Eureka Rebellion - Commemoration

Commemoration

The materials used to build the stockade were rapidly removed to be used for the mines, and the entire area around the site was so extensively worked that the original landscape became unrecognisable, so identifying the exact location of the stockade is now virtually impossible.

A diggers memorial was erected in the Ballarat Cemetery on 22 March 1856 near marked graves. Sculpted in stone from the Barrabool Hills by James Leggatt in Geelong it features a pillar bearing the names of the deceased miners and bearing the inscription "Sacred to the memory of those who fell on the memorable 3rd of December, 1854, in resisting the unconstitutional proceedings of the Victorian Government."

A Soldiers Memorial was erected many years later in 1876 and is an obelisk constructed of limestone sourced from Waurn Ponds with the words "Victoria" and "Duty" carved in its north and south faces respectively. In 1879 a cast iron fence was added to the memorials and graves.

Over the next thirty years, press interest in the events that had taken place at the Eureka Stockade dwindled, but Eureka was kept alive at the campfires and in the pubs, and in memorial events in Ballarat. In addition, key figures such as Lalor and Humfray were still in the public eye.