As Goldfields commissioner Robert Rede the right royal bastard we have been told?
Historians from Manning Clarke to John Molony have presented an image of an upper crust
English prat whose snobbishness and intransigence were almost single handedly responsible for the
Eureka uprising.
Their accounts are colourful and, as assertions go, Australian history is all the richer and more
interesting for them.
But is Rede's reputation deserved?
It seems unjust to judge a life that spanned the period between the Battle of Waterloo and the
Boer War on the basis of 15 minutes at Eureka.
A family man, a church leader, a public servant and a leading player in the establishment of the
Victorian militia, Rede was not as one-dimensional as his critics would suggest.
Rede married twice, the first time to Isabella Strachan in 1859 and the second time, at the ripe
age of 58, to Geraldine Glendenning.
He had a daughter by the first union and three sons and three daughters by the second.
An early member of the Ballaarat Club, an organisation whose members were men with a strong
interest in billiards, cards and the vexed question of which horse could outrun another, Rede was
elected its third president in 1874.
Also an early member of the Melbourne Club, Rede died of pneumonia in St Kilda on his 87th
birthday in 1904 having outlived almost all of his Eureka contemporaries.
Significantly, the man villified for looking down on the diggers as Gold Commissioner, came to
Australia to search for gold.
Aged 39 when he arrived on the Ballarat, Rede had already lived a colourful life. He was born to Thomas William Rede, a naval officer, and his wife Anne on July 13, 1815 at Ashman's Hall in Suffolk.
Rede entered the world less than a month after Wellington had triumphed over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.
Privately educated, Rede was admitted to membership of the Royal London College of Surgeons.
Weston Bate reports he subsequently "dabbled in medicine" during his time at Bendigo and earned the name of the "little doctor".
A resident of Paris for nine years, Rede travelled widely through Europe and was reported to be a queen's messenger to Greece at some point.
Arriving at Port Phillip in 1851, Rede made his way to Bendigo as a digger.
He joined the Goldfields Commission in 1852 and, according to Dr Peter Mansfield - former Ballarat Regional Librarian and local historian, soon earnt a reputation in both Bendigo and Castlemaine as "a popular and knowledgeable administrator".
"Rede," Dr Mansfield wrote in an article in "The Courier" in 1989, "attacked the vexed matter of disputed claims. This had been an ongoing source of discontent and Rede prepared regulations that may have solved the problem."
Carboni reports there was a down on the name of Rede following his ruling in favour of Americans over English in a claim dispute.
Let off lightly, in the words of Weston Bate, over the Eureka affair, Rede was kept on full-pay by Hotham until 1855. He was then appointed deputy sheriff of Geelong and became commandant of the Volunteer Rifles.
Named sheriff of Geelong in 1857, Rede returned to Ballarat as sheriff the following year.
Rede was named sheriff of Melbourne in 1877 and, on November 11, 1880, served in this capacity at the execution of Ned Kelly at the Old Melbourne Gaol.
Justice Redmond Barry, who had presided over the trials of the Eureka rebels 26 years before, had sentenced Kelly to death.
Rede kept working for another nine years, finally retiring at the age of 74.
Rede was the guest speaker at the inauguration of Geelong Grammar on June 24, 1858.
During his address to the boys he told them it was their duty "when it came to the point to be found ready".
There is every reason to suggest Rede would have believed he had been found ready on the morning of December 3, 1854.