By Altona Laverton Historical Society Inc
If you asked people about the Eureka Stockade, you might hear things such as miners’ rights, a fair go for miners, maybe Peter Lalor who led the rebellion, and the southern cross flag – an emblem that lives on today. But if you asked who made this flag or where it came from, you may very well be met with blank stares.
As would the mention of these three women – Anne Duke, Anastasia Withers and Anastasia Hayes. “Who are they?” you might ask.
History has always been male focussed due to centuries of a patriarchal social structure. But the story of these three women, and others, has been researched and recorded as fact.
Of the three women, our story will concentrate on Anne Duke, who also has a connection to the early advancement of the township of Altona, but more of that later.
Anne Gaynor was born in County Armagh, Ireland in 1838, and for reasons only known to her family, they decided to migrate, arriving in NSW on the ship on the 29 January 1842. From there they travelled to Melbourne in 1844, finding residence in Lonsdale Street St Francis Church.
When the gold rush started, the family moved to Ballarat where Anne’s parents ran a store. Her brothers, Thomas and John, carted goods between Melbourne and the Ballarat diggings. On 8th March 1854, Anne married George Duke in the Independent Church of Christ, Chewton, near Castlemaine. It may be possible, due to Anne not being 16, that she and George eloped. In addition, Anne was Catholic and George was Methodist.
They soon moved to the Ballarat diggings where they hoped to make their fortune, which would set the young couple up, however Anne soon fell pregnant with their first child. As the situation between the miners and authorities worsened, the stockade was built and a flag, the emblem of the cause, was designed. It was then that the three women gathered together, from their own belongings, materials for the flag.
A dress-length of navy cloth for the background, a white petticoat from an eldest daughter used for the stars, and Anne contributed a length of Indian cotton for the cross. Anne and Anastasia Withers were seamstresses and so led the construction, which took all day and well into the evening to complete. The finished flag was four metres by 2.6 metres in size, and on 29 November 1854 miners at Ballarat first raised the Southern Cross flag at Bakery Hill and began building their stockade.
Anne was within the stockade on the morning of Sunday 3 December 1854, when the government troops attacked. At least 22 miners and five soldiers were killed.
Anne, and a Mrs Parker, lay behind a pile of logs near their tent. Their tent, utensils and clothes were riddled with shot, but they both survived as did George Duke.
The couple fled to relatives in Bendigo, and it was whilst they were traveling that their first child, John Gaynor Duke was born. Anne and George went on to have 11 children, who would have heard the story of the Eureka Stockade.
Oh, and the connection to Altona. Well, their fourth child, James Francis Duke moved to Altona in 1917 and dedicated his time to its progress and prosperity. He was a founding member of the Football, Cricket, Altona Life Saving club, St Mary’s church, and a key member of the founding committee of the Altona Community Hospital.
