in 1870 they brought their
own small opera company to Ballarat in 1871. Fannie's singing career became one of the most
distinguished in Australia, and she is remembered not only for her own contribution to Australian
music, but also as the mother of leading Australian soprano Frances Saville, and the grandmother
of New Zealand born operatic star Frances Alda.25
Most significant, however, in terms of the numbers and quality of the singers, as well as the
impressive nature of the presentations, were the Ballarat visits of Lyster's opera companies.
William Saurin Lyster brought his first group of opera stars from San Francisco to Melbourne in
1861, and was to dominate Australian opera until the 1880s.26 Between 1861 and 1868 the
company visited Ballarat seven times and presented 35 different operas. This can be compared
with the 42 given by the company during the same period in Melbourne, where, however, the
longer seasons meant more repeat performances.27 Lyster's leading singers, soprano Lucy Escott
and tenor Henry Squires, had performed with success in Europe, England and America, and at the
time of their arrival in Australia in 1861 were at the peak of their performing careers.28
Theatregoer William John Furley remembered the pair nostalgically in his memoirs, feeling that
'nothing equalling their performance in Opera has ever been seen in Ballarat'.29
When Lyster returned to Australia in 1870 after his first company had disbanded in California, he
brought five new principals from Italy, including mezzo-soprano Lucinda Chambers. Chambers,
the first Australian born singer to achieve international fame, had been performing in Milan.30
The new company played in the Theatre Royal for thirteen nights in September 1870 and fifteen
nights in August 1871, with the largest operatic troupe that had yet visited Ballarat. Performing
six times a week, they presented a total of sixteen different full-length operas as well as giving
what they claimed to be the first Australian performance of Offenbach's one act opera The Rose
of Auvergne. They were greeted by consistently good houses and an enthusiastic press.31
25
Star, 22 April 1867, p. 3, 4 November 1871, p. 2; Love, The Golden Age, p. 89; Adrienne Simpson,
'Frances Saville: Australia's forgotten prima donna', Australasian Music Research, vol. 4, 1999, pp. 1-32,
'The greatest ornaments of their profession'.
26
See Love, The Golden Age, p. 14, for the story of Lyster and his company.
27
Love, The Golden Age, pp. 116-117.
28
29
Furley, Memoirs.
30
Love, The Golden Age, pp. 189-191.
31
Details appear in the Star and the Courier from 8 September 1870 to 28 September 1870, and from 7
August 1871 to 24 August 1871.
188
Leading singers in Lyster's first operatic company, Lucy Escott and Henry Squires.
189
The performances
All the major opera companies visiting Melbourne gave performances in Victorian country areas,
and Ballarat appears to have been an important touring destination.32 Bellini's La Sonnambula
and Wallace's Maritana were the most frequently performed operas in Ballarat, while the year
with the highest number of operatic performances was 1863 when there was an opera performed
on around eighty-five different nights.33 The most consistently well-attended seasons appear to
have been the Anna Bishop visit in 1856, when the Montezuma theatre was crowded nightly, and
the performances by Lyster's company in the Theatre Royal.
House sizes generally indicate that people preferred the more elaborate operatic productions. The
Howsons' operatic performances were not consistently well attended, and it seems that after
people had become accustomed to Lyster's productions they were less inclined to attend those of
the smaller companies. During the seven-night season given by the Simonsen opera company in
1871 there were four nights with poor houses, and only a fair attendance on the other three
nights. These operas appear to have been minimally presented and there is no mention of scenery,
while the orchestra consisted of only a piano and a violin. After the excellent houses of the Lyster
season earlier in the year the Courier found the poor attendances 'unaccountable', but the Star
surmised that people preferred 'full opera' to simple presentations, however good.34
Theatres provided a range of accommodation and prices. Seats in the Charlie Napier ranged from
1s to 4s in 1858. Dress circle seats at the Theatre Royal ranged from 5s in 1861 to 7s 6d in 1871.
Shilling seats were always available in the gallery.35 Opera was not the prerogative of the elite,
and consistently good attendances in the pit and gallery in 1867 were attributed to the fact that
'good music, as well as howling melodrama hath charms to soothe the occupants of shilling
seats'.36 Yet while people from a wide spectrum of class levels were able to enjoy the same
music, drama and spectacle, they were divided at the moment of performance by firm physical
barriers. In 1858 the Charlie Napier theatre partitioned and covered the best seats, so that wealthy
patrons could enjoy themselves 'without fear of annoyance from persons with whom they do not
care to come into contact'.37 The Theatre Royal made separation a permanent feature. It provided
32
Details of operas and information about attendances can be found in Appendix A.9.
33
A certain flexibility is necessary when quoting figures as some operas that were considerably truncated
would not be considered as full operatic performances, but this was not always evident in the sources.
34
Courier, 7 November, 1871, p. 2; Star, 8 November 1871, p. 2.
35
Times, 29 December 1858, p. 3; Courier, 7 August 1871, p. 3.
36
Star, 1 July 1867, p. 2.
37
Star, 12 July 1858, p. 3.
190
six types of audience accommodation: dress circle, stalls, centre and side boxes, stage boxes,
gallery and pit.38
Audiences were varied by more than their social class. 'Why is it that babies are admitted to the
opera?' enquired a frustrated journalist in 1870 after Madame Simonsen had been forced to
compete with a particularly loud infant in a favourite passage from Flotow's Martha.39 When Mr
Hoskins of the Theatre Royal addressed the audience at the end of La Sonnambula in March
1860, the dogs in the theatre had first to be either silenced or ejected.40 In spite of these nuisances
the silent attention of audiences was often noted, as in January 1859 when 'the utmost interest and
pleasure was depicted on every face; the slightest noise was hushed, and at their conclusion the
applause followed thick and fast'.41 By 1863 even the pit audience at the Charlie Napier, who 'like
old times' would still walk in and out during the performance, or promenade at the sides and rear,
were observed to be quiet and attentive at important moments of the opera.42
In these early operatic productions the libretto and score were treated with certain liberties. It was
not unusual for women to take men's parts. In 1858 Mrs Hancock stepped in to take Mr Gregg's
baritone role in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amour when he was indisposed. Madame Carandini sang
the tenor part of Fra Diavolo in 1859, as did Julia Harland in 1863.43 Alison Gyger reports the
extent to which female singers, in particular Sara Flower and Madame Carandini, performed
male roles in Melbourne and Sydney during the mid 1850s when there was a lack of tenors in
Australia.44 It was not thought unusual for more than one language to be used in a single
performance, as when Anna Bishop sang her part of La Sonnambula in English, while Laglaise
performed his part in Italian.45 There were surprised comments from the critic, however, when
songs extraneous to the opera were introduced. When Madame Simonsen was encored in the last
act of The Barber of Seville in September 1870 at the Theatre Royal, the reporter was startled to
hear the band strike up 'Comin' through the rye'. He liked both the ballad and the singer, he
explained, but felt that the song was not in keeping with the spirit of Rossini's opera.46
38
39
40
Star, 19 March 1860, p. 2.
41
42
Star, 22 April 1863, p. 2.
43
Star, 9 July 1858, p. 3, 5 March 1859, p. 3, 21 July 1863, p. 2.
44
Gyger, Civilising the Colonies, pp. 66, 103.
45
46
191
The experience
There were many reasons for attending the opera, and a range of outcomes from that attendance.
Love points out that the different social structure in colonial Australia meant that opera
attendance did not necessarily perform the same function as in Europe. He discusses a liking for
music and theatre, the desire to participate in a self-improving activity, the use of the theatre for
other purposes such as meeting people or even prostitution, and the desire for social definition or
movement in an upward direction.47 Rather than focusing on its social function, this chapter will
look instead at the aesthetic aspect of the operatic experience, considering its relevance in the
newly established community of Ballarat. Sources leave no doubt that whatever else opera meant
in people's lives, even the simplest performances brought a wealth of beautiful music.
In descriptions of everyday life on the goldfields it is hard to find references to the beautiful.
Written impressions imply that people in the early years lived in an environment of dirt and
ugliness. As English author William Howitt wrote after his visit in 1854:
Ballarat in winter is unquestionably the most dirty place, the most Serbonian Bog, on the
face of the earth. Melbourne at its most sludgy moment is a paradise to it: Kilmore is a clean-
swept floor in comparison with it. From all the hills round the water is perpetually running
down into it; and everywhere along the bottom of the basin it is one deep slough of black
mud and water.48
Five years later Ballarat still had its unpleasant aspects:
The gutters of Ballarat are still a disgrace to the place. Filth of all descriptions, and vari-
colored stagnant waters meet the eye and offend the nasal organs wherever one goes.49
By 1862 there were complaints of another kind, one citizen expressing the opinion that the
alarming number of deaths recently was due to
the immense numbers of swine kept within the municipality, the sickening effluvium from
the numerous pigstyes beyond doubt conduces to a considerable extent in vitiating the air we
all breathe.50
This may not be particularly surprising in a newly established community in mid-nineteenth

century Australia, but people clearly wanted something better. Great efforts were made to bring
beauty into the environment and, particularly after the main business centre was transferred to the
west, Ballarat became a place of visual splendour, both architecturally and botanically. By the
end of the 1860s there were grand and impressive buildings lining the main streets, and many
beautiful gardens. These became a familiar and tangible aspect of the environment, and a
47
Love, The Golden Age, pp. 125, 135-137.
48
Howitt, Land, Labour and Gold, p. 273. For other graphic descriptions of the early goldfields
environment see Annear, Nothing But Gold, in particular chaps. 6, 8,12.
49
50
Star, 6 May 1862, p. 6.
192
constant source of pride and aesthetic satisfaction.51 Opera offered something different—a special
beauty that could never become a part of the daily experience.
In Chapter Four it was seen that music was a way of connecting to elements in the environment
that were related to the beautiful. The aesthetic response to music was enhanced when those
elements formed a contrast with everyday life. 'If everything in the garden were lovely,' writes
John Cargher, 'there would be no bliss in beauty'.52 Opera offered a breadth of sensual
experience, involving music, costumes, special effects, and scenery. The perception of the
beauties of opera was itself manipulated and shaped by the way these were reported. 'Nothing
was so pretty as the fairies and the Oriental ladies', wrote a reporter in 1868, 'they were all
pictures in beautiful colors, and some of them were both poetry and music in motion'.53 An
evocative description of the cathedral scene in the 1867 performance of Roberto Il Diavolo 'with
all its weird and mystic beauty' captures something of the effect:
With lowered lights in the house and on the stage, the long deep-reaching cathedral aisles
lighted up from the sides by a spectral hue of subdued fires, presented a singularly real
effect. The dancing about the ignes fatui ['will-o'-the-wisp'] like torches prior to the rising of
the nuns from their stone monuments, which was capitally managed, and finally the sudden
transformation of grey and monumental forms into beautiful dancing houris, floating,
swimming, smiling, bending in all the "poetry of motion", and all the winsome grace of
while muslin dresses and long veils of snowy purity, were altogether a vision of scenic
enchantment and illusion.54
Attending the opera meant stepping out of the everyday. It involved setting aside time from the
daily routine, attiring oneself appropriately (in most cases), and entering a venue that carried
messages of an out-of-the-ordinary experience. This was particularly the case after the opening of
the Theatre Royal in 1858.
The Theatre Royal became the standard venue for opera in Ballarat. The central location and the
magnificence of the design were felt appropriate for the 'better' class of people who tended to
settle in the western part of town. Full operatic productions could take place in this theatre,
although in some cases without the more elaborate effects that were possible in the larger theatres
of Melbourne and Sydney. Mr St Quentin was the interior designer. His general colour scheme
was white and gold, with the ceiling in a gradually deepening cerulean hue. Around the front of
the dress circle a semicircle of crimson velvet enhanced by gold scroll-work presented a striking
and colourful contrast. In the centre of the white proscenium with its gold trellis-work appeared
the royal coat of arms, while elegant white and gold branched brackets around the house supplied
the gas lighting. Mr Fry's curtain featured a scene from Hamlet, while the act-drop was even
51
See for example, Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999 (first published 1870), p. 185.
52
Cargher, Opera and Ballet in Australia, p. xii.
53
Star, 23 March 1868, p. 3.
193
more impressive, showing a gothic arch, beneath which Shakespeare appeared borne up by all
sorts of mythological persons, while above were dramatis personae from some of his plays.55
The fortunes of the Theatre Royal were mixed. It suffered several periods of closure and changes
of management. For a time it even became the property of the Ballarat District Temperance
League.56 But it remained for many years the venue for most of the operatic performances in
Ballarat, its architecture and interior design a constant reinforcement of its special place at the
pinnacle of Ballarat's theatrical splendour.
Newspaper reports helped to reinforce the thrill of experiencing sights and sounds of ancient and
distant civilisations. Semiramide performed in Italian in June 1867 'marked a resurrection of
gorgeous glories of Babylon', and when Lyster's troupe performed Oberon in March 1868 'in a
moment they put a girdle half round the world for us, and whisked us away to the hot orient, with
its big baggy silk trousers and turbans and veils, and dark eyes and ruddy or pale cheeks, and a
thousand other charms'.57 Costumes, scenery, special effects and language were all part of that
experience.
From the time of Ballarat's first opera season in 1856 the scenery was an important part of
operatic performances:
We must not omit to note the excellent scenic arrangements displayed when the curtain rose
for the opening act of the opera, in which Mr Watts had evidently exercised considerable
talent and ingenuity. If the water and the mill wheel did not, in their flow and revolution,
completely deceive the eye, they were sufficiently illusory to lend a charm of reality to the
scene; while the bridge beyond the mill, and the mountains in the distance, were as like to
natural landscape as we could desire to gaze upon.58
It was not until the Lyster opera productions in the 1860s that this type of scenery became a
standard feature, and even then it was not to be compared with the more elaborate Melbourne
productions. Lyster did sometimes travel with scenery,59 but the scenic artists associated with
local theatres also painted operatic scenes for Ballarat. Among those complimented for their work
were Mr Watts (Montezuma and Theatre Royal), Mr Holmes (Charlie Napier) and Mr Fry
(Theatre Royal).60 Many productions involved several scene changes during an opera. In the 1868
performance of Weber's Oberon the five different scenes depicted views of Baghdad, Tunis, the
54
Star, 25 June 1867, p. 3.
55
Star, 18 December 1858, p. 3; Times, 18 December 1858, p. 3, 28 December 1858, p. 2.
56
Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999 (first published 1870), p. 170.
57
Star, 28 June 1867, p. 3, 23 March 1868, p. 3.
58
59
Geelong Advertiser, 29 September 1870, p. 2.
60
Times, 24 December 1858, p. 3; Star, 11 October 1856, p. 3, 25 January 1859, p. 2, 18 November 1865,
p. 3.
194
Emperor's palace, a sea view and a storm.61 Special visual effects were also admired, such as the
portrayal in the 1870 production of Auber's Masaniello of a 'brilliant theatrical Vesuvian
eruption, preceded by some terrific red and blue property-lightning'.62 The better attendances
during seasons in which companies had the resources to provide effective scenery and effects
suggest that the visual could be a strong attraction.63
Visual appeal. This performance of Masaniello by Lyster's company took place in Melbourne in 1865,
shortly before their Ballarat production. La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria.
Special sound effects brought delighted reactions. In the 1867 production of Meyerbeer's Les
Huguenots these were impressive: 'Ever and anon the clash of the dreadful bell was heard as the
signal to commence fresh slaughter, whilst the shrieks of the dying Huguenots rent the air, and
the audience evinced their approbation by loud applause'.64 Sometimes, however, the special
effects were unfortunate. 'Why do not the directors of such things hit upon a way of pretending to
61
Star, 28 June 1867, p. 3, 23 March 1868, p. 3.
62
63
See Anita Callaway, Visual Ephemera: theatrical art in nineteenth-century Australia, UNSW Press,
Sydney, 2000, for a discussion of the Victorian love of spectacle.
64
Courier, 1 July 1867, p. 2.
195
shoot a man that shall not smother the house with gunpowder smoke?' enquired the Star, 'It is all
very well to get up a strong smell and a good stiff cloud of such vapor when the actors have
nothing to do but bawl in melodrama, but it is a most inconvenient accompaniment in opera'.65
The language of opera served to distance it from the everyday. Catherine Hayes and Anna Bishop
had done much to increase the interest in Italian opera in Australia in the mid 1850s, even in
Sydney where a strong tradition of English ballad opera dated back to the late eighteenth
century.66 Italian opera was popular in Ballarat and was sung in either Italian or English (or both).
The Bianchis performed in Italian, while Lyster's company frequently performed Italian opera in
English. Love observes that this was the preferred language of the company.67 There were many
original language performances in Ballarat but because the language of performance was not
always mentioned in press reports it has not been possible to learn the numbers of performances
given in translation. In the 1867 June/July Lyster season of 25 opera performances, fourteen were
reported to be in English and seven in Italian.
Even when performed in English, libretti did not use the language of the outside world, and the
musical treatment given to the words further emphasised this difference. Repetitions and ornate
passages were a feature, with long choruses often built around a few short phrases⎯a strong
contrast with the directness of the language found in ballads. The sopranos, for example, in the
opening chorus of Maritana, begin as follows:
Sing, pretty maiden, sing,

Sing, pretty maiden, sing,
Sing that lovely song, that lovely song again,
Sing that song, that lovely song again,
Sing that song, that lovely song again, again, again. (etc)
The supernatural brought its own transcendent moments. All the resources of which the
management was capable culminated in the third act of Weber's Der Freischutz in 1871. Even the
weird sisters of Macbeth, it was felt, paled before the supernatural horrors enacted in the
incantation scene:
The moon turns to blood, the bird of night flaps his heavy wings and looks out with eyes of
fire, as white ghosts flit across the bridge, hobgoblins and spectral animals appear in mid air
or traverse the gloom of the ground in the den, and the skeletons of the dead rise from the
earth, or stalk in unearthly horror through the air.68
65
Star, 9 July 1867, p. 2.
66
Crisp, 'Acted and sung in Italian', p. 52.
67
68
196
The opening chorus of Wallace's Maritana, one of the most popular operas performed in
Ballarat before 1871. From undated score of Maritana published by Boosey & Co, London.
197
Oberon and Faust were also noted for their supernatural elements.69 Faust in 1864 made a big
impression. The mechanical effects in the opening and closing scenes were well managed, and
the standing room only audience appeared to be in 'ecstasies of delight at the sight'. But the
popularity of the opera was attributed to a combination of factors:
That this opera should prove to be a great attraction is no wonder, seeing that the
combination of the natural and the supernatural in it lifts the story out of the common class of
production on the stage, and this exerts that resistless fascination of the unknown which tells
so potently upon our common instincts. Such a charm, added to the delights of music and the
attractions of scenic effects which aim at the realization of the supernatural, can hardly fail to
appeal to the general faculty of wonder, and draw crowds whom the mere love of even good
music, skillfully interpreted, would not suffice to move.70
Opera and the supernatural. A performance of Faust by Lyster's company in Melbourne, 1864, three
months before the Ballarat performance. La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria.
Opera offered an experience that was far removed from anything that could be provided locally,
and efforts to set up an amateur opera company in Ballarat were apparently unsuccessful.71 The
impressive line up of professional operatic talent that performed regularly for the people of
69
Star, 23 March 1868, p. 3.
70
71
Star, 18 August 1868, p. 3, 21 August 1868, p. 2.
198
Ballarat, as well as the wide range of operas produced, has never since been equalled, and bears
witness to the fact that mid-nineteenth century Ballarat was involved in more than one type of
'golden age'.
Names recalled in reminiscences indicate the large numbers of opera stars who made lasting
impressions on the opera-going public.72 Veneration for leading singers was evident, and detailed
press reports clearly stimulated a desire to see and hear them in person. A tongue-in-cheek
account of a charity performance in 1868 reads:
It was a peculiarly agreeable sight to see the ladies and gentlemen of the opera troupe au
naturel so to speak, that is, as natural as anything in evening costume can be. There was a
pleasure, a sort of social and homely pleasure, in seeing those artistes on the level of
common people whom we had been accustomed to see in gorgeous or funereal, or fairy garb
as princes, princesses, potentates, monks, nuns, fairies, barbers, chambermaids, and so forth.
The gods had come down to dwell with men.73
The accolades directed towards the leading women in opera contrast strongly with attitudes to
women in other areas of mid-Victorian society. Opera provided a rare opportunity for exceptional
women to give public displays of beauty and brilliance, and audiences frequently expressed their
unconstrained admiration of these women.
Visiting opera singers represented extraordinary powers capable of successfully overcoming

challenges. Roger Covell draws an analogy between the operatic performance and a sporting
event, suggesting that this may have some bearing on the Australian love of opera. People enjoy
performances of vocal athletes who can sing 'louder and higher' and perform 'death defying
leaps'.74 Underlying the thrills associated with citius, altius, fortius75 was the uncertainty that a
technically demanding part would be executed faultlessly. This tension, inherent to a live
performance, brought an element of triumph to successful achievements in opera. It was typical
of the colonial press that both 'thrilling' and 'success' were used to describe solo performances.76
When Madame Simonsen sang the part of Rosina in Rossini's Barber of Seville the Star noted
that 'the rapid vocalisation with which the composer has tried his interpreters in this comic
creation had in Madame Simonsen a lady equal to all its requirements, and her reception during
72
William Furley recalls in particular Lucy Escott, Henry Squires, Georgia Hodson, (later to become Mrs
Lyster), John Gregg, Enrico Dondi, E Farley, Robert Farquharson, Emile Coulon, Julia Harland, JB
Laglaise and the Bianchis. Withers mentions Catherine Hayes, Anna Bishop, the Bianchis, Lucy Escott,
Henry Squires, Walter Sherwin, Madame Carandini and Armes Beaumont, while Mr AT Morrison adds
Madame Simonsen, Emma Howson, Ugo Devoti, Rosalie Durand, John De Haga, Henry Wharton and De
Antoni. Morrison regarded the latter as the 'grandest basso that ever visited Australia' (Furley, Some
Recollections, pp. 7, 9, 15; Furley, 'Memoirs'; Withers, 'The Fine Arts', 9 November 1989, p. 5, 18 January
1890, p. 5; Morrison, 'Thespian reminiscences', Courier, 18 March, 1899, p. 1).
73
Star, 25 March 1868, p. 3.
74
75
The Olympic slogan, 'Faster, higher, stronger'.
199
the evening was frequently enthusiastic, bouquets of flowers and applause marking the success of
her performance'.77
The beautiful voices of the leading singers were matched by their virtuosity, unequalled by the
technical capabilities of local amateurs. Madame Bishop was admired for her 'long sustained
trills, and chromatic scales, with those felicitously executed piano staccato notes'.78 In 1862
Rosalie Durand, in the first Ballarat performance of Rossini's Cinderella impressed the audience
with a set of difficult and brilliant variations she introduced into the opera, composed and
arranged by Madame Feron. 'These passages were rendered with extraordinary facility and
brought down thunders of applause and a universal call for repetition which had to be and was
complied with'.79 Lucy Escott was another highly admired prima donna. 'With a voice at once
pure, sweet and flexible, the most florid passages as well as the simpler arias are given by this
lady with so charming a flow of bird-like melody that the hushed house spontaneously bursts into
cheers whenever a pause affords a fitting opportunity'.80
Admiration of extraordinary ability was also directed to the composers. 'No musical ear could
have listened to the joyous or fiery choruses, to the wailing or triumphant solos, or to that most
moving of opening instrumental harmonies of Semiramide and not wonder at the genius that
could compass such creations', wrote a reporter in 1867.81 After a performance of L'Africaine in
1867, Meyerbeer was said to be 'the Michael Angelo of musical art'.82 Operas were commonly
described using epithets such as magnificent, thrilling, delicious, sublime, majestic, divine,
immortal, exquisite, grand and rousing.
Operas dealt with many of the situations encountered in real life, presenting themes of love,
tragedy, intrigue and politics. But the totality of the experience with which opera brought these
themes to the public carried a form of heightened emotional intensity that was unusual in
everyday life. The association of music, drama, spectacle and auditorial space together with the
stimulation of large audiences carried a strong impact. 'People do not go to the opera to learn
history', wrote the critic from the Star, 'but to be charmed with exquisite music exquisitely sung
76
For example Star, 20 July 1867, p. 2. Also see the Melbourne reviews of Lyster's 1862 production of Les
Huguenots, quoted in Love, The Golden Age, pp. 60-67.
77
78
79
Star, 2 June 1862, p. 5.
80
Star, 27 July 1864, p. 3.
81
Star, 28 June 1867, p. 3.
82
Star, 2 July 1867, p. 2.
200
and played, with motion and color and spectacle, in all their diverting varieties and
combinations'.83
Deficiencies that hindered this process were a matter for comment. Rarely did a reporter allow a
performance to pass without criticising an artist or an aspect of the production. A singer who did
not perform to a satisfactory level was usually told so:
We cannot regard Miss King as a valuable acquisition to the company, for that lady appears
to have but little genius for histrionic business … on one or two occasions the artiste in
question has appeared to be so thoroughly ill at ease in her part as to detract in no small
degree from the pleasantness of the general effect produced.84
Sometimes the criticisms seemed particularly exacting:
When Christian, a sailor, inquires how much he is to give her for her prophetic information
and she replies "Two dollars", the words were jerked out with a most unmusical sound.85
Orchestras played too loudly, or too softly, and sometimes favourite arias were not sung
according to expectations. In 1870, for example, Mr Farley's performance of 'The heart bowed
down' from The Bohemian Girl 'made everybody unpleasantly melancholy, for it was sung
without expression or vigor'.86
Reporters often appeared to delight in bringing production hitches to the attention of the wider
public. Accounts, such as that of an 1859 performance of Norma, were common in the early
years. First of all 'the funeral pyre which should not burn till the end of the opera, shot up
galvanically in the middle of the act to the astonishment of everybody'. Then the chorus was slow
to come on after leading soprano Julia Harland struck the gong. 'Miss Harland was on both
occasions when she struck it, obliged to stamp impatiently, and call to the members of the chorus
before they came on, so that Pollio might have escaped had he been so minded'.87
Even the principal members of Lyster's opera company were found guilty of a 'too frequent
forgetfulness of the minutiae of decorum'. There were smiles of recognition, little conversations
not sufficiently hidden from the audience, and 'glances of unrevealed significance'.88 A repeated
concern was the behaviour of the members of the chorus. 'But let us implore the merry girls of
the chorus', wrote a journalist, 'not to laugh in scenes when neither Gounod, not Goethe, not even
that sardonic Mephistopheles himself, would sanction anything comic, as for instance when
83
84
85
Courier, 8 July 1867, p. 2.
86
87
88
201
Valentino is found dead, and the dirge music is going on in the cathedral'.89 By 1871 the situation
had improved: 'We were glad to notice that the effect of the "Angelus" was not marred as it
sometimes is by the silly levity of some obscure members of the chorus who forget their business
and gape about and giggle instead of preserving the demeanor proper to the music and the
occasion'.90
Audiences too were expected to conform to the rules of the theatre, and lapses of decorum
brought frequent reprimands. After a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor in 1858 the Star
recommended that 'a certain class of women will not in future be allowed to annoy the more
respectable portion of the audience during performances'.91 Smoking was a frequent concern. In
the July 1864 opera season a gallery spectator complained that he was the only one troubling to
put out the burning papers dropped on the floor matting, and another remarked that the gallery
was more like the tap-room of a public house than the gallery of a theatre – 'as far as smoking and
spitting goes'. 'A Lover of Good Music' found the 'disgusting conduct of certain women'
unacceptable, for 'the filthiest language' could sometimes be heard, but 'a Voice from the Pit'
replied that although he had been in the pit every evening of the opera season, he had seldom
seen 'the class alluded to' interfering with respectable people. Similar complaints were noted in
Melbourne and Adelaide.92 Such comments became less frequent towards the end of the 60s, as
audiences learned to assume a more fashionable type of theatrical behaviour. Observations about
unsuitable audience behaviour, or sub-standard performances, helped distance opera from the
more spontaneous entertainment of the concert rooms. Experiences of enjoyable operatic
entertainment were tempered by a quest for excellence that permeated reports and contributed to
the elevation of opera into a high art form.
By 1871 opera in Ballarat had distanced itself considerably from the first operatic endeavours of
1856. The distinction between 'high' and 'low' musical culture was more blurred than it became
later in the century, and opera had not yet fully attained the quasi-religious status it came to
command—a process referred to by Lawrence Levine as 'sacralisation'.93 It was not yet
customary to lower the lights during a performance, and a hushed audience reception was far
from standard. But opera now took place in a building dedicated to the more élite forms of
culture. Audience behaviour was becoming more restrained, quiet and respectful. Only operas
that offered the total experience provided by an efficient chorus and orchestra, brilliant artists,
elaborate costumes, appropriate scenery and suitable stage effects were now likely to attract large
89
Star, 26 June 1867, p. 3.
90
91
Star, 19 June 1858, p. 3.
92
Star, 28 July 1864, p. 3, 30 July 1864, p. 3; Love, The Golden Age, p. 134.
93
Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow, pp. 85-168.
202
audiences. As adaptations and cuts became less common and less acceptable, operas were seen
less as resources to be freely adapted for the entertainment of the public, than the inviolable
master works of genius composers.
The division between popular entertainment and opera was echoed in the memoirs of
contemporary observers. Coxon, the comic vocalist 'made a wonderful hit' at the John O' Groat
concert room, recalled Mr AT Morrison, but those who heard opera stars Ugo Devoti and Pietro
De Antoni 'have a remembrance that they should be everlastingly grateful for'. Thirty years after
witnessing their performances, Mr Morrison had not forgotten the 'golden age':
In those days we enjoyed high-class opera like "Le Prophete", "Les Huguenots", "Le Nozze
di Figaro", "L'Africaine". Madame Simonsen's great scena beneath the upas tree is a
recollection marked with a white stone. Can it have been that we were younger and fresher,
or was the music better interpreted in those days? At any rate, it cannot be heard now.94
* * *
The operas brought to Ballarat by visiting companies were popular with a wide spectrum of the
community, and made their own contribution to the broad musical panorama of colonial life.
Many of the social and cultural aspects of opera were common to audiences throughout Australia,
but the local setting had its own significant impact. Opera in Ballarat took place amid the wealth,
excitement and uncertainty generated by gold. Those living in the instability of such an
environment may well have been particularly receptive to this valued aspect of the home culture.
Something of the excitement typical of the uninhibited entertainment of the early concert rooms
also appears to have been channelled into a passion for opera and legitimate drama.
Regular detailed reports that appeared regularly in the newspapers were themselves a formative
influence that shaped contemporary thought and experience. The constant depiction of the
beauties and wonders of opera promised readers a form of entertainment that provided significant
aesthetic experiences. Contributing to the 'special' moments that opera brought into people's lives
were a level of skill and professionalism that far exceeded local talent, the occasional rather than
the regular contact, the emotions generated by the music, the lavish decoration of the theatre, the
stimulation of large appreciative audiences, and the combined impact of drama, sound, spectacle
and lighting. Through their various reactions to the combination and interaction of these
elements, people could find in opera their own moments of beauty and splendour, and distance
themselves temporarily from the mundane reality of the everyday.
94
'Thespian reminiscences', 18 March, 1899, p. 1.
203
A TASTE OF THE SUBLIME: THE CHORAL SOCIETIES

