Ballarat, Victoria
Encyclopedia
Ballarat (ˈbæləræt) is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately 105 kilometres (65.2 mi) west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range
and the Yarrowee River
catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth most populated inland city in Australia. The estimated urban area population is 96,000. It is the administrative centre for the City of Ballarat
, which encompasses both the urban area and outlying towns spanning an area of 740 square kilometres (285.7 sq mi). Inhabitants of Ballarat are known as Ballaratians.
It was named by Scottish settler Archibald Yuille who established the sheep run called Ballaarat in 1837 with the name derived from local Wathaurong Aboriginal words for the area, balla arat, thought to mean "resting place". The present spelling was officially adopted in 1996.
Ballarat is one of the most significant Victorian era
boomtown
s in Australia. Gold was discovered at Poverty Point
on 18 August 1851, and the district was found to be a rich alluvial
field where gold could easily be extracted. News of the finds intensified the Victorian gold rush
bringing over 10,000 migrants to the city from around the world within a year and transforming it from a station
to a major settlement in the newly proclaimed Colony of Victoria. Australia's first gold stamp mill
was established at Ballarat in 1854.
It was the site of the Eureka Rebellion, the only armed civil uprising in Australian history, which took place on 3 December 1854 at the Eureka Mining Lead, and the event is controversially identified with the birth of democracy in Australia. Many significant Australian cultural icons are also a legacy of Ballarat's gold rush boom. The rebellion's symbol, the Eureka Flag
has become a national symbol and is held at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
, Australia's oldest and largest regional gallery. Other nationally significant heritage structures include the Ballarat Botanical Gardens
, established 1857, the best example of a regional botanic gardens in Australia with the greatest concentration of public statuary including the official Prime Ministers Avenue; the longest running lyric theatre building, Her Majesty's, established 1875; the first municipal observatory, established 1886; and the earliest and longest memorial avenue, the Avenue of Honour
, established between 1917 and 1919.
Proclaimed a city in 1871, its prosperity continued until late in the 19th century, after which its importance relative to both Melbourne and Geelong rapidly faded with the slowing of gold extraction. It has endured as a major regional centre hosting the rowing and kayaking events from the 1956 Summer Olympics
. It is the commercial capital of the Central Highlands
and the largest city in the Goldfields region of Victoria
– a significant tourist destination. Ballarat is known for its history, culture and its well preserved Victorian era heritage.
Scottish settlers the Yuille family, Archibald Buchanan Yuille and his brother William Cross Yuille arrived in 1837 and squatted a 10000 acres (40.5 km²) sheep run with William Cross building a hut at Black Swamp in 1838. Outsiders originally knew of the settlement as Yuille's Station and Yuille's Swamp. Archibald Yuille named the area
"Ballaarat" which it is thought he derived from local Wathaurong Aboriginal words for the area, balla arat. The meaning of this word is not certain, however several translations have been made and it is generally thought to mean 'resting place'. In some dialects, balla means "bent elbow" which is translated to mean reclining or resting and arat meaning "place".
s around the creeks and hills. Several other notable gold fields were established in the wider area including the Berringa, Clunes, Creswick, Talbot and Enfield but the Ballarat district was the most important settlement in the area and the colony's second largest settlement.
The first Post Office opened on 1 November 1851. Parts of the district were first surveyed by William Urquhart as early as October 1851. By 1852 his grid plan
and wide streets for land sales in the new township of West Ballarat contrasted markedly with the existing narrow unplanned streets, tents and gullies of the original East Ballarat settlement.
Civil disobedience in Ballarat led to Australia's first and only armed civil uprising, the Eureka Rebellion (colloquially referred to as the Eureka Stockade) which took place in Ballarat on 3 December 1854. The event, in which 22 miners died, is considered to be a defining moment in Australian history.
The city earned the nickname "The Golden City" in the 1850s and during the 1860s prospered greatly on gold mining. Confidence of the city's early citizens in the enduring future of their city is evident in the sheer scale of many of the early public buildings, generous public recreational spaces, and opulence of many of its commercial establishments and private housing. The railway came to the town with the opening of the Geelong-Ballarat line in 1862, As Ballarat grew, the region's original indigenous inhabitants were quickly expelled to the fringe and by 1867 few at all remained.
During the period from the 1870s to the early 20th century Ballarat made a successful transition from a gold rush town to industrial age city.
Ballarat was proclaimed a city in 1871. Gong Gong reservoir was built in 1877 to alleviate flooding and to provide a permanent water supply. A direct railway to Melbourne was completed in December 1889. Many industries and workshops that had been established as a result of manufacturing and servicing for the deep lead mining industry.
Local boosterists
at the turn of the century adopted the nickname "Athens
of Australia", first used to describe the city by the prestigious Irish-Australian jurist and politician of the early 20th century Sir John Madden
.
On 13 May 1901, the Duke of York (later King George V
) and his wife, the Duchess of York, travelled by train from Melbourne to Ballarat.
Following the turn of the century Ballarat's growth had all but stopped. World War I dented the city's population further and the general decline led to the gradual loss of first provincial status to Geelong. In response, local lobbyists continually pushed the Victorian government for decentralisation
, the greatest success being the Victorian Railways
opening the Ballarat North Workshops
in April 1917. The Great Depression
proved a further setback for Ballarat, with the closure of many institutions.
was established. By 1931 Ballarat's economy and population was recovering strongly with further diversification of industry although in 1936 Geelong displaced it as the state's second largest city. During World War II an expanded Ballarat airport was the base of the RAAF Wireless Air Gunners' School as well as the base for USAAF Liberator bomber squadrons.
In the Post-war
era, Ballarat's growth continued, expanding significantly to the northwest and an acute housing shortage was eased with the establishment of an extensive Housing Commission of Victoria
estate on the former Ballarat Common (today known as Wendouree West). The estate was originally planned to contain over 750 prefabricated houses. Whilst planning for the estate began in 1949, main construction occurred between 1951 to 1962. During the 1970s a further 300 houses were constructed. Private housing in the adjacent suburb of Wendouree
closely matched and eventually eclipsed this by the mid 1960s. The suburb of greater Wendouree and Wendouree West had evolved as the suburban middle-class heart of the city.
By the 1970s, Ballarat began to officially recognise its substantial heritage and the first heritage controls were recommended to ensure its preservation. With the opening of Sovereign Hill
, the city made a rapid shift to become a major cultural tourist destination.
The city continued to grow at the national average throughout the late 20th Century and early 21st Century. In 2008 the City of Ballarat released a plan directing that growth of the city over the next 30 years is to be concentrated to the west of the city centre and through the redevelopment of inner city housing blocks, and other under-developed inner-city land in the East that is being redeveloped to create a higher-density housing structure.
Ballarat lies at the foothills of the Great Dividing Range
in Central Western Victoria. Also known as the Central Highlands
, it is named so because of its gentle hills and lack of any significant mountains that are more common in the eastern sections of the Great Dividing Range. The city lies within a gently undulating section of the midland plains which stretch from Creswick in the north, to Rokewood in the south, and from Lal Lal in the south-east to Pittong in the west. These plains are made up of alluvial sediment and volcanic flows, and contain large areas of rich agricultural soils. A large feature of the city is the man-made Lake Wendouree
(formerly Yuille’s Swamp), around which many of the inner suburbs are situated. The central city is situated low in the valley of the Yarrowee catchment and surrounded by hills such that the city skyline is visible only from the hills and the lower lying inner eastern suburbs. The reach of the Yarrowee toward Ballarat Central becomes a stormwater drain and is completely covered over as it flows under the CBD.
