Peter Lalor

Peter Lalor
The Hon. Peter Lalor MLA, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Victoria, 1880-1887
Born	5 February 1828(1828-02-05) Laois, Ireland
Died	9 February 1889(1889-02-09) (aged 62) Richmond, Victoria, Australia
Known for	Leader of the Eureka Stockade and Politician

Peter Fintan Lalor ( /ˈlɔːlər/, locally [ˈloːlə]; 5 February 1827 – 9 February 1889) was an activist turned politician who rose to fame for his leading role in the Eureka Rebellion, an event controversially identified with the "birth of democracy" in Australia.

Early life and migration to Australia

Lalor was born in the family home of Tenakill, at Raheen County Laois (then known as Queen's County), Ireland, the son of Patrick Lalor, a landowner and supporter of the abolition of tithes who held a seat in the House of Commons from 1832 to 1835. He was the first Catholic MP for Queens County, Ireland since the reign of James II. His mother was Ann, née Dillon. They had 11 sons of whom Peter Fintan Lalor was the youngest. His eldest brother was the Irish revolutionary James Fintan Lalor. His mother died on 4 June 1835 and his father then married Ellen Mary Anne Loughnan with whom he had no children.

Lalor was educated at Carlow College and then trained as a civil engineer at Trinity College, Dublin.

Three of the Lalor brothers migrated to America. However, Peter and his brother Richard decided on Australia, arriving in Victoria in October 1852. Lalor worked first in the construction of the Melbourne-Geelong railway line, but resigned to take part in the Victorian Gold Rush. He began mining in the Ovens Valley, then moved to the Eureka Lead at Ballarat. His brother Richard returned to Ireland, becoming politically active and himself a member of the House of Commons.

Angered by the arrest of three miners on a dubious charge, Lalor joined the Ballarat Reform League and became the de facto spokesman following his impromptu incendiary speech to the assembled miners on 30 November 1854 in the absence of the League's president.

Eureka Stockade

“	"We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties"	”
—The Eureka Oath from Lalor's famous speech in 1854.

Lalor led the miners' opposition towards the incompetent and often brutal administration of the goldfields, and was elected to lead the men in the armed uprising after the meeting on Bakery Hill. The diggers formed a barricade, where they were attacked by troops and police on 3 December. Lalor's left arm was seriously wounded, resulting in its amputation. A warrant for Lalor's arrest for sedition was initially sought, but he was taken from Ballarat and hidden by his supporters in the Young Queen Hotel at South Geelong. The warrant was withdrawn in June 1855 after juries had found 13 other ringleaders not guilty of sedition.

As a result of the uprising a number of the miners' complaints were resolved. Legislation was passed to give miners the right to vote. A new form of licensing of Miners Rights costing £1 per year was introduced. The monthly gold tax was abolished. A general amnesty for the three miners arrested after the Bentley's Eureka Hotel fire and the 114 arrested at the Eureka Stockade was proclaimed.

Politics

Due to the political changes caused by the Eureka Stockade, Lalor was appointed to the Victorian Legislative Council in 1855. In 1856, under the new, more democratic constitution (featuring near-universal white male suffrage) Lalor was elected unopposed to the Legislative Assembly seat of North Grenville (Ballarat West). As he was the Eureka hero his policies were not scrutinised at all before the election and his later voting record as a parliamentarian shows he once opposed a bill to introduce full white-male suffrage in the colony of Victoria.

During a speech in the Legislative Council in 1856 he said, "I would ask these gentlemen what they mean by the term 'democracy'. Do they mean Chartism or Communism or Republicanism? If so, I never was, I am not now, nor do I ever intend to be a democrat. But if a democrat means opposition to a tyrannical press, a tyrannical people, or a tyrannical government, then I have been, I am still, and will ever remain a democrat."^{[citation needed]}

Weston Bate wrote that the role of landowner and company director seemed to suit him more than that of rebel, and that Peter Lalor "disgraced himself in democratic eyes by trying to use Chinese as strike-breakers at the Clunes mine, of which he was a director. He was absolutely ruthless in using low paid Chinese workers to get rid of Australians seeking better and safer working conditions. In parliament he supported a repressive land Bill in 1857 which favoured the rich. There were 17,745 Ballarat signatures to a petition against Lalor's land Bill. Lalor never represented Ballarat again and in the 1859 election, he stood for South Granville. Withers and others were puzzled and hurt that the folk hero should prove to be a better fighter for money and political position than for the people's rights.

In 1859 he transferred to the seat of South Grant, which he was to hold for the rest of his life.

Lalor was postmaster-general (August to October 1875) and minister for trade and customs (May 1877 until March 1880) Sir Graham Berry.

As successor to Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, his most effective political post was probably that of Speaker, a post he held from 1880 until 1887 until illness forced his retirement; he was awarded a pension of 4,000 pounds by parliament.

Later life

Lalor House, where Peter Lalor spent his later years, is named after him.

Statue of Peter Lalor in Ballarat's Sturt Street Gardens.

Lalor married Alicia Dunne on 10 July 1855 in Geelong. Their daughter, Anne, was born in Prahran in 1856; their son Joseph was born at Sandridge (now called Port Melbourne) on 18 December 1857. Anne Lalor married Thomas Lempriere in 1882, but died three years later of pulmonary phthisis. Joseph Lalor became a medical doctor, marrying Agnes McCormick of Dublin, Ireland and leaving descendants.

Alicia Lalor died on 17 May 1887 at the age of 55 years. Following her death, Peter Lalor took leave from Parliament and visited San Francisco, California. He died at age 62 at his son's home in 1889.

References

Serle, Percival (1949). "Lalor, Peter". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogL.html#lalor1. 

• Peter Lalor's pistol at the State Library of Victoria
• Ian Turner, 'Lalor, Peter (1827 - 1889)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, Melbourne University Press, 1974, pp 50–54.

Additional sources listed by the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

W. B. Withers, The History of Ballarat (Ballarat, 1887); L. Fogarty (ed), James Fintan Lalor (Dublin, 1947); T. J. Kiernan, The Irish Exiles in Australia (Melb, 1954); Historical Studies, Eureka Supplement (Melb, 1965); C. Turnbull, Australian Lives (Melb, 1965); Parliamentary Debates (Victoria) 1856-87; Australasian, 19, 26 June 1880, 17, 24 September 1887, 16 February 1889; Freeman's Journal (Sydney), 16 February 1889; J. Parnaby, The Economic and Political Development of Victoria, 1877-1881 (Ph.D. thesis, University of Melbourne, 1951); G. Robinson, The Political Activities of Peter Lalor (B.A. Hons thesis, University of Melbourne, 1960); Lalor family papers (National Library of Ireland).