The Ballarat Philharmonic Society, led by conductor Austin Turner, held its first rehearsal in
March 1858. Three months later the choir gave a public performance of the first part of Handel's
Messiah, selections from parts two and three, and a collection of glees and madrigals. This was
the first major choral performance given in Ballarat, and was presented on two successive
evenings to large crowds. 'Scarce three months old and the society advertise their first
performance this evening at the Montezuma Theatre, with a band and chorus of nearly 100
performers!' boasted the Star. The Times was also impressed and concluded that, judging from
the high standard achieved, the ladies and gentlemen of the society must have previously been
well trained in other similar societies.95
Several Australian scholars have noted the social and educational role of choral societies in
colonial Australia, including Roger Covell, Thérèse Radic, Noel Wilmott, Peter Campbell and
Jennifer Hill.96 Evidence from Ballarat confirms the fact that choral societies fulfilled a range of
social functions. A sense of pride in the musical achievements of the city was frequently stated,
as was the role of choirs in the instruction and education of the people.97 This thesis considers the
social implications of music making in Chapters Four, Five and Seven, and focuses in this
chapter on the transcendent and the aesthetic aspects of music in the community. First, however,
it is necessary to look briefly at the background of the choral societies.
The background
Ballarat's choral societies were an extension of the nineteenth-century English choral movement.
The few surviving records of membership, and contemporary reports, suggest that the ranks were
formed largely of members who had a familiarity with the culture of English choral practices.
Repertoire, voice types, rehearsal and performance conventions display a close relationship
between Ballarat societies and their English counterparts.
Among the driving forces behind the rise of choral societies in nineteenth-century England was
the conviction that music was an effective force for good. Dave Russell notes the contemporary
95
Star, 23 June 1858, p. 3, 23 June 1858, p. 4; Times, 25 June 1858, p. 3. As a point of comparison,
Melbourne's first Messiah was presented by the newly formed Melbourne Philharmonic Society in the
Mechanics' Institution, Collins St on 24 December 1853 (WA Carne, A Century of Harmony: the official
centenary history of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society,
Melbourne, 1954, pp. 22-26).
96
Covell, Australia's Music, pp. 17-19; Radic, 'Aspects of organized amateur music', pp. 120-278;
Wilmott, 'Choirs and choral music'; Campbell, Choral singing'; Jennifer Hill, '"A source of enjoyment"; the
social dimension of the Melbourne Liedertafels in the late nineteenth century', Nineteenth-Century Music
Review, vol 2. no. 2, 2005, pp. 77-105.
97
See for example the Star, 23 June 1858, p. 3, 18 June 1870, p. 3, 17 September 1859, p. 2, 28 January
1860, p. 2, 27 December 1867, p. 2.
204
view of music as an object of social utility as well as a form of artistic experience. The strength
of this belief was such that it became highly influential in shaping the framework of Victorian
musical culture. Choirs gave people from the working classes opportunities to participate in
performances of great masterpieces created by composers of genius. Leisure time could be filled
with healthy and improving activity, and there were opportunities for contact with people of
higher social classes. Russell queries the claim that choirs were largely working class institutions,
his study finding that a cross-class membership was far more common, ranging from people of
the skilled working classes to those of the upper middle class.98
A strong belief in the value of 'rational recreation' formed a background to the development of
choral music in Australia, and is reflected in scholarly accounts.99 'From this teeming, rawboned
town the Philharmonic Society set out on its stately and virtuous journey', writes Thérèse Radic
of the Melbourne Philharmonic Society.100 Roger Covell sees the nineteenth-century choral
societies as embodying the ideals of the Victorian sight-singing movements, and notes the
contemporary conviction that these societies carried great value as a means of human
improvement.101 Deborah Crisp's study of the music of an Australian town in the mid-nineteenth
century found that the choral society was regarded as a desirable aspect of the cultural life of the
community, for as well as bringing musical benefits it was also a means of social contact, a
source of civic pride, and a way of maintaining British traditions.102 The Oxford Companion to
Australian Music confirms the findings of these scholars that the choral society was regarded as a
respectable institution that brought social benefits to the community.103
Unlike opera, no contemporary reminiscences of choral music were found. In the archives of the
Ballarat Historical Society are programmes, annual reports, one list of members' names, and sets
of rules. The Mechanics' Institute has references to some performances held in their hall.
Historian WB Withers writing in 1870 mentions details of the societies and their leaders. But
most of the contemporary detail was found in the local newspapers, where programmes,
attendances and audience reactions were discussed in detail, along with background information
about composers and works performed as well as detailed descriptions and evaluations of the
performances. The wealth of information contained in these reports enables us to ascertain
something of the significance of choral music for contemporary Ballarat society.
98
Russell, Popular Music in England, pp. 17, 199-221.
99
Rational recreation, and the sight singing movements of nineteenth-century Britain are discussed in more
detail in chap. 7.
100
Radic, 'Aspects of organised amateur music in Melbourne, p. 124.
101
102
Crisp, 'Amateurs and professionals', pp. 103-40.
103
Noel Wilmott, 'Choirs and choral music', in Bebbington (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Australian
Music.
205
The history
Choirs were established in Ballarat within a few years of the gold discoveries. One of the first
regular groups was Mr Finlay's 'choral society', formed before the end of 1852.104 In addition to
those associated with religious institutions, a German choir had been formed by 1856 and an
early Ballarat Choral Society by 1857. Three Welsh choirs were performing by the end of
1857.105 These and other choirs are listed in Appendix B.6. This chapter looks at the choirs that
identified themselves with Ballarat, rather than with one particular ethnic or religious group, and
were thus regarded as a part of the musical life of the city.
The Ballarat Philharmonic, formed under the leadership of local professional musician Austin
Turner, was the largest and most prominent of the early choirs. The Philharmonic became a
popular attraction and performed to mixed audiences. Those who crowded the Theatre Royal
'from pit to ceiling' on 16 September 1859 to listen to Judas Maccabaeus, for example, included
'nearly all the "beauty and fashion" of our city' in the dress circle and boxes, while at the same
time the stalls, pit and gallery were crowded with 'equally eager and perchance equally
appreciative bands of listeners'.106 Works presented, while ambitious for a young society, were
typical of the standard English choral repertoire. They were written by highly respected
composers, and were almost exclusively sacred. Appendix A.3 has details of all major
performances given by the Philharmonic.
Not everyone could join the Ballarat Philharmonic, and those who did so had to agree to certain
conditions. New applicants had to be proposed, seconded and approved by a majority of the
membership, a requirement that suggests the importance of maintaining a suitable level of social
respectability. They were also required to pass a musical test to the approval of the leader or
conductor. Rehearsal times were from 7.30 until 10 pm, and no discussion was permitted during
the practice of music. Members ('ladies excepted') were expected to pay not only a fee of ten
shillings to join the choir, but also a weekly subscription of one shilling. In January 1862 the
weekly payment was replaced by an annual fee of one guinea, payable in advance.107
104
Withers, 'Our past and present', 24 October 1856, p. 1.
105
Times, 24 May 1856, p. 1; Star, 8 January 1857, p. 3; Times, 29 December 1857, p. 2.
106
107
Rules of the Ballaarat Philharmonic Society, Ballarat Historical Society collection; Ballarat
Philharmonic Society Fourth Annual Report, Star, 17 January 1862, p. 2.
206
Ballarat Historical Society Collection.
It was usual to invite outsiders to take some of the solo roles for major performances, and
professional singers or leading amateurs from Melbourne regularly took part. While most
performances used a female as the contralto soloist, it became more common after 1861 for a boy
alto to do the solo roles. Master Hamilton Nicholls first appeared in August 1861, singing some
of the alto solos in Judas Maccabaeus, and he again took the alto lead in The Creation in April
1862.108 The alto section of the choir was made up, at least in part, by boys trained by Mr
Turner.109 Performing numbers ranged upwards from a total of fifty, including soloists, choir and
orchestra and, unlike the Harmonic Society that was established in 1863, appear not to have
exceeded one hundred.110
Despite an apparently flourishing concert schedule, the Philharmonic enjoyed only a brief
existence, and Mr Turner resigned in May 1862, due partly, he claimed, to the 'misguided zeal
and factious spirits' of some of the members. The society attempted to carry on without him, but
108
Star, 31 August 1861, p. 2, 21 April 1862, p. 6.
109
Star, 30 October 1863, p. 3, 31 October 1863, p. 3, 2 November, 1863, p. 3.
207
finally disbanded without giving any further major performances.111 The growing tensions and
disharmony that led to its demise had been apparent for some time. Some members had sat in the
audience rather than taking their places with the choir in August 1860, prompting the Star to
suggest that this was due to the 'sensitive liability to discord inherent in all musical
associations'.112 This attitude was further evident in 1861 when many members chose not to
attend the Christmas performance of the Messiah.113 A gradual decline in the number of
performers is also evident, and in the fourth annual report (1862) a concern was expressed about
the apathy shown by members and the irregularity of their attendance at rehearsals.114
In October 1863 members of the former Philharmonic, together with some other singers, met
under the leadership of John Robson, a twenty-five year old member of the former choir, and
presented a concert of oratorio selections to a large audience in the Mechanics' Institute. The
stated aim of the concert was to raise money for St Paul's church organ, while at the same time
gathering together all the available musical talent in Ballarat with the intention of forming a new
society. Within three weeks of the concert it was announced that a new choir had been formed,
with Mr Robson as conductor.115
The new choir was known as the Ballarat Harmonic Society, and Mr Robson remained as
conductor for three years, his youth and amateur status apparently no barrier to the ambitions of
the society. When he resigned from his position in 1866 the choir had performed Handel's
Messiah, Samson and Judas Maccabaeus, Haydn's Creation and The Seasons, Mendelssohn's St
Paul, Romberg's Lay of the Bell, and given several miscellaneous concerts.116
Meanwhile, two other choral groups had been formed in Ballarat. Mr Turner's Ballarat Vocal
Union also seems to have had only a brief existence,117 as did the Ballarat Choral Society, under
Carl Schmitt. The latter society (there had also been an earlier choir of the same name) was a
large choir that eventually numbered around 150 performing members, its repertoire based on
secular and operatic music. After their first concert in July 1866 it was observed that 'the music
contrasted strongly with the sober stately procession of sacred passages which the elder society
has given us from time to time with such gratifying success'.118 In 1867 the Choral Society
110
111
Star, 23 May 1862, p. 2, 4 November 1863, p. 3.
112
Star, 1 September 1860, p. 2,
113
114
115
Star, 24 October 1863, p. 2, 31 October 1863, p. 3, 14 November 1863, p. 2; Courier, 15 January 1910,
p. 7.
116
Details of these performances and references are given in Appendix A.3.
117
Star, 20 June 1863, p. 2.
118
Star, 4 July 1866, p. 3.
208
performed a major part of Balfe's The Bohemian Girl to a crowded audience in the Mechanics'
Institute, and began to work on a full concert presentation of Wallace's Maritana.119 But before
this could be achieved, conductor Herr Schmitt announced to the society that he had found it
necessary to retire from his teaching and musical engagements in Ballarat upon the
recommendation of his medical adviser.120 Mr Turner was invited to take over the position of
conductor, and he led the two performances of Maritana in the Mechanics' Institute in June.121
These appear to have been the last public appearances of the Ballarat Choral Society.
The Harmonic Society continued to dominate the choral scene and to carry on the tradition
established by the Philharmonic. Entrance tests were maintained—the standard was said to be
almost prohibitively high in 1868122 —but fees were reduced to two shillings per month (once
again, 'ladies excepted').123 A gradual increase in membership is evident, the seventy-six
members in 1865 increasing to one hundred in 1870. Figures given in annual reports indicate that
the proportion of the voice parts also gradually changed. In the first year there were twenty-nine
sopranos and altos on the roll, and thirty-nine tenors and basses, while in the following year there
were thirty-five sopranos and altos and thirty tenors and basses. The trend continued, and average
attendances at rehearsals in 1870 showed a ratio of 3:2 in favour of the sopranos and altos.124
As in the Philharmonic Society, boys took some of the alto solos in performances. Master J Cook
of the Melbourne Philharmonic sang in the society's first performance, his 'fine alto voice …
heard to much advantage in the air "O Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion"'.125 It was, however,
local Ballarat boy Titus Elliott who became the principal boy soloist with the society during this
period, and from the first he captured the hearts of the audience. He was described as
a smart little vocalist who has been brought up in St Paul's choir. He is a credit to his tutor,
and was a great acquisition indeed to Monday's concert, in which he took the alto parts with
the modesty fitting his years, but with the nerve and promptitude of a man. In his first effort
he led the alto air "O Thou that tellest good tidings," with the chorus on the same subject, and
he afterwards bore efficient part in the quartettes in the last division of the work, but his great
success was in the pathetic and difficult air, "He was despised and rejected of men." In this
he sang every note with a fine clear voice, with the nicest attention to time and tune, and with
much of the manner that is indicative of true taste and of appreciation of the tearful pathos of
119
120
Star, 20 March 1867, p. 2. In the same report it was noted that Herr Schmitt had accepted a position
with professional singer and actress Julia Mathews, and was to proceed to England with her as composer,
arranger and musical director.
121
Star, 11 June 1867, p. 3, 12 June 1867, p. 2.
122
123
Rules of the Ballarat Harmonic Society, Ballarat Historical Society collection.
124
First, Second and Sixth Annual Reports of the Ballarat Harmonic Society, Ballarat Historical Society
collection.
125
Star, 28 March 1864, p. 3.
209
the theme. As we have hinted, the singing of this air was received with a burst of applause of
the heartiest description, and the little fellow was got to repeat it.126
Titus Elliott was active as an alto soloist until 1869, singing parts in Messiah, Samson, Macbeth,
The Creation, Mozart's Twelfth Mass and St Paul.127 In 1871 a new boy, Master Johnson, made
his first appearance.128 References to the 'adult voices' in the chorus suggest that the alto parts, as
in the former society, were at least partly sung by boys.129
Ballarat was fortunate that there were several capable male soloists associated with the choral
societies. Peter Cazaly (bass), and Daniel Oliver (tenor), took leading roles in both the
Philharmonic and the Harmonic Societies. In 1864 Samuel Lamble made his first appearance as a
bass soloist. Both Mr Cazaly and Mr Lamble made guest appearances with the Melbourne
Philharmonic, and Mr Lamble was said to have sung with the latter society forty-nine times.130
There were fewer female soloists capable or willing to take leading roles, and professional
singers were usually engaged for these parts.
Mr Turner took over the leadership of the Harmonic Society in 1866, and led it throughout the
rest of the period covered in this thesis. Between 1866 and the end of 1871 the choir gave
performances of Samson, The Lay of the Bell, Locke's music to Macbeth, The Creation, Rossini's
Stabat Mater, Mozart's Twelfth Mass, The Seasons, Messiah, St Paul, Spohr's The Last Judgment
and Birch's operetta The Merrie Men of Sherwood Forest. A new direction for the society—
perhaps inspired by the successful performances of the Ballarat Choral Society—was the
presentation of opera. Between 1869 and 1871 the Harmonic Society gave several concert
performances of the operas Ernani, The Bohemian Girl, Lucrezia Borgia, and La Sonnambula.131
The Harmonic Society was credited with being the first amateur society to present concert
performances of full opera in Victoria, and a suggestion was made that it may have been the first
in Australia.132 Yet in 1867 the Ballarat Choral Society had presented The Bohemian Girl and
Maritana, complete with choir, soloists and orchestral accompaniment. The Harmonic Society
performances were, however, given in a grand style in the large Alfred Hall, with invited soloists
and orchestral players from Melbourne assisting the local musicians. Shortly after Ernani was
performed the Melbourne Philharmonic Society gave its first operatic presentation—also
126
127
Star, 27 December 1865, p. 2, 22 April 1867, p. 4, 22 June 1867, p. 2, 27 December 1867, p. 2, 13 April
1868, p. 4, 26 March 1869, p. 3.
128
Star, 10 April 1871, p. 3.
129
130
Radic, 'Aspects of organized amateur music', 1868, p. 174.
131
Star, 8 February 1867, p. 3, 22 April 1867, p. 4, 22 June 1867, p. 2, 27 December 1867, p. 2, 13 April
1868, p. 4, 22 August 1868, p. 2, 28 December 1868, p. 4, 30 March 1869, p. 4, 18 April 1870, p. 2, 2
September 1871, p. 3; Withers 'The fine arts', 25 January 1890.
132
Star, 18 September 1869, p. 2; Withers 'The Fine Arts', 25 January 1890.
210
Ernani—borrowing Ballarat's music and using Ballarat's male soloists Peter Cazaly and Samuel
Lamble.133
From the first Messiah in 1858 until Samson in 1871 an accompanying orchestra was integral to
all choral performances. Twenty-seven instrumentalists took part in the early Messiah, but it was
more usual for orchestras to number between fifteen and twenty. Professional players were hired
from Melbourne, Geelong, and Ballarat theatre orchestras, and attended only the final rehearsals.
A pianist or harmonium player acted as accompanist for most rehearsals, and also took part in the
final performance. A typical orchestra in the later years was the following one that accompanied
the Harmonic Society in the Alfred Hall in November 1870:
Strings: 2 first violins, 2 second violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 double bass;

Woodwind: 2 flutes, 1 clarionet, 1 bassoon;
Brass: 1 horn, 2 cornets, 1 trombone;
Percussion: 2.134
The leaders
Much of this busy choral activity between 1858 and 1871 was due to the leadership of two men,
one professional and one amateur, who demonstrated outstanding musical and/or leadership
skills.
Austin Turner arrived in Ballarat towards the end of 1857 as singing master to the
Denominational Schools, and was to play a leading role in the musical life of Ballarat for a
quarter of a century as a teacher, performer, composer, conductor and music seller. He had been a
chorister and later director of the choir in Lincoln Cathedral, and came to Victoria in 1854.135 Mr
Turner's work in schools, churches and choral societies as well as his musical compositions were
set firmly within an English framework. He was described by Withers as a 'little, neat, nervous,
quick-speaking, quick-actioned man', and he appears to have been held in high respect by the
local community. Mrs Turner was also musical and regularly sang solos in public. Such was Mr
Turner's close association with music, that even his pet magpie could sing up and down the scale
and perform snatches of songs and operatic arias.136
Mr Turner's contribution to the musical life of Ballarat was considerable but, in spite of the
esteem in which he was held in the community, there are suggestions that not all choir members
found him a likeable leader. When he was appointed conductor of the Harmonic Society in 1866
133
Argus, 9 September 1869, p. 5; Star, 5 March 1870, p. 2.
134
Times, 19 August 1858, p. 3; Star, 27 December 1861, p. 5, 8 November 1870, p. 2,
135
James Brown Duff, British Musical Biography, Birmingham, 1897, p. 419, quoted in Jennifer Royle,
'Musical (ad)venturers; colonial composers and composition in Melbourne, 1870-1901', Nineteenth-
Century Music Review, vol 2. no. 2, 2005, p. 133.
211
the Star reported that 'having imparted more than usual composure into his manner of conducting
than is usual with him, he was successful in enlisting the respectful attention and obedience of the
musical forces before and at each side of him'. Perhaps a hint of why his former choral society
had broken up four years earlier is indicated in the next statement: 'If he adheres to his increased
severity of demeanor the society will have no reason to regret the necessary retirement of its
former capable though non-professional conductor'.137 When Mr Turner took over the leadership
of the Ballarat Choral Society from Herr Schmitt in 1867 only around eighty performers from a
membership of around 150 took part in the next performance.138 It is something of a paradox that
local music making is often dependent on strong personalities, yet strong personalities often
generate conflict in small communities. Reading between the lines of contemporary reports, and
also the occasional letters written by Mr Turner to the local papers, an impression is formed of a
capable musician whose leadership skills did not always match his musical abilities.139
Very few of Austin Turner's compositions appear to have survived.140 When his other musical
duties in Ballarat are taken into account his output, as reported, was quite extensive.
Compositions performed in Ballarat ranged from settings of services and responses for the
Church of England liturgy,141 to popular songs and a march for the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh
in 1867. Mr Turner bequeathed the following original compositions to his nephew, the violinist
Ernest King:
Two masses with vocal and instrumental scores one in D and the other in A also a sacred
cantata "Adoration" and a secular one "Victoria" with vocal and instrumental scores and a
choral song entitled "The Australian Song of Progress" or "A Vision of the Future" about
twenty five songs and about a dozen part songs and glees with two pieces for the Piano
including several marches and waltzes.142
In 1874 Mr Turner conducted the Melbourne Philharmonic Society in a performance of his new
sacred cantata Adoration. In 1879 his Grand Mass in D was performed for the unveiling of the
altar at St Francis' church, Melbourne, and later in St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.143 The
Melbourne Philharmonic also performed Victoria in 1881. After the 1874 performance of
Adoration the press considered Turner to be among the best of local (Victorian) composers,
136
WB Withers, 'The fine arts', 18 January, 1890, p. 5; Star, 25 September 1860, p. 2.
137
138
Star, 20 March 1867, p. 2, 11 June 1867, p. 3.
139
See for example a letter from Mr Turner in the Star, 4 November 1863, p. 3, with its patronising attitude
towards the conducting abilities of young amateur musician John Robson.
140
Two songs written in the period of this study appear in Appendix D. The author also has a copy of a
four-part chorus for male voices written somewhat later. Efforts to trace other compositions were
unsuccessful.
141
For example the Star, 16 May 1859, p. 3, reports the singing of Turner's Te Deum and Jubilate in Christ
Church.
142
The author is indebted to Peter Freund, theatre historian at Her Majesty's Theatre Ballarat, for providing
this information from Mr Turner's will.
143
No score of either work has yet been found.
212
together with Horsley and Siede. Adoration was an ambitious work, and one of only a few local
compositions of such magnitude. It was said to be highly derivative, yet commended because it
was inspired by the works of great composers.144 Mr Turner himself acknowledged that from his
long association with church music he may have 'caught the spirit' of Tallis.145
John Robson: a popular leader.

Picture courtesy Peter Freund.
John Robson arrived in Ballarat in 1856 at the age of eighteen, working first in mining and then
as a teacher, before commencing a career in banking. Although music for him was a hobby,
rather than a profession, he devoted much time and energy to sharing his talents as a conductor
and a performer. He became honorary secretary to the Ballarat Philharmonic Society and was a
member of St Paul's choir. It was under his leadership that the Philharmonic Society attempted to
carry on after Mr Turner's resignation in 1862, and he successfully led the Ballarat Harmonic
Society for the first three years (1863-1866). He also took over the job of conductor of the choir
144
Radic, 'Aspects of organised amateur music', pp. 301, 318; John H Byrne, Echoes of Home: music at St
Francis' 1845-1995, St Francis' Choir, Melbourne, 1995, p. 69; Royle, 'Musical (ad)venturers', pp. 133-34.
145
Star, 8 May 1868, p. 3.
213
when Mr Turner had a serious accident in 1869.146 Reports suggest that Mr Robson was a
competent amateur musician and a charismatic leader. 'Mr Turner's unavoidable absence was the
cause of a little pleasant surprise in getting Mr John Robson … to once more wield the baton'
commented the Courier after a performance in 1870.147 Mr Robson's work with the Liedertafel
(after the period of this study) was so appreciated that the society erected a large tombstone over
his grave in the Ballarat Old Cemetery.148
Withers gave the following comparison of the leadership qualities of Mr Turner and Mr Robson.
Robson's was 'a more masterful baton than Turner's was. Turner had a nicer subjective feeling,
perchance, and was, it may be, the completer master of constructive technique, but Robson is
more magnetic as a leader, has more objective force, and excels as a potent, and all providing
organiser'.149
Mr Turner moved to Sydney in the 1880s, but Mr Robson remained in Ballarat until his death in
1910, well respected for his roles as a successful banker, amateur musician, choral conductor,
actor and churchman.150
The performances
The quality of Ballarat's choral leadership was such that choirs were able to perform a similar
choral repertoire to that of English societies. Works chosen were generally the creations of highly
regarded composers who had devoted time, skill and training to producing what were promoted
heavily in the press as great masterpieces. Newspapers described these works as 'spiritual',
'uplifting' and 'sublime'. Opera, it was felt, was 'moulded to suit modern tastes'151 but oratorio had
an eternal quality that took on something of the divine. This was particularly obvious when
reporting performances of the Messiah, and papers revelled in such phrases as 'the sublime strains
of Handel's immortal legacy to the Christian world'.152
Such comments dominated press reports, and should not be dismissed as meaningless hyperbole.
Clearly there was an expectation to promote what was British, respectable, Christian and moral,
but it is false to assume that because of this the reports bore no relevance to reality. Newspapers
146
Star, 31 December 1868, p. 2, 15 July 1870, p. 2.
147
Courier, 27 December 1870, pp. 2-3.
148
Courier, 15 January 1910, p. 7.
149
Withers, 'The fine arts', 18 January 1890, p. 5; the comments lead one to ask whether the fact that Mr
Turner had long since left Ballarat, and Mr Robson was still present and active, influenced Withers'
comment, and also if there could have been a higher degree of tolerance for an amateur musician.
150
Withers, 'The fine arts', 18 January 1890, p. 5; Courier, 15 January 1910, p. 7, 24 January 1910, p. 6.
151
152
214
were a part of contemporary culture rather than apart from it, and because response to music is
culture-related, their remarks enable us to approach the meaning of music from a contemporary
rather than a later perspective. Even readers who never attended a choral performance were
confronted repeatedly with the concept that choral music represented an experience of beauty, the
achievement of which demanded first of all a creator of genius, and then an outstanding degree of
dedication and ability on the part of the performers. If we approach music as one part of a total
cultural milieu, it is possible to recognise the role of the newspapers in shaping not only the
understanding of beauty, but also the musical experience itself.153
Choral music was said to move people deeply. 'It does the heart good,' wrote a reporter in 1861,
'to listen to that great work, and to feel an indescribable thrill pass through the entire form as its
sublime or pathetic passages alternately work upon the inner man'.154 Descriptions of audience
responses suggest they felt something of this power. Throughout the period they listened with
'hushed attention', were 'fairly electrified', or reacted with 'a perfect storm of applause'.155
An 1869 description of the conductor of the Ballarat Harmonic Society at work depicts an intense
focus on the music, and suggests the erasure of all but the aesthetic at the moment of
performance:
He poises [his baton] in the air, and keeps all on the alert, down it descends, and instantly the
music of sweet harmony begins; he gently leads his troupe through the soft and piano
passages of the music, gradually conducts them with increased energy to the loud crashing
fortissimos, and so long as he holds on to his staff, the obedient vassals sustain their notes,
but the slightest twitch of the magic rod restores silence instantaneously. You may see him,
too, soothing down with his left hand in the most persuasive manner those performers who
are inclined to be predominant; and again, looking sternly, almost fiercely, at those that he
wishes to come out strong, he produces a hurricane of noise.156
While beauty was found in the voices of the singers, whether soloists or choristers, it was usually
the work itself that was presented as the primary focus of the beautiful. This was in marked
contrast to performances of opera, in which the voices of the outstanding artists and the visual
spectacle received more emphasis. Choral music offered a more participatory pathway to the
transcendent than did opera, for it was not brought in as a package from outside the community,
but moulded from within. Choral music was local and amateur, and because most people in the
audience were related through family or community to the singers, even non-performers could
153
See chap. 1 for a discussion of the press and the musical experience.
154
155
Star, 22 December 1860, p. 2, 22 April 1867, p. 4, 9 November 1871, p. 3.
156
Letter to the Star, 30 March 1869, p. 4.
215
experience a sense of vicarious participation. Choral music, wrote the Star, could sway both
'auditors and executants'.157
157
216
The special beauty of choral music transcended the experiential boundaries of everyday life, for
the auditory, visual, spatial, verbal, social and thematic elements, as well as the special skills
represented in a performance, were not normally encountered outside the concert auditorium.
Themes usually related to biblical stories dealing with such momentous topics as the creation of
the world, the prophecy and advent of the Messiah, or the mysteries of the Mass. Even the operas
presented by the choral societies, in spite of their focus on the human topics of love and intrigue,
dealt with distant and colourful communities such as the Spanish aristocracy, or the notorious
Borgia family of Italy.
There was a clear distinction between the language of choral music and that of everyday use.
Most works were sung in English, but even then the texts did not use everyday language, and the
musical treatment given to the words further emphasised this difference. Repetitions and ornate
passages were a feature of both oratorio and opera, with long choruses often built around a few
short phrases. The following passage, for example, could be spoken in a few seconds, but was set
by Haydn to 136 bars of music:
The Heavens are telling the glory of God,

The wonder of his work displays the firmament.158
Latin was sometimes a problem. The words of Haydn's Imperial Mass were 'by no means
properly pronounced' by the members of the Philharmonic in 1859,159 and the mistranslation of
Dona Nobis Pacem as 'Praise the Lord, ye nations all, and rejoice before Him. Hallelujah. Amen'
brought a critical comment from the reporter.160
The choral societies performed music for special rather than everyday occasions. Performers and
listeners had to set aside time from their daily routine and to attend a special venue. At first these
were less than ideal. The first performances were held in the 'great space' of the Montezuma
Theatre, and then in Mr WC Smith's Commercial Sales Room.161 Concerts were also held in the
Theatre Royal and the Charlie Napier Theatre, before the 'splendid hall' of the Mechanics'
Institute became available.162 From December 1860 the Mechanics' Hall became the usual venue
for choral performances, its capacity to accommodate over one thousand people no doubt an
attraction for the society.163 Late in 1867 the new Alfred Hall provided an even more spacious
158
From Haydn's The Creation, performed seven times in Ballarat during the period; another example is
Beethoven's 'Hallelujah chorus', which was also popular in early Ballarat, and can be heard on the
accompanying CD.
159
160
Star, 13 April 1868, p. 4.
161
Star, 25 June 1858, p. 3.
162
163
217
setting, and audience numbers increased noticeably, with a reported 3000 people attending the
first choral concert there on 12 December. The hall was said to be a 'noble building' and a
'triumphal arena for the chorus'.164 The Star published a description shortly after its opening:
The building is on the model of a large ancient basilica, and it might be called a secular
cathedral, if such a phrase be permissible. It is divided by lofty pillars into a nave and side
aisles, the length of the building being 170 feet, and the width 74 feet, the nave having a
width of 40 feet and each side aisle a width of 17 feet. At the western end, where the main
entrance is, a handsome gallery and orchestra have been erected where the seats rise at an
angle that gives to all positions a fine view of the main body of the hall. The building is
lighted by stenciled clerestory windows by day, and by hundreds of star jets of gas by night
… The sides and ends of the hall are papered in large panels of buff and blue, with stenciled
borderings, and the tall pillars of the nave are similarly colored … Upon the dais at the east
end the decorators have lavished their tenderest and wisest care. The dais is an elegant
triumph of local decorative art, and the eye dwells upon it with growing pleasure. It occupies
the whole width of the nave, and four carpeted steps rise to the height of about two feet from
the hall floor.165
The complexity of the choral music together with the time and effort required to prepare for a
successful performance reinforced its high status in the community. This was not music that
could be mastered overnight, and even rehearsals were sometimes regarded as newsworthy. In
that respect the performers attracted something of the attention given to a sporting team on the
lead up to an important match.166 Apparently visitors would sometimes attend rehearsals, because
in 1867 secretary Peter Cazaly inserted a notice in the paper stating that, for the final rehearsal of
Haydn's Creation, non-members of the society would not be admitted.167 The normal pattern was
for one weekly rehearsal, but increased activity was evident before major performances. In 1870
it was noted that the Harmonic Society was currently holding two rehearsals per week at which
the average attendance of members was eighty. The society was to be congratulated, for
'notwithstanding the discomforts attending venturing out of doors at night during the present
inclement weather, even the lady members are as regular and assiduous in their attendance as the
most weather-defying of their masculine coadjutors'.168 'The Harmonic Society', reported the Star
in 1871, 'continues to devote night after night to the rehearsal of "Samson," for public
performance on Christmas-day'.169 As the performers worked through the various stages of
rehearsal in preparation for the final climactic moment of performance, notices in the press and
reports on progress at rehearsals made the public aware of a gradual build-up to performance
night.
164
165
166
For example Star, 10 June 1870, p. 2, 12 January 1871, p. 2, 3 November 1871, p. 2.
167
168
169
218
The dress and positioning of the choir were an important aspect of a choral performance, as, for
example, in 1871, when 'the ladies of the society took their places all brilliant in scarlet and
white, green and magenta, with flowers of all hues in the head tirings;170 while round the back
and sides the sombre lines of the gentlemen in black gave a good setting to the livelier picture'. 171
It was important that this impression was not marred by behaviour more suited to the outside
world, and reporters were quick to reprimand lapses of decorum:
We regret to have to refer to some breaches of decorum on the part of the ladies of the
orchestra.172 On this occasion we noticed that some two or three sitting adjacent to each other
were regarding members of the audience through an opera glass; on a former, a young lady
in the front rank was casting violets to someone sitting in the front row of the audience, and
telegraphing with the fingers to someone else nearer the entrance. Such proceedings are
highly indecorus, as also occasional displays of levity in behavior during some of the most
solemn passages of the music, and we feel satisfied that this hint to those alluded to will be
quite sufficient to prevent occurrence in any quarter.173
A high standard of performance was expected, but not always achieved. In 1867 the band was
said to be unsteady, the soloists had not rehearsed sufficiently with the band, most of the
principals sang with a 'total absence of animation' and the conductor displayed 'an occasional
unreadiness which was painful even to the looker-on'.174 Sometimes the problems were beyond
the control of the musicians. A Good Friday performance of Handel's Messiah appears to have
had more than its share of mishaps:
Miss Staff, the chief soprano, having recently suffered a domestic affliction, was certainly
not so completely able to address herself to her work as on previous occasions … Mr
Lamble, too, was to have divided with Mr Cazaly the bass airs of the work, but—another
mishap—Mr Thomas, violoncello, engaged to come from Geelong, was unable to attend his
professional duties in Ballarat in consequence of illness in his family. As the violoncello part
could not be spared from the orchestra, Mr Lamble had to leave Mr Cazaly unassisted in his
arduous business in order to fill the vacant place among the strings. Mrs King, after taking
her place in the orchestra, found the piano half a tone flat, consequently, the instrument was
silent, and the tuner of the hired instrument will have to render account.175
By reinforcing the quest for perfection, newspapers were a factor in the distancing of choral
music from the day-to-day musical experience, and its elevation into a high art form. The themes,
the language, the many vocal and instrumental forces required, and the complexity and
sophistication of this music, all served to set it apart as an out-of-the-ordinary experience. While
choral music embodied and reflected the ideals of the rational recreation movement of
nineteenth-century Britain, restricting its impact to the social or the moral is to understate its role
in contemporary life. As asserted by the Star in 1865, choral music also had the power to bring
170
'attire, apparel, head-dress (arch.)', Oxford English Dictionary.
171
172
'Orchestra' was used as a collective term for both chorus and band, and here refers to the chorus. No
females took part in the band during this period.
173
Star, 13 April 1868, p. 4.
174
Star, 22 April 1867, p. 4.
175
Star, 10 April 1871, p. 3.
219
people 'exalted pleasure' and to lift them from 'the grindstone of one's daily mundane
drudgery'.176
* * *
Due particularly to the skills and activity of two musical leaders, people living in this provincial
city in central Victoria, 70 miles from the nearest capital, were able to experience much of the
same choral music as those who had never left England.
Many Ballarat people were familiar with the tradition of choral music as practised in England,
and the prosperity due to gold enabled them to build dedicated sites of special meaning suitable
for the performance of the great masterpieces around which this tradition was based. Familiarity
with the tradition, the belief in its force for good in society and pride in the achievements of
Ballarat were strong elements in the establishment and history of the choral societies.
The musical contributions made by choral societies were highly valued in the community, and
choral music was an important pathway to the aesthetic and the transcendent. Significant among
the special experiences choral music provided was that of beauty, the perceptions and
experiences of which were shaped not only by the cultural background, but by the large amount
of attention this aspect of music received in the available print media. Local discourse and
practice also encouraged people to regard the choral performance as far more than one of
entertainment and amusement, but a form of ritual devoted to the performance of sublime works
of art.
A PATHWAY TO HEAVEN: MUSIC AND WORSHIP

In 1868 the Rev'd RT Ewing expressed the conviction that 'there was no greater mistake in
reference to the welfare of the churches than inattention to music'.177 The development of music
in the religious institutions of Ballarat over a period of two decades suggests that Mr Ewing was
articulating a widely held contemporary belief. Whereas Chapter Four introduced the concept of
music's connection to the spiritual, and the extent to which this connection was evident in early
Ballarat, here the discussion is expanded into a consideration of some of the musical ways people
experienced what Philip Bohlman describes as a 'realm of otherness'.178
176
177
Star, 24 June 1869, p. 2. This 1869 reference looks back to an occasion in 1868.
178
220
The meaning of music in worship was a divided issue and was sometimes subjected to heated
debate. Some believed in offering the very best in musical splendour to the glory of God, and in
experiencing God's presence through the peak of human achievement. In some of these churches
pipe organs were installed, and accomplished organists and choirmasters led major works from
the contemporary church repertoire. The Catholic church made strong statements about the value
of the aesthetic in worship. The Rev'd Father Lentaigne SJ, for example, felt that music was 'a
part of the service of the church for the glory of God'.179 In other churches only unaccompanied
congregational singing was permitted, and there was a perceived danger that through becoming a
mere gratification of the senses music could actually come between people and God. Some form
of music, however, was regarded as important for both the Christian and Jewish congregations of
Ballarat. As Ruth Finnegan found in her study of music in an English town in the 1980s, it seems
that music in worship was taken for granted.180
Music was only one part of the worship experience, and the beauties of architecture, oratory and
art could also be impressive. Even the sermon could become more than a mere lesson. In 1864
the Rev'd Father Power, preaching for one and three-quarters of an hour to a vast congregation in
St Patrick's, delivered a discourse described as 'earnestly eloquent', with passages of 'rare beauty
and power', and of 'spontaneous eloquence, picturesque and forcible'. The congregation retired
'highly pleased'.181 Non-conformist preachers frequently inspired with their rhetorical ability as
well as with the messages they conveyed.
Newspapers gave detailed publicity to activities associated with the principal Christian
denominations. They also published reports of important ceremonies at the synagogue. While
details of the musical life of these institutions were sought in archives and denominational
histories, such sources proved to be more useful for insights into the beliefs and policies of the
particular churches, and it was largely from the newspapers that evidence of actual musical
activity was found.
The buildings
The provision of suitable buildings was a high priority for the early religious leaders, so that only
two decades after the gold discoveries of 1851 Ballarat people worshipped in splendid brick and
bluestone buildings, or in one of many smaller churches. A synagogue catered for the religious
needs of the Jewish population, and Chinese people celebrated sacred ceremonies in their joss
houses. Ballarat historian WB Withers listed the 'more durable edifices' among the religious
179
Star, 11 March 1867, p. 5.
180
Finnegan, The Hidden Musicians, p. 208.
181
Star, 29 March 1864, p. 4.
221
buildings of 1870. Six of these belonged to the Church of England, one to the Roman Catholics,
three to the Presbyterians, one to the Free Church of England, one to the Welsh Presbyterians,
one to the Welsh Baptists, four to the Primitive Methodists, ten to the Wesleyans, four to the
Bible Christians,182 one to the Baptists, one to the Congregationalists, one to the Disciples of
Christ,183 one to the Society of Friends and one to the Wroeites.184 The Unitarians had ceased to
hold services, their chapel having been formerly in East Street.185
The Very Rev'd Father Lentaigne SJ told a crowded St Patrick's congregation in 1867 that
Christian service and temples should be adorned 'with all that wealth, and taste, and skill could
furnish, as an expression of love to God, and of reverence for the God who dwelt in veritable
bread and blood upon the altar'.186 Other denominations conveyed less overt messages, yet gave
great attention to the beauty and balance of their architecture. St Andrew's and the synagogue are
among the religious buildings whose visual impact continues to impress, and to remind people
that God's house was regarded as a place of beauty, aesthetically removed from buildings
dedicated to commerce, industry and habitation.
The first resident minister of any denomination in the area was the Rev'd Thomas Hastie, a
Presbyterian minister who came to live and work in Buninyong in 1847. The Rev'd William
Henderson was appointed to Ballarat in February 1857, and it was under his leadership that St
Andrew's in Sturt Street was established and developed. A wooden church seating 500 people
opened here in 1858 and predated the building of 1864.187 The foundation stone of the Lydiard
Street Wesleyan Church was laid by the governor, Sir Henry Barkly, in January 1858, and the
182
A Christian sect founded in England by William O'Brian (1778-1868) that united with other Methodist
groups in 1907 to form the United Methodist Church (The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church,
Oxford University Press, London, 1958).
183
A Christian sect founded in America that bases its beliefs exclusively on the Scriptures and rejects all
forms of creed (The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church).
184
The Wroeites, or Christian Israelites, compounded the law of Israel with a belief in Christ. The sect was
founded by leader John Wroe (1782-1863), who visited Australia five times (www.cichurch.asn.au,
accessed 20 October 2005).
185
Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999 (first published 1870), pp. 161-167.
186
Star, 11 March 1867, p. 5.
187
A report at the time of the 1864 opening describes the church as a bluestone building in Norman style,
built in a north-south orientation. It featured a clerestoried nave with east and west aisles. The east and
west walls were divided into six bays separated by buttresses. There was a small gallery on the south end
of the nave, with pulpit and choir at the north end. The pulpit was encircled by fourteen richly carved
columns and arches. Particularly notable were the two ornate freestone doorways, with their deeply
recessed jambs, columns and moulded arches. Over the main entrance was a triple arched window. The
nave measured 121 feet in length, 57 feet in width and 54 feet in height. The transepts and spire of this
church were added after the period of this study (Star, 3 May 1858, p. 2, 4 December 1862, p. 2, 15 August
1864, p. 3; Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999, p. 163).
222
church opened in July of that year. This is the only one of the buildings described here that did
not survive into the twenty-first century as a place of worship in its original location.188
The Ballarat Synagogue, 1861. La Trobe Picture

Collection, State Library of Victoria.
Lydiard St Wesleyan church. Ballarat Historical Society Collection.
188
The church was a gothic styled bluestone building that could accommodate 1000 people in the body of
the church and the spacious galleries. The church measured 87 feet in length and 40 feet in width and had
an open timbered roof ornamented with gothic paneling (Times, 20 January 1858, p. 3, 18 July 1858, p. 2;
Star 17 July 1858, p. 2).
223
Interior of St Paul's after rebuilding following a collapse in 1864 due to

underground mining. Picture displayed in St Paul's church.
Christ Church Anglican church was noted for its choral music. Ballarat Historical
Society Collection.
224
St Patrick's church: beautiful music for the glory of God.

The first permanent appointment to the Church of England in Ballarat was the Rev'd James
Thackeray in 1854. His earliest services were held in the Golden Fleece Hotel, and in tents on the
sites of the future St Paul's and Christ Church. Christ Church was opened for worship on 13
September 1857. In May 1868 the congregation celebrated the opening of the transepts and
chancel.189 St Paul's Church of England was situated on Bakery Hill in Ballarat East. A brick
church in the gothic style, it was opened in 1858 and enlarged in 1862 with the addition of a
square battlemented tower and a choir gallery. The collapse of the church due to extensive
underground mining and the rebuilding of the brick building took place in 1864. The tower
escaped the disaster, and now stands on the eastern side of the church proper.190 St Patrick's
189
A bluestone gothic style building, Christ Church measured 76 feet in length and 36 in width. It had a
lofty roof lined with polished wood, beautiful cedar furnishings, and was lit by gas (Spooner, The Golden
See, pp. 17-19; WE Moorhouse, 'The Story of Christ Church,' in Ballarat Historical Society collection;
Times, 14 September 1857, p. 3; Star, 15 September 1857, p. 2, 23 September 1859, p. 3, 7 May 1868, p.
2).
190
The new church was 103 feet in length, and 39 feet in width (Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999, p. 161;
In Commemoration of the Centenary of St Paul's Church, Ballarat, 1958; Star, 24 April 1865, p. 2, 11
April 1866, p. 2).
225
Catholic church was opened by Bishop Goold in November 1863, and the transepts, side chapels,
chancel and sacristy were dedicated in August 1871.191
Jewish religious services were held in Ballarat from 1853 in the Clarendon Hotel. The first
synagogue was consecrated in November 1855. After the site on which this building stood was
requisitioned by the Ballarat East Town Council, services were held in private homes until a new
synagogue was built. This was consecrated in March 1861.192
The architectural styles and decorative features of these buildings set them apart from those
devoted to earthly pursuits. The interiors with their lofty roofs added a dimension of height to the
experience of worship, and voices were carried upwards, rather than being confined to a human
level. As they framed the sounds that were heard within, the buildings tempered the music
acoustically, helping to establish the particular sound that was considered appropriate for the
worship of God. In the larger buildings the organ and choir were placed in the west gallery
behind the congregation. To hear and not see was unusual in the nineteenth century, and this
enhanced the transcendent aspect of sacred choral music. The seemingly disembodied sound was
apparently considered preferable for this type of music, or perhaps it was thought advisable to
conceal the earthly mechanics of its production, for when a pipe organ was installed in St Paul's it
was felt that 'There is an objection in having the organ-blower exposed in front of the organ, and
191
St Patrick's was built of bluestone, in 'flamboyant gothic' style. Of particular note were the ornamented
floor tiles, the elegant roof and the handsome contour of the arches. A description of the interior of the
church in 1871 gives the measurements of the building as follows: length 150 feet 6 inches, width 60 feet 8
inches, length of transepts 100 feet, height of roof 65 feet. The report notes the octagonal basalt pillars, the
roof stained and panelled with carved tracery, and the elaborate chancel ceiling ornamented with carved
heads of angels. The capitals were carved with patterns of flower and fruit scrolls. The high altar front
displayed tracery and monograms in gold, crimson, imperial blue and emerald green. The ornamented
reredos [decorative panel or screen behind the altar] featured five panels, ornamented with various
cruciform devices and surrounded with a border of lacework pattern in many colours. The floor in the
chancel, side chapels and sacristies was covered with Brussels carpeting, green in the side chapels and
purple in the chancel. The altar hangings were richly coloured, crimson in the chapel of the Blessed
Sacrament, green in the Lady Chapel, and ruby for the high altar (Star, 9 November 1863, p. 3, 18 July
1871, p. 2, 7 August 1871, p. 2; Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999, p. 163).
192
The new synagogue held around 350 people. It was built along 'strictly traditional lines', with a ladies'
gallery, and a temporary bimah [reading platform] in the centre, later to be replaced by an elaborate cedar
structure. The synagogue was renovated and rededicated in April 1867. The interior was repainted and
polished, and over the ark appeared a painting of an eye looking out from behind clouds, symbolising the
'glory and presence of the Deity'. The painting, by George Abraham, did not survive. The Rev'd IM
Goldreich, minister of the congregation, felt that it violated the second commandment ['Thou shalt not
make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth
beneath, or in the water under the earth.'] and was against all principles of Judaism. It disappeared soon
after the rededication ceremony, along with the nude figures on the porch lantern (Rosenthal, Formula for
Survival, pp. 7-29).
226
it would be well if some screen were erected that would hide both him and the organist from
view'.193
Aids to worship: organs and harmoniums
Pipe organ in Christ Church Daylesford, installed in 1871.

Photo, Anne Doggett, 2005.
Although the Wesleyan church at the outlying community of Browns used an organ accordion to
accompany the choir194 and the Dawson Street congregational church an instrument described as
193
Star, 24 June 1865, p. 2.
194
227
a 'steel-note halophone',195 the usual instrument found in churches was the harmonium. A
harmonium was also used in the synagogue for its consecration in 1861.196 There were seven pipe
organs installed in Ballarat and surrounding settlements during these two decades, two of which
remained in regular use in their original churches into the twenty-first century.197
The harmonium was usually regarded as an accompanying instrument, but notable harmonium
solos were sometimes reported.198 Until 1871 when the organ was installed in Christ Church,
Daylesford, this was also the case with pipe organs, and only on a few occasions were organ
solos reported by name and composer. This contrasted markedly with choral music, which was
advertised by name prior to special occasions, and usually described in detail after the event. In
spite of the presence of competent organists, even the opening festivals associated with the four
principal Ballarat pipe organs focused on choral music.
The organ installed in the Lydiard Street Wesleyan

church in 1860 was the first in Ballarat.199 At the
inaugural ceremony Austin Turner performed three
voluntaries, one of which was by Beethoven.200
Members of the Ballarat Philharmonic Society
performed sacred choruses and solos, and the
Rev'd Mr Millard addressed the congregation,
expressing the opinion that the role of the organ
was 'to assist in the psalmody of the church … It
was a good help to harmonise a variety of voices,
and to encourage the diffident to sing'.201 In
November 1864 Mr Turner performed at the
opening of the organ at Christ Church where he
was organist and choirmaster. The four voluntaries
Ballarat's first organ, shown here after it
was removed from the Lydiard St church were unnamed and the associated sacred music
in 1874 and installed in the Pleasant St festival consisted chiefly of solos, ensembles and
Methodist church. Photo courtesy John
Maidment. choruses by visiting and local singers.202 It was a
195
Star, 18 October 1871, p. 2; the halophone was invented by Mr RH Sutton of Main Road. His musical
inventions were mentioned in chap. 5.
196
Rosenthal, Formula for Survival, p. 16.
197
These are the organs in Christ Church, Daylesford and St Paul's Ballarat. St Paul's organ has, however,
undergone extensive rebuilding. Details of the seven pipe organs can be found in Appendix C.1.
198
For example Star, 13 October 1862, p. 2.
199
200
Star, 25 August 1860, pp. 2-3.
201
202
Star, 12 November 1864, p. 3, 15 November 1860. p. 2.
228
similar situation in 1865 at the opening of St Paul's organ. The festival consisted of a marathon
choral performance given by members of the Harmonic Society that lasted for nearly four hours,
and two unnamed voluntaries played by organist Mrs Little.203 The Catholic church, too,
appeared to regard organ music as secondary to choral music. When St Patrick's organ was
opened in March 1867, a Pontifical High Mass was celebrated by Bishop Goold. Julia Mathews,
Mrs Testar, Mr Madden and Mr Plunkett from Melbourne assisted local musicians in the singing
of Mozart's Twelfth Mass, followed by choruses from Handel's Messiah. The 'massive volumes
and soft passages which alternated from the organ, and the full force of choir and organ in the
choruses, made up a rare treat to the musical ear', wrote a reporter.204 In October 1871 Mr Philip
Plaisted, organist of St Stephen's Richmond, performed for the opening of the Christ Church
Daylesford organ, playing a march of his own composition, organ works by Scotson Clark,
Lefébure-Wely, JS Bach and Hauptmann, as well as arrangements of music from oratorios. The
recital given by Mr Plaisted was interspersed with anthems from the choir.205
The Presbyterians, for most of the period, had no instrumental music in their services. In keeping
with the austerity of Scottish Presbyterianism, many Ballarat Presbyterians regarded instrumental
music in their churches with profound suspicion. This was not unusual at the time and at
Cranbourne, also in the Melbourne diocese, such was the opposition to the harmonium that death
threats were received, and filth emptied over the keys.206 Ballarat people were less demonstrative
in their protests, but when Mr Roxburgh in 1869 mentioned the prospect of an organ in the future
he brought 'down on his head much disapprobation from a portion of those assembled—in which
even a few hisses were mingled'.207 The Cranbourne incident was reported in the Ballarat press,
as were accounts of Presbyterian attitudes to instrumental music in other parts of Australia and
overseas.208 Local opinion was likely to have been influenced by these accounts, directing feeling
to either side, and strengthening the importance of the issue.
In March 1871 a decision was made at St Andrew's to trial the use of the harmonium in the
evening service for a period not exceeding six months.209 At the end of the six-month period
203
Star, 24 June 1865, p. 2.
204
Star, 11 March 1867, p. 5.
205
Daylesford Mercury and Express, 3 October 1871, p. 3; the Lefébure-Wely piece played on this
occasion can be heard on the accompanying CD.
206
207
Star, 4 June 1869, p. 2.
208
The Presbyterians in Learmonth were equally divided on the issue in 1868. In Daylesford there was
overwhelming support for the introduction of instrumental music into Presbyterian services in 1870 (Star,
25 November 1868, p. 2, 16 February 1870, p. 2). Accounts of the situation overseas can be found in the
Star, 24 June 1869. p. 2, 4 November 1869, p. 3. See Henry George Farmer, A History of Music in
Scotland, Da Capo Press, New York, 1970 (first published 1947), pp. 365-379, for an account of the
situation in Scotland.
209
Star, 24 March 1871, p. 2, 13 September 1871, p. 4.
229
some noted the improvement in the singing and an increased attendance at the evening service.
But the main morning services were without instrumental help throughout the period, even
though at least one member was of the opinion that the choir 'needs all the help it can get'.210
The voice of the people: hymns and psalms

In the Victorian era hymns were seen as highly effective tools for the encouragement and
promotion of the faith, and for the spiritual and moral improvement of the masses.211 It was a
period of intense activity in church hymnody. The evangelical hymns of John and Charles
Wesley towards the end of the eighteenth century in England had sparked a surge of hymn
singing that was fuelled by factors such as the great intensity of religious life to which they
attested, the new sight singing movements, and the latest developments in printing and
publishing.212 Many Lutheran chorales were incorporated into English hymn collections during
the mid-nineteenth century, and one of these⎯'Great God what do I see and hear'⎯was sung by
Ballarat miners in an early open-air service. 213
In colonial Australia hymns provided a cultural link with the past and an element of religious
continuity. They were also important for developing a sense of community and identity in the
new surroundings.214 Hymnody was the supreme form of participatory music, and people of
different ages and from disparate social groups regularly made music together in this way. In
contrast with the choral societies, there were no rules and tests to impose limits on who could
participate, and there was no audience. In hymn singing everyone was a performer.
Within the Church of England, Wesleyan, Congregational and Presbyterian churches in Ballarat,
as elsewhere, there was a strong tradition of congregational singing. Important community
occasions also involved massed singing of hymns or psalms. Psalm 100, for example, was sung at
important community events such as the laying of the foundation stones of the Benevolent
Asylum and the Mechanics' Institute.215 But it was not only in church, or on ceremonial
occasions, that hymns were sung, and Wesleyans, in particular, were often heard publicly raising
their voices to God. John Chandler, for example, a young man on his way to the Ballarat diggings
210
Star, 13 September 1871, p. 4, 14 September 1871, p. 2.
211
Gome, 'Hymnody in the Australian colonies', p. 143.
212
Temperley, Music of the English Parish Church, p. 296.
213
Routley, Music of Christian Hymnody, p. 25; In Commemoration of the Centenary of St Paul's, 1958.
214
Gome, 'Australian colonial hymnody', p. 1.
215
Star, 18 March 1959, p. 2, 29 September 1860, pp. 2-3; psalm 100, Jubilate Deo, 'O be joyful in the
Lord'.
230
in 1851, sang hymns around the campfire with his party of nine when they stopped for the night
to break their journey.216
A checklist of sources prepared by Dianne Gome identifies the hymn books published in
Australia or elsewhere between 1821 and 1901 that were intended specifically for Australian
use.217 The list includes twelve hymns books with words only, one book with words and music,
and one book of tunes only, that were published between 1821 and 1851. During the following
twenty years (the period corresponding to the current research) this number increased to forty-
two words only publications, four with both music and words and two tune books. While these
indicate a considerable amount of activity, they represent only a small proportion of the books
used in churches, for many more were brought from the countries of origin.218
At least five hymn books were published in Ballarat during this period.219 The question of a
suitable hymn book was a particular concern in the Church of England. In 1862 Bishop Perry
announced that the current book was out of print and proposed the use of Mercer's hymn book in
the Melbourne diocese.220 This book comprised 510 metrical hymns, as well as psalms, canticles,
sanctuses and responses. The Rev'd Robert Cummins of St Paul's church was not in favour of
Mercer's book, claiming that it omitted some of the best psalms and many of the best hymns. It
had an undue proportion of 'peculiar' rather than 'simple' metres, most of the well-known hymns
were injured by unnecessary alterations, and others were 'decidedly objectionable'. In some cases
hymns that had no connection to each other were brought together and presented as one
composition.221 At the request of his church committee, Cummins compiled a collection of
hymns, primarily for use in his own church.222 The Wesleyans also published hymn books for use
in the Lydiard Street Sabbath school.
216
Chandler, Forty Years in the Wilderness, p. 38.
217
Gome, 'Australian hymnody, 1821-1901', pp, 1-28.
218
Gome, 'Hymnody in the Australian colonies', p. 143.
219
Gome lists: Hymns used in the Lydiard Street Wesleyan Sabbath School, Ballaarat, new and enlarged
edition, published by the school, printed by Evans Bros, Ballaarat, 1862; RT Cummins (ed.), Psalms and
hymns selected for use in the public services of the Church of England, Ballarat, Charles Boyd, Sturt Street,
1863. Others were: a further hymn book published by the Lydiard St Wesleyan Sabbath School (Star, 2
April 1866, p. 2), Wesleyan Sabbath School Hymns, Ballarat, Lydiard Street Wesleyan Sabbath School,
1868 (held in National Library of Australia); Forty-five revival and thirty-four temperance hymns,
compiled by Mr M Burnett (the Yorkshire Evangelist), and sung in the special religious services and
working-man's meetings conducted by him, WH Hotchin, Ballarat, 1867 (Star, 15 May 1867, p. 2).
220
The Church Gazette, vol. 1, no. 9, 16 June 1862, p. 53. N.B. Ballarat was then a part of the diocese of
Melbourne.
221
The Church Gazette, vol. 1, no. 16, 1 October 1862, p. 137.
222
The Church Gazette, vol. 1, no. 14, 1 September 1862, p. 53. The book contains 64 metrical psalms (not
150 as stated in Dianne Gome's checklist), 242 hymns and seven doxologies. Unfortunately Bishop Perry
did not approve of this venture, and refused Mr Cummins' request to dedicate the book to him. His reasons
were that the successful compilation of such a work would require far more time and expertise than Mr
231
This section considers both textual and musical aspects of some of the hymns and psalms from
the Cummins and the 1862 Wesleyan hymnals. As both were intended for local use, and
contained relatively few hymns, they give a more definite indication of hymns actually sung
locally than do the larger collections used in some other churches. By looking at the content of
these two locally published hymnals in conjunction with academic research into hymnody and
psalmody, it is hoped to demonstrate some of the different ways in which hymns became a
distinctive pathway to the spiritual and the transcendent.
Both the Cummins collection and the Wesleyan book were words-only hymn books, and in the
case of the Wesleyan hymns there is no indication of the tunes to which the hymns were sung. A
list of 124 tunes is included in the Cummins collection and, because the meter of each hymn is
stated, a suitable tune can quickly be selected from any hymn tune collection.
Front page of the Cummins hymn collection. National Library of Australia, N 245 CUM.
Cummins had at his disposal. Mr Cummins was clearly very hurt by his bishop's attitude, and expressed his
reaction in The Church Gazette, 1 October, 1862, pp. 135-137.
232
Some of the tunes are listed in the following categories:
a) Tunes of a solemn and grand character

b) Tunes suited for penitential hymns
c) Tunes of triumph, but moderately slow and dignified
d) Tunes of tenderness and pathos
e) Cheerful tunes, to be sung rather fast
Only 42 of the 124 tunes are placed in the above categories, and these probably served as a guide
to the hymns felt to have a strong leaning in a particular direction. Other tunes were of a more
general nature and, as in many churches today, were probably chosen for their familiarity and
popularity with the congregation.
The hymn texts in these two books tell us some of the areas within which people in a church
community could relate to the spiritual, and highlight differences between the way this was
achieved for two distinct groups of people. Three common themes emerged from the two
collections:
a) Hymns that mediate between the worshipping community and God

b) Hymns that present a vision of heaven
c) Hymns in which the everyday world is transformed by the presence of God
a) Drawing closer to God

In hymns people could raise their communal voices to God, to praise, express devotion and
gratitude, or to ask for what they themselves were powerless to provide. Sixty-four per cent of the
Cummins collection and 35 per cent of the Wesleyan collection address God directly:
Guide us O thou great Jehovah,

Pilgrim through this barren land,
We are weak, but thou art mighty,
Hold us with thy powerful hand (C76).223
Seven per cent of the Cummins hymns and eight per cent of the Wesleyan collection carry the
voice of God:
I will never, never leave thee

I will never thee forsake,
I will guide and save and keep thee,
For my name and mercy's sake (W45).
223
References after each quote refer to the relevant hymn number in the Cummins collection, or the
Wesleyan collection.
233
Sixty-six per cent of the Cummins collection and 48 per cent of the Wesleyan collection present
ways of seeing, knowing or relating to God. This was done through vivid imagery:
See, the blood is falling fast

From his forehead and his side!
Hark! He now has breathed his last!
With a mighty groan he died! (W17).
or by using symbolism that carried immediate messages of relationship. Terms used to refer to
God, for example, include: captain, father, friend, judge, king, lamb, lover, master, prince,
shepherd, teacher:
Jesus! My Shepherd, Guardian, Friend,

My Prophet, Priest, and King,
My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End;
Accept the praise I bring (C92).
b) Anticipating Heaven
Thirty-two per cent of the Cummins collection and 30 per cent of the Wesleyan hymns carry
metaphor or imagery of heaven:
When shall these eyes thy heav'n built walls

And pearly gates behold?
Thy bulwarks with salvation strong,
And streets of shining gold? (C102).
Other hymns in this category enabled people to sing with the angels, or unite with the departed.
In six per cent of hymns from the Cummins collection and four per cent of the Wesleyan hymns
people could unite in this way with spiritual beings:
Come let us join our cheerful songs

With angels round the throne;
Ten thousand thousand are their tongues,
But all their joys are one (C140).
c) Seeing God's transforming power

The third group of hymns focuses on the things of this world, presented as transformed in some
way by the presence of God. Fourteen per cent of the Cummins collection and 25 per cent of the
Wesleyan hymns fall into this category. God filled the world with beauty and blessings:
Who made the sky so bright and blue?

Who made the fields so green?
Who made the flowers that smell so sweet?
In pretty colors seen? (W37).
He made the world a better and a more pleasant place:
Thy hand in autumn richly pours

Through all our coasts redundant stores;
And winters, soften'd by thy care,
No more a face of horror wear (W78).
234
He gave life a purpose. Often life was seen as a journey to complete, or a battle to win:
Onward, then, we'll gladly press

Through this earthly wilderness;
Only, Lord, our leader be,
And we still will follow thee (C25).
Examining the hymn texts from this perspective can highlight differences in the religious
experience of two different denominational groups. The greater percentage of hymns from the
Cummins collection that fall into the first category suggests that a direct relationship with God in
song had a relatively higher importance for the adult members of the Church of England. The
Wesleyan children were taught in their hymns that they should sing to God, but they were less
likely than the members of St Paul's congregation to actually do so. In contrast, they were more
likely to sing about their own world, and how God's presence transformed it into a beautiful
place.
Proportionately higher in the Wesleyan collection was the number of hymns that did not fall into
any of the above categories. These hymns represented five per cent of the Cummins collection
and seventeen per cent of the Wesleyan collection. Mostly didactic in focus, they suggest that it
was considered important to supplement children's emerging spirituality with careful teaching
and guidance, and also that hymns could fulfil more than a spiritual function:
Chide mildly the erring,

Kind language endears,
Grief follows the sinful,
Add not to their tears (W95).
Within this category was the theme of children's duty to their teachers and God, as well as
recruiting for the Sabbath School:
I'll try to bring one, I'll try to bring two,

Yes, all that I can, I'm determined to do (W99).
But in spite of the difference in emphasis, and the greater number of didactic hymns, most of the
children's hymns were, like those in the adult collection, a means for humans and God, earth and
heaven, to draw closer together. It was, however, more likely that the Wesleyan children would
relate to their own lives through hymns, and see their everyday world as bathed in the light of
God, while the adults at St Paul's had a stronger focus on the things of God and the sublimation
of the individual self.
Philip Bohlman identifies two ways in which music may represent the sacred—by mediating the
space between the sacred and everyday worlds, and by enhancing the intelligibility of the voice
235
of a sacred being.224 The Ballarat hymns are shown to have given ample opportunities for both,
and the nature of the hymn itself helped to make this process possible, for something of the
beauty of heaven may best be experienced through participating in some form of earthly beauty,
and it is often easier to approach the 'other' if one discards the ordinary voice of everyday speech.
While much of the scholarly writing about hymns has been devoted to examining their history,
looking at their place in the worship of the various denominations, and discussing their textual
and musical content,225 a 1997 study of the English hymn by JR Watson attempts to apply the
methods of literary criticism to the hymn, seeking on one hand to learn how the hymn works, and
also questioning the idea that the limits related to form and metre inhibit the hymn's poetic
possibilities.226 Watson examines such aspects as the choice of words, the use of grammatical
mood (particularly the use of the imperative), the relationship of lines to each other, and the way
syntax and imagery fit into the rhythmic and metrical structure. Watson argues that the hymn is
more than just an expression of religious conviction, for it is itself instrumental in shaping the
beliefs of the participant. 'The language of religion', writes Watson, 'creates the moment of
perception'. Thus the text creates the experience itself, and 'the language and the experience live
in each other'.227 Music could make the 'holy' a personal experience for, through music, the
spiritual messages could become part of oneself. They could be absorbed into a person's own
being, bringing an intimate association with the images, concepts and values they represented.
'The congregation stands, breathes, sings, makes sounds together', writes Watson, 'The writing
comes off the page, back into the body, lungs, blood'.228
Hymns were designed to be sung by all, and this was facilitated by the strong metre, the simple
form, the limited range of notes, the readily accessible melodies, and the familiar harmonies.
Over half the tunes in both the hymn and the psalm sections of Cummins' book, for example,
were in common metre.229 This combination of factors made it easier for people from very
different class, gender, age and intellectual backgrounds to participate. In considering the
immense popularity of hymns, and their lasting success, Nicholas Temperley finds significance in
the harmonic developments that took place in the hymn tune during the Victorian era. He draws
224
Bohlman, 'Music as representation', p. 221-22.
225
See for example Routley, Music of Christian Hymnody.
226
JR Watson, The English Hymn: a critical and historical study, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997,
pp. 4, 26.
227
Watson, The English Hymn, pp. 15-16.
228
Watson, The English Hymn, p. 24.
229
Four lines of 8,6,8,6, syllables.
236
attention to some of the methods used by skilful composers to create compositions in which
untrained singers could experience the thrill of taking part in what sounded like great art music.230
The strophic nature of the hymns meant that tunes could be learned relatively quickly, and the
fact that congregations enjoy singing music that has become familiar would not surprise any
church musician or minister of religion. Each stanza meant associating a different set of
meanings with melodies and harmonies that through familiarity would have become closely
related to the self. This meant that new concepts and experiences could be absorbed in a way that
would not have occurred if new music and new words were presented together.
Watson discusses hymn singing as a rhythmic activity, likening the regular verse patterns to the
rhythm of primitive or folk art.231 Yet in spite of the regular metre and the repeated stanzas, the
musical interest in most hymns was predominantly melodic and harmonic, suggesting that the
spiritual was usually experienced through a representation of beauty and emotion rather than one
of physical rhythmic sensation.232
Added to the effectiveness of hymns as a means of asserting and experiencing the spiritual was
the contrast with the way messages were conveyed in sermons or in biblical readings. In hymns
people themselves made the assertions, and in doing so they were far more likely to absorb the
messages, images and concepts presented. As people united in song, the self was drawn into a
collective whole and 'I' became 'we', the identity of the group defined and articulated through the
music that related to the concepts of each particular religious culture.
The role of the skilled: choirs, anthems, liturgy

Musicians in many of the leading churches were paid for their services. In 1858 the precentor of
the Sturt Street Presbyterian church (later St Andrew's) received an annual salary of £50.233 Christ
Church was said to maintain a paid choir in 1859.234 In 1864 St Stephen's, a smaller parish, paid
the harmonium player £20.235 St Paul's expenditure for 1870 included £50 p.a. for the organist,
£10 for the organ blower, and £20 for the tuner.236 The organist and choirmaster at Christ Church
was probably the most highly paid church musician in Ballarat, receiving an annual salary in
230
Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, pp. 303-310.
231
Watson, The English Hymn, p. 26.
232
Many of the temperance hymns appear to have been an exception to this.
233
Star, 12 April 1858, p. 3.
234
235
236
St Paul's Annual Report, October 1870, in St Paul's archives. The organist was then paid one tenth the
salary of the incumbent, who received £500.
237
excess of £60 in 1871.237 Advertisements for organists sometimes asked applicants to state their
required salary.238 In other cases generous presentations were made. In 1867 Miss Mary Jones, a
young lady who had played the harmonium in St Stephen's Church of England for two years was
given a silver-plated tea service, a dressing case and an address, and Mr James Uren, the
conductor of St John's Church of England choir, was presented with a testimonial and a purse of
sovereigns.239 The two young men who performed the roles of conductor and organist at the
Mount Pleasant Wesleyan Church in 1870 received a silver mounted ebony baton and a
metronome respectively at a special meeting to acknowledge their services.240
Choirs were associated with all the principal churches, and many of the smaller ones, their role
differing according to the current beliefs of the particular denomination. Some saw their role as
leading congregational singing, and others as worshipping God through fine music. Choral music
was reported extensively after special services, tea meetings, welcomes and farewells.
The Wesleyan Church in Lydiard Street originally appointed a precentor, Mr Daly, to lead the
singing. By 1860 a choir had been organised by the Messrs. Doane. The people were told that the
role of the choir was to guide the congregation, and not to perform, for it was given to all to sing
and imitate the heavenly choirs.241 By 1862 the Wesley choir was regarded as an excellent one.242
By the end of the 1850s, the Sturt Street Free Presbyterian church (later to become St Andrew's)
and the United Presbyterian Church in Armstrong Street both had choirs that sang on social
occasions.243 A precentor led the congregational singing in the Sturt Street church until 1866,
when a choir leader was appointed instead.244 There was much debate about the music at St
Andrew's, centering initially around the singing of an anthem in the service, and later around the
advisability of using instrumental music in church. In March 1867 it was decided to introduce an
anthem for the evening service only.245 This, was not a unanimous decision, and a radical move
for those who supported the traditionally austere Scottish Presbyterian service. Some felt that the
anthem was intended to amuse, and that the conductor should not have the right to select what
was sung in church.246 The ill feeling generated between those with different views was such that
incumbent William Henderson informed the congregation in an emotional address that he would
237
Ballarat Evening Post, 17 January 1871, p. 2.
238
For example Star, 6 September 1865, p. 3, 8 March 1870, p. 3.
239
Star, 31 May 1867, p. 2, 21 December 1867, p. 2.
240
Star, 21 May 1870, p. 2.
241
242
Star, 9 July 1862, p. 2.
243
Times, 31 December 1858, p. 2; Star, 12 January 1860, p. 3.
244
Star, 25 May 1866, p. 5.
245
Star, 4 June 1869, p. 2.
246
Star, 4 June 1869, p. 2.
238
resign his office if they did not sustain him in his endeavours to preserve the bond of unity in the
church.247 He himself was supportive of the music in worship, but did not align himself to either
party. When, in June 1869, the congregation was asked to decide whether or not to continue the
practice of singing an anthem, they voted to stop. It is not clear how far they were influenced by
the poor singing, for, as correspondent John Clerk observed:
In some churches the music is intended as a vehicle of praise, and in others an exciting
stimulant, so in the Presbyterian service it is used as a means of depressing the spirits … I
heard the anthem in St Andrew's once. I have heard anthems in many parts of the world, and
I am prepared to say that the anthem in St Andrew's was, without exception, the worst sung I
ever heard in my life.248
Not all Presbyterian authorities opposed reform in the musical life of the church. The Rev'd RT
Ewing in November 1868 made the point that:
the Presbyterian congregation as a whole … had the worst singing—singing that was most
unpleasant to listen to. Now, something must be done for the young people, or it would tell
upon the future of the Church. They had the best of churches and the best of ministers, and
why not also have the best of music?249
Mr Henderson, too, felt the need for change in Presbyterian churches:
Members of other congregations who came to visit them complained that there was no
worship, but that it was all sermon. The congregations were dependent far too much upon the
mind of one person, the minister. They ought to give their attention to this matter. He did not
like to see the psalmody neglected, and musical affairs he was glad to say were getting
better.250
The emphasis on congregational singing in the Wesleyan and Presbyterian churches meant that
not only the instrument, if permitted, but also the choir was seen in an assisting role. In some
churches, however, choirs directed much of their time and expertise to providing notable musical
experiences as part of the worship of God. Choirs in these churches became themselves a focus
of attention.
When the foundation stone of St Patrick's church was laid in February 1858, High Mass was
celebrated by Bishop Goold, assisted by local and visiting priests. A choir of seven accompanied
by Mr Parker on a fine harmonium sang Mozart's Twelfth Mass with great efficiency.251 Music of
the masters sung by the best available talent appears to have represented the excellence
considered appropriate for Catholic worship, and complemented the lavishness of the
ecclesiastical decoration in the building. Much of the music sung in St Patrick's and St Alipius' in
Ballarat East was non-congregational. A request in 1863 to refrain from 'encoring or even
247
Star, 7 June 1869, p. 2.
248
Star, 28 June 1869, p. 4.
249
Star, 24 June 1869, p. 2 (this refers to an occasion in 1868).
250
Star, 14 June 1870, p. 2.
251
239
applauding' the performers in a sacred music festival252 suggests that even outside the regular
liturgy an offertorial rather than a performative emphasis was placed on sacred music.
Music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Handel, Hummel, Mendelssohn, Balfe and
Pergolesi accompanied holy days and feast days and formed part of the celebrations at the
completion of church buildings.253 Solemn Pontifical High Mass for the dedication of St Patrick's
was celebrated in 1863 with the Grand Imperial Mass of Haydn performed by a choir and
orchestra noted for their excellence rather than their attachment to the church.254 Subsequently,
the laying of the foundation stone of the chancel and transepts in 1869 and the dedication of the
transepts, chancel and side chapels in 1871 were occasions for major musical events. 255
An evocative description of the Holy Week services at St Patrick's written in 1864 suggests that
the visual and auditory presentations of the liturgy were directed towards drawing the worshipper
into a realm of holiness. The office of Tenebrae chanted by the priests, the 'unearthliness' of the
'touching plaintive music' of the Lamentations sung by Mrs King and Mr Wrigley, the 'great
richness of tone' of Peter Cazaly's voice in the Pro Peccatis from Rossini's Stabat Mater, the
'considerable effect' of the augmented choir in Haydn's Mass No 1 and the 'great purity of voice'
of Mrs King in the Fac ut Portem from Rossini's Stabat Mater were an important part of the
'exactness and splendor' of the 'magnificent liturgy'. The altar of the Sepulchre was decorated
with 'all the elegance and richness that money and good taste could attain', with 'thrones of
flowers and lights standing out from a rich background of crimson draped with lace hangings'.
After the Holy Thursday High Mass 'the celebrant with attendants formed into procession from
the High Altar to the Sepulchre, now lighted up with a hundred lights and breathing perfume
from a thousand flowers, where, the sacred elements were enshrined till the morrow'. On Good
Friday signs of mourning were displayed on the altar of the Sepulchre, which was partially
stripped, while the high altar was draped in black.256
Surviving accounts of music in the synagogue refer to the notable ceremonies associated with its
consecration in 1861 and rededication in 1867. The music for the 1861 service was composed
specially for the occasion by Matthew Moss of London, the father of harmonium player Joseph
Moss. The choir sang from the temporary bimah, chanting the appointed psalms, including Psalm
84 ('How goodly are thy tents'), portions of Psalm 118 ('Open unto me the gates') and Psalm 150
252
253
On Good Friday 1864 St Patrick's choir sang Rossini's Stabat Mater; the tenor solo 'Cujus animam' can
be heard on the accompanying CD.
254
255
Star, 22 February 1869, pp. 2-3, 7 August 1871, p. 2.
256
Star, 29 March 1864, p. 4.
240
('Praise the Lord'). In 1867 the synagogue was extensively redecorated and a re-dedication
ceremony marked the occasion. It was noted that the congregation was largely composed of
Christians. The Rev'd Mr Herman of the synagogue began the service by chanting in Hebrew a
portion of Psalm 118 at the door. The procession entered while the choir chanted Psalm 84. The
reader and choir continued to chant psalms while the procession moved seven times around the
building, and portions of psalms 30, 42, 43, 130, 100 and 24 were sung. 'Give unto the Lord, O ye
mighty' from Psalm 29 was chanted as the reader and the scroll bearers ascended the steps and
deposited the scrolls within the ark. This was followed by the chanting of prayers. After the
sermon, the collection and further prayers the chanting of Psalm 90 concluded the proceedings.
The choir on this occasion was mainly composed of boys assisted by 'two or three adults', under
the direction of Mr Spielvogel. On both the above occasions it was noted that the choir sang
without the congregation. The chants selected in 1867 were considered musical by the reporter
who judged, however, that the boys were a little too loud.257
Choirs led the singing in the two principal Anglican churches. In St Paul's choir, led by John
Robson, were many members who also sang in the Ballarat choral societies. At one stage it was
said that it was made up of the most serviceable members of the Ballarat Philharmonic Society.258
It is likely that both St Paul's and Christ Church choirs were robed. An account was found in St
Paul's archives for laundering surplices in July 1863, while an illustration of a service in Christ
Church (dating from four years after this study) shows a large robed choir.259 No membership
details have been found of either choir, but it is known that they both contained boys, as there are
references to choirboys trained at both St Paul's and Christ Church in reviews of choral society
performances.260
Contrasting with the confident perceptions of the role of music in worship shown by the Catholic
churches on one hand, and the Wesleyan Methodists on the other, the Church of England
approach was far from united. Some churches tended towards the splendour of the Catholic
approach, while others preferred simpler congregational music. 'Shall we be permitted to hear the
grand but sensuous services of the ritualists or the intonation and music-forbidden services of
Bishop Perry?' enquired a frustrated correspondent in 1867.261
257
Star, 18 March 1861, p. 4, 15 April 1867, p. 5.
258
259
Geoffrey Cox, in Colin Holden (ed.), People of the Past? the culture of Melbourne Anglicanism, History
Department, University of Melbourne, 2000, p. 72, reports the claim made in 1865 that St Peter's Eastern
Hill had introduced the first surpliced choir in the colony.
260
For example Star, 27 December 1865, p. 2, 28 December 1868, p. 4.
261
241
In two local churches the influence of the Oxford Movement was particularly evident.262 St John's
church, Soldiers Hill, was accused of 'Puseyism' in 1866, in particular of using images of the
crucifix, using candlesticks, and praying towards the altar rather than towards the people.263
Although the accusation was quickly denied,264 it surfaced again in 1868, and the ritualistic
tendencies at St John's proved to be an ongoing controversial issue.265 As far as music was
concerned, however, it was Christ Church (later to become Christ Church Cathedral) around
which most of the dispute occurred.
Austin Turner, the organist and choirmaster, strove to achieve and maintain a high musical
standard. Important occasions were marked by special music. In May 1859, for example, the visit
of the bishop was celebrated with Turner's own Te Deum and Jubilate.266 A visitor in 1859 was
impressed by the choir. '[They sing] everything they possibly can, and perform astonishing
anthems. Their chaunting propensities have attracted the attention of the Bishop, who, hearing
that they sang the responses in the communion service ordered the Incumbent to have it
discontinued'.267
The Anglican church in Ballarat was at that time part of the Diocese of Melbourne, and the
bishop, Charles Perry, regarded church music as primarily a means of creating a devotional
mood, of uplifting the spirit, and of giving utterance to the spiritual feelings of the worshippers.268
He was an outspoken opponent of the ritualistic reforms adopted in some churches due to
Tractarian influence.269 The bishop felt that 'While it is right to render the services of the Church
cheerful, and, for this purpose to make due use of music, and lights, and decorations, care must
be taken not to deceive ourselves by supposing that God is worshipped, while in reality only the
lust of the eye, or the lust of the ear in things pertaining to Divine Service is gratified'.270 While
the bishop did not object to chanting the Venite, Te Deum and the psalms, his opinion was that
chanting the responses deterred the congregation from participating fully.271 Some members of
262
See note on the Oxford Movement in chap. 2.
263
Star, 26 November 1866, p. 3, 4 December 1866, p. 3.
264
Star, 27 November 1866, p. 3, 1 December 1866, p. 3.
265
Star, 12 May 1868, p. 4.
266
Star, 16 May 1859, p. 3.
267
268
The Church Gazette, 16 September 1862, p. 134.
269
See note on the Oxford Movement in chap. 2.
270
Melbourne Church News, 16 January 1867, p. 19, quoted in Robin, Charles Perry, Bishop of
Melbourne, p. 136.
271
Robin, Charles Perry, Bishop of Melbourne, pp. 137-38.
242
the Christ Church congregation were upset by the bishop's directive, and proposed that the
injunction go unheeded.272
Voices of dissent were raised again five years later. In a letter to the Star, a correspondent
complained that the Christ Church congregation was able to sing only the hymns, for the choir
sang 'intricate and scientific arrangements of music, a great deal too operatic to be followed
comfortably by ordinary voices'. The writer felt that the singing in Wesleyan and Presbyterian
churches was preferable, for there the whole congregation could participate.273 Austin Turner, in
reply, drew attention to the 'old vexed question, viz., Are we to have congregational or choir
singing in our churches?' In defence of introducing new music, he quoted the psalm passage 'Sing
unto the Lord a new song'.274
Schoolmaster John Finlay, a member of the Church of England, expressed the conviction that:
it is wholly unworthy of divine worship in any Church, that any excellency whatever should
be excluded from forming a part of that worship, and that the first fruits, i.e., the excellency
of our architecture, painting, poetry, music, and all that we are or possibly can be, should be
275
brought as tributes in the temple.
Yet the seductive aesthetic power of music was seen by others as a temptation that would
interfere with the experience of the divine, and another member of Christ Church felt that
'showing off or offensively attempting to please the ear at the risk of destroying instead of
heightening devotional feeling, seems most unbecoming if not actually sinful in the sight of
Almighty God'.276
The controversy intensified during the sacred music festival held in Christ Church to celebrate
the opening of the new organ. The church was accused of giving an 'exhibition for the
gratification of the outer man'.277 Others felt, however, that 'the most likely means of reaching
man's inner nature is to give him an opportunity of hearing the holiest words accompanied by the
best and most suitable music'.278
But the Christ Church choir, in spite of the controversy, continued in its musical endeavours. Full
choral services were sung on special occasions.279 Choral music was considered by the church
272
273
Star, 22 March 1864, p. 3.
274
Star, 25 March 1864, p. 3.
275
Star, 30 March 1864, p. 3.
276
Star, 31 March 1864, p. 4.
277
278
279
For example for the opening of the chancel and transepts the Star 5 May 1868, p. 3, 6 May 1868, p. 2, 7
May 1868, p. 2, 8 May 1868, p. 2 reported that the choirs sang four full choral evensongs and one Sunday
243
authorities as an important aspect of worship, for when in 1871 it became necessary to reduce
expenditure, the incumbent, the Rev'd J Potter, suggested a reduction in his own salary rather
than allowing the 'efficiency of the choir' to suffer. In fact both Mr Potter and Mr Turner agreed
to accept the reduced salaries of £500 and £60 respectively.280
* * *
As shown above, the transcendent aspects of church music took many forms and stimulated
strong debate. People used music in many ways to relate to the sacred. The strong emotions
generated by differences in practice related only to how music should be used, and never to
whether or not it should play a part in worship. In demonstrating those intense feelings, the
musical practices associated with Ballarat's religious life attest to the conviction of a link between
the aesthetic and the spiritual, and to the significance of music as a means of enhancing the
relationship between people and their God.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Sources reveal a strong contemporary focus on the value of the aesthetic and the spiritual in
music. The importance attached to this element of the musical experience was evident in
contemporary newspaper reports, and corroborated in surviving memoirs and journals. By
bringing a diversity of such experiences and messages, music provided many opportunities to go
beyond the boundaries of the everyday. These opportunities were not necessarily limited to any
particular form of music, but this chapter has explored some specific ways in which opera, choral
and sacred music carried special messages and moments that enabled people to transcend their
daily lives.
In the music, libretti, settings, and performance conventions of this type of music there was little
that related specifically to the goldfields of early Ballarat. This was music valued for its
associations with the 'other', and for bringing special liminal experiences that could not be found
within the normal boundaries of the daily environment. The chapter has highlighted several
different pathways to the transcendent. People could witness operatic performances imported
from outside the community, the extraordinary abilities of the leading artists enhanced by
distinctive language, costumes and visual effects. Specially trained choirs of local amateur
singers represented a striving for excellence as they performed the great works of genius
composers. This was music that needed skill, dedication and hard work, and the build up to a
morning choral service. The music included Clarke's Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in E together with
responses composed by Austin Turner.
280
Ballarat Evening Post, 17 January 1871, p. 2.
244
performance was often shared with the community through press notices and comments. Large
numbers of people worshipped God in their many musical ways. The full participatory nature of
hymn singing could bring intimate spiritual experiences, and a sublimation of the self through the
expression of collective identity. But dissent emerged from the various ways people defined an
appropriate aesthetic, and certain types of music were regarded with suspicion, as though they
had a seductive power that, rather than mediating between the sacred and the secular, would
actually come between the self and God.
As the settlement became more established, there were increasing opportunities to experience
opera and choral music. The extent of this type of music, and the value attributed to it in
contemporary writings, reflect a human tendency to reach beyond the horizons of the immediate
world. People wanted the special moments music could provide, and much effort and money was
devoted to creating appropriate venues that would enhance those experiences. Within the
developing city with its multitude of buildings devoted to habitation, manufacture and
administration, a number of sites emerged that, whatever other functions they performed, were
also gateways to the 'other'. Theatres, halls and churches were places where people could leave
behind their everyday worlds, while their distinctive designs, dimensions and material structure
helped to mould the music they encompassed, and added their own elements of sight, smell, and
even touch to the total experience.
The 'situating' and the 'transcending' powers of music discussed in this and the previous chapter
have both been regarded as outcomes of 'connecting'. These three aspects of the individual and
community response to music were ways for people to form relationships, through music, with
their world. They carried such an impact, both personally and communally, that they led to
changes in the way people thought and behaved, and contributed to the material, political and
social structuring of the community. Chapter Seven presents these ideas in more detail.
245
7
SHAPING
Never underestimate the power of a song!1
Mr Dimelow, principal of Ballarat Commercial College, had little doubt that music was
beneficial to the mental, physical and moral welfare of his pupils. 'As a relaxation from severer
studies', he wrote in 1870, 'as a means of promoting cheerfulness of temper and invigorating the
health, as an allurement from vice and intemperance, music unquestionably ranks high'.2 As
demonstrated below, Mr Dimelow was not alone in his belief that music could have a profound
influence on individual lives, as well as on the health and wellbeing of society.
The wisdom of many ages and cultures supports an association of music and morals, and there is
a large body of philosophy concerned with the relationship of music to goodness and morality.3
The Pythagoreans used music to strengthen the harmony of the human soul, and Plato discussed
at length the power of music to contribute to the health and order of society.4 Certain modes, for
example, were believed to have a strong influence on character. The right type of music was an
important and necessary part of education and had the power of turning its listeners into better
people.5
While Western aesthetic philosophies have a long tradition of associating music and goodness,6
other cultural traditions have also made similar connections. Anthony Seeger observed that a
community of Suyá Indians in Brazil would sing 'because song could both re-establish the good
and beautiful in the world and also relate themselves to it'.7 Cantonese opera was used to convey
1
Warren Fahey, Ratbags and Rabblerousers: a century of political protest, song and satire, Currency
Press, Sydney, 2000. p. xi.
2
3
Monroe C Beardsley, Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present, University of Alabama Press,
Tuscaloosa, 1975, p. 28.
4
Plato, The Laws, Penguin, London, 1970, p. 260.
5
The ancient Greeks based their music on specific patterns of notes called modes. While the Ionian and
Lydian modes were associated with weakness, the Dorian and the Phrygian expressed courage and
temperance (Plato, The Republic, Oxford University Press, London, 1941, p. 398, Laws, p. 802).
6
Beardsley, Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present, p. 131.
7
Seeger, Why Suyá Sing, p. 128.
246
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
messages of morality and ethics, and it is unfortunate that there is insufficient data to be able to
determine the way this was perceived among the Chinese people of Ballarat.8
This chapter will look at some specific ways in which music helped shape the lives of the people
of Ballarat and contributed to the development of the community. Because of its prominence in
contemporary sources, the issue of music and morality is a particular focus of this chapter. But
the influence of music was not limited to its power over the moral values of the community, and
the chapter will also highlight the contribution of music to Ballarat's social, religious and material
development. Martin Stokes notes a widespread use of music among the ways dominant social
formations are both enforced and resisted, showing music to be a common means of asserting
defiant difference, and of enacting rival principles of social organisation.9 The use of music as a
tool was not restricted to the dominant social classes of Ballarat and, as this chapter will
demonstrate, music on the goldfields, innately anarchic in its use of parody and satire, could also
become an agent for protest and active rebellion.
The two previous chapters saw music as a means of situating people within their worlds, and also
as a way of transcending those worlds. Such was its influence that it also became a strong
shaping force in the community for, working through the individual and community response,
music was used consciously and unconsciously to mould the thinking and behaviour of the
people. 'Shaping' does not necessarily imply the value-laden concept of progress. Developments
in music practices opened the way for new musical and social experiences, but these new
experiences are considered in this thesis as part of the contemporary social and cultural
environment rather than some form of improvement on, or enhancement of, what went before.
Similarly, while music was felt by many contemporaries to be a potential influence for good or
for evil, this thesis does not make that claim, but asserts, rather, that this was how it was
perceived and used in the culture of the day.
Dave Russell, in his social history of popular music in England, makes it clear that during the
Victorian era music was seen not only as a form of amusement, but also as a means of alleviating
society's evils.10 In one attempt to address the problems of poverty and crime that were
devastating the nation in the wake of the Industrial Revolution (roughly 1750-1850), social
reformers in England strove to improve the morals and ethics of the working classes by
promoting a theory of 'rational recreation'. It was felt that an increased involvement in
worthwhile pursuits shared with people from middle-class backgrounds would be a deterrent to
8
Wang Zheng-Ting, Chinese Music in Australia-Victoria, p. 21, makes reference to the ethical function of
Cantonese opera, but Wang's study did not reveal details of this aspect of local Chinese practice.
9
Stokes, 'Introduction', in Stokes (ed.), Ethnicity, Identity and Music, pp. 8, 12.
247
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
crime and lead to less consumption of alcohol. People were strongly encouraged to devote their
leisure hours to intellectual and cultural activities and, due to the efforts of industrial
entrepreneurs and moral reformers, singing classes, choral societies, brass bands and peoples'
concerts flourished.11 Much of the effectiveness of this 'moral crusade' lay in providing highly
attractive alternatives to the types of entertainment provided in the music halls and singing
saloons that were often believed to foster vice and intemperance.12
While social reformers were busy providing these alternative activities, others were discussing
the power of music on the individual. 'Let no one say', wrote English author HR Haweis in 1872,
'that the moral effects of music are small or insignificant'. Haweis gave particular emphasis to the
role of music in achieving a disciplined, self-controlled and balanced character. With its powerful
ability to create and manipulate emotion, music was felt to have a vast capacity for good or evil.13
Australian scholar Bruce Johnson claims that the particular circumstances under which Australia
was settled, and the obligation to direct the colonies away from criminal tendencies, meant that
cultural activities that were not directed towards the improving and civilising of the citizens were
less readily accepted as an aesthetically significant tradition than, for example, in America.14
There were strong convictions held in Ballarat regarding the way music practices should develop.
Chapter Five has already documented how some musical activity was frowned upon and actively
discouraged because it was considered detrimental to the morals of the community. The purpose
behind much of Ballarat's musical activity was stated overtly to be one of moral enlightenment
and progress. In other cases, however, intentions were deeply embedded in the cultural practices
of the inherited tradition. A careful reading of contemporary accounts shows that by simply
participating in everyday musical activity, Ballarat people were not only entertained, but were
also given clear guidelines for approved moral values and appropriate behavioural patterns.
As the initial random growth of the early years was channelled into a systematic and conscious
structuring of the city, Ballarat's remarkable material development was matched socially by an
emerging respectability. For civic leaders it was important to transform the lawlessness and loose
living of the goldfields according to the principles of mid-Victorian morality. Through a study of
the music culture of mid-nineteenth century Ballarat, this chapter will draw attention to the way
the music of the early gold-rush days promoted and encouraged the values and principles typical
10
11
Russell, Popular Music in England, chap. 2.
12
Russell, Popular Music in England, pp. 19, 20, 23.
13
Haweis, Music and Morals, pp. 52, 61, 104.
14
Johnson, 'Celebrating Australian music', p. 142.
248
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
of the early mining population, and then later became a highly effective tool in the process of
guiding the people and the city along culturally determined pathways to respectability.
Whereas in earlier chapters the exemplars were not chosen chronologically, in this chapter on
'shaping', it is more appropriate that the reader is able to retain some sense of development and
change over time. The discussion of song is thus divided into two sections corresponding to the
earlier and latter part of the study, with the music related to the Eureka rebellion falling between
the two parts. The chapter begins with a discussion of the songs of the goldfields. The second
section looks at the music of Eureka, and the way a large body of people used music to protest
and act against values they considered false and oppressive. The next section considers the
transition to the Victorian parlour ballad as the dominant respectable vocal genre of the day. A
fine arts exhibition in 1869 provides data for a detailed look at the values promoted in the songs
of this period. The fourth section examines the musical education of both children and adults, the
attitudes of the community towards that education, and the ideals it promoted. The focus of the
fifth section is the use of music in accordance with the Christian directive to help the needy. The
discussion will then move to the music of the churches and temperance movements, showing
how these institutions used music as a significant element of their evangelistic programmes. The
chapter concludes with an examination of the way music influenced the material development of
the city.
THE POWER OF SONG (a)

Most of the music performed in early Ballarat was vocal and choral. A study of song texts and
choral libretti is a useful addition to that of the literature, letters and diaries that open windows
into contemporary attitudes and beliefs, yet care is needed when attempting to analyse the
messages conveyed in those texts.15 The conscious and unconscious hegemonic intentions of the
creators provided an undercurrent of meaning that was not stated overtly, and the significance of
some of the symbolism may not be accessible to us today. As Russell points out, however, the
song messages were usually clear, and it is likely that they played a role in structuring and
reinforcing many key social and political attitudes.16
Singing was possibly the most popular recreational activity of the period. Vocal and choral music
consisted largely of ballads, songs, duets, glees, folk songs, anthems, hymns, psalms, operas and
oratorios. Of these, the most widely experienced were the songs and ballads, for they were
performed in the home, the hotel, the saloon, the school, the theatre and the concert hall, and
15
See Scott, The Singing Bourgeois, pp. 184-85, for a discussion of the differences between the intended
and the received messages,.
16
249
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
were sung and listened to by people from all walks of life. Song lyrics expressed many of the
important issues faced by society, and provided ways of addressing those issues in a directly
accessible way. Through song people could learn where their duty lay, how they should behave,
and what they should value. Similarly, hymns and psalms were a direct link between the
teachings of the church and the convictions of the people.
Early days on the goldfields

The concert rooms on the goldfields were introduced in Chapter One. Even the more 'respectable'
of these were considered unsuitable places for genteel society to congregate. Ballarat writer AW
Strange captures something of the atmosphere:
Roistering diggers came at night, from near and far, to find entertainment in Main Road and
it was all there. When plays and vaudeville were finished in the theatres, music started, and
hundreds of men danced wildly together.17
This seems an unlikely environment for the propagation of uplifting principles, but among the
themes of the popular songs sung in the concert rooms were many that promoted particular
cultural values. Song texts also addressed social issues faced by miners, and provided ways of
perceiving those issues. Russel Ward's discussion of the economic, social and political influences
of the Gold Rush notes the way goldfields ballads promoted, for example, the importance of
assimilating into goldfields culture, a contempt for the military and the police, and racist attitudes
to the Chinese.18 Other topics addressed in the songs were doubts about the decision to leave
one's homeland, the lack of women on the goldfields, and loyalty to one's mates.
Many of the songs were written by Charles Thatcher, one of the more popular of the goldfields
entertainers. A trained musician, he originally came to Australia to dig for gold, but found his
skills as a comic singer more lucrative.19 Other comic singers to write songs and perform them in
the concert rooms of Ballarat are listed in Appendix B.1, and include Cassidy, Coxon, Golding,
Mulholland and Small. Seeking to exploit the wealth of the diggings, entertainers skilfully used
their ability to adapt and create songs that were likely to amuse and appeal to crowds of young
single men in search of a good time. The articulation of social values relevant to the targeted
audiences, the performances by charismatic entertainers, and the stimulating and uninhibited
atmosphere of the concert rooms worked together to encourage a ready acceptance of the
principles incorporated in the ballads. This discussion focuses on four of the more prominent
themes: anti-authoritarianism, attitudes to women, mateship, and racism.
17
AW Strange, Ballarat: the formative years, B & B Strange, Ballarat, 1982.
18
Ward, The Australian Legend, pp. 112-144.
19
Anderson, The Colonial Minstrel, chaps 1-2; Ward, The Australian Legend, pp. 123-129.
250
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Philip Butterss claims that the goldfields ballads presented a basically conservative acceptance of
contemporary social attitudes in that they attacked individuals who abused their positions of
power rather than the hierarchical institutions themselves.20 Ridicule and humour were used to
denounce unfair or inappropriate behaviour, and one way of making something funny was
through the use of irony:
The gov'ment officials out here,

(Don't believe that false Argus' version)
I assure you are all badly paid,
And sometimes quite ill from exertion.
At the hospital here they're humane,

They never commit a mean action;
And the way that they hold inquests too,
I must say gives great satisfaction. 21
Miners were portrayed as far more honest than those in positions of authority. 'Australian
Humbugs', written by Ballarat songster James Mulholland, represents lawyers, doctors, parsons,
actors and 'land jobbers' as ignorant, greedy and dishonest in their schemes to control and take
money from the working classes by false pretences:
The medical men, without leave to kill,

Who dose you with black draught and blue pill,
And make you believe you're dreadfully ill,
Are also Australian humbugs.
Although ignorant of ailment or disease,
Each doctor tacitly agrees
On every victim he can to seize,
And he never forgets to claim his fees.22
Melodies of well-known popular ballads were often combined with words parodying those of the
original songs. Familiarity with music and lyrics helped to make the songs immediately
accessible, and audiences would enjoy the play on the familiar words. Parody turned the
respectable into the disreputable, and politeness into rudeness. The original song 'My Pretty Jane',
for example, praised the qualities of a pretty, shy girl:
My pretty Jane! My pretty Jane!

Ah! Never look so shy,
But meet me, meet me in the ev'ning,
While the bloom is on the Rye.23
Charles Thatcher transformed it to:
20
Butterss, 'Longing for harmony, p. 10.
21
'A new chum's letter' in Thatcher's Colonial Songs, Charlwood and Son, Melbourne, 1864, reproduced
by the Libraries Board of South Australia, Adelaide, 1964, p. 73.
22
James Mulholland, 'Australian humbugs', The Victoria Songster, Charlwood & Son, Melbourne, 1860,
reproduced by the Libraries Board of South Australia, 1964, p. 163.
23
Michael R Turner, (ed.), The Parlour Song Book: a casquet of vocal gems, Michael Joseph, London,
1972, p. 24.
251
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
My lusty Jane, my rowdy Jane,

Ah! Never look so shy.
You've been drunk and disorderly,
And you've got a fine black eye.24
Local subject matter was used to attract and appeal to audiences, and Appendix A.1 lists several
songs that related specifically to Ballarat:
This Ballarat's a curious spot,

At least I'm sure I've found it so,
Bad luck is sure to be my lot,
No matter to what part I go.25
The necessarily cooperative nature of mining meant that without the assistance of others there
would be little chance of success. Russel Ward notes that the term 'mate' was used for members
of a mining team on the Australian fields rather than the more business-like 'partner' that was
used in California.26 Mateship on the fields was highly valued, and informing on members of
one's group an unforgivable crime:
There, down in Pentridge Gaol, you may

See him pick oakum every day.
Whilst voices echo from afar,
Serve him quite right; revenged we are.27
People from different classes and ethnic groups came together on the goldfields, and egalitarian
principles were promoted, ('On the diggings we're all on a level you know'). Rewards should be
for hard work rather than inheritance ('And this is the country, with rich golden soil, /to reward
any poor man's industrious toil').28 Such principles, however, were not applied equally to
everyone.
The Chinese were a perceived danger to the other miners, their unfamiliar appearance and
customs hard to comprehend, and their readiness to work for low wages a threat that living
standards would be lowered. Mockery of the Chinese expressed in many of the goldfields ballads
was a blatant assertion of white supremacy, and was directed towards appearance, lifestyle,
mining habits and encounters with the law. The adapted words and familiar melody of the
popular Burns ballad 'John Anderson, my Jo' presented racist attitudes in a respected cultural
format:
John Chinaman, my Joe John,

When we were first acquent,
They lugged you up before me
24
Anderson, The Colonial Minstrel, p. 87; 'There's a good time coming', on the accompanying CD, is
another adaptation of a well-known song.
25
'The Rowdy Mob', in Thatcher's Colonial Songs, p. 16.
26
Ward, The Australian Legend, p. 118.
27
Charles Thatcher, 'Grogselsior', quoted in Butterss, 'Longing for harmony', p. 12.
28
'London and the diggings', quoted in Butterss, 'Longing for harmony', p. 20.
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CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
For robbing from a tent,

But now you're getting bold John,
Stealing boots you go
I'll have your blessed tail cut off,
John Chinaman, my Joe.29
Gender roles projected in the goldfields songs were mostly conservative. Men were the
breadwinners, wives belonged to their husbands, and women who earned a living often did so in
questionable occupations. One common technique used by songwriters was to poke fun at the
person attempting unsuccessfully to carry out an inappropriate role ('Cooking v. digging').30
Butterss illustrates the way women in the ballads were depicted as objects of desire.31 This was
not, of course, exclusive to the goldfields songs, but the issue was addressed more directly than in
the bourgeois songs of the middle classes:
But woman alone can afford us real pleasure!

Say what would the gold-fields now be without you.32
Principles embedded in the goldfields songs were represented as the basic, down to earth values
of the working man, yet they were at the same time idealistic. Butterss suggests that the
ideologies presented in the goldfields songs acted to hide, or to compensate for, the common goal
of all miners, which was basically to acquire wealth fast. He claims that songs about the
goldfields published in London were more explicit, such as the song 'Let's be off to the diggings,
and get as rich as a Jew'.33 Songs sung on the goldfields tended to equivocate, promoting the love
of independence over and above that of acquisitiveness, and suggesting that it was a liking for the
goldfields life that was the main attraction. The young man who went to Ballarat and made his
fortune before returning to England was said to miss the 'digger's independent life' so much that
in spite of achieving his goal and becoming wealthy, he came back to work the fields once more:
'For he missed the sound of the windlass, and the cry "Look out below"'.34
The parody inherent in goldfields songs was itself an encouragement of anti-authoritarianism, for
the enjoyment of respectable material transformed into something bawdy implied an element of
subversion. As seen in the following section, the build up of grievances was soon to tip parody
into protest, and resistance into rebellion.
29
Anderson, The Colonial Minstrel, p. 88.
30
'Cooking v. digging', quoted in Butterss, 'Longing for harmony', p. 26.
31
Butterss, 'Longing for harmony', p. 23.
32
'Scrumptious Young Gals', Thatcher's Colonial Songs, p. 48.
33
34
'Look out below', Thatcher's Colonial Songs, p. 93; the accompanying CD includes a performance of this
song by Danny Spooner.
253
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
REBELLING: MUSIC AND EUREKA

As the site of the Eureka uprising in December 1854, Ballarat provides an opportunity to
investigate the music associated with one of Australia's most famous rebellions. This section will
consider the music that accompanied the activities leading up to the battle on the Eureka lead,
and the music more directly associated with the actual uprising. Studies dealing with Eureka have
not attributed much significance to the part music played in the rebellion, even though
contemporary newspapers and related documents reveal sufficient information to suggest that
music was one of the more direct ways of drawing large numbers of people into what has come to
be considered a notable event in Australian history.
In 1854 a strong atmosphere of tension dominated the relationships between miners and
government authorities. The unpopularity of the officials in Ballarat was due partly to the fact
that they lived apart from the miners and enjoyed a superior standard of living. A more direct
cause of grievance, however, lay in the unnecessarily despotic attitudes adopted by the
authorities, and the failure to approach the task of maintaining order and discipline in a humane
way. Laws were felt to be unnecessarily harsh, and methods of enforcing them unfair. The sale of
liquor was banned on the goldfields, for example, until 1854.35 Gold licences were prohibitively
expensive, licence checks inconvenient and frequent, and new regulations regarding
'shepherding'36 increasingly severe. Miners were angry at the social bias and the arbitrary nature
of decisions regarding claim disputes, a common complaint being that justice depended on a
whim of the commissioner. Resentment that their taxes and licence fees contributed to the
maintenance of an often inept and corrupt body of men fuelled the growing unrest.37 Underlying
all was the anger that, although they paid taxes, miners had no voice in the government.38
During this period, entertainers performing in the concert rooms made it a routine practice to use
topical themes in order to engage their audiences, and the grievances of the day were a typical
subject. Three months before the Eureka rebellion a song by resident comic singer James
Mulholland was published in Ballarat:
The officials of Victoria-these men of golden band

Which worn o'er fierce mustachios makes their appearance grand,
With delightful condescension their favors are bestowed,
They've a great contempt for diggers and don't like to be joe'd.39
35
Clare Wright, Beyond the Ladies' Lounge: Australia's female publicans, Melbourne University Press,
Melbourne, 2003, p. 29.
36
The practice of guarding an unworked claim until there was an indication of a favourable outcome.
37
Bate, Lucky City, pp. 46-49, 51.
38
The Victorian Parliament was a single house, largely composed of nominees of the crown, and the
masses on the goldfields had no voice at all (Withers, History of Ballarat, 1999, p. 47).
39
Times, 2 September 1854, p. 3. 'Joe' was a common taunt used by miners towards the goldfields officials.
254
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Charles Thatcher, quick to capitalise on any current issue he could use in his popular
entertainment, wrote the song 'Where's your license'. References were found to his performing it
in Mount Alexander by July 1854, six months before Eureka.40
Now a big, ugly trap,

He espied a young chap,
Up a gully a-cutting like fun;
So he quickly gave chase,
But 'twas a hard race,
For, mind you, the digger could run.
Down the hole he did pop,
While the bobby up top,
Says⎯'Just come up,' shaking his staff⎯
'Young man of the Crown,
If you want me come down,
For I'm not to be caught with such chaff.'41
In the volatile environment of the goldfields, the enjoyment of such songs could itself be
regarded as a form of implied protest. The above song was also utilised consciously as an act of
defiance. William Burrows, a trooper at the time of Eureka, reported in his reminiscences that the
words of the song found their way into the popular practice of taunting the officials who, in the
period before the uprising, carried out the unpopular licence hunts:
One favourite dodge to evade taking out licences used to be, for the man on the top of the
hole, only, to be provided with a licence, while his mates who were working below had none;
these fellows would then jeeringly invite the constable to do his duty in the following words
of a then popular song:-
'Young man of the crown,
Why don't you come down?'42
Other songs dealing with the corrupt practices of officials include Charles Thatcher's 'Laying
information' and 'Song of the trap'43 but, unlike the first two songs, evidence was not found to
show that they actually preceded the rebellion. The use of topical themes by the popular comic
singers in the period immediately before Eureka would suggest, however, that entertainers did
not neglect the possibility of incorporating these major concerns of the miners into their songs,
and that the surviving songs are just a sample of those dealing with the grievances that finally
culminated in Eureka. An Argus correspondent remarked that Thatcher's songs 'are all humorous,
abounding in local allusions as a matter of course; and if circulated in England, would give a
much better idea of life at the goldfields than most of the elaborate written works upon them
40
Mount Alexander Mail, 29 July 1854, p. 5. The contemporary spelling of 'license' has been retained in
quotations.
41
Quoted in Pat Edwards and Kate Baker (eds), The Gold and Glory Boys: a selection of Australian folk
songs about bushrangers and gold diggers, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1982, pp. 14-15. 'Trap' refers
to a policeman.
42
William Burrows, Adventures of a Mounted Trooper, Queensberry Hill Press, Carlton, c.1986 (first
43
Thatcher's Colonial Songs, pp. 23, 38.
255
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
do'.44 Butterss suggests the songs relating to the licence-tax may have encouraged resistance to
the tax.45
The popular songs were listened to by large numbers of diggers in their leisure hours, and it is
very likely that they brought their messages to many who might not have considered attending
any form of protest gathering. Through these songs diggers could find solidarity through joining
with others in ridiculing government officials. Butterss suggests that, as well as assisting miners
to assimilate into goldfields culture, the songs offered them fictional resolution to the social
problems they faced.46 But the songs and the performances also reinforced the dividing line
between 'us' and 'them', while the subversive elements they embodied through comedy, satire and
parody contributed to the build up of tension and aggression that culminated in the events of 3
December.
Music was one of the forces consciously appropriated by the leaders of the miners in their quest
for justice. During the first part of 1854 a German band was engaged to play in Ballarat by the
circus proprietors Noble, Jones and Foley. Members of the band became reluctant participants in
the dramatic events of the Eureka rebellion, the first incident occurring shortly after their arrival
in Ballarat. The band was approached by some rebel miners with the instruction to lead a
procession to the police camp. The rebel miners intended to demand the release of a number of
miners who had been imprisoned for having no gold licences. The compliance of the band was
due partly to an unfulfilled promise of £50, but more to the conviction that the demand was 'not
to be trifled with'. The active role of music in the event was reflected in the words of the musician
who reported that the band 'played the crowd up to the camp'.47
When the 'bands of music lent ominous life to the assemblage' at a diggers' meeting in Ballarat on
11 November,48 it was not 'resolution' that was offered. Through its power to create a particular
mood, and to provide a physical and symbolic uniting force, music became a means of moulding
the 'thousands of men'49 who had gathered on that occasion into a body of people with potential
for action.
As tension on the goldfields continued to mount, large numbers of diggers swore to defend their
rights and liberties at a public gathering on 30 November, and commenced military style drilling.
44
Argus, 7 April 1854.
45
46
Butterss, 'Longing for harmony', pp. 9, 32.
47
CC Mullen, 'Brass bands have played a prominent part in the history of Victoria', The Victorian
Historical Magazine, February 1965, pp. 30-47.
48
49
256
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
On Friday 1 December, a contingent of men arrived from nearby Creswick to support the rebels,
the sounds of the 'Marseillaise' played by their accompanying band a strong statement of mood
and purpose.50
Further involvement for the German band came on the morning of the building of the stockade.
Not only was the band forced to give 'one or two cornets' to the miners for use as bugles, but
members were instructed 'with levelled guns and pistols' to provide the music for the march to
Eureka. A bass drum and cymbals played by two of the circus employees completed the
ensemble and the band set off playing its 'liveliest march'. Diggers, attracted by the sounds,
looked out from their tents, or up from their shafts, and were commandeered to join the
procession. Having reached the chosen site, the band was kept playing all day to enliven the men
as they built the stockade.51
In the early hours of Sunday 3 December police and troops stormed the stockade built by the
miners, the clash resulting in the deaths of around twenty-five miners and six officials. Surviving
accounts report the use of musical sounds by the opposition as well, for it was noted that the
efforts of the bugler were heroic as he incited the military to action.52 While the battle itself
resulted in a defeat for the miners, at the ensuing trial those accused of treason were all acquitted,
and the licence was replaced with the more acceptable miner's right. All the reforms demanded
by the miners were subsequently adopted.53
The Eureka battle passed into history as a battle lost but a victory won. Charles Thatcher was
quick to put the Eureka story into song, portraying the military as incompetent and the attack as
unnecessarily aggressive. Ridiculing the military placed them in a far less worthy position than
their victims. In carrying messages of the acceptability of standing up against oppressive
regulation and its authoritarian enforcement, songs such as the following helped to perpetuate the
spirit of Eureka:
We watched at night, but all was still,
For glory we were yearning,
And we fired upon a tent in which
A candle was seen burning.
We killed a woman and a child,
Though 'twas not our intention.
But that slight mistakes sometimes occur,
Of course I needn't mention.54
50
51
CC Mullen, 'Brass bands have played a prominent part in the history of Victoria', pp. 30-47.
52
Raffaello Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, Libraries Board of South Australia, Adelaide, 1962, (first
53
Accounts of Eureka can be found in Bate, Lucky City, chap. 4: 'Eureka', and Withers, 1999 (first
published 1870), chap. 5: 'The Eureka Stockade'.
54
'The private despatch of Captain Bumble', quoted in Anderson, The Colonial Minstrel, p. 17.
257
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Music was thus used to shape the way the events of Eureka were experienced, and how they are
remembered, making it a significant element in the events that have since been regarded as the
birth of Australian democracy.55
THE POWER OF SONG (b)

WB Withers, writing in 1870, referred to Ballarat as 'one of the strongest columns of national
greatness', closing his History of Ballarat with a statement of pride in the 'first and the richest of
the gold-fields, and the battle ground of the political freedom of Victoria'.56 Yet, proud as they
were of the remarkable development of their city, and of the role it had played in colonial history,
Ballarat people remained loyal to the Empire and the values it embodied. Weston Bate's
suggestion that Ballarat citizens regarded themselves as the 'best of Britons'57 is reflected in the
streetscapes, infrastructure, government and cultural practices of their city which, in the decades
after the first white settlement, displayed increasing similarities to those of their British
heritage.58
In this context it becomes easier to understand why the goldfields ballads did not become part of
the standard repertoire of 'polite' amateur and professional concert performances in Ballarat. Most
of the songs sung on such occasions sprang from the English concert platforms, although as
documented in Appendix A.1, a body of local songs referring to Ballarat remained popular
throughout the period. Comic songs, sacred songs, drawing room ballads and operatic arias
formed the basis of the regular amateur concert repertoire of the 60s.
The downward movement of the Victorian parlour songs associated with the middle classes far
exceeded the upward movement of working-class songs. Drawing room ballads were heard in the
concert rooms, in minstrel shows, and even in street performances by barrel organs and bands.
Derek Scott suggests that these songs were considered as one way of imposing bourgeois moral
values on the working classes, and that they incorporated both openly didactic and more subtle
ways of promoting the dominant ideology.59
55
EG Whitlam, reprinted in Eureka: saga of Australian history, Department of Immigration, Canberra,
1973, quoted in Anne Beggs Sunter, '"Birth of a nation?": constructing and de-constructing the Eureka
legend', PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2002, p. 254.
56
57
Weston Bate, 'Ballarat: built for federation', in Kevin T Livingston, Richard Jordan, Gay Sweely (eds),
Becoming Australians: the movement towards federation in Ballarat and the nation, Wakefield Press, Kent
Town, 2001, p. 20.
58
Bate, Lucky City, pp. 147, 84, 80, 260.
59
Scott, The Singing Bougeois, p. 190.
258
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Changing perspectives: songs of 'respectability'

When Charles Thatcher returned to Ballarat in April 1868 after a long absence, he performed in
the Theatre Royal and the Mechanics' Institute rather than the venues frequented principally by
the working classes.60 He was no longer basing his entertainment around current issues, and his
presentation entitled 'Life on the Goldfields' was a retrospective look at 'life as it used to was'.61 A
panorama of fourteen views of emigrant and goldfields life painted by Hennings of Melbourne
was accompanied by Thatcher's puns, anecdotes and songs. 'Of merriment there is a perfect heap,
and the visitor is bound to laugh heartily, and often,' observed the Star. Thatcher's humour, and
his presentation of local themes in such songs as 'Ballarat, Ancient and Modern', were as good as
ever. But 1868 Ballarat had some reservations:
The Thatcher of today is so much the Thatcher of ten years ago, that he is now a little behind
the requirements of that large class which opera, the higher drama, the classic concert, and
other entertainments of similar rank in art, have been delighting for a long time in Ballarat. 62
In fact some of his entertainment was quite unacceptable to this respectable, culturally ambitious
social group:
He was unnecessarily familiar on Saturday night with names of townsfolk. It is easy to

overdo that sort of thing, and unless Mr Thatcher wishes to please the gallery only, he must
cultivate discretion as well as humor in those matters. Interspersed with his anecdotes and
jokes there was a coarse levity now and then in allusion to drinking, temperance, and other
things which is hardly suitable to a prominent house of entertainment in Ballarat of the
present day. 63
This objection was promptly taken on board by Thatcher. On the following night some of the
dubious elements were excised, and Mrs Thatcher gave a performance of her husband's new song
'The Sailor Prince', referring to the recent assassination attempt on Prince Alfred. Both words and
music were said to be by Thatcher, and it made such an impression that the Star took the unusual
step of transcribing it in full:
What a burst of indignation is flashing thro' the land!