There are numerous densely forested areas around Ballarat and large bodies of water including the White Swan Reservoir and other lakes, rivers and creeks which are used for urban water use and agriculture.
Ballarat is a primarily low-rise city though apart from the area around Ballarat Airport there are few established height limits for buildings. There are two principal activity centre
s within the urban area, the Central Business District (CBD) and Wendouree. The tallest building in urban Ballarat is the seven-storey Henry Bolte wing of the Ballarat Base Hospital (1994).
Beyond the central area, urban Ballarat extends into several suburban areas. Settlement patterns around Ballarat consist of small villages and country towns, some with less than a few thousand people.
The Central Business District (located in Ballarat Central
) is a large mixed-use office and retail district. Ballarat's CBD (along Lydiard, Sturt Streets, Armstrong, Doveton and Dana Streets) along with the historic centre of East Ballarat – Main Street and Bakery Hill has retained stands of commercial and civic buildings of state and national heritage significance. The CBD area is bounded to the north by railway lines, extends to the west to Drummond Street, to the south to Grant street and to the east as far as Princes Street spanning the floodplain of the Yarrowee River. It includes a major retail area.
The inner established suburbs were initially laid out around the key mining areas and include Ballarat East
, Bakery Hill
, Golden Point
, Soldiers Hill
, Black Hill
, Brown Hill
, Eureka
, Canadian
, Mount Pleasant
, Redan
, Sebastopol
and Newington
.
The post gold rush era has seen a boom in expansion, extending the conurbation
north, south and west. To the west, Ballarat has expanded to Alfredton
, Delacombe
and Wendouree
to the north it has expanded to Ballarat North
, Nerrina, Invermay and Invermay Park; to the east to Warrenheip
and south to Sebastopol
, Mount Clear
and Mount Helen with the urban area encroaching the large town of Bunninyong
.
Wendouree is currently the only major suburban activity centre with a large indoor shopping mall – Stockland Shopping Centre (expanded in 2007) and also has a number of surrounding retail park
s including a strip shopping centre along Howitt Street including the large retail chain Harvey Norman
. Elsewhere are small suburban hubs with supermarkets such as IGA (supermarkets)
and small stretches of shopfronts.
Unlike Melbourne, Ballarat does not have a defined urban growth boundary
. This has put continuing pressure on the city council to approve development applications for subdivisions outside of the city fringe. In response to lobbying by landholders, the Ballarat West Growth Area Plan, a major Greenfield land
development plan, was prepared and has approved by the city and state government to allow for planned fringe communities consisting of 14,000 new homes and up to 40,000 new residents, effectively doubling the city's urban area by extending the urban sprawl
from Sebastopol, Delacombe and Alfredton west toward Bonshaw, Smythes Creek and Cardigan with a new suburb to be known as Lucas to be created. New activity centres are to be developed at Delacombe and Alfredton.
Cfb) with four seasons. Its elevation, at 435 metres (1,427 ft) above sea level, causes its mean monthly temperatures to tend on average 3 – 4 degrees Celsius below those of Melbourne. The mean daily maximum temperature for January is 25 °C (77 °F) whilst the mean minimum is 10.8 °C (51 °F) In July, the mean maximum is 10 °C (50 °F), with average July minimum is 3.2 °C (38 °F).
The mean annual rainfall is 695 millimetres (27.75 in), with August being the wettest month (77 mm/3.0 in). There are an average of 198 rain-free days per year. Like much of Australia, Ballarat experiences cyclical drought and heavy rainfall. Flooding of the Yarrowee catchment occurs occasionally. In 1869 a serious flood of the Yarrowee River put most of the lower section of business district including Bridge and Grenville streets underwater and causing the loss of two lives. Prolonged drought (an average annual rainfall with falls averaging as low as 400 mm (16 in) per year since 2001) caused Lake Wendouree to dry up completely for the first time in its history between 2006 and 2007. More recently higher rainfall levels have been recorded including 95 mm (3.74 in) in the 24 hours to 9 am on 14 January 2011, ending a four-day period of flooding rains across much of Victoria and Tasmania, and contributing to the wettest January on record, with a total of 206 mm (8.11 in) of rain for the month.
Light snowfall typically falls on nearby Mount Buninyong and Mount Warrenheip at least once a year but only in the urban area during heavy winters. Widespread frosts and fog are more common during the cooler months. Snow has been known to fall heavily. Heavy snow seasons occurred in 1900–1902, 1905–1907 (with record falls in 1906) and moderate snow seasons during the 1940s and 1980s. The most recent snowfalls to have occurred within the urban area were between 2006–2008 with falls in November 2006 (light); July 2007 (moderate); June 2008 (light) and August 2008 (light).
Ballarat's highest maximum recorded temperature was 44.1 °C (111 °F) on 7 February 2009 during the 2009 southeastern Australia heat wave
. This is 2.1 °C (36 °F) above the previous record of 42 °C (108 °F), set on 25 January 2003. The lowest ever recorded minimum was -6.0 °C at sunrise on 21 July 1982.
s is a issue in the winter months. Ballarat's waterways have historically been affected by heavy pollution from both mining and industry. Feral pigeon
s are also a problem in Ballarat.
The Ballarat Environment Network formed in 1993 to provide a voice for environmental and nature conservation issues in Ballarat and surrounds. Another large lobby group for sustainability
in the city is the Ballarat Renewable Energy And Zero Emissions – BREAZE formed in 2006. The City of Ballarat released an Environment Sustainability Strategy for the city in 2007.
While there are no national parks in Ballarat's proximity, Ballarat is bordered by extensive bushland to the north, south and south west and sensitive wetlands to the east. There are a number of nearby state parks and large reserves including the Enfield State Park, Creswick Regional Park, Mount Warrenheip
Flora Reserve Mount Buninyong
Reserve and Lake Burrumbeet
park. The region is home to a large koala
population with protected areas established in the city's outer southern and eastern settlements.
Many parts of urban Ballarat have been affected by the introduction of exotic species, particularly introduced flora. Common Gorse
is one such problem which has prompted the formation of an official Ballarat Region Gorse Task Force in 1999 to control.
, manufacturing
, education and information technology as well as primary industries including agriculture, mining and renewable energy.
As a major service centre for the populous goldfields region, Ballarat has large sectors of employment in retailing, service industries, state and federal government branch offices and agencies and health care.
known as Bridge Mall. There are shopping malls, the largest of which are Central Square Shopping Centre
(completed in 1988) opposite the town hall which includes the major department stores of Myer
(located within the 1870s Mitchell building) and Target. Additionally the city has each of the major supermarkets, speciality stores and branches of the big four
Australian retail banks.
Ballarat has become a major education centre with the formation of the University of Ballarat which exports education through a large international students program and throughout Australia through distance education
programs.
In recent years, a large technology park, the University of Ballarat Technology Park with communications centre has been established, with tenants including IBM
and employing over 1,400 people.
