In September 1853, John Basson Humffray landed on the shores of Australia. Little more than a year later he made his first public speech in Ballarat, advocating miners’ rights during the Eureka rebellion. He is best remembered for his role in the miners’ revolt and as a representative for Ballarat in the Legislative Council.
J.B. Humffray (Gold Museum collection, 78.0973)
Humffray originally came from Wales, where he trained as a solicitor. He abandoned his studies and in 1853 went to the Victorian diggings – a common destination for many of his contemporaries.
On his journey, Humffray kept a diary which is held in the Gold Museum collection. The diary has been transcribed and offers a vivid insight into life aboard an emigration ship in the mid-nineteenth century.
The diary lets us experience the joys and sorrows shared by the passengers, the fears and dreams and the wonder of it all, as the world around them changed from the security of home to the uncertainty and promise held by a new, strange land.
Humffray was a God-fearing man. Many parts of his diary are dedicated to his praise of God and the beautiful world created by Him. Imagine never having been outside of Europe and all of a sudden seeing ‘flying fish […] for the first time’ or ‘the Rising Sun of the “tropics”’ – a sight which, according to Humffray, ‘must be seen to be understood.’
The rest of his diary feature everyday observations, and, quite often, outrage over passengers’ drinking habits. Humffray was particularly concerned that drunk passengers would eventually set fire to the ship. He believed that passengers should abstain from alcohol consumption while sailing but dabbled in a little drinking himself when he was invited to have champagne with fellow passengers one night.
Humffray considered himself to be part of the elite and expressed his dismay of other passengers:
There are certainly some respectable and intelligent individuals but the Bulk is quite the reverse – they are dirty – ignorant – brutish – and I regret to add churlish – I am quite surprised and disappointed at the characters of the passengers generally.
Excerpt from J.B Humffray’s diary (Gold Museum collection, 2005.1868)
Noisy passengers were also a contentious issue:
I intended writing down many things today as I had a short respite from squalling children – but to my horror I had just sat down to do in my corner of the cabin when my ears are blistered by the Barbarous scraping of an Irish fiddle – […] oh the troubles of a student on Board an Emigrant ship.
Despite his complaints of fellow passengers, the journey makes him witness both life and death. He saw a woman give birth aboard the ship and was present when ‘an unfortunate drunkard’ passed away a mere week before reaching Australia.
When Humffray was not outraged by the ‘annoyances arising from the physical and immoral filth of about 500 – rough specimens of the human animal or genus homo’ and pointing out some of their vices – ‘profaneness, coarseness, indelicacy, low wit’ – he tried learning German from one of his fellow passengers.
Despite Humffray’s personal disliking of some of the passengers, he performed a beautiful eulogy in which we expressed a deep sense of compassion and humanity:
Let us not be influenced by anything in the shape of national prejudices perish all conventionalisms, let us do an act of kindness not because it is for a Welshman, an Englishman, an Irishman – a Scotchman, a German, a Swede or a Dane or Italian – but because he is a man irrespective of country & Kin – colour – clan – party or creed – but because he is a man a friend a Brother.
John Basson Humffray was much more than a key figure in the Eureka rebellion. His diary shows that he was a real person with feelings, ideas and thoughts. He was rational, annoyed, ignorant, compassionate and so overwhelmingly human.
On September 22 1853, the Star of the East set anchor in Melbourne and Humffray’s shipboard diary ends. He concluded his entry with the following line: ‘Man must of necessity be a free agent else he would not have been made in the image of God.’
Maria Osterby, student intern and teacher at Den Gamle By (The Old Town), Aarhus, Denmark.