A cowardly assassin has dared to lift his hand
Against our youthful Sailor Prince, who lately crossed the sea
To view Australia and accept our hospitality!
The land is filled with horror at this bloodthirsty deed,
And every heart is grateful that the crime did not succeed.
The Prince is out of danger, and now a thrill of joy
Is mingled with compassion for the wounded Sailor boy.
We've loyal hearts, and well I know that each one will deplore
The news that will to England go from fair Australia's shore;
And fancy now can feebly paint the sad and harrowing scene
When the outrage is related to a noble widowed Queen:
60
Contemporary accounts do not support Hugh Anderson's claim (The Colonial Minstrel p. 144) that
Thatcher's final visit to Ballarat was in 1867.
61
62
63
259
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
A feeling first of grief will weigh upon her lonely heart,

But then a tear of gratitude into her eye will start,
And falling on her knees she'll clasp her hands and say with joy—
'Thank God for sparing to me yet my wounded Sailor Boy'.64
Expressions of patriotism were safer than jokes about temperance. The song was greeted by a
'perfect burst of applause', and a call for 'God save the Queen'.65 In presenting his adapted
programme, Thatcher had been quick to respond to his initial reception, channelling his
performance in the direction of a middle-class audience's expectation, and playing to its
perceived superiority.
A fine arts exhibition

In 1869 a fine arts exhibition was held at the Mechanics' Institute. During the three months of the
exhibition there were sixty-eight evening concerts held in the Institute hall, of which most were
described as 'Grand Promenade Concerts'. Local instrumentalists, vocalists and choirs, as well as
popular professional artists, performed a wide range of instrumental, choral and vocal music. The
Carandinis and the Simonsens gave several concerts, and comic singers, such as Margetts and
Hilton, were well represented. The concerts were consistently well attended, sometimes making it
difficult for people to 'promenade'. Over 1300 people, for example, attended the opening concert,
and another reference reports that there were over 1100 at the concert on 24 September. The
enthusiasm of the audiences was frequently noted in the press, and the newspapers found the
continued insistence on encores unacceptable, likening it to someone going into a shop, paying
for one pound of butter and taking two.66
The programmes of all except four of the concerts were listed in the press. The vocal music heard
in the concerts was varied, and ranged from music from opera and oratorio to ballads and comic
songs. According to the sixty-four listed programmes, a total of 424 different vocal works was
performed, with many of the songs repeated on several different occasions. While these songs do
not provide a complete picture of the musical tastes of the time, they have much to tell us about
what the middle classes of Ballarat were listening to in 1869. Moreover, the songs that were
performed in more than one of the concerts are an indication of those that were particularly
popular.
The most frequently performed song was the famous and popular 'Home, sweet home' by Sir
Henry Bishop, with a total of eight performances by four different singers. Of all the influences
for good that the Victorians placed on a pedestal, it would be hard to find a more hallowed one
64
65
66
260
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
than that of the home and family. Michael Turner suggests that the theme reflects the longing for
security felt during this 'Age of Emigration'.67 The highly emotive nature of current popular song
was a significant way for people to express this longing. The Victorian poet Dr Charles Mackay
(1814-1889) believed that the song 'Home, sweet home' 'has done more than statesmanship or
legislation to keep alive in the hearts of the people the virtues that flourish at the fireside, and to
recall to its hallowed circle the wanderers who stray from it'.68 Fifteen different songs performed
during the concert season included the words 'home' or 'mother' in the title, and six of these were
given three or more performances.69
Unlike the rough and ready women of the goldfields ballads (for example 'Moggy's Wedding'),
the girls in these songs tend to be pretty, shy and sweet. Melodies are often graceful and
charming, suggesting that the same characteristics were highly valued by the opposite sex. Henry
Bishop's 'My pretty Jane' was a very popular song of the period and was given six performances
in the 1869 concerts, sung by four different performers. Pretty Jane, glimpsed briefly as she shyly
peeps through her window, so captivates the singer that he immediately comes up with their
prospective wedding arrangements.
In the many love songs performed throughout the season, desirable women were depicted as
chaste and pure, and the sexual aspect of love was never mentioned. Michael Turner has noted
that rarely was any part of the body below the chin referred to in this type of Victorian song,70
and this was certainly the case in the Ballarat Fine Arts Exhibition. Women's beauty lay in their
faces:
Her brow is like the snawdrift,

Her neck is like a swan,
And her face it is the fairest
That e'er the sun shone on.71
In reflecting and perpetuating the Victorian middle-class hesitancy to refer explicitly to sexual
themes, the songs played their part in suggesting that sex was something to be kept private, and
perhaps, to some minds, even shameful. Yet the essence of these love songs was not unlike that
of the more highly suggestive saloon ballads, and related directly to the masculinist approach of
seeing a woman as an object of desire.
67
Turner (ed.), The Parlour Song Book, p. 18.
68
Quoted in Turner (ed.), The Parlour Song Book p. 143. A performance of 'Home, sweet home', by
Felicity Palmer, can be heard on the accompanying CD.
69
The information in this section comes from the Star, between 6 August 1869 and 13 November 1869.
70
71
'Anne Laurie' sung by Madame Carandini on 29 October (Star, 29 October 1869, p. 3); word source
National Library of Australia: mus N mba 783.242 A615.
261
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Not surprisingly, a woman was expected to marry and take her rightful place in the home ('The
old maid, or a lesson to scornful young ladies').72 Women in employment were sometimes the
topics of comic songs ('Selina Sly, or the troubles of a housemaid'),73 while older women were
mostly portrayed as mothers, or sometimes grandmothers. Songs about girls and older women
were so numerous that they probably had some influence on the way society viewed its women.
Among the 424 songs, however, there was just a slight hint of rebellion. Miss Bowen gave two
performances of the song 'I'll be no submissive wife', and Fannie Simonsen sang 'Woman's
rights', also giving two performances.74
High on the list of themes was that of war and love of one's country, depicted invariably as noble
and honourable. To die for one's country was truly the supreme sacrifice. 'Let me like a soldier
fall' was given six performances, by five different singers.75 Its stirring melody and martial
accompaniment provided an emotional setting for the worthy sentiments of the young man of the
battle, who asked not for honour and glory:
Tho' o'er my grave no banner wave,

Nor trumpet requiem swell.
Enough they murmur o'er my grave
He like a soldier fell.76
Other war songs sung during the three months of concerts include 'The death of Nelson', a tenor
showpiece which was said to have caused Lady Hamilton such distress that she sobbed and
screamed during an early performance by the composer, John Braham.77 No sobs or screams
were recorded when Mr ES Carty sang it in Ballarat on 20 August, but perhaps the audience was
moved nonetheless by the noble sentiments of the hero as he lay dying in the service of his
country:
In honor's cause my life was past,

In honor's cause I fall at last,
For England, home and beauty,
For England, home and beauty.78
No theme was more pervasive than that of nature. A surprising number of song titles contain
words referring to nature, and the following list does not take into consideration other songs
about nature whose content is not reflected in their titles. For example, of the 424 song titles,
thirteen contain words about flowers (flower, rose, lily), twelve about day or night (day, night,
72
73
74
Star, 14 August 1869, p. 3, 11 September 1869, p. 3, 21 September 1869, p. 3, 12 November 1869, p. 3.
75
Star, 6 August 1869, p. 3, 25 August 1869, p, 3, 17 September 1869, p. 3, 25 September 1869, p. 3, 2
November 1869, p. 3, 11 November 1869, p. 3.
76
Turner (ed.), The Parlour Song Book, p. 77; a performance of this song also appears on the
accompanying CD.
77
262
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
morning, evening), eleven about birds (bird, lark), eleven about the landscape (mountain, hill,
stream), eleven about the moon or stars, six about the seasons and four about the sea. These
words are often used unstintingly in the lyrics themselves:
The star of love now shines above,

Cool zephyrs crisp the sea,
Among the leaves the wind-harp weaves
Its serenade for thee!
The star, the breeze, the wave, the trees,
Their minstrelsy unite;
But all seems drear till thou appear
To decorate the night!79
The metaphor of nature (a nature located securely in the home country) was used for beauty and
goodness. The birds sing gaily around 'Home, sweet home' and it is 'The bonny hills of Scotland'
that come to mind when remembering one's homeland. Young girls commonly appear in gardens
and are compared to flowers:
Queen Rose of the rosebud, garden of girls,

Come hither, the dances are done;
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen Lily and Rose, in one.
Shine out little head sunning over with curls
To the flowers and be their Sun.
Shine out! Shine out! And be their sun.80
The symbolism of nature helped people to express, and to deal with, some of their deepest
experiences of life and death. The sad melodies of Thomas Moore, for example, liken parting and
loss to 'leaves in wintry weather'81 or the 'last rose of summer'.82 Similar in theme are two songs
performed in the exhibition concerts that were composed by local Ballarat musician Austin
Turner.83 'The land o' the leal' is set to words by Lady Nairne and portrays the dying singer
'wearin' awa' like snow when it thaw'.84 The other of Turner's songs is also about parting, set to
words by Mrs Turner. 'When the roses bloom again' is the song of a departing lover who
promises that he will soon return:
'I'll come to thee, my own true love,

When the roses bloom again'.
78
79
'The star of love', sung by Arthur Moule on 23 September (Star, 23 September 1869, p. 3); word source
National Library of Australia: MUS N m 780 AA v.151.
80
'Come into the garden, Maud', sung by Mr Sherwin on 30 October (Star, 30 October 1869, p. 3).
81
From 'Oft in the stilly night', performed by the Carandinis and Walter Sherwin on 25 October; Star, 25
October 1869, p. 3; word source national Library of Australia: MUS N m 780 AA v.147.
82
'The last rose of summer' was performed by Miss MA Liddle on 20 September; Star, 20 September
1869, p. 3.
83
'Land o' the Leal', National Library of Australia, MUS N m 780 AA v.147; 'When the roses bloom again',
National Library of Australia, MUS N m 780 AA v.147.
84
Sung by Fannie Carandini on 5 November, 1869 (Star 5 November 1869, p. 3).
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But before the roses have a chance to bloom, the lover is drowned, leaving his beloved to pine
away and die:
They laid her in the cold, cold grave

When the roses bloom'd again.85
Nature was thus a setting for both joy and sorrow, and rendered both more acceptable. Love
became pure and death became beautiful. Moreover nature provided a wealth of metaphors
through which to view some of the essential meanings of life. Although surrounded by beauty
(flowers, stars), the troubles of life were inevitable (rain, clouds, storms). In spite of tragedies
experienced (the sea) there was, however, an overall hope in the eternal (spring). These highly
emotional and dramatic associations presented in song were one way for people to relate to many
of the basic issues facing their own lives.
Songs by Ballarat musician Austin Turner. Both are reproduced in Appendix D.

National Library of Australia, L. MUS N m 780 AA v.147, R.
* * *
The changing nature of popular vocal performances reflected Ballarat's transformation from a
rough mining settlement into an established city, dominated socially by bourgeois British culture.
264
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
In two decades the methods of presentation, the language and the themes of the most frequently
performed songs displayed distinctive changes, yet, throughout the period, song continued to
present people with ways of looking at life and concepts related to right and wrong conduct.
Songs were frequently presented by popular artists to large enthusiastic audiences. Many related
to relevant social issues, and had strong human appeal. Added to this, and perhaps most
important, was the strong impact of the music itself, in a world where music was not a constant
background presence. The readily accessible melodies, fresh and beautiful to the listeners, with
their lavish play on the emotions, made the songs a powerful purveyor of the Victorian ideals
they embodied.
NURTURING: MUSIC AND EDUCATION

After 1848 state supported education in Victoria was regulated by a dual board system and, until
1862 when a single Board of Education was established, schools in the Ballarat area that received
state aid were affiliated with either the National or the Denominational Board. There were also
private schools that received no state assistance. The first school in the area actually predated the
gold discoveries. The Buninyong school (Free Presbyterian) was opened in 1848 and, due to the
dedication of the Rev'd Thomas Hastie, it managed to remain open throughout the first turbulent
years of the gold rush when there was a dearth of teachers in the area. It became the first school
in the area to be affiliated with the Denominational Board, while the National Board's first school
commenced in June 1853, on Bakery Hill.86
This section looks at the role of music in state supported and private schools, showing that
religious and civic leaders regarded music as highly important for the moral development of
children. It explores some of the values and principles imparted through children's music, and
argues that music was a particularly effective tool in inculcating those values.
National and Denominational School Board inspectors commented on the extremely difficult
conditions under which schools in the area operated. The migratory population meant a lack of
continuity among pupils. Education was not compulsory, and attendance was highly dependent
on the popularity of the teacher. James Bonwick, inspector for the Denominational Schools,
reported that in 1859 around one quarter of the children in Ballarat aged from five to twelve years
did not attend school. Families were sometimes in receipt of no monetary income, and thus
unable to pay school fees. Some children were not sent to school because they had no decent
85
Sung by Rosina Carandini on 1 November (Star, 1 November 1869, p. 3).
86
Star, 6 February 1857, p. 2; Keith Moore, 'The influence of local and central management on national
and denominational board schoolteachers in Ballarat and Buninyong, 1848-1862', PhD thesis, Monash
University, 1996, pp. 26, 39.
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CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
clothing, others because there was no conveniently located school. Moreover many children came
from poor families in which uneducated and illiterate parents were indifferent to their children's
educational needs. Even for those who did attend, the goldfields environment was not conducive
to effective learning. School premises were often unlined, dirty and ill equipped, and it was not
unusual for teachers undertaking their required examinations to be classed as 'incompetent'.87
Those responsible for the education of children found it a heavy burden. Clergymen devoted
much time and energy to the administration of the schools associated with their churches. James
Bickford, minister of the Lydiard St Wesleyan church, wrote in 1859:
My pastoral and preaching duties are almost as nothing compared with the constant attention
and care these schools impose on me. I wish that I could be rid of this burden by some new
legislation through which the churches would be freed from all further connection with so
responsible and thankless a work.88
Specialist music teachers were not employed in the area until 1857 when Austin Turner arrived in
Ballarat to take the post of Singing Master to the Denominational Board schools. Music in
schools before that date depended on the interest and ability of the teachers and school
authorities. John Finlay was one teacher who used music as part of the children's education. Mr
Finlay, a Scottish schoolmaster who had worked as a surveyor on the Miner's Right Lead before
resuming his career as a teacher in 1856, taught in several of the Church of England schools,
including the Armstrong Street School, the Mount Pleasant school, and the Plank Road School.89
He became director of the Orphan Asylum for a time,90 and later established his own private
school.91 Mr Finlay, the 'musical dominie',92 liked to provide his pupils with musical treats. His
end-of-year festival for the Plank Road children in 1859 included dancing to the violin and
singing, and in 1863 he invited children from neighbouring schools to his own school where they
were entertained with singing and dancing.93 At the Orphan Asylum Mr Finlay aimed to 'send the
children merry to bed', and following supper and prayers there would be 'music, dancing and so
forth' and finally the singing of the 'Evening hymn'.94
Mr Finlay, an experienced teacher with an interest in music, was not typical of the teaching staff
in early Ballarat, and Keith Moore's study of the National and Denominational schools in Ballarat
and Buninyong reveals the often insurmountable difficulties faced by young teachers in merely
87
PROV, VPRS 885/PO, Unit 3, 59/150; see also Moore, 'The influence of local and central management',
pp. 114, 283, 303, 314, 339, 421.
88
Quoted in Moore, 'The influence of local and central management', p. 328.
89
Moore, 'The influence of local and central management', pp. 340, 373.
90
Star, 14 May 1867, p. 3.
91
Star, 21 July 1871, p. 2.
92
Withers, 'Our past and present', M & W Star, 24 October, 1856, p.1.
93
Star, 21 May 1863, p. 2.
94
Star, 14 May 1867, p. 3.
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CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
coping with the basic requirements of their task. There are, however, suggestions that even in the
early years music was a part of the programme in certain schools. Both the Denominational
Board and the National Board made provision for music in the curriculum.95 At no stage did the
National Board appoint singing masters to Ballarat,96 but it recognised music as a regular subject
to be taught by class teachers,97 and the National school, which opened in Doveton Street in
1857, offered singing.98 The Ballarat Grammar School, which opened in Sturt Street in 1857, was
one of the early private schools that offered music as an extra subject.99
Robin Stevens asks why, when state educational authorities had difficulties in providing even a
basic education in the three Rs, did they make the decision to introduce music into schools at all.
He argues that the inherited tradition was an important factor. The Victorian education system
had its origin in the British elementary school system, in which vocal music had been introduced
in the early 1840s. Another influential factor was the belief in music as a humanising and
civilising influence, seen to be of particular value in the turbulent social environment of mid-
nineteenth century Australia.100
When, in 1857, the Denominational Board appointed singing masters to Ballarat, Castlemaine
and Sandhurst,101 they did so with the hope that they would 'exercise a most favourable influence
not only upon the musical, but upon the moral associations of these goldfields'.102 Regardless of
its moral influence, the appointment certainly enriched Ballarat's musical life, for Mr AT Turner
was to become one of the most respected and active leaders of music throughout the period.
Considering the large number of schools attended by Mr Turner, the approval he received from
the public as a result of his pupils' performances in the annual school singing festivals was
probably well deserved. Programmes were long—20 songs in 1859—and included three part
rounds and part songs.103 Many of these came from Hullah's manual, and this appears to have
been Mr Turner's preferred method of teaching singing to school children.104 His own conviction
95
Both boards employed specialist singing masters in Melbourne who used the Hullah method. For a
detailed survey of music in state supported schools in Victoria see Cameron, 'The class teaching of music
in state-supported schools in Victoria, 1853-1905', B Ed thesis, University of Melbourne, 1956.
96
97
Cameron, 'The class teaching of music in state-supported schools', p. 46.
98
99
100
Robin Stevens, 'Music: a humanising and civilising influence in education', in The Colonial Child,
Royal Historical Society of Victoria, Melbourne, 1981, p. 63-72.
101
Later Bendigo.
102
Victorian Parliamentary Papers, 1857-58, 'Denominational School Board Report for the Year 1856 &
1857', p. 10, quoted in Stevens, 'Music in state-supported education in NSW and Victoria', p. 49.
103
104
John Pyke Hullah, an English music teacher and composer, developed a method of teaching singing that
was widely used in both English and Australian schools. See section on adult education in this chapter for
further information about his method of teaching. Reports of concerts show that songs from Hullah's
267
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was that music could offer social advantages to children, as well as dissipating their 'temper and
animal spirits'.105
Those who attended Ballarat's first school musical festival in 1858 received pleasing affirmation
of the wisdom of Mr Turner's appointment for, although he had been scarcely a year in the
district, he had managed in that short time to achieve a very high standard. The Star felt it was
'one of the most pleasurable events connected with the educational history of the district', and the
Times was impressed by the 'novelty and goodness' of the whole exhibition'. About 400 children
from the various Denominational schools took part in this festival.106 By the following year the
numbers participating in the festival had increased to 449, including pupils from six Church of
England, four Presbyterian and four Wesleyan schools.107 The singing festivals continued until
1861 with increasing numbers of children participating. By 1860, growing numbers necessitated
holding the festival in the Mechanics' Institute.108 The approving comments of the press and the
large numbers of spectators are an indication of the value placed on these public demonstrations.
But the Denominational schools could not be sure of retaining their specialist teacher. The
singing masters were a heavy expense for the government and, since 1858, there had been
discussions about discontinuing the services of the singing and drawing masters in Victorian
schools, due to the costs involved.109 Ballarat people wrote to the board, expressing their strong
desire to maintain their singing master:
We believe that the children of the lower classes on the Goldfields stand especially in need
of the civilising and elevating influence of Music and we attribute much of the marked
improvement of the last few months to this salutary influence.110
When the new Board of Education replaced the dual boards in 1862 it made no provision for
providing salaries for singing and drawing masters, and all were dismissed.111 In November of
that year Mr Turner, together with specialist singing teachers from other parts of Victoria,
received notice from the secretary that the Board would not be able to retain his services after
manual were sung in schools throughout the period. In St Paul's Church archives is a copy of an order
placed with the Board of Education for Hullah's manual for St Paul's School, Bakery Hill, 1869.
105
PROV 61, Denominational School Board Inward Correspondence, 59/1087, quoted in Moore, 'The
influence of local and central management', p. 436.
106
Star, 22 December 1858 p. 3; Times, 22 December 1858, p. 3.
107
108
109
110
Victorian Denominational School Board, Registered Correspondence Received, 1859/988, quoted in
Stevens, 'Music in state-supported education', p. 49.
111
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Christmas.112 Ballarat reactions to this news were intense, and a series of angry letters appeared
in the daily press.
Correspondents claimed that it was important to cultivate in children a taste for the beautiful and
the good and to prepare them to enjoy a higher class of music.113 One writer asserted that there
was nothing better than music to humanise the mind.114 A letter from 'Progress' claimed that
music was a moral agent, a profound science and an art. 'While music does not turn a bad person
into a good one', wrote Progress, 'I think there are not many of the lowest types of humanity who
could conceive an evil desire while listening to sweet music, and few would be prepared to deny
but that its influence on the character is highly elevating'.115 Only one correspondent believed it
was a good idea to dispense with the singing masters. 'Candor' thought that music was overrated
as a good influence and, in fact, if pursued as a passion it could even unfit the mind for the
exercise of vigorous thought and continuous action. Candor suggested other ways of achieving
moral excellence, such as literature and religion. But his main argument was related to the
expense, for to provide all children with singing masters would be prohibitive, and it was not fair
to cater for only part of the population. Candor suggested that a fairer system would be to charge
pupils to attend a singing class, or to insist on a knowledge of music as a necessary qualification
for every school teacher.116 A spate of letters reacted angrily to these suggestions, 'One of the
Half Daft' stating that Candor's comments were not only an attempt to depreciate music and to
bring musicians into contempt, but an insult to a nation.117
A public meeting held to discuss the issue was unanimous in its support of music in education.
The Rev'd Duncan Fraser said the recent decision of the government was 'unpatriotic, inhuman
and irreligious'. Others at the meeting agreed. 'Would it not be good,' asked the Rev'd Mr Potter,
'to bring in the kindly arts of music and drawing and sister accomplishments to aid in keeping
people out of prison?' Mr James Oddie felt that spending £5000 on music was much better than
spending it on gaols. The meeting appointed a committee to prepare a suitable memorial to
present to the Board.118
In spite of such representations, the Board of Education was not prepared to pay a fixed salary to
singing masters. It did, however, make provision to supplement the fees of students who took
singing as an extra subject. In 1863 it was announced that children over the age of seven who
112
113
114
115
116
Star, 25 November 1862, p. 5, 3 December 1862, p. 3, 20 December 1862, p. 5.
117
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attended singing classes by specialist teachers would pay one penny per week, and the board
would provide an equal amount to pay for the services of the singing master.119 This became the
arrangement under which Mr Turner was appointed singing master to the Common schools in
July 1864. One teacher could not visit all schools, and it was feared that only the larger schools
would benefit from his instruction.120
One of the schools visited by Mr Turner under the new law was the Errard Street Common
School. Mr Turner appears to have adopted the programme of instruction outlined by the
board.121 Both theory and singing were taught, and prizes were awarded to the best students.122
The school speech day in the Mechanics' Institute in 1869 included a programme of twelve songs
including 'Up in the morning's cheerful light', 'Hark from woodlands' and a harmonised
arrangement of 'Lightly row'.123 In the following year the school demonstrated its appreciation of
Mr Turner's work by presenting him with an oil painting of himself in a massive gilt frame.124
Not all schools in Ballarat were state supported and, in 1860, an editorial in the Times drew
attention to the fact that many people conducting private schools were untrained. Although their
services were imperfect, the Times did feel that they were entitled to some recognition for
providing what otherwise may have been lacking altogether.125 While no detailed records have
been found, the many private establishments catering for the education of young ladies usually
advertised music as an extra subject. Many of Ballarat's young ladies attended these small day
and boarding schools. The schools were established in the tradition of similar institutions in
England and offered what was considered to be an appropriate form of musical education for
girls. This took the form of individual tuition in performance, usually in piano or singing. Some
private girls' schools such as Miss Bearpark's Ladies' School in Raglan Street, advertised the fact
that they offered 'music', without specifying whether this was vocal or instrumental. Others stated
that they taught 'music and singing'. Among these were the Ladies' Boarding and Day School
conducted by the Misses Fitzmaurice and the Seminary for Young Ladies conducted by Mrs
Neill. The piano was the usual choice of instrument. Girls at the Young Ladies' Seminary run by
Mrs Penton could have piano lessons from Mrs Penton herself, and in Mrs Quinlan's Ladies'
College in Sturt Street Mr Coleman Jacobs was the visiting piano master. Music appears to have
118
119
Victorian Parliamentary Papers, 'Second Report of the Board of Education for the year 1863-1864', p
15, quoted in Cameron, 'The class teaching of music', p. 52.
120
Star, 28 July 1864, p. 2.
121
Victorian Parliamentary Papers, 'Eighth Report of the Board of Education for the year 1869-1870', p.
41, quoted in Cameron, 'The class teaching of music', p. 59.
122
123
124
125
Star, 19 May 1860, p. 2.
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CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
been an important part of the curriculum at Mrs Quinlan's school and for several years there were
prizes awarded for instrumental and vocal music in several classes.126
When the larger boys' colleges were established they usually employed Ballarat's leading
musicians as teachers of music, and demonstrated their expertise in annual speech day
performances.127 Speech days were reported in detail in the local press, and criticisms of poor
musical performances were not unusual. At the Ballarat College speech day in 1866 the choir was
said to be 'a little flat',128 and there were some 'unpleasant discords' in the vocal music during the
Ballarat Collegiate and Grammar School speech day in 1868.129 Ballarat College was still singing
poorly in 1868 and its performance on speech day was reported as being 'not up to the mark'.130
While remarks of this sort were far outnumbered by favourable comments, the fact that they were
made at all gives some credibility to the good reports.
Principal Dimelow, whose words are quoted at the start of this chapter, was a strong advocate of
music in education. One of its perceived benefits was that of promoting physical health. 'With the
practice of elocution and singing, and our arrangements for securing good ventilation', he
reported to the speech day audience in 1868, 'the health of our pupils, and especially that of our
boarders, is all that could be desired'.131 Mr Dimelow spoke out strongly in favour of retaining the
annual speech day when other schools made the decision to dispense with the custom. Since the
end of 1869 there had been discussions about the issue, many feeling that the expense of the day
was not justified, and claiming that the students should be cultivating modesty rather than
seeking approval through public demonstration.132 Although they continued their regular musical
instruction, some schools ceased to hold annual concert-like performances before large
audiences. Mr Wall, principal of Grenville College,133 abandoned speech day in 1870,
announcing that 'bringing young boys before a public audience of 3000 people is injurious to
their manners and their morals'.134 Yet while this aspect of music-practice had been felt by some
to have a poor influence on young people, the value of music in their general education was
126
Star, 23 April 1867, p. 1, 24 February, 1864, p. 3, 27 April 1868, p. 1, 2 July 1867, p. 3, 4 July 1867, p.
3, 22 June 1868, p. 3, 23 December 1867, p. 4, 21 December 1868, p. 4.
127
For example Mrs James Bunce and Miss Binder taught at Ballarat Grammar School (Star, 24 December
1864, p. 1), Mr Turner at Ballarat College (Star, 28 December 1864, p. 3), Herr Carl Schmitt at the
Township Commercial Academy (Star, 18 August 1866, p. 3), Mr Coleman Jacobs and Mr Turner at
Ballarat Collegiate and Grammar School (Star, 15 December 1868, p. 3).
128
129
130
131
132
133
Formerly known as Ballarat Collegiate and Grammar School.
134
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CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
rarely questioned.135 Perhaps, after all, it was the expense of the speech day that was the main
concern, because even Mr Dimelow, with his strong views, decided not to hold one in 1871.136
Others, such as Ballarat College, maintained the tradition.
* * *
It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that the voice of the children is missing from the surviving
records. 'Shaping', in this case, was a paternalistic process, applied by one class to another, by
persons in authority to client families through their children. The account given here confirms
Stevens's claim that music was believed to be a humanising and civilising influence. Educated
members of the community, including clergymen, school board members and contributors to the
press, expressed strong opinions about its value in education. Benefits mentioned included the
promotion of health, happiness and relaxation, while one correspondent considered it important
to the development of the aesthetic sense. It was also regarded as an alternative activity to vice
and intemperance. It was felt to be particularly important among members of the lower classes on
the goldfields for the beneficial influence it had on their characters. With the immense problems
faced by authorities and teaching staff in maintaining an effective educational system, it would
not have been surprising if education had been limited to the acquisition of literary and
mathematical skills, but so highly was music regarded that it became an important and prominent
part of the programme in many of the government assisted and private schools.
Public performances
Occasions when pupils demonstrated their musical skills in public enabled families and interested
members of the public to hear the results of the pupils' endeavours, provided performing
experience, and allowed authorities to assess the effectiveness of the teaching. Stevens claims
that in spite of the difficulty of judging the effect of school music upon children, music
undoubtedly had some beneficial influence on their moral, social and aesthetic development.137
Reports of school performances suggest that these types of development were influenced by the
musical content, the concepts conveyed in song, the social environment within which learning
and performing took place, and the nature of the special performance.
135
Searches have located only one reference in which the value of music as a part of the general education
of children was questioned. This was in the letters of 'Candor' mentioned above, who thought music was
overrated as a good influence, and dangerous if pursued to excess.
136
137
Stevens, 'A humanising and civilising influence', p. 71.
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CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Public performances meant that children were given rare opportunities to display their skill
before an audience. They were encouraged to put on their best appearance for the occasion. Mr
Finlay's students came to his end-of-year festival
all clothed in holiday raiment looking as fresh and clean as the brightest of new pins; white
muslin with pink and blue bows being the prevailing characteristic of the feminine and duck
and Holland of the masculine attire.138
The students at the singing festival in 1860 were commended by the journalist because they had a
'neat and orderly appearance, and contrast strangely with the neglected appearance of our city
Arabs'.139
Moore makes the point that discipline and order were given high priority in the educational
philosophies that governed the running of both the National and the Denominational schools.140
Music festivals supported this principle, for it was only through their orderly and disciplined
behaviour that children could demonstrate the musical skills they had acquired. Numbers
participating in public performances ranged from around four hundred in the first singing festival
in 1858 to the massive choir of 2,700 children that sang for the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh in
1867. The success of these groups in performing rounds, glees, airs and part songs was due not
only to their musical training but also to the discipline inherent in such performances. Children
had to assemble, refrain from speaking, watch and follow the conductor, maintain the appropriate
vocal part and keep in time and tune with other singers. Successfully managing such skills
brought applause from audiences and praise in the press.
In a similar way that reading texts promoted what were considered to be desirable values,141 song
texts brought their share of moralistic messages and placed a heavy emphasis on what was
considered 'good'. The importance of being happy and cheerful could not have escaped the
performers and audience in the 1858 singing festival, for the programme included 'Come and see
how happy', 'Come where joy and gladness' and 'Let the smiles of youth appearing'. Other themes
represented in song were those of home life ('Home, home'), moral virtues ('Diligence'),
patriotism ('Britons arise') and nature ('Buttercups and daisies').142 The English origin of so many
of the songs meant that patriotism related to Britain, and nature was that of the English
countryside. It is certainly possible that the dearth of suitable Australian material may have
reinforced the perception of Britain as home, and the source of all good things.
138
Times, 31 December 1859, p.2.
139
140
Moore, 'The influence of local and central management', p. 450.
141
Moore, 'The influence of local and central management', pp. 198-201.
142
Star, 22 December 1858 p. 3, 17 December 1859, p. 5, 19 December 1860, p. 3; Times, 16 December
1859, p. 2.
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CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Music was an effective medium for the transference of these beliefs and values. Moore points out
that singing lessons were probably an enjoyable interlude in the school programme,143 and
learning is most likely to be effective when it is enjoyable. But the special musical occasions in
which children participated were particularly conducive to the reception of thoughts, ideals and
values.
Concerts and festivals were highlights of the year that gave opportunities for children to appear in
public as performers, to take pride in their ability to perform, and to receive acclaim. As the
culmination of much rehearsal, performances represented the peak of the musical year. The
excitement associated with performing was combined with the special treatment given to the
children on these occasions. In the 1858 singing festival the Board provided them with two
hundredweight of cake, thirty gallons of ginger beer and buns ad libitum. In 1859 the Times noted
that the children were 'regaled with an unlimited supply of cakes, and quaffed ginger-beer which
was served out to them literally in bucketsful'. It was not only the refreshments that delighted the
children, however, but also 'the applause freely given by the pleased audience'. 'The spirits of the
children were exuberant', observed the Star in 1858, 'and they seemed to enjoy themselves
mightily'.144
On such special occasions there was probably an increased readiness to conform to the required
orderly discipline, and a heightened receptivity to the messages conveyed in the music. One of
the most notable of these events was the 1867 visit of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. It was
first proposed that, for the Prince's visit, all school children of eight years and over should
participate in singing the national anthem. Mr Turner was chosen to direct the music, his offer to
teach a 'new version' of the anthem declined by the committee, with thanks. The estimate that
around 6000 children would be participating, and a crowded and difficult rehearsal in the
Mechanics' Institute, led Mr Turner to suggest to the committee that only his 'singing children'
should take part in the rehearsals. This was felt to be a good idea, and eventually a smaller group
of around 2700 children was chosen to attend rehearsals and form the choir.145
143
Moore, 'The influence of local and central management', p. 436.
144
Star, 22 December 1858 p. 3; Times, 16 December 1859, p. 2.
274
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Top: Long lines of Ballarat schoolchildren walking in procession to the Alfred Hall to welcome Prince
Alfred, 1867, picture courtesy Max Harris. Bottom: Prince Alfred receiving the children's tribute in
the Alfred Hall, La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria.
145
Star, 7 November 1867, pp. 2-3; Courier, 11 November 1867, p. 2; Star, 19 November 1867, p. 2, 9
December 1867, p. 2.
275
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
It is hard to picture the effect the performance would have had on the children involved, but the
excitement of the special celebration, together with the experience of seeing the Prince, must
have made this one of the important days in their lives. It was impossible to keep the 6000-8000
children quiet as they crowded into the Alfred Hall, and their teachers were 'bawling and
gesticulating and commanding, for the most part in absolute dumb show'. But the magic of the
experience was such that the arrival of the Prince brought the silence that the teachers had been
unable to achieve, and the children watched in 'quiet wonder' as the procession entered the hall.
First came two constables, then sixteen young girls dressed in white with blue scarves, scattering
flowers in the path of the Prince. As the Prince was halfway along the nave, a sign was given and
a storm of cheers broke out all over the hall. The 'children's demonstration' continued with the
reading of an address to the Prince by little Eliza Ann Ainley and a reply from the Prince, which
was greeted with more cheers. Then silence fell, Mr Turner stood on a seat in the middle of the
hall, and raised his baton.
The harmonised version of two verses of the national anthem was performed well, with good
timing and accurate part singing.146 It was the culmination of weeks of rehearsals, and formed the
climax of an impressive occasion. In such a context, the impact of thousands of united voices
would provide a strong reinforcement of belief in God, loyalty to the throne, and affection for the
Queen. As the medium through which these sentiments were articulated, music was a means of
shaping the attitudes and convictions of young minds in particular directions, and possibly lasting
ways.
HUMANISING: ADULT MUSIC CLASSES