A significant heritage tourism
industry has grown substantially in Ballarat since the 1960s. Ballarat is most notable for the award-winning open-air museum known as Sovereign Hill
, a recreated 1850s gold mining settlement opened in 1970. Sovereign Hill is Ballarat's biggest tourism drawcard and is consistently rated amongst one of the best outdoor museums in the world and continues to expand. Sovereign Hill accounts for over half a million of Ballarat's visitors and $40 million in tourism revenue.
Several tourist trap
s and spin-offs have capitalised on Sovereign Hill's tourism popularity, most of these have sprung up near the eastern entrance of the Western Freeway between Melbourne and Ballarat. They include Kryal Castle
(1972), "Gold Rush Mini Golf" (2002) featuring the "Big Miner" (2006) one of Australia's big things
(although the original proposal appeared larger and for the miner to hold the Eureka Flag) at Ballarat's eastern entrance.
Other tourist attractions include the Eureka Centre; The Gold Museum; Ballarat Botanic gardens and Lake Wendouree; the Tramway museum and Ballarat Ghost Tours. A large number of Ballarat hotels, motels and restaurants service the tourism industry. The Ballarat Tourist Association is an industry based non-profit, membership organisation representing the city's tourism industry.
days in the mid 1800s. Lihir Gold
invested in Ballarat Goldfields in 2006 however downscaled its operations in 2009 due to the expense of extraction before selling its stake in 2010 to Castlemaine Goldfields.
Lignite
(coal), kaolin (clay) and iron ore have also been mined in the Ballarat region and nearby Lal Lal however many of the resource deposits have since been exhausted.
Ballarat attracts investment from several international manufacturers. The Australian headquarters of Mars, Incorporated
was established in Ballarat in 1979 with the main Ballarat factory producing Mars bar
s for the Australian market. McCain Foods Limited
Australian headquarters was established in Ballarat in 1970 and the company continues to expand its operations. The Ballarat North Workshops
is a major manufacturer of public transportation products with current investment from Alstom
.
Ballarat also has a large number of home grown companies producing textiles, general industrial engineering, food products, brick and tiles, building components, prefabricated housing components and automotive components.
. The Ballarat Livestock Selling Centre is the largest cattle exchange in regional Victoria. The Ballarat Agricultural and Pastoral Society formed in 1866 and has run the Ballarat Show annually each November at the Ballarat Showgrounds
since that time.
There are also a number of small forestry operations in Ballarat's Canadian Valley around the suburbs of Mt Clear and Mt Helen areas with pine plantations and mills.
The Ballarat region has a rapidly growing renewable energy
industry, in particular due to its abundant wind energy
, attracting significant investment and generating revenue for local landholders and local councils. The region is also a source of bountiful geothermal energy, solar power
and biomass
.
Through the Waubra Wind Farm the Ballarat region produces more than enough wind energy
to power every home in the city, however the electricity produced goes to the national grid. Additional nearby facilities include the first community-owned wind farm in Australia at Hepburn Wind Project
at Leonards Hill
which produces enough electricity to power the town of Daylesford
as well as approved proposals for Chepstowe, Lal Lal
, Mount Mercer
and proposed facilities at Mount Egerton
and Ballan
.
Ballarat Solar Park opened in 2009 at the Airport site in Mitchell Park is Victoria’s first ground mounted, flat plate and grid-connected photovoltaic farm
. Built by Sharp Corporation
for Origin Energy
is a 14,993 sqm produces the equivalent energy needs of around 150 homes.
Whilst most of the city's population can trace their ethnic roots to Anglo-Celtic decendency, 13.6% of the population are born overseas, with New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy the most common places of birth outside Australia. More recently the city has welcomed new arrivals from the Asian sub-continent and Africa.
Almost 15% of the population is over the age of 65, with over a quarter of the population expected to be over the age of 65 by 2021. The median age in Ballarat is 36 years. 46.8% of the population are married, with almost 35% of the population having never been married.
The average income of Ballarat, while lower than Melbourne, is higher than average for regional Victoria. Ballaratians in the 2007/08 financial year earned on average A$38,850 a year with the highest earners living in the city's inner and northern suburbs and the lowers earners living in the city's southern suburbs.
There were 31,959 households in the 2006 census, with 56.5% of the population having access to the internet at home.
42.5% of the population have completed further education after high school, with only 11.1% of the population holding a bachelor degree or greater, well below the national average.
Over 21.6% of Ballarat residents claim no religious affiliation. Minority religious groups include Buddhism
, Judaism and Islam and total less than 5% of the population.
, the Ballarat region is covered by the City of Ballarat
. The council was created in 1994 as an amalgamation of a number of other municipalities in the region with the council chambers located at the Ballarat Town Hall in central Ballarat. The City is made up of 3 wards, each represented by three councillor
s elected once every four years by postal voting
. The Mayor of Ballarat is elected from these councillors by their colleagues for a one year term.
In state politics
, Ballarat is located in the Legislative Assembly
districts of Ballarat East
and Ballarat West
, with both of these seats currently held by the Australian Labor Party
.
In federal politics
, Ballarat is located in a single House of Representatives
division – the Division of Ballarat
. The Division of Ballarat has been a safe Australian Labor Party
seat since 2001, and was the seat of the second Prime Minister of Australia
, Alfred Deakin
.
is a daily, and the Ballarat News, a free weekly. The latter is distributed almost universally across the city every Wednesday, and containing news of community events, advertisements for local businesses, and a real estate and classifieds section.
-run ABC Radio, Triple J
and ABC Classic FM.
In his 1999 book And Now Here's... (Four Decades of Behind the Scenes Fun in Australian Television), Mike McColl Jones fondly remembers local live television variety.
"...and in Ballarat, Victoria, a Tonight show ("Six Tonight") was carving its name into Australian television history. The show, hosted by Fred Fargher, ran for 13 years, and managed to attract many of the top name entertainers in the world, simply by offering them a limo ride to this beautiful country centre, a no-pressure spot on the show, and then a great dinner afterwards at one of the city's excellent restaurants. The sheer bravado of the offer enticed some of show business' biggest names."
Today Ballarat is serviced by numerous 'free to air' High Definition and Standard Definition Digital television services. Two television broadcasting stations are located in the city including WIN
, GEM HD and GO!
(sub-licensees of Nine Network
) and Prime7, 7Two
, 7mate
(a sub-licensee of Seven Network
). These two stations broadcast relayed services throughout regional Victoria. The city also receives Southern Cross Ten
, One HD and Eleven
(sub-licensee's of Network Ten
) that is based in Bendigo
but operates a local office.
Ballarat television maintains a similar schedule to the national television network but maintains local commercials and regional news programming - WIN
produces a 30-minute local news bulletin each weeknight from its studios in the city, where bulletins for Albury
, Bendigo, Gippsland
, Shepparton
and Mildura also originate. Southern Cross Ten provides short local news updates from its Canberra studios throughout the day. In addition to commercial television services, Ballarat receives Government ABC
(ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, ABC News 24) and SBS
(SBS One and Two) television services.
On Friday 5 May 2011, Analog television transmissions ceased in most areas of regional Victoria and some border regions including Ballarat and surrounding areas. All local free-to-air television services are now broadcasting in digital transmission only. This was done as part of the Federal Government`s plan for Digital terrestrial television in Australia, where all analogue transmission systems are gradually turned off and replaced with modern DVB-T
transmission systems.
Subscription television services are provided by Neighbourhood Cable
, Austar
, and SelecTV.
and the Ballarat campus of the Australian Catholic University
.
The University of Ballarat originated as the Ballarat School of Mines, founded in 1870 and once affiliated with the University of Melbourne
. The university consists of six campuses, three of which are in Ballarat—two in the city (Camp Street and SMB campuses) and the main campus in Mount Helen, approximately 6 kilometres (3.75 mi) southeast of the city at the foot of Mount Buninyong
.
The Australian Catholic University's Ballarat campus began life as the Aquinas Training College run by the Ballarat East Sisters of Mercy in 1909. It is ACU's only rural campus that is located outside of a capital ciy in Australia.
Ballarat has four State Government-operated secondary schools of which the academically selective Ballarat High School
(established in 1907) is the oldest and the only state school member of the Ballarat Associated Schools
. The other schools are Sebastopol College, Mount Clear College and Ballarat Secondary College. Ballarat Secondary College
was formed in 1994 by the amalgamation of Ballarat East Secondary College, Wendouree Secondary College and Midlands Secondary College.
Two private day and boarding schools in Ballarat Clarendon College
and Ballarat and Queens Anglican Grammar School
provide education from Years 1 to 12. Both of these co-educational schools are classified as academically excellent as the only Ballarat schools to be ranked on the tables of the top 100 Victorian schools based on median VCE scores and percentage of scores of 40 and above. In 2010, Clarendon was placed at number 11 just below Melbourne Grammar and above Geelong Grammar, Scotch College and Haileybury College. Ballarat Grammar was placed at number 59 just below Wesley College and above University High, Ivanhoe Grammar, Geelong Grammar and Tintern.
The city is well serviced by Catholic schools, with eight primary schools and three secondary colleges which include the all-boys St Patrick's College
, the all-girls Loreto College
and the co-educational Damascus College
, which was formed by the amalgamation of St Martin's in the Pines, St Paul's Technical School and Sacred Heart College in the 1990s.
Ballarat has several public libraries, the largest and most extensive of which is the City of Ballarat Library, run by the Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation and located on Creswick Road. Another library service is provided by the Mechanics' Institute in Sturt Street, which contains a collection of historic, archival and rare reference material.
and decorative arts, especially applied to the built environment, combined with the gold rush, this has created a picturesque urban landscape.
In 2003 Ballarat was the first of two Australian cities to be registered as a member of the International League of Historical Cities and in 2006 hosted the 10th World League of Historical Cities Congress.
Restoration of historic buildings is encouraged including a low interest council Heritage Loans Scheme. and the prevention of demolition by neglect discouraged by council policies. Since the 1970s, the local council has become increasingly aware of the economic and social value of heritage preservation. This is in stark contrast to the 1950s and 60s when Ballarat followed Melbourne in encouraging the removal of Victorian buildings, verandahs in particular. Recent restoration projects funded by the Ballarat include the reconstruction of significant cast iron lace verandahs including the Mining Exchange, Art Gallery (2007), Mechanics institute (2005–) on Lydiard Street and in 2010 the restoration of the Town Hall and the long neglected Unicorn Hotel façade on Sturt Street.
Ballarat Citizens for Thoughtful Development formed in 1998 and was incorporated as Ballarat Heritage Watch in 2005 to ensure that the city's architectural heritage is given due consideration in the planning process.
The Ballarat Botanical Gardens
(established in 1858) are recognised as the finest example of a regional botanical gardens in Australia and are home to many heritage listed exotic tree species and feature a modern glasshouse and horticultural centre and the Prime Ministers Avenue which features bronze busts of every past Australian Prime Minister. The gardens are home to the annual Ballarat Begonia Festival.
Ballarat is notable for its very wide boulevards. The main street is Sturt Street and is considered among one of the finest main avenues in Australia with over 2 kilometres of central gardens known as the Sturt Street Gardens
featuring bandstands, fountains, statues, monuments, memorials and lampposts. Ballarat is home to the largest of a collection of several Avenues of Honour
in Victoria. The fifteen kilometre (9.3 mi) long Ballarat Avenue of Honour consists of a total of approximately 4,000 trees, mostly deciduous
which in many parts arch completely over the road. Each tree has a bronze plaque dedicated to a soldier from the Ballarat region who enlisted during World War I. The Avenue of Honour and the Arch of Victory are on the Victorian Heritage Register
and are seen by approximately 20,000 visitors each year.
The city also has the greatest concentration of public statuary in any Australian city with many parks and streets featuring sculptures and statues dating from the 1860s to the present. Some of the other notable memorials located in the Sturt Street Gardens
in the middle of Ballarat's main boulevard include a bandstand situated in the heart of the city that was funded and built by the City of Ballarat Band in 1913 as a tribute to the bandsmen of the , a fountain dedicated to the early explorers Burke and Wills, and those dedicated to monarchs and those who have played pivotal roles in the development of the city and its rich social fabric. The most recent memorial is dedicated to war hero Sir Albert Coates
.
Ballarat has an extensive array of significant war memorials, the most recent of which is the Australian Ex Prisoner of War Memorial
. The most prominent memorial in the city is the Ballarat Victory Arch
that spans the old Western Highway on the Western approaches of the city. The archway serves as the focal point for the Avenue of Honour. Other significant individual monuments located along Sturt Street include those dedicated to the Boer War (1899–1901), the World War II (1939–1945) cenotaph, and Vietnam (1962–1972) (located adjacent to the Arch of Victory).
, Epicure (band)
and The Dead Salesmen. More recently, former Ballarat High students Hunting Grounds (formerly known as Howl) won national Triple J Unearthed competition. Yacht Club DJs, formed in 2008, have been a bankable festival favourite for many years, selling out national tours and releasing two bootleg CDs. Another recent success story is Gold Fields, who have enjoyed high rotation on Triple J
.
Many of these acts had their first gig at Karova Lounge on the corner of Camp and Field streets, which in 2010 was named Best Entertainment Venue in Victoria, by the Australian Hotel Association. The venue was nominated for this award in 2009 and 2011 (winner yet to be announced). Other famous acts to play at Karova Lounge in its seven years of operating include Wolfmother
, Girl Talk
, You Am I
and Ben Kweller
.
The legacy of the wealth generated during Ballarat's gold boom is still visible in a large number of fine stone buildings in and around the city, especially in the Lydiard Street area. This precinct contains some of Victoria's finest examples of Victorian era
buildings, many of which are on the Victorian Heritage Register
or classified by the National Trust of Australia
.
Notable civic buildings include the Town Hall (1870–72), the former Post Office (1864), the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery (1887), the Mechanics' Institute
(1860, 1869), the Queen Victoria Wards of the Ballarat Base Hospital (1890s) and the Ballarat railway station (1862, 1877, 1888).
Other historic buildings include the Provincial Hotel (1909), Reid's Coffee Palace
(1886), Craig's Royal Hotel (1862–1890) and Her Majesty's Theatre (1875), the oldest intact and operating lyric theatre in Australia.
The Ballarat Fire Station, located near Bakery Hill, is one of Victoria's oldest fire fighting structures; operated by the Ballarat East brigade – it currently only houses fire trucks. The building was designed in 1864 by architect Henry Caselli as brick masonry; with the construction completed in 1911. Heritage Victoria described the buildings as unusual and sophisticated. Ballarat is also home to the oldest Jewish synagogue on mainland Australia which is located in Bakery Hill in the Ballarat CBD. The first stone was laid on 25 January 1861, during the Victorian Gold Rush period.
.
Lake Wendouree is featured in many including the most prominent, the Begonia Festival (since 1953) and it now attracts over 100,000 visitors from around Australia. SpringFest (since 2001) now attracts more than 15,000 people from around Victoria and features market stalls and activities around the lake.
Ballarat Heritage Weekend (since 2006) celebrates the city's heritage with activities such as historic vehicles and displays in and around the CBD and also attracts visitors from around Victoria.
Other minor cultural festivals include the Ballarat Writers Festival, Ballarat International Foto Biennialle and the Goldfields Music Festival.
Ballarat has a lively and well established theatrical community with several local ensembles as well as a number of large performing arts venues. Major performing arts venues include:
The Ballarat Civic Hall is a large public building constructed in 1958 as a general purpose venue. Its stripped classical design was heavily criticised during its planning, however it has gained some cultural significance to the city with its cavernous spaces holding many significant events over the years. Civic Hall was closed in 2002 and there have been moves to redevelop it for many years with some calls to retain the building as a venue.
Ballarat has its own symphony orchestra, the Ballarat Symphony Orchestra which was formed in 1987.
Some notable theatre organisations in Ballarat include BLOC (Ballarat Light Opera Company) founded in 1959.
Ballarat is also the home to Australia's oldest and largest annual performing arts eisteddfod. The Royal South Street Eisteddfod
is an all-encompassing performing arts festival and competition event that is conducted over twelve weeks annually.
In the 1970s the Ballarat urban area contained no less than 60 hotels. The introduction of gaming machines in the early 1990s has brought about significant change in the city entertainment precincts. By 2006 at least 20 hotels had closed and some of those that remain have been redeveloped as dining and/or gaming venues. Gaming machines have brought significant revenue to the remaining hotels, sports and social clubs which has enabled many to expand and modernise.
The city has several dance clubs as well as a highly active live music and jazz scene. Hotels are popular meeting places for young people. The city has many fine restaurants, wine bars and eateries as well as themed restaurants.
A large cinema complex consisting of several theatres is located behind the façade of the old Regent cinemas in the heart of the city.
Dance parties are popular within the Ballarat area; however, the director of Ballarat Health Services (BHS), Andrew Rowe, has stated that Ballarat is "an inappropriate place to hold a rave" and has called for the Moorabool
Shire Council to forbid raves (such as the one held at Kryal Castle
) around the immediate Ballarat area. BTR is an organisation founded in 2006 that has begun hosting dance events in Ballarat.
houses one of Australia's oldest and most extensive collections of early Australian works. It is considered to have the best Australian collection outside any capital city in Australia.
The University of Ballarat operates the Post Office Gallery in the Wardell designed former Post Office on the corner of Sturt and Lydiard Streets.
Ballarat has a number of large parks, sport fields, organised sporting clubs and associations. Australian rules football
and cricket
are the most popular spectator and participation sports in Ballarat, while basketball, netball
, horse racing
and rowing
have large followings. There are stadiums, both indoor and outdoor as well as training facilities for most sports.
Australian rules football is played at semi-professional and amateur levels with a large number of players at numerous venues, both dedicated such as Eureka Stadium
and shared with cricket. The North Ballarat Roosters
based out of Eureka Stadium
compete in the Victorian Football League
and currently have an affiliation with national Australian Football League
(AFL) club the North Melbourne Kangaroos
. Plans are currently in progression to upgrade Northern Oval (currently known as Eureka Stadium) for hosting regular AFL pre season matches, with an aim to accommodate seating for 20,000 people. The Ballarat Football League
(founded 1893) is a strong regional league of which there are 3 teams (Ballarat, Lake Wendouree and North Ballarat City) from Ballarat. The Ballarat Football Club
(founded 1860) remains one of the oldest football club
s in the world. A team from Buninyong competes in the regional Central Highlands Football League
.
Cricket is also played extensively with three international standard cricket ovals. Ballarat's Eastern Oval hosted a game in the 1992 Cricket World Cup
.
Horse racing and greyhound racing
are popular, with dedicated facilities. The Harness Racing centre is considered to be among the best in Australia. The Ballarat Turf Club schedules around 28 race meetings a year including the Ballarat Cup meeting in mid-November. Ballarat Harness Racing
Club conducts regular meetings at its racetrack in the city.
The Ballarat Greyhound Racing Club holds regular meetings at Sebastopol
.
Basketball is played at various levels with the Ballarat Miners
and Ballarat Lady Miners who competing in the South East Australian Basketball League
and playing out of the WIN Minerdome
. The venue hosted basketball games for the 2006 Commonwealth Games
. Netball is similarly popular, with many netball clubs affiliated with local Australian rules clubs including Wendouree, East Point, Eureka, North Ballarat, Redan, Brown Hill and a the Ballarat Netball Association.
Rowing and kayaking is centred around Lake Wendouree and the sport is particularly popular with the schools. The lake hosts the Victorian Schools Rowing Championships as well as the annual 'Head of the Lake' rowing regatta – contested by Ballarat High School, Ballarat and Clarendon College, Ballarat Grammar School, St Patrick's College and Loreto College. The city hosted rowing events for the 1956 Olympic Games.
Association Football (known locally as soccer) is played mostly at an amateur level, with a competition known as the Ballarat District Soccer Association (BDSA). The Ballarat Red Devils
play in the FFV
State League division Two North-West.
Athletics
facilities include an international standard athletics track at Llanberris Reserve on York Street Golden Point
which is an Athletics Victoria venue and home to local athletics and little athletics clubs.
Swimming and water sport is facilitated at two Olympic sized pools as well as an indoor 25 metre (82 ft) competition short course pool. The main facility is the Ballarat Aquatic Centre located at Gillies Street Lake Gardens
in the city's west.
Baseball was first organised in Australia at Ballarat in 1857. The Ballarat Brewers field three teams in the Geelong Baseball Association
Winter Division, A Grade, A Reserve and C Grade.
Golf is played at four main venues which include the Ballarat Golf Course on Sturt Street in the Easter suburb of Alfredton
, home to the Ballarat Golf Club; the Midlands Golf Course on Heinz Lane in the northern suburb of Invermay Park which is home to the Midlands Golf Club; the Eureka Golf Course at Elford Street in the eastern suburb of Ballarat East and in the southern suburb of Buninyong at the Buninyong Golf Course.
The Ballarat Roller Derby League
was formed in 2008, and held their first match in 2009. They have two teams who compete in local events, and a combined travelling team, the Rat Pack, who compete in interleague roller derby
competitions.
Lake Wendouree
is a large recreational lake that was created out of former wetlands and hosted the rowing
events for the 1956 Summer Olympics. Victoria Park is an expansive reserve with tree lined avenues and sporting fields in suburban Newington. The suburbs feature some privately run wildlife parks including Ballarat Wildlife Park in Ballarat East and Ballarat Bird World in Buninyong.
's works documenting the city's establishment as a gold digging settlement, Albert Henry Fullwood
's depictions of boom era streetscapes and Knut Bull's View of Ballarat Across Lake Wendouree. Several other artists have painted depictions of historic events such as the Eureka Stockade.
Historic Lydiard Street features prominently in national television advertisement advertisements including the Gold Lion award (Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
) and Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association award winning "The Regulars" (2009) for Victoria Bitter
and "What About Me
" (2010) Safe Driver Rewards campaign for AAMI.
Ballarat is also a popular filming location with the city making cameos in film including My Brother Jack
(2001), Ned Kelly
(2003) and The Writer (2005).
Ballarat also features prominently in literature and fiction, including The Boscombe Valley Mystery
(1891) from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle
, the King Billy of Ballarat and Other Stories (1892) by Morley Roberts
, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
(1917) by Henry Handel Richardson
, Murder on the Ballarat Train (1993) by Kerry Greenwood
, Illywhacker
by Peter Carey (1985) and The Supply Party by Martin Edward (2009).
The town of Ballarat, California
is named after Ballarat.
Two ships of the Royal Australian Navy
have been named HMAS Ballarat
after the city, HMAS Ballarat (J184)
and HMAS Ballarat (FFH 155)
.
Popular nicknames used by locals for the city include "The 'Rat", a shortened version of the name derived from the brown rat
, the name and symbol was further popularised by Rebellion Brewery's The Rat beer. Another enduring nickname is Golden City which dates back to the gold rush and appears in several names including Golden City Hotel (1856) and the Golden City paddlesteamer (1885) and in numerous non-fiction works.
Ballarat has major hospitals in Ballarat Base Hospital
which services the entire region and the Queen Elizabeth Centre. Private hospital
s include a St John of God Health Care
centre, established in 1915 and is currently the largest private hospital in regional Victoria.
Ballarat's data communications services now come from several providers, however for a long time the city went without broadband services. An extensive private broadband network was built by Neighbourhood Cable, now Telstra
and Optus
also provide broadband services. No announcement of Ballarat's rollout of the National Broadband Network
has yet been made however it is seen as vital for the city's growing IT industry.
Ballarat's electricity supply is provided and maintained by Victorian electricity distributor Powercor
.
is dual carriageway
in Ballarat providing a connection to Melbourne (approximately 90 minutes) and bypassing the central city on its way westward to Ararat
(approximately 75 minutes) and Horsham
. A network of state highways from Ballarat. The Midland Highway is a dual carriageway which runs north along Creswick Road to the Western Freeway interchange but becomes a single carriageway north of Ballarat to Creswick (approximately 25 minutes) and runs south as the dual carriageway of Skipton Road to Magpie before becoming a single carriageway to Geelong (approximately 87 minutes). The Glenelg Highway
connects directly to Mount Gambier and the Sunraysia Highway
west of Ballarat which connects directly to Mildura. Sturt Street and Victoria Street, both dual carriageways carry the bulk of the east-west CBD traffic, while Mair Street is planned to become dual carriageway to relieve pressure on these main streets. Other dual carriageway main roads in the west include Howitt Street and Gillies Street. The remainder of Ballarat's roads are mainly secondary single carriageways or service lanes to the inner suburbs.
Ballarat is also served by an extensive public bus service branded as Ballarat Transit which is currently operated mainly by Ballarat Coachlines and Davis Bus Service. The taxi system operates in all suburbs and is currently operated by Ballarat Taxis Co-op Ltd.
Regional coaches operated by V/Line
connect Ballarat with other regional centres such as Warrnambool, Bendigo, Mildura and Maryborough
. There is also a direct bus service to Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport.
Ballarat has two passenger railway stations, the hub of Ballarat railway station and suburban Wendouree railway station out of which V/Line
operates VLocity trains running at up to 160 km/h (99 mph) east to Melbourne, west and Ararat
and north to Maryborough. Peak hour commuter services to Melbourne running from 69 minutes remain highly popular with commuters despite the controversial removal of "flagship" express services in 2011. The Regional Rail Link
project is underway to separate Ballarat's trains from Melbourne's suburban rail network for more regular services. Interurban services (Ballarat-Melbourne) now run half hourly during weekday peak and hourly on weekends from Ballarat station. A twice daily (53 minute) service connects Ballarat to Ararat
while there is a (57 minute) service to and from Maryborough (stopping at Creswick) once a day each way.
The Ballarat to Geelong (the Geelong-Ballarat railway line) currently operates as a freight line only (passenger services were withdrawn in 1978) and the city has several disused railway corridors and stations along the Skipton railway, Buninyong railway and the Ballarat Cattle Yards railway.
Ballarat once operated an extensive tramway network which began in 1887, however it was closed in 1971 and replaced by buses. A small section of track remains used as a tourist and museum tramway. There have been proposals to extend the network, particularly to connect it to the railways and return it as a viable component of the Ballarat public transport system.
located 8 km (5 mi) North-West of the CBD consists of two sealed runways (each approximately 1,400 m/4,600 ft length and 30 m/100 ft wide) as well as extensive sealed aprons, night lighting and NDB Navaid. In 2005 the City of Ballarat commissioned a Master Plan 2004–2014, that outlined future development and growth of the Airport. The report made a series of recommendations and forecasts that included eventual lengthening, widening and strengthening of the existing main runway up to 1800 metres (5,900 ft), consideration for expansion of the passenger terminal and recommendations for future use of aprons and development of future structures supporting larger aircraft and increased frequent usage. It is forecast that by 2012–15 regular domestic passenger services using 40–50 seat commuter aircraft may feasibly commence.
Several former Prime Minister of Australia
were from Ballarat (recognised by the city's Prime Minister's Avenue) – Alfred Deakin
, Sir Robert Menzies
, James Scullin
and John Curtin
. Several Premiers of the Australian states
are also from Ballarat, including Victorian premiers Sir Henry Bolte
, Steve Bracks
, Duncan Gillies
, Thomas Hollway
and Western Australia premier Henry Daglish
.
Outside of politics, other prominent public figures include Peter Lalor
, an important historical figure in Australia as the leader of the Eureka Rebellion (1854); the inventor George Alfred Julius, who spent part of his childhood in the town when his father was a local Anglican cleric; and Cardinal George Pell
, the current Catholic Archbishop of Sydney.
Ballarat has also produced many notable athletes including the Olympic long distance runner Steve Moneghetti
. A large number of notable Australian rules football identities have come from Ballarat, including Tony Lockett
, an AFL Legend player and record holder of the most goals scored in a career; premiership coaches Mick Malthouse
and Geelong Football Club
legend Bob Davis. North Melbourne forward Drew Petrie
is also from the town.
Great Dividing Range
The Great Dividing Range, or the Eastern Highlands, is Australia's most substantial mountain range and the third longest in the world. The range stretches more than 3,500 km from Dauan Island off the northeastern tip of Queensland, running the entire length of the eastern coastline through...
and the Yarrowee River
Yarrowee River
Yarrowee is a major tributary and catchment of the Barwon River in Victoria, Australia. The river's origins are in the hills at Gong Gong, and it is notable for passing through the settlement of Ballarat and crossing the City of Ballarat local government area before becoming the Leigh River in the...
catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth most populated inland city in Australia. The estimated urban area population is 96,000. It is the administrative centre for the City of Ballarat
City of Ballarat
The City of Ballarat is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia around Ballarat. It is located in the western part of the state. It has an area of 740 square kilometres. In 2001 it had a population of 81,000...
, which encompasses both the urban area and outlying towns spanning an area of 740 square kilometres (285.7 sq mi). Inhabitants of Ballarat are known as Ballaratians.
It was named by Scottish settler Archibald Yuille who established the sheep run called Ballaarat in 1837 with the name derived from local Wathaurong Aboriginal words for the area, balla arat, thought to mean "resting place". The present spelling was officially adopted in 1996.
Ballarat is one of the most significant Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
boomtown
Boomtown
A boomtown is a community that experiences sudden and rapid population and economic growth. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although the term can also be applied to communities growing very rapidly for different reasons,...
s in Australia. Gold was discovered at Poverty Point
Golden Point, Victoria
Golden Point is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located south east of the CBD. It is one of the few original suburbs of Ballarat that was established during the Victorian gold rush days. At the 2006 census, Golden Point had a population of 2,147...
on 18 August 1851, and the district was found to be a rich alluvial
Alluvium
Alluvium is loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments, eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water in some form in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel...
field where gold could easily be extracted. News of the finds intensified the Victorian gold rush
Victorian gold rush
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...
bringing over 10,000 migrants to the city from around the world within a year and transforming it from a station
Station (Australian agriculture)
Station is the term for a large Australian landholding used for livestock production. It corresponds to the North American term ranch or South American estancia...
to a major settlement in the newly proclaimed Colony of Victoria. Australia's first gold stamp mill
Stamp mill
A stamp mill is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operation....
was established at Ballarat in 1854.
It was the site of the Eureka Rebellion, the only armed civil uprising in Australian history, which took place on 3 December 1854 at the Eureka Mining Lead, and the event is controversially identified with the birth of democracy in Australia. Many significant Australian cultural icons are also a legacy of Ballarat's gold rush boom. The rebellion's symbol, the Eureka Flag
Eureka Flag
The Eureka Flag is a design; a dark blue field with a central white symmetric cross consisting five eight-pointed stars, representing the Crux constellation....
has become a national symbol and is held at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
Art Gallery of Ballarat is the oldest and largest regional art gallery in Australia. Established in 1884 as the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery by the citizens of Ballarat both the building and part of its collection is listed on the Victorian Heritage Registerand by the National Trust of Victoria.The...
, Australia's oldest and largest regional gallery. Other nationally significant heritage structures include the Ballarat Botanical Gardens
Ballarat Botanical Gardens
The Ballarat Botanical Gardens Reserve, located on the western shore of picturesque Lake Wendouree, in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, covers an area of 40 hectares which is divided into 3 distinct zones. The central Botanical Gardens reserve in the 'gardenesque' style of the Victorian pleasure...
, established 1857, the best example of a regional botanic gardens in Australia with the greatest concentration of public statuary including the official Prime Ministers Avenue; the longest running lyric theatre building, Her Majesty's, established 1875; the first municipal observatory, established 1886; and the earliest and longest memorial avenue, the Avenue of Honour
Avenue of honour
Avenue of Honour is the term given to a memorial avenue of trees, with each tree symbolising a person.The tradition, which originated in the Goldfields region of Victoria, Australia is an important part of Australian culture....
, established between 1917 and 1919.
Proclaimed a city in 1871, its prosperity continued until late in the 19th century, after which its importance relative to both Melbourne and Geelong rapidly faded with the slowing of gold extraction. It has endured as a major regional centre hosting the rowing and kayaking events from the 1956 Summer Olympics
1956 Summer Olympics
The 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in Melbourne, Australia, in 1956, with the exception of the equestrian events, which could not be held in Australia due to quarantine regulations...
. It is the commercial capital of the Central Highlands
Central highlands (Victoria)
The Central Highlands is a region of Victoria. This term is mainly used in a geological context to describe the part of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria that is outside of the Alpine areas. The area is situated east of Ballarat, south of Bendigo, north and east of Melbourne, west of the Alpine...
and the largest city in the Goldfields region of Victoria
Goldfields region of Victoria
The Goldfields region of Victoria is a region commonly used but typically defined in both historical geography and tourism geography .-Description:...
– a significant tourist destination. Ballarat is known for its history, culture and its well preserved Victorian era heritage.
Prehistory and European settlement
Prior to the European settlement of Australia, the Ballarat region was populated by the Wathaurong people, an Indigenous Australian people. The Boro gundidj tribe's territory was based along the Yarrowee River.Scottish settlers the Yuille family, Archibald Buchanan Yuille and his brother William Cross Yuille arrived in 1837 and squatted a 10000 acres (40.5 km²) sheep run with William Cross building a hut at Black Swamp in 1838. Outsiders originally knew of the settlement as Yuille's Station and Yuille's Swamp. Archibald Yuille named the area
"Ballaarat" which it is thought he derived from local Wathaurong Aboriginal words for the area, balla arat. The meaning of this word is not certain, however several translations have been made and it is generally thought to mean 'resting place'. In some dialects, balla means "bent elbow" which is translated to mean reclining or resting and arat meaning "place".
1850s: Gold rush
On 19 August 1851, John Dunlop and James Regan struck gold at Poverty Point with a few ounces but within days of the announcement prospectors rushed the area. As the Victorian gold rush gathered pace, numerous alluvial and deep mining leads sprang up in the Ballarat district. The Ballarat goldfields had gained an international reputation as a rich goldfield and a huge influx of immigrants from around the world included many from Ireland and China gathering in a collection of prospecting shanty townShanty town
A shanty town is a slum settlement of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap materials: often plywood, corrugated metal and sheets of plastic...
s around the creeks and hills. Several other notable gold fields were established in the wider area including the Berringa, Clunes, Creswick, Talbot and Enfield but the Ballarat district was the most important settlement in the area and the colony's second largest settlement.
The first Post Office opened on 1 November 1851. Parts of the district were first surveyed by William Urquhart as early as October 1851. By 1852 his grid plan
Grid plan
The grid plan, grid street plan or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid...
and wide streets for land sales in the new township of West Ballarat contrasted markedly with the existing narrow unplanned streets, tents and gullies of the original East Ballarat settlement.
Civil disobedience in Ballarat led to Australia's first and only armed civil uprising, the Eureka Rebellion (colloquially referred to as the Eureka Stockade) which took place in Ballarat on 3 December 1854. The event, in which 22 miners died, is considered to be a defining moment in Australian history.
The city earned the nickname "The Golden City" in the 1850s and during the 1860s prospered greatly on gold mining. Confidence of the city's early citizens in the enduring future of their city is evident in the sheer scale of many of the early public buildings, generous public recreational spaces, and opulence of many of its commercial establishments and private housing. The railway came to the town with the opening of the Geelong-Ballarat line in 1862, As Ballarat grew, the region's original indigenous inhabitants were quickly expelled to the fringe and by 1867 few at all remained.
Victorian city and decline
Ballarat was proclaimed a city in 1871. Gong Gong reservoir was built in 1877 to alleviate flooding and to provide a permanent water supply. A direct railway to Melbourne was completed in December 1889. Many industries and workshops that had been established as a result of manufacturing and servicing for the deep lead mining industry.
Local boosterists
Boosterism
Boosterism is the act of "boosting," or promoting, one's town, city, or organization, with the goal of improving public perception of it. Boosting can be as simple as "talking up" the entity at a party or as elaborate as establishing a visitors' bureau. It is somewhat associated with American small...
at the turn of the century adopted the nickname "Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
of Australia", first used to describe the city by the prestigious Irish-Australian jurist and politician of the early 20th century Sir John Madden
John Madden (jurist)
Sir John Madden GCMG , Irish-Australian jurist and politician, was the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria....
.
On 13 May 1901, the Duke of York (later King George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
) and his wife, the Duchess of York, travelled by train from Melbourne to Ballarat.
Following the turn of the century Ballarat's growth had all but stopped. World War I dented the city's population further and the general decline led to the gradual loss of first provincial status to Geelong. In response, local lobbyists continually pushed the Victorian government for decentralisation
Décentralisation
Décentralisation is a french word for both a policy concept in French politics from 1968-1990, and a term employed to describe the results of observations of the evolution of spatial economic and institutional organization of France....
, the greatest success being the Victorian Railways
Victorian Railways
The Victorian Railways operated railways in the Australian state of Victoria from 1859 to 1983. The first railways in Victoria were private companies, but when these companies failed or defaulted, the Victorian Railways was established to take over their operations...
opening the Ballarat North Workshops
Ballarat North Workshops
Ballarat North Workshops is a railway workshop located in the provincial city of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. They are located in the suburb of North Ballarat on Creswick Road, and occupy 5.5 hectares of land beside the junction of the Mildura and Serviceton railway lines.-History:The workshops...
in April 1917. The Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
proved a further setback for Ballarat, with the closure of many institutions.
Since the 20th Century
While deep, the depression was also brief, the interwar period proved a period of recovery for Ballarat with a number of major infrastructure projects well underway including a new sewerage system. In 1930, Ballarat AirportBallarat Airport
-Motorsport:The airfield had a brief motor racing career, beginning on Australia Day in 1947 when it held its first motor race meeting. Racing returned in November of both 1950 and 1951, then finally for an International Formula Libre race in February 1961, which was attended by some European...
was established. By 1931 Ballarat's economy and population was recovering strongly with further diversification of industry although in 1936 Geelong displaced it as the state's second largest city. During World War II an expanded Ballarat airport was the base of the RAAF Wireless Air Gunners' School as well as the base for USAAF Liberator bomber squadrons.
In the Post-war
Post-war
A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...
era, Ballarat's growth continued, expanding significantly to the northwest and an acute housing shortage was eased with the establishment of an extensive Housing Commission of Victoria
Housing Commission of Victoria
The Housing Commission of Victoria was a State Government body responsible for public housing in Victoria, Australia...
estate on the former Ballarat Common (today known as Wendouree West). The estate was originally planned to contain over 750 prefabricated houses. Whilst planning for the estate began in 1949, main construction occurred between 1951 to 1962. During the 1970s a further 300 houses were constructed. Private housing in the adjacent suburb of Wendouree
Wendouree, Victoria
Wendouree is a large suburb on the north western rural-urban fringe of the City of Ballarat, in Victoria, Australia. It is the most populated suburb in urban Ballarat with a total of 10,752 inhabitants counted at the 2006 Census....
closely matched and eventually eclipsed this by the mid 1960s. The suburb of greater Wendouree and Wendouree West had evolved as the suburban middle-class heart of the city.
By the 1970s, Ballarat began to officially recognise its substantial heritage and the first heritage controls were recommended to ensure its preservation. With the opening of Sovereign Hill
Sovereign Hill
Sovereign Hill is an open air museum in Golden Point, a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Sovereign Hill depicts Ballarat's first ten years after the discovery of gold there in 1851. It was officially opened on 29 November 1970 and has become a nationally acclaimed tourist attraction...
, the city made a rapid shift to become a major cultural tourist destination.
The city continued to grow at the national average throughout the late 20th Century and early 21st Century. In 2008 the City of Ballarat released a plan directing that growth of the city over the next 30 years is to be concentrated to the west of the city centre and through the redevelopment of inner city housing blocks, and other under-developed inner-city land in the East that is being redeveloped to create a higher-density housing structure.
Geography
Great Dividing Range
The Great Dividing Range, or the Eastern Highlands, is Australia's most substantial mountain range and the third longest in the world. The range stretches more than 3,500 km from Dauan Island off the northeastern tip of Queensland, running the entire length of the eastern coastline through...
in Central Western Victoria. Also known as the Central Highlands
Central highlands (Victoria)
The Central Highlands is a region of Victoria. This term is mainly used in a geological context to describe the part of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria that is outside of the Alpine areas. The area is situated east of Ballarat, south of Bendigo, north and east of Melbourne, west of the Alpine...
, it is named so because of its gentle hills and lack of any significant mountains that are more common in the eastern sections of the Great Dividing Range. The city lies within a gently undulating section of the midland plains which stretch from Creswick in the north, to Rokewood in the south, and from Lal Lal in the south-east to Pittong in the west. These plains are made up of alluvial sediment and volcanic flows, and contain large areas of rich agricultural soils. A large feature of the city is the man-made Lake Wendouree
Lake Wendouree
Lake Wendouree is an artificially-created and maintained shallow urban lake located in the suburb of the same name in the city of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia...
(formerly Yuille’s Swamp), around which many of the inner suburbs are situated. The central city is situated low in the valley of the Yarrowee catchment and surrounded by hills such that the city skyline is visible only from the hills and the lower lying inner eastern suburbs. The reach of the Yarrowee toward Ballarat Central becomes a stormwater drain and is completely covered over as it flows under the CBD.
There are numerous densely forested areas around Ballarat and large bodies of water including the White Swan Reservoir and other lakes, rivers and creeks which are used for urban water use and agriculture.
City and suburbs
Ballarat is a primarily low-rise city though apart from the area around Ballarat Airport there are few established height limits for buildings. There are two principal activity centre
Activity centre
Activity centre is a term used in urban planning and design for a mixed-use urban area where there is a concentration of commercial and other land uses...
s within the urban area, the Central Business District (CBD) and Wendouree. The tallest building in urban Ballarat is the seven-storey Henry Bolte wing of the Ballarat Base Hospital (1994).
Beyond the central area, urban Ballarat extends into several suburban areas. Settlement patterns around Ballarat consist of small villages and country towns, some with less than a few thousand people.
The Central Business District (located in Ballarat Central
Ballarat Central
Ballarat Central is a defined locality surrounded by suburban Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. It is the second oldest area in Ballarat . It was formerly known as Ballaarat West. The population of Ballarat Central at the 2006 census was 5,645, making it the third most populous in the urban area...
) is a large mixed-use office and retail district. Ballarat's CBD (along Lydiard, Sturt Streets, Armstrong, Doveton and Dana Streets) along with the historic centre of East Ballarat – Main Street and Bakery Hill has retained stands of commercial and civic buildings of state and national heritage significance. The CBD area is bounded to the north by railway lines, extends to the west to Drummond Street, to the south to Grant street and to the east as far as Princes Street spanning the floodplain of the Yarrowee River. It includes a major retail area.
The inner established suburbs were initially laid out around the key mining areas and include Ballarat East
Ballarat East, Victoria
Ballarat East, is a suburb of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. Ballarat East covers a large area east of the CBD. It is the oldest area in Ballarat and was once also a municipality known as the Ballarat East Town Council between 1859 and 1921...
, Bakery Hill