Shortly after Mr Turner arrived in Ballarat in 1857 he announced his intention of conducting
classes in vocal music in both elementary and upper levels. For one guinea per quarter the upper
class would study 'glees, madrigals, &c.', with the added option of attending the elementary class,
presumably devoted to the rudiments of musical theory and notation.147 But Ballarat was not yet
ready to support this endeavour, and the attempt to establish the class failed, due, according to Mr
Turner, to the 'depraved taste or unsettled state of the inhabitants'.148
The type of class that Mr Turner was hoping to form sprang from the various sight-singing
movements that had become popular in England. Central to these movements were singing
classes in which members of the public learned to sing choral music at sight, with the intention of
acquiring skills that would enable them to participate in choirs and massed singing. As a major
146
147
148
PROV, VPRS 61/PO, Unit 16, 57/2613.
276
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
feature of the 'rational recreation' ethic of the Victorian era, singing classes in Australia, as in
England, were regarded as a character-building form of recreation, and respectable alternatives to
music halls and hotels. Russell writes of the 'sight singing mania' that swept England in the mid-
nineteenth century, and the adoption of the sight-singing movements as a moral crusade by
reformers and philanthropists who saw music as a way to improve society.149
Singing classes may not have solved Ballarat's social ills, but they did provide opportunities for
adults to participate in a movement that was generally felt to be of great value to themselves and
society. This section on music and adult education reveals the extent to which Ballarat people
embraced 'sight singing mania', examines some of the reasons for music's effectiveness as a
means of 'rational recreation', and argues that the music education classes played a small but
significant social role.
Sight-singing methods provided a readily accessible way to approach the intricacies of musical
notation. The two that became most widely adopted in Australia were those of Hullah and
Curwen.150 Hullah's method was introduced in Sydney and Melbourne in 1843, and used in the
Denominational schools of Victoria from 1853.151 'The songs of any people', wrote the committee
of the Council on Education in a preface to Hullah's manual, 'may be regarded as an important
means of forming an industrious, brave, loyal, and religious working class'.152 In Ballarat, while
school children studied Hullah's method, Curwen's tonic sol-fa was popular with adult learners,
and an association dedicated to this method was formed in around 1861.153
Within a few years Mr Turner was able to claim more success. Thirty members attended his class
at the Mechanics' Institute in 1859, where a range of subjects had been chosen 'both to improve
and to instruct'.154 Mr Turner conducted more classes at the Institute in 1861,155 as well as holding
149
Russell, Popular Music in England, pp. 21-23.
150
Hullah's method was designed with an intention of developing a sense of perfect pitch. In his second
manual, Wilhem's Method of Teaching Singing, Boethius Press, Kilkenny, 1842, reprinted 1983, p. 146,
Hullah wrote: 'it is important to cultivate as much as possible "the memory of tone,"⎯to associate every
note with the particular sound it represents'. C was always regarded as doh, so the tonic of songs in
different keys would be sung to different sounds. Curwen's method, on the other hand, focused on the
development of relative pitch. The tonic was always doh, and the other notes of the scale were named
according to the degree of the scale they represented. This moveable doh system was the method that
eventually proved to be the more successful. See Doreen Bridges, 'Sol-fa', in Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell,
(eds), Currency Companion to Music and Dance, pp. 620-21, for a clear explanation of the different
methods.
151
Bridges, 'Sol-fa', in Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell (eds), Currency Companion to Music and Dance, pp.
620-21.
152
Hullah, Wilhem's Method of Teaching Singing, p. iv.
153
Star, 17 March 1863, p. 3, 1 October 1864, p. 5.
154
155
Star, 8 May 1861, p. 2, 12 May 1862, p. 4.
277
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
his own private adult classes.156 Not all subjects taught at the Institute were a success, and in
1862-63 the poor attendance at the 'evening school' was a concern. The singing classes conducted
by Mr Turner, however, were 'pretty numerously attended and the progress satisfactory'.157
Among the reasons for the comparative popularity of the music classes may have been the nature
of the musical experience itself, for as Russell points out, music was felt to be an ideal medium
for shaping people's thought and action due to its emotional appeal.158 Other reasons why people
associated themselves with the sight-singing movements undoubtedly included the genuine desire
to learn to sing, the aesthetic pleasures derived from the music, social contact and the stimulus of
performance. Russell also mentions the close relationship of music and religion, which made
music particularly well suited to a movement that focused on moral improvement.159 For those
who were consciously participating in an improving activity, this may well have influenced their
decision to attend classes. The sacred and 'respectable' choral music taught in the singing classes
meant that people could combine enjoyment with self improvement. Music also meant giving
other people pleasure, and providing a suitable type of entertainment was a worthy way to spend
one's leisure time. Singing classes incorporated performances into their programmes. One
example was the concert in November 1866 in the Mechanics' Institute, when 150 of Mr Turner's
'select' adult and juvenile pupils presented a long programme of songs and glees.160
In 1864 Mr JA Doane taught a course of twelve lessons on the theory and practice of vocal
music, again in the Mechanics' Institute. Mr Doane announced that with ordinary care and
attention the course would enable the students to read music at sight. This system was based on
the teaching of Johann Pestalozzi, a Swiss educationalist whose teaching methods had been
introduced in England in the early part of the century, and included a manual on singing.161 The
classes were 'a very great success', and after the twelve-week course it was decided to continue
them independently of the Institute. 162
Churches had a particular interest in promoting adult singing because it could enhance
congregational participation in the liturgy. In March 1863 WM Rees announced his public classes
at the Dawson Street Congregational church, using Curwen's Tonic Sol-fa method.163 The Rev'd
Mr Walker, minister of the United Presbyterian Church, was the conductor of the Tonic Sol Fa
156
157
Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute, 4th Annual Report 1862-63.
158
159
160
161
The Pestalozzi World website, www.PestalozziWorld.com, accessed 14 April, 2004.
162
Star, 6 August 1864, 3; Sixth Annual Report of Mechanics' Institute, Ballaarat, 1864-1865.
163
Star, 17 March 1863, p. 3.
278
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Association, which also used Curwen's method.164 Although this association had been formed
around 1861, it was not until October 1864 that it gave its first public concert. On this occasion
between twenty and thirty members of the association presented a programme of sacred and
secular music, including 'Blessed is the people' and 'Merrily over the waves we go'. Mr Walker
also gave an address on the history of the Tonic Sol-Fa movement devised by Curwen in 1843.165
St Patrick's church advertised a singing class in 1864 and St Andrew's psalmody class
commenced in March 1867. The choir leader of St Andrew's, Herr C Schmitt, was the conductor
of the course of twelve lessons.166
A new singing class in 1870 conducted by Mr Coleman Jacobs began to attract increasingly large
numbers of participants. The classes were advertised as 'Singing for the Million', and 'Monster
Singing Classes'.167 These names suggest that Mr Jacobs followed the methods of Joseph Mainzer
who, like Hullah and Curwen, had devised a popular method of sight-singing instruction.
Mainzer's adult classes were held in London from 1841 and were advertised as 'Singing for the
Million'. He also published a teaching manual with the same title. Mainzer's early lessons were
straightforward and his approach less pedantic than that of Hullah, although like Hullah, his
system used a fixed doh. His intentions were also those of improving society:
The time is hastening when the soldier and the sailor, the plodding labourer and the dusky
artisan, will forsake the pothouse and the gin-palace for the singing-school, and so become
raised in the scale of civilisation⎯raised in the scale of humanity.168
Mainzer's classes were immensely popular in England, and this was also the case in Ballarat. Mr
Jacobs's first class was held in the Alfred Hall on 2 June, with around fifty participants. The early
lessons concentrated on rudiments and Mr Jacobs used blackboard and chalk to explain musical
notation, his intention being to 'thoroughly ground his pupils before making any attempts with
merely ear-pleasing exercises'. The popularity of the classes was such that numbers soon
doubled. By 23 June, when Mr Jacobs tried the voices for the first time, there were around ninety
ladies and gentlemen present. Mr Jacobs found many of the voices very promising. In the
following week he introduced a 'little rudimentary exercise'. By the end of July the class was
singing simple harmonies. When the attendance grew to one hundred, Mr Jacobs decided to hold
a second rudimentary class. The following week with 'considerably over a hundred' pupils, the
class tried a hunting chorus. Numbers were still increasing in mid August, and the class began a
164
165
166
Star, 20 July 1864, p. 3, 2 March 1867, p. 3.
167
Star, 20 May 1870, p. 3.
168
Quoted in Russell, Popular Music in England, p. 24.
279
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
chorus from Masaniello by Auber. In September an additional class was begun in the Mechanics'
Institute, Sebastopol.169
* * *
The stated aim of those who organised adult classes was that of improvement and instruction,170
and the increasing popularity of singing classes suggests that music was an attractive way to
pursue such worthy goals. Ballarat faced severe social problems in the early decades, with
lawlessness, drunkenness, prostitution and child abuse continuing to have a devastating effect on
the lives of large numbers of men, women and children.171 At the very least, singing classes
provided alternative activities, particularly for those who did not have the expertise to sing with
the choral societies. At the same time they enabled people to demonstrate the fact that their own
values lay elsewhere. In a time when even children's schooling was not compulsory, and before
today's boom in adult education classes, they were a rare opportunity for adults to improve their
own level of learning. Singing classes empowered people to take a measure of control over their
own lives, and opened a door into the world of choral music.
SUCCOURING: MUSIC IN THE SERVICE OF THE NEEDY

'No people seem so willing to give their services for charitable uses as the members of our
musical societies', observed the Star in 1868.172 Charitable institutions, social services, buildings
and churches were all worthy recipients of the funds raised by musical performances, and
certainly the richer for it.
Disease and injury were common on the goldfields, and early attempts to deal with the problem
resulted in doctors' surgeries set up in huts, and even one small private hospital.173 Their
inadequacies led to the decision, in 1854, to build a miners' hospital with the aid of a government
subsidy.174 A benefit night at the Adelphi Theatre in order to raise money for the hospital was
one of the first in the long series of performances in which the musicians of Ballarat found
opportunities to make substantial contributions to the development of charitable institutions and
other worthy causes of the day.175 Apart from the performances by the choral societies, these
169
Star, 2 June 1870, p. 2, 10 June 1870, p. 2, 24 June 1870, p. 2, 1 July 1870, p. 3, 22 July 1870, p. 2, 29
July 1870, p. 2, 19 August 1870, p. 2, 8 September 1870, p. 3.
170
171
Bate, Lucky City, pp. 174-177; Moore, 'The influence of local and central management', pp. 239-42.
172
173
Bate, Lucky City, pp. 30, 49.
174
175
Times, 23 September 1854, p. 4.
280
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
charitable events dominated the amateur concert scene, and a total of 77 was reported in 1871
alone.
For some, the fund-raising concerts may have been more of a drawcard than those given by
visiting professional musicians. People could support their friends and family members who were
taking part, as well as paying a little less, as entrance fees were generally lower than for
professional concerts.176 Concerts that involved large numbers of performers also attracted large
audiences. An 1862 concert in aid of the Benevolent Asylum involved the band of the Volunteer
Rifle Rangers, 200 pupils from the Denominational schools, the Ballarat Amateur Ethiopian
Minstrels and a group of local amateur musicians. An 'inconveniently large' audience in the
Mechanics Institute heard the varied programme which included a series of harmonised songs
and glees by the school children, assisted by some local bass voices.177
Music made its contribution in this way to the rapid and spectacular growth achieved in the early
years of Ballarat. The principal beneficiaries of fund-raising musical performances were
Ballarat's three main charitable institutions: the Benevolent Asylum, the Ballarat Hospital and the
Orphan Asylum. Other institutions to benefit included the three fire brigades, the public libraries,
the churches, and the Mechanics' Institute. Mostly grand impressive buildings, they provided
constant visual reminders of the merit expended in the good deeds that contributed to their
establishment. Contributions of this type were sometimes substantial. The 1867 Annual Report of
the Orphan Asylum gives the figure of £454.7.9 raised from concerts and fetes, while
£1311.15.10 was the amount from subscriptions, donations and the borough votes.178 While
concern for the needy was the stated primary motive for charity performances, pride in the beauty
of the city was not missing from the agenda. 'Where', enquired the editor of the Star, 'is the shire-
town in the old country that can show a more magnificent array of edifices and machineries
devoted to the poor, the deserted, the maimed, the halt, the blind?'179 It is still possible to feel
something of that pride when reading contemporary reports. In July 1869, for example, a soirée
was held for the new ward at the Benevolent Asylum:
Harmonising in design with the main building, yet possessing some extra ornament in
details, the new ward or wing is a very handsome addition to the splendid home provided for
the worn-out, or otherwise necessitous, poor in our midst. As the visitor approached the
asylum on Tuesday night, and saw the whole pile a-blaze with light, from hundreds of
176
Professional concerts given by the Carandinis in 1870 cost 3s, 2s, and 1s; operas in the same year by the
Lyster and Smith's Royal Italian and English Opera company were 7s 6d, 4s, 2s, 1s; some charity concerts
in the same year charged a flat rate of 1s, with the maximum cost in others 2s 6d. (see for example Star, 7
January 1870, p. 3, 14 September 1879, p. 3, 18 February 1870, p. 3).
177
178
179
281
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
windows from basement to roof, the sight was more like that of a palace lit up for some
grand festival than like the charitable refuge of diseased or decrepid men and women.180
Ballarat Benevolent Asylum, 1861. La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria.
Similarly, while concerts helped to raise funds for memorials such as the Burke and Wills
monument and the Alfred Memorial Bells, these were a means of beautifying the city as well as
commemorating notable events. But in most cases the purpose of helping others appears to have
been paramount in the minds of the musicians, and a means of fulfilling those Christian teachings
in which the majority of them had been nurtured. Volunteers could offer their God-given talents
in the service of others, and fulfil the expectations of their faith by performing good works.
'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me', quoted the
organisers of the musical entertainment on the occasion of the extension to the Benevolent
Asylum in 1869.181
180
Star, 28 July 1869, p. 3.
181
Star, 27 July 1869, p. 3; Matthew 25:40.
282
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Mining and other disasters brought not only pain and suffering for the victims, if they survived,
but also poverty and destitution for their dependents. Without voluntary assistance from the
community, life would have been even more difficult for those who suffered sickness and
accident or the loss of a breadwinner. We may not know what was the cause of Mr A Crowe's
loss of a leg, but it is certain that when 'all the available musical talent on Ballarat, vocal and
instrumental' gathered in the Criterion Hotel to volunteer their services in order to provide him
with some financial help, the assistance would have been very welcome in an era without the
security of a government social support system. The musicians too gained recognition and
acknowledgement for their part in this 'most praiseworthy object'. 182
One cause that captured the sympathies of the community was that of the three Dow children
who had been left orphans. Their friends in Britain were ready to give them a home, but could not
pay the cost of the voyage. Ballarat decided to hold a concert to provide the necessary funds.
Held in June 1866 in the Mechanics' Institute, the concert was an impressive one, both visually
and musically. The members of the Western Fire Brigade marched to the hall accompanied by the
Rifles' drum and fife band. On the platform sat the brass band, wearing their handsome uniforms.
The musical ladies and gentlemen in the orchestra were also a 'pretty sight'.183 The gratifying sum
of £93 was raised, leaving a small balance for the Orphan Asylum after paying the fares of the
three children.184 As well as fulfilling a social need, occasions such as these sent clear messages
about the association between music, communal service, and goodness.
Benefit concerts were usually directed to local needs, but there were also charities that were
further afield, such as the Indian Relief Fund. In a Grand Concert in the Montezuma Theatre in
April 1858, many of Ballarat's leading musicians took part to raise money for this worthy cause,
with the German Liederkranz billed as a star attraction.185
Sometimes fund-raising concerts became a way for visiting professional musicians to contribute
to the community.186 Madame Carandini appears to have been particularly generous with her
talents in this way. Such performances were also shrewd ways of fostering good public relations.
When, during the 1868 opera season, Fred Lyster's derogatory statements about the British royal
182
183
This referred to the whole body of performers, not only the instrumentalists.
184
Star, 16 June 1866, p. 3.
185
Star, 12 April 1858, p. 3.
186
For example Charles Thatcher sang local songs and Signor Pietro Canna performed 'The bombardment
of Sebastopol' on six drums in aid of the Mechanics' Institute in 1856 (Times, 24 May 1856, p. 1). In 1869
the Carandinis and Walter Sherwin gave a concert in aid of the Ballarat Hospital and the Benevolent
Asylum (Star, 20 February 1869, p. 3).
283
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
family aroused angry feelings in Ballarat,187 the astute director, William Lyster, was prompted to
announce two benefit concerts for Ballarat charities. In spite of the heavy expenses involved in
running his company, he announced, the charities would receive one third of the proceeds of the
two concerts. The two concerts each attracted well over 1000 people and raised around £75 for
Ballarat's three leading charitable institutions.188
Ethnic groups also made significant contributions to worthy causes. The Germans, Welsh and
Chinese all devoted considerable time and effort to the presentation of their music for charitable
causes and the advancement of the city. The German Liederkranz appeared in concerts for the
Ballarat Hospital, the Fire Brigade and the victims of fire and flood,189 while the Welsh choirs
sang for the their own churches as well as other Ballarat institutions. The Welsh community
appears to have favoured the Mechanics' Institute as a worthy cause.190 In 1866 the Star reported
that the Sebastopol Welsh Choir had also performed in other towns in the colony, invariably for
some charity or other. The readiness to perform for charitable purposes was a 'commendable
element in the character of the choir'.191
Musical performance was one of the few ways that the Chinese people could offer a contribution
to the wider Ballarat community. One such performance took place during the 1863 promenade
concerts in aid of the Mechanics' Institute. Playing on the kong-wai, the moot-kem, the sam-yen,
the pan-ewoo, the shap-ar, the che, the laur, and the tee-uh or tuk-tie, the Chinese
instrumentalists did their best to 'charm the barbarian ear'.192 Two Chinese vocalists also sang,
one in falsetto. The large audience gave them the applause which 'courtesy, if not appreciation,
demanded'.193 Some of the Chinese contributions were substantial. An impressive performance in
aid of the Benevolent Asylum in 1868 raised around £20.194 The hospital received the sum of
£100 in the same year from the proceeds of Chinese performances. 'This is really a noble gift',
187
Chap. 4 has an account of this incident.
188
Star, 23 March 1868, p. 3, 24 March 1868, p. 3, 25 March 1868, p. 3.
189
Star, 12 April 1858, p. 3, 1 June 1860, p. 2, 27 October 1863, p. 3, 31 April 1864, p. 2, 30 January 1869,
p. 2.
190
For example in December 1863 the Sebastopol Welsh Choir under the direction of Mr David Lloyd
raised £20-£25 in a concert in which around 40 performers sang to a mainly Welsh audience. Harp music
was performed by Mr Llewellyn Thomas (Star, 11 December 1863, p. 3).
191
192
Attempts to find translations of these names were unsuccessful. After discussion with Zheng-Ting
Wang, it is assumed that they were given to the press by the Chinese musicians in their particular
Cantonese dialect.
193
194
Star, 16 May 1868, p. 2.
284
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
wrote the reporter, 'and the leaders of the Chinese in this movement deserve great credit for their
active liberality in so good a cause'. 195
Top: the Ballarat District Hospital, ca 1870. Bottom: Ballarat District Orphan Asylum, 1866.
La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. Both institutions were built and
supported with assistance from amateur and professional musicians.
195
Star, 6 June 1868, p. 2.
285
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
Concerts organised to raise money for worthy causes far outnumbered those aimed at entertaining
inmates of institutions, although the latter were also a feature of Ballarat's musical life. When, in
1868, the children of the Benevolent Asylum were transferred to other institutions, their farewell
entertainment included out-door recreation, a special meal, musical selections played by Mrs
Little, half an hour of entertainment by the Ballarat Amateur Christy's Minstrels, indoor games,
dancing and gifts.196 In 1869 a group of professional musicians visited the Benevolent Asylum to
entertain the older inmates. A number of tables was placed at one end of the dining hall to form a
platform, and upon this was placed the piano. The comic singing of Mr Margetts was particularly
popular and, at the conclusion of the performance, one of the inmates made a speech of
appreciation and announced that the inmates would now perform some of their own music for the
visitors.197 A notable event organised by the ladies of Ballarat was a concert of vocal music in the
supper room of the Alfred Hall for about 120 'respectable women, mostly widows, who, from
their circumstances, are not often able to leave their homes for an evening's enjoyment'. The
Ballarat Star, however, was of the opinion that such women would be better assisted by
individual visits and help with finances.198
Charity concerts became increasingly common during the 1860s. A detailed examination of this
aspect of Ballarat's musical life would be one way of looking at the social history of the city. The
concerts were of mutual benefit for performers and recipients, supplied a need, and channelled a
great deal of local activity into socially approved pathways.
EVANGELISING: SPREADING THE WORD

Sacred music thrived in Ballarat. Even in the early gold rush period music was a part of the open
air and tent services, thus providing a continuation of the tradition most of the miners had
inherited from home. Developments that took place during the two decades covered by this study
testify to the value placed on music in worship. While Chapter Six considered the function of
music in relating to the sacred, this section will look at its evangelising role. Music helped
believers to learn of and maintain the teachings of their religion, and provided an effective way of
spreading the word of God in the wider community.
In the first weeks after gold was discovered, the singing of hymns and psalms was a particularly
public and communal way of proclaiming and sharing one's faith, The religious services of the
various denominations were a notable feature of Sundays on the goldfields. Twenty years later, a
writer describing the scene recalled the 'gentleman noted for his musical performance, [who] was
196
197
Star, 4 September 1869, p.2.
198
286
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
so Catholic in his services as to move from one body of worshippers to another, and give them
his assistance in singing the psalms or hymns used on the occasion'.199 A frequently recounted
incident refers to the singing of the Wesleyan miners on 28 September 1851. It so impressed the
Rev'd Thomas Hastie, the Presbyterian minister of nearby Buninyong, that he took the singers
along to perform in his own service at the Commissioner's Camp.200
But the singing soon became bounded within the walls of the newly built churches, and a far less
public witness to the faith. Within each particular church community, however, hymns continued
to be a strong means of learning, shaping and promoting Christian teachings, and an effective
addition to the often fiery words of the preacher. In many cases the hymns would encourage the
missionary element:
Salvation! O salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till each remotest nation
Has learned Messiah's name.201
Oh! We love to come to our Sabbath home,

But we would not come alone;
We would each bring in, from the depths of sin,
Some wretched, wandering one.202
Bishop Perry of the Anglican church was of the opinion that the music suitable for use in church
services was that which was conducive to the edification of the hearers,203 and in hymns, psalms,
anthems and oratorio, sacred messages were certainly conveyed directly to large numbers of
people. The major Ballarat churches soon acquired the facilities and expertise to provide
instrumental and choral music, while hymn or psalm singing was practised in even the smallest
churches, and involved all members of the congregation. The effectiveness of congregational
singing in conveying messages and reinforcing Christian beliefs lies partly in the fact that
through congregational singing people themselves proclaimed the teachings of the church, rather
than being passive recipients of the message, as they were, for example, in sermons. By
extension, it was the representatives of the people themselves who proclaimed the gospel in
sacred works performed by the choral societies. The impact of hundreds of united voices could
reinforce the message in unparalleled ways. The report of a Good Friday 'celebration' in 1864 at
the Lydiard Street Wesleyan church describes the singing of hymn 592 to the tune 'Duke Street',
as a 'massive volume of sound from the large congregation rolling up as with a grand choral
199
'Early days in Ballarat', Star, 5 March 1870, p. 3.
200
201
Cummins (ed.), Psalms and hymns selected for use in the public services of the Church of England, no.
57.
202
Hymns used in the Lydiard Street Wesleyan Sabbath School, Ballaarat, 1862, p. 87.
203
The Church Gazette, 16 October 1862, p. 146.
287
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
harmony that might most fittingly be called "congregational" in the absolute sense of the term'. A
further twelve hymns were also sung on that single occasion.204
Hymns and psalms formed a part of many important civic occasions, asserting the Christian
message in the wider community. The Jubilate (Psalm 100) was sung, for example at the laying
of the Foundation Stone of the Mechanics' Institute in 1860.205 It was not unusual for hymns to be
sung on outings, and even in gaol. When Mr and Mrs Bath gave their annual treat for the children
of the neighbourhood, they provided games, fruit picking and tea, and also the opportunity to sing
a hymn.206 Hymn singing was usually regarded as enjoyable, and at the Orphan Asylum any
children who had been naughty were not permitted to join in the evening hymn with the others.207
It was a different matter at the Industrial School, however, for there the children sang their hymn
just before dinner, where it was pitiful to see '200 children looking with hungry eyes on their
dinners, and screaming a hymn they do not understand'.208 In 1870 it was even reported that
females spending the night in the lock-up passed their time singing hymns in chorus, with an
occasional departure to songs such as 'The wearin' o' the green'.209
The temperance movement was closely associated with local church life. There was no doubt in
the minds of the organisers of the temperance groups that music was important to their cause, and
meetings, festivals and anniversaries incorporated some form of music. The temperance
movement was already active in Ballarat by 1856, and it grew steadily during the 1860s,
involving children as well as adults. The boys and girls of the Ballarat Band of Hope numbered
around 300 in 1860 and by the end of 1864 there were nearly 600 in the group.210
Matthew Burnett, also known as the Yorkshire Evangelist, was a temperance preacher who
believed in the power of song and used music extensively in his crusades. He came to Ballarat
after successfully conducting his missions in Scarsdale, Newtown, Smythesdale, Happy Valley,
Linton, Rokewood, Cape Clear, Snake Valley, and Piggoreet. In November 1866 he began the
temperance campaign at Sebastopol, and then spent a year in Ballarat, lecturing, visiting, and
conducting meetings, many of which attracted huge numbers of people. Henry Glenny claims
that during his time in Ballarat, Burnett obtained 8,600 adherents to the total abstinence pledge.211
'Mr Burnett loves good, hearty singing', wrote Glenny. 'Everywhere during his stay he has started
204
Star, 28 March 1864, p. 4.
205
Star, 29 September 1860, pp. 2-3.
206
207
Star, 14 May 1867, p. 3.
208
209
Star, 28 March 1870, p. 2.
210
Star, 29 September 1869, pp. 2-3, 19 November 1864, p. 5.
211
Glenny, Reminiscences of the Life and Labours of Matthew Burnett, pp. 26-28, 102.
288
CHAPTER 7: SHAPING
temperance choirs, often numbering as

many as seventy members'.212 The
temperance choir Mr Burnett started in
Ballarat appears to date from around May
1867, and Mr Burnett himself held choir
rehearsals on Saturday evenings for young
people who were interested in becoming
members.213 Before this he utilised the
services of a solo singer, or an invited
choir. The Welsh choir from Sebastopol,
for example, sang for one of his meetings
in April 1867 in the Volunteer's Orderly
Room.214
Not only did the temperance movement

have its own hymn book and choir, it also
had its own brass band. This was led by Mr
JP Sims, and it played selections of music
on festive occasions.215 The Band of Hope
had its own drum and fife band, and this Matthew Burnett, the temperance evangelist.
enlivened the proceedings on occasions National Library of Australia, JAFp BIBLIO
F9955b.
such as the temperance festival held at
Kingston in December 1864.216
Temperance groups delighted in singing inspirational hymns, and many of these came from two
locally published temperance hymn books. Initially hymns came from the Ballarat Temperance
Hymn Book and then, in 1867, Mr WH Hotchin of Sturt Street published a new book of forty-five
revival and thirty-four temperance hymns compiled by Matthew Burnett. It was said to include
popular, jovial and war-like tunes.217 Tuneful and rhythmic music was a means of appealing to
the tastes of working-class audiences, and songs such as the 'The bright star of Temperance' sung
to the tune of 'Ring the bell watchman' (more familiar to Australians as 'Click go the shears')
were lively and stimulating. In August 1870 this song was performed as a solo by Mr Ward and,
212
Glenny, Reminiscences of the Life and Labours of Matthew Burnett, p. 103.
213
Star, 15 June 1867, p. 2.
214
Star, 18 December 1866, p. 2, 24 April 1867, p. 2.
215
Star, 7 May 1867, p. 2, 12 February 1867, p. 2.
216
217
Star, 30 November, 1860 p. 3, 15 May 1867, p. 2.
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prevented from taking their share in the performance vocally, the audience had to be content with
providing a 'lively pedal accompaniment'.218
Emotion laden words and melodies were used to attract listeners to the temperance cause.
National Library of Australia, nla.gov.au/nla.mus-an24494447.
218
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Songs such as 'Spring water', 'Soldiers of the Water King', and 'The real staunch teetotaller'
reinforced the inspiring words of the speakers and provided both encouragement and
inspiration.219 When Miss Frances Brown sang 'Come home father' in the Theatre Royal in 1867,
her performance brought loud applause.220 Michael Turner points out that the touching melody of
this ballad sounded both fresh and forceful to its original audiences,221 and the combination of the
music and the emotion-laden words carried a striking impact:
Father, dear father, come home with me now!

The clock in the steeple strikes three;
The house is so lonely–the hours are so long
For poor weeping mother and me.
Yes, we are alone! poor Benny is dead,
And gone with the angels of light;
And these were the very last words that he said–
I want to kiss papa, goodnight.222
At the end of his twelve-month crusade, Mr Burnett held a free concert in place of his usual
weekly meeting. Leading amateur singers from Ballarat and members of the Buninyong Choral
Society performed in the orderly room to a crowded congregation of men, women and children.
To promote Mr Burnett's last Sabbath evening sermon, a band of twenty people marched singing
through the streets of Ballarat East.223
* * *
The music of the established denominations was an effective way of spreading the faith and
maintaining contact with Christian doctrine. Even in the wider community, music carried the
Christian message to large numbers of people. A more overt use of music was displayed in the
temperance movement, where organised choirs, bands, concerts, street marches, and publications
of hymns were used to announce the temperance message and to render it attractive to others.
The pleasurable aspect of music, its emotional impact, and its power to involve the people
themselves as proclaimers of the faith meant that it was one of the more effective missionary
tools. It is almost impossible to imagine the evangelistic endeavours of the day without any form
of music, and it is likely that music played a part in the experience of all of those whose lives
were shaped or changed in some way by contemporary religious activity.
219
Star, 19 November 1864, p. 5, 24 January 1867, p. 2.
220
Star, 10 June 1867, p. 2.
221
222
Turner (ed.), The Parlour Song Book, p. 246; the song can be heard on the accompanying CD.
223
Star, 9 November 1867, p. 3; Courier, 11 November 1867, p. 2.
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BUILDING: THE ARCHITECTURE OF MUSICAL TRADITION

This section will draw attention to the role of the inherited musical tradition and local music
practice in the development of the physical structuring of the city. Initial growth depended on the
location of the gold discoveries, and at first Ballarat assumed a haphazard appearance. The first
tents, stores and entertainment venues were clustered around a part of Ballarat East known as
Main Road, around which emerged a random maze of small crooked streets. With the expansion
towards the west, the new part of Ballarat was carefully surveyed and the streets laid out in a grid
formation.224 Many new buildings were planned by architects who had far more than a simple
utilitarian function in mind. Factors such as contemporary needs, the inherited tradition, personal
and communal preference, the desire to impress, and the hope of leaving a mark for posterity
must all be considered part of the background to Ballarat's architectural heritage. The appearance
and design of Ballarat's more impressive buildings reflected similar structures in Britain, and
inspired admiration in visitors such as Anthony Trollope in 1871.225
The musical entertainment demanded by the community determined not only the construction
and the size of substantial buildings, but also their interior and exterior design, already described
in Chapters One and Six. It was also thought preferable, in accordance with similar theatres and
performance venues in Britain, that classes should be separated during performances, and theatres
were built with boxes, and galleries. A sketch of the interior of the Charlie Napier Theatre (in
Chapter One) shows the wide expanse of floor where audiences would be expected to stand
during performances, and the partitioned gallery known as boxes, catering for the more 'elite'
members of the audience who were prepared to pay for seating and exclusive audience space.226
In a similar, but more elaborate way, the interior of the Theatre Royal was divided into dress
circle, stalls, centre and side boxes, stage boxes, gallery and pit.227 By the late 1850s the
splendour of the Theatre Royal not only reflected the wealth and prestige of the city, but was felt
to be a fitting venue for the great dramatic and musical works that were performed there.
Ballarat's solid brick and bluestone churches, designed to cater for the large congregations of the
mid-nineteenth century, were built in accordance with English ecclesiastical architecture and,
with their open spaces and soaring roofs, they incorporated the acoustic properties of that
tradition. This design had helped to develop, over hundreds of years, the particular sound typical
of English choral music, and the buildings in turn were intended to provide a suitable acoustic
environment in which that sound could become part of the religious experience of the
224
Bate, Lucky City, pp. 168, 170; see also the 1861 map of Ballarat on p. 10 of this thesis.
225
Anthony Trollope, Australia and New Zealand, pp. 406-07, quoted in chap.1.
226
From a sketch by scene painter Alexander Habbe, published in 'The theatres of Ballarat past and
present', The Leader, 12 August 1899, p. 3.
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congregations. Christ Church, with its lofty overhead space, provided an ideal setting for the
dedicated choir that, from the late 1850s, sang there the traditional music of the Anglican faith.
The west end galleries in the major churches were built either with the express purpose of
accommodating choirs and organs, or because the accepted architectural style had been
developed with that purpose. Such galleries were incorporated into the design of St Paul's, Christ
Church, St Andrew's and St Patrick's.
While only one full peal of bells was installed during the two decades of this study, ecclesiastical
and secular towers had a tradition of housing bells, and the towers in Ballarat were built in
accordance with that tradition. In some cases, as in the church of St James', Little Bendigo, the
single bell was considered to be the first of a peal, to be added to if and when the congregation
decided to do so. St Patrick's large bell cast by Murphy of Dublin was also intended to be the first
of a peal, although the projected tower did not eventuate.228 When Ballarat's proposed peal of
bells was considered in 1866, several venues were suggested, including churches that would have
needed to build towers if they were chosen to house the bells. The towers that dominated the
skyline were prominent in the streetscape, and gave the city its distinctive appearance. The large
bluestone tower of the Town Hall in which the Alfred Memorial Bells were hung in 1871 became
a visual focal point of the main city centre.
This chapter has already noted the extensive use of music for charitable purposes. The large
charitable institutions of Ballarat were established and maintained with the assistance of funds
raised in musical performances. The Orphan Asylum, the Benevolent Asylum and the Ballarat
District Hospital dominated the streetscape and impressed with their size and architectural
design. Musical performances were also held to help establish the Fire Station tower in Ballarat
East, the Burke and Wills monument, the Ballarat East Public Library and the Alfred Memorial
Bells, literally shaping the material heritage of the community.229
227
228
Star, 25 May 1866, p. 5, 3 February 1869, p. 2.
229
References to such concerts are to be found regularly. See for example Star, 17 March 1857, p. 3, 22
March 1859, p. 3, 22 June 1863, p. 3, 23 May 1864, p. 2, 23 July 1864, p. 5, 8 December 1865, p. 2, 19
March 1866, p. 3, 14 September 1866, p. 3.
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The Ballarat Town Hall was designed by JT Lorenz, and completed at the end of 1871.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Studying a community through its music practices, and through the music it privileges, opens a
particular window onto contemporary society. While music can teach us about the values held by
that community, it is also the case that, for those involved, it was more than a reflection, but also
a means of reinforcing and disseminating those values. For those who came to the goldfields with
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the purpose of acquiring wealth, the transient community in which they found themselves was
more vulnerable to excess, more conducive to lawlessness, than the settled society of the
following decade. Principles, however, were not totally abandoned in the rush for gold, but were
shaped in response to the current social climate, and were learned and transmitted in part through
the popular music practices of the day. As Ballarat developed into an established city with a solid
core of 'respectability', music's subversive potential was tamed, and the music that dominated the
amateur concerts of the 1860s was one avenue through which people learned to embrace the
values of British middle-class morality.
This chapter looked particularly at certain key areas in which music repertoire and music
practice, as well as the beliefs and convictions held about music, became a direct means of
shaping the values, the society and the material structures of early Ballarat. The people of
Ballarat maintained a close relationship with many of the concepts of their age through their
music, and a particular focus has been the role of music in the establishment and maintenance of
the values considered important for the way people lived together, values determined initially by
the inherited tradition, yet modified in response to specific local needs. Song texts provided
people with information about attributes, attitudes and actions that were considered desirable
within their own social sphere, whether this was within the heterogeneous mining society of the
early 1850s, or the British dominated community of the following decade. Reinforced by popular
or nostalgic melody, the impact of song upon people's thinking and behaviour is likely to have
been as widespread as song itself. As witnessed in the Eureka account, music sound was used to
strengthen resolve, to act as a unifying force and to incite to action. In children's education music
promoted certain values that were felt to be beneficial to their development, and was highly
regarded by civic leaders. The discipline that accompanied children's musical performance helped
instil the concept of group conformity. Music was seen as an alternative to other 'less worthy'
pursuits, and as a distraction from vice and intemperance, while the approval given to musical
performance promoted the desirability of cultural activities. The opportunity to do good and help
others was habitually offered through musical practice, and social relief was channelled regularly
through professional and amateur performance. Through the construction of buildings in
accordance with traditional music practices, and through the provision of financial assistance,
music played a part in the material and aesthetic development of the city.
A common belief in music's potential to shape can be seen in the contemporary statements and
practices highlighted in this chapter. How that potential was exploited varied from the
commercialism of popular song to the paternalistic practices evident in the musical education of
children. Charles Thatcher's readiness to adapt to the expectations of a respectable middle-class
audience demonstrates the way he would reflect back a self-representation to his listeners, and
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thus help to promulgate the values of the majority. The success of this technique in Thatcher's
1868 visit to Ballarat suggests that it may also have been an important element of his earlier
goldfields entertainment.
The chapter has highlighted several reasons for the particular effectiveness of music as an agent
for personal and social change. The memorable melodies that reinforced song texts encouraged a
ready acceptance of the values they presented. In an age when singing formed an important part
of social and religious activity, the people themselves proclaimed the values embedded in song
lyrics⎯an effective way of making those values their own. As an integral and important part of
special occasions, such as the welcome given to Ballarat's first royal visitor, music was linked
with the more impressive moments of community life. This association heightened the receptivity
of participants to any messages conveyed in the music, messages, for example, of patriotism or
religious faith. Music was a highly effective teacher, for it brought many types of reward. As well
as the aesthetic pleasure it could bring, and the personal and social benefits discussed in previous
chapters,230 the section on education highlights the community approval afforded to those
involved with music, suggesting a positive influence on one's confidence and self esteem.
Moreover, because everyone had some form of musical experience, the influence of music was
likely to reach more people than did many other activities. Reading, for example, was not an
option for all. Songs and hymns, in particular, were heard repeatedly, their themes receiving
constant reinforcement in informal gatherings, organised concerts and worship.
In this final substantive chapter of the thesis, it is now possible to look back on previous chapters
to reflect upon the changes in Ballarat's music practices over the two decades. One of the more
obvious was the increasing amount of entertainment that required large numbers of people and
support structures. Just as the early tent community was transformed into a city of architectural
splendour, the spontaneous nature of early professional and amateur entertainment grew into a
carefully designed and organised musical culture in which choral societies, bands and opera
troupes were paramount.231 Without a great deal of organisation, the 'great works' of the second
decade would have been impossible, and Ballarat people would not have had their operas, or their
Messiah. Music, thus, carried strong messages of support for organised activity, reinforcing other
positive outcomes of organisation and structure, such as the aesthetically satisfying streetscapes,
and the facilities for a healthier and more comfortable lifestyle.
230
Chap. 4, for example, showed music to be a means of providing social contact, nostalgic memory and
humour. In chap. 5 music was seen personally as a form of empowerment, and socially as a way of
becoming upwardly mobile.
231
See chaps. 4 and 6.
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As the last of the chapters dealing with the four elements from the framework presented in
Chapter Three, this discussion of 'shaping' leads back to the individual and communal response to
music. The chapter has highlighted some of the personal and community changes effected by the
music of early Ballarat. Such changes, in their turn, influenced the way people experienced their
music, for response to music depends on a range of variables that are shaped partly by one's
whole musical culture. These relate particularly to one's own emotions and values, to the sounds
and sights of the musical performance, and to the totality of the environment within which the
music is experienced.
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When Anthony Trollope visited Ballarat at the end of 1871 he was impressed that a grand city
had sprung up so quickly in the space of two decades. This thesis has revealed the breadth of
Ballarat's musical activity attained during the same period, showing striking contrasts between
the music of the early years and the wealth and variety of musical practices at the end of the
second decade.
In order to address the aim of the thesis, and to look at this musical activity in ways that will
further our understanding of the significance of music in the lives of the people, a framework was
developed that helped to explore that significance in the Ballarat community. The framework was
designed with input from both the empirical evidence and relevant scholarship. The approach
demonstrated the centrality of the individual and the communal response to music in the musical
life of the community, and the relationship of that response to the total environment within which
it occurs.
Stemming from the initial individual embodied experience of music sound, people and
communities made connections with different aspects of their world, were situated within the
world and were able to transcend the world. The impact of these processes was such that music
became a way of shaping individuals and the community, while the totality of the environment
within which the music took place impacted upon, and was integral to, the musical experience
itself. Within each category of the above framework lies a multitude of varied individual
experiences, yet such was the collective power of music that, in spite of the different ways they
were lived out in reality, each element became a vital force in the community.
The embodied experience

References to the direct moment of contact between the individual and music sound, together
with theoretical issues discussed in Chapter Three, suggest that a physical experience of music
sound was the basis of the functioning of music in the community.
Underlying the accounts of music in the four substantive chapters of the thesis was the way
people responded to, and engaged with, music. Reports of the marching bands of Chapter Four
suggested that the hearers would respond to the outdoor music of the day through a physical
alignment with the rhythm and beat of the music. A specific instance of the rhythmic response
included the 'lively pedal accompaniment' discussed in Chapter Seven, when people at a
temperance demonstration used their bodies to become part of a lively temperance song
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performed in their presence. The illustration of Welshmen dancing in a saloon in Chapter Five is
a visual representation of this embodied engagement. Chapter Seven showed how the music
associated with the Eureka rebellion was used to attract and draw men from their tents and shafts,
to march them to the site of the stockade, and to enliven them as they were kept at work building
the stockade. The bugler, by means of his instrument, was able to incite the troops to action using
the power of music sound.
In Chapter Three we saw that 'latching' onto music is not an inevitable aspect of all music with all
listeners. Clearly the majority of the people in Ballarat were not moved by the Chinese sounds
discussed in Chapter Five. But response to any type of music sound stems from some form of
physical engagement, and the framework builds upon this embodied response to show how music
becomes a shaping force in the community.
Connecting
A significant finding was the extent to which, through music, people related very closely to their
environment and their culture, for music was a link that drew people into more intense
relationships with their world. This way of looking at music helped to explain its ubiquitous
presence in Ballarat, as well as in other human communities. 'Connecting', as an element in the
chosen framework, is the gateway to the interplay of music and society, following directly after
the central, individual musical experience.
A high proportion of the music practised in Ballarat was vocal or choral, while much of the
instrumental music was arranged from opera and popular song. This close association of music
and words meant that, in much of their music, people engaged in some way with the beliefs and
concepts of their particular cultures. Music brought intense moments of sadness and humour, and
was a common and culturally acceptable way of immersing oneself in such emotions. Many
songs connected people with the past, through stories, images and sounds from former times,
while the music that was integral to important personal and community events intensified an
involvement with the unfolding of linear and cyclical time. Music sound was invariably produced
on location, the particular indoor or outdoor setting in which it was performed lending its own
symbolic meanings, and enhancing the connection between music and place. Street music was
extensive, and bands dominated an active outdoor musical culture. The physical presence of the
musicians emphasised music as a symbol of territorial ownership, underlined strongly by the
strong aggressive sounds of brass and bells, and the military overtones of the volunteers. Music
meant social contact, in the large gatherings brought together by musical performance and in the
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social relationships enacted within musical circles. It was a way of uniting sympathetically with
others.
Situating and transcending

A remarkable amount of music was related to individual and social needs. Music was so
intertwined with everyday life that it could represent much that was important for people in the
way they lived together and related to each other, while its association with the beautiful, the
spiritual and the extraordinary meant it was a significant way of experiencing the 'other'. Music
situated people within certain boundaries, but it also enabled them to transcend their worlds. This
is not as paradoxical as it first appears, because both 'transcending' and 'situating' are outcomes of
music's power to 'connect'. Music enabled people to form relationships with the physical tangible
world around them, and also to certain culturally defined concepts such as the beautiful and the
sublime.
The many boundaries within which music situated people related to the culture of a specific time
and place. Chapter Five considered the examples of locality, gender, class, time and ethnicity.
The social conventions faced by mid-nineteenth century women are usually portrayed as
oppressive and restricting, yet music stretched some of those boundaries and allowed women to
situate themselves in society in specific and often prominent ways. Without bringing their
respectability into question, Ballarat women appeared in public, took their place on the stage
before large audiences, dressed to attract attention, received positive acclaim and admiration, and
had their performances discussed in the press. Women took a leading role in choirs, and were
essential in the presentation of major choral works. Through music women could assert agency,
for no performance could take place without considerable dedication and application in lessons,
practice and rehearsals. Music gave women opportunities to take risks, to face and overcome
challenges, and to achieve personal, aesthetic and social rewards.
Music articulated and influenced social relationships. For people of the smaller ethnic
communities, music was a way of coming together to share meaningful moments and to enjoy
their common culture. Because music had been a part of their past, it brought former experiences
to life and helped to establish the boundaries within which their present life was enacted. Multi-
cultural musical practices were a vibrant aspect of early Ballarat, and people experienced a
variety of sounds, sights and practices of many different ethnic choirs and instrumental groups.
Music became a public face for those groups, and in this multicultural community music had a
strong hegemonic role, helping to establish the dominant English middle classes in the position of
power.
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For those from a British background, musical activity impacted upon relationships within their
own community. Church choirs, for example, provided a way for ordinary people to meet
regularly in small social groups. As well as bringing stimulation and challenge, performing as a
soloist in amateur concerts brought recognition, admiration, and a taste of the way of life
experienced by well-known professional performers. Here too music made clear statements of
where power was situated, as British middle class citizens, following the tenets of their Christian
faith, used their music to make a significant contribution to the feeding, housing and clothing of
the poor and destitute.
In its exploration of opera, sacred music and choral music, all of which were well established
before the end of the 1850s, Chapter Six demonstrated different ways that people could
experience the transcendent. The aesthetic and the spiritual, in particular, were highly valued by
influential voices in the community, and heavily promoted in the press and on public occasions.
Music in worship incorporated full congregational participation, while in choral music small
groups with special training shared the music of genius composers with non-participatory
members of the community. Community participation in opera was almost non-existent. A great
deal of the music discussed in this section related to the 'other', whether this was the spiritual
world, the special beauties that were not a part of everyday life, or the extraordinary talents of
genius composers and performers with exceptional skills.
Shaping
Observations made throughout the thesis suggest that music had far more than a peripheral role in
mid-nineteenth century society. The Ballarat community was shaped, in part, through its music
practices, for music brought conceptual, behavioural and material change. The primary purpose
of most amateur organised performances, for example, was to help the needy, to contribute to
charitable institutions, or to create lasting monuments and memorials. Music carried and
reinforced many of the values of contemporary society, and the ubiquity of the musical
experience meant that messages encoded in music practices could reach large numbers of people.
Because of the participatory nature of much of their music, people made the beliefs and values
embedded in the music a part of themselves, by the very act of taking part in musical activities
and personally proclaiming those beliefs and values. Chapter Seven detailed the way music could
shape the beliefs of the people and the culture of the community through the power of song,
through music in education, and through the evangelising of religious groups. It looked at the
way music incited to rebellion and encouraged people to engage in worthwhile rather than
dissolute pursuits. It argued that, in order to provide for the ongoing experience of music in the
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community, theatres, halls and places of worship were designed in ways that ensured the
maintenance of music practices in culturally appropriate ways.
Final observations
Although Ballarat grew to prosperity in the Victorian era and was a product of British
colonialism, due to specific geographic, social and cultural influences, its development differed
from that of any British city. Similarities were revealed, particularly in respect to the organised
entertainment of the dominant middle classes, yet the thesis also underlined the distinctive nature
of Ballarat's musical culture, and highlighted some of the reasons for the differences.
The study attempted to look at the music of the whole community, and not merely that of British
middle-class culture. Chapters Two, Four, Five, Six and Seven each documented the way
influential contemporary citizens who wrote about music in Ballarat in the nineteenth century
saw significance in the development of organised musical institutions, in the provision of the best
of visiting talent, and in music's role as a moral force and symbol of progress. Considered in this
way, music could be seen as a mirror of Ballarat's development into an established city, with
streets, buildings and institutions modelled on those of Britain. The larger choral societies and
bands relied on a culture of discipline, rules, dress, conformity and harmony, and certainly
displayed a real sense of development. But those who wrote about music in mid-nineteenth
century Ballarat were not the only voices that need to be heard, and the thesis has, as far as
possible, included the music of members of the community whose words did not come down to
us in print. This, however, was dependent on the luck of reportage. Music practised by ethnic
communities, women, Aborigines and less affluent citizens was often reported in the press, but in
other areas there was a frustrating silence. Children's singing games, for example, the bawdy
songs of the music halls, and the music practised by the very poor, received little or no attention
from contemporary commentators.
The method followed was more consistent with ethnomusicology than traditional historical
musicology. It involved a descriptive and analytic approach to the music of the people in an
attempt to understand music as part of the social order and balance inherent in the community. As
seen in Chapter One, no historic study is free from prejudices and bias, yet as far as possible the
thesis tried to consider the music of mid-nineteenth century Ballarat as it related to the lives of
those who practised it, rather than looking at it as a part of a spectrum of progress or in relation to
the general state of music in Australia at the time. Had the latter approach been adopted there was
probably little to be said for the music of early Ballarat, and in terms of such an approach a vast
amount of Ballarat's early music must be regarded as insignificant. This thesis has argued, on the
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other hand, that all music is meaningful and significant if the participants find it so. A sentimental
ballad that bore little relation to Australian culture, and that did nothing to advance the
development of Western classical music in the community, may have contained a world of
meaning for those who sang or listened to it.
During the process of researching and analysing the musical activity of early Ballarat, it became
clear that in some areas, in particular, findings did not reflect existing scholarly understanding of
colonial music history. The extent to which music permeated and impacted upon society
countered the work of many Australian general historians who have underplayed the role of
music in colonial life. The thesis attempted to show the importance of the aesthetic and
transcendent in music, as well as the social significance that has claimed the attention of many
scholars. The enormous amount of sacred music performed was disproportionate to the picture
given in the literature, where secular music is given far more prominence. Studies of opera in
Australia have focused on the major cities yet, as seen in Chapter Six, this regional centre also
enjoyed a wealth of operatic performances. Neither do scholarly studies reflect the amount of
music performed by ordinary 'respectable' people in amateur events, or the numbers of men and
women who took their places on stage to display their talents before friends and fellow citizens.
The study drew attention to a musical role for women in public life that has so far been the
subject of less scholarly interest than have the restrictions placed on colonial women's musical
opportunities. Existing studies have also promoted misconceptions regarding local and goldfields
music practices, and the thesis has shown, for example, that Lola Montez and Charles Thatcher
were not the only prominent music personalities on the goldfields, nor was Sutton's Ballarat's
only music store. Drawing attention to the musical life of Ballarat in these ways was a significant
outcome of this thesis.
While the conceptual framework was based on broad themes that provided insights into the music
of the community, the thesis highlighted the diversity with which those themes were played out
in this Australian colonial context. One of the more colourful contributions of this study is the
story of the musical life of the different ethnic communities. There were many musical ways for
people to situate themselves ethnically, and this was achieved through song, through festival, and
through the distinctive sounds and visual images associated with a particular culture. English
hegemony was imposed through the bands that paraded the streets, the sounds of English bells
that dominated the city, the establishment of musical societies based on those of England, and in
stated and unstated comparisons between 'normal' English practices and those of other groups.
Diversity was highlighted further in the different ways people used their music to relate to the
spiritual. All forms of organised religions practised some form of music. This ranged from the
ornate music of the Catholic liturgy, to the unaccompanied metrical psalms of the Presbyterians
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and the traditional Hebrew chants of the Jewish faith. Some found it appropriate to participate in
lively hymns, and others to listen to trained musicians performing musical works of great
composers. Chapter Seven looked at many ways the community was shaped through its music
practices, but even within each of these categories there was a remarkable amount of variety. The
shaping influence of song, for example, lay in promoting cultural values, teaching good
behaviour, addressing social problems, and compensating for perceived failings. This was
achieved through the use of suitable personnel, performance settings, subject matter, language,
melody, accompaniment, irony, parody, mockery, symbolism and, particularly noticeable in this
study, the play upon the emotions.
Several factors emerged that help us to understand some of the specific ways Ballarat arrived at
the vibrant musical activity of 1871. The multicultural nature of early Ballarat meant that a wide
variety of music was practised, while mass involvement by all ethnic and social groups meant
that the sheer amount of music revealed was striking. Music was one of the more available and
widespread of all cultural activities. It was prominent in entertainment, celebration, religion,
education, ritual, family life, and countless other facets of society. Music was a part of major
public events and small intimate occasions. It was present at 'respectable' middle-class
gatherings, and also at the low class entertainment venue or the protest meeting.
Gold was another key factor. Visiting professional musicians, seeking to benefit from the wealth
of gold, were present on the goldfields from the earliest days, their performances acting as a
stimulus for further demand. From the start, the people of Ballarat were used to a wide variety of
musical activity. The wealth generated by gold meant that people could afford to pay for such
entertainment, to build theatres, and to install expensive organs and bells. It is reasonable too, to
speculate that the instability of the early years on the gold fields may have made people
particularly receptive to the music of their own traditions, and that the enthusiasm for the early
concert room entertainment may later have been channelled into a passion for more organised
forms of music.
The presence of capable leaders and performers was vital to the organisation and maintenance of
public music making, both professional and amateur, and Ballarat was fortunate in having several
competent musicians, skilled in conducting, composing, arranging and performing. Among the
resident musical leaders, Jacques Paltzer, Achille Fleury, Alfred Labalestrier, Thomas Ellis and
Tom King led instrumental bands for many years, while Austin Turner and John Robson
established and maintained a tradition of choral music. Leaders maintained networks with
musicians in other parts of Victoria, and on special occasions visiting musicians from Melbourne
and Geelong took part in performances, while Ballarat singers assisted the Melbourne
304
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Philharmonic Society in some concerts. Ballarat also had a core of capable amateur musicians,
both men and women, whose presence encouraged the organisation of musical groups.
Community and church leaders helped maintain music as an important part of organised religion
and education.
The approach adopted in the thesis provided a useful method for looking at the music of the
Ballarat community and, while it was derived partly from specific local evidence, could also be
applied in a broader context to study the music of communities in other times and places. Other
than ethnomusicologists, few scholars have sought a holistic view of music in a particular place,
and those that have done so have often neglected certain important areas. The framework helps to
exert a balance, and to ensure that different types of music are adequately covered, rather than
relying too heavily on the preferences of the researcher. It also provides a way to acknowledge
the importance and relevance of music for which we have little evidence. It is, however, more
that a convenient tool for ensuring inclusiveness and balance, because it also sets a framework for
looking at the function of music in the lives of a particular group of people, and for investigating
the specific significances and influences of music that apply in the study under investigation.
The arguments presented in the thesis related directly to Ballarat, with its own distinctive historic,
cultural, economic, geographic, and social characteristics. Many of those factors impacted upon
the development of Ballarat's musical life, and contributed to the breadth and diversity this
attained in the twenty-year period following the gold discoveries. Research into musical
development in other newly established communities would be of value in corroborating the
findings of the thesis, particularly with regard to the important role assigned to music by
individuals and the community. Comparison with similar and dissimilar towns would also help to
establish the broader application of the study. There are parallels between the music of Ballarat
and that of the Californian goldfields. Many visiting artists performed in both places, and similar
types of musical activity flourished. Goldrush songs, promenade concerts, soirées, opera, minstrel
shows, choral societies, church choirs, bands, music teachers, Chinese musicians and German
societies all played a prominent part in California's rich and varied musical life.1 A comparative
study would be of value in learning more about the role of music in the establishment of these
new communities, and in seeking further meanings through difference and diversity.
The thesis was approached from the premise that an understanding of the meaning of music can
be furthered by studying the music practices of a community within the context of its own
specific social, cultural and physical environment. The descriptive and analytical approach
305
CODA
incorporated into the chosen framework made it possible to uncover an active, vibrant world of
music making that intertwined with the whole of life, while at the same time exploring the
meaning of music in people's lives. Many of the findings helped to explain how Ballarat attained
the breadth of music practices witnessed in the snapshot of musical life that opened this study,
and provided us with insights into the reasons behind this rapid growth. By showing music to be
a dynamic element in the life of this colonial city, the thesis has also revealed something of the
significance of those words written and sung by Charles Thatcher in the 1850s: 'And for harmony
most ardently we long'.
1
Cornel Lengyel (ed.), History of Music in San Francisco Series, AMS Press, New York, 1939-42
(reprinted 1972), seven volumes.
306
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'And for harmony most ardently we long'

Musical life in Ballarat, 1851-1871

This thesis is submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements

School of Behavioural and Social Sciences and Humanities

When we’re out upon the spree,

Thanks and appreciation above all to my supervisors: to Dr Janice Newton, University of

To my parents, in gratitude for two incomparable gifts:

a love of music and an enthusiasm for learning.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 3

CHAPTER TWO: MUSIC IN HISTORY 25

Music in Australian histories 25

CHAPTER THREE: MUSIC IN SOCIETY 59

CHAPTER FIVE: SITUATING 126

CHAPTER SIX: TRANSCENDING 181

CHAPTER SEVEN: SHAPING 246

Frontispiece: Concert room, Charlie Napier Hotel, Ballarat, June 1855.

Table 1: Birthplaces of population on the goldfields, 1854

Place of birth Ballaarat, Creswick's Creek &

Census of Victoria, 1854, Part 6, p. 8, Table V1

Table 2: Birthplaces of Ballarat population, 1871

Census of Victoria, 1871, Part 6, pp. 20-22, Table X1V

The entertainment venues

Rationale for place

Rationale for timeframe

Another time, another sonic culture

MUSIC IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORIES

In 1988 Australia celebrated the bicentenary of European settlement. An eleven-volume history

GENERAL HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN MUSIC

In a lecture on the development of Australian music given at the University of Melbourne in

Entertaining Australia: an illustrated history, by Katharine Brisbane, is an overview of the

HISTORICAL DEBATES ABOUT MUSIC

High and low culture

contributed to our understanding of music as popular culture in colonial Australia, John

Music in social life

Leisure and rational recreation

Music in the home

Music as a moral force in education

Link to social structure: gender and ethnicity

A study of music in a particular community provides an opportunity to investigate the

General studies of ethnic communities in nineteenth-century Australia, and in some cases of

LOCAL MUSIC HISTORIES

MUSIC AND HUMANITY

A BROAD SPECTRUM APPROACH

MODELS OF MUSIC IN SOCIETY

SOCIAL, CULTURAL, PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

The embodied experience

MUSIC AS A WINDOW ONTO SOCIETY

One of the things that all human beings do is to turn to

L. Singer Robert Farquharson performed in opera, oratorio and concerts.

The tragic and the comic

The range of variety entertainment that involved

The past in the present

The passage of time

In the 1850s itinerant German bands were said to be

This advertisement appeared in Birtchnell's Ballarat, Creswick's, Buninyong, Clunes,

1 Botanical Gardens 6 Parade Ground, Camp Hill 10 Victoria Gardens

Opportunities for participation in musical activities in mid-nineteenth century Ballarat were

When a miner … sang as he crossed the paddocks homeward, you knew

Remnants of a musical culture

SITUATING WITHIN GENDER BOUNDARIES: MUSIC AND WOMEN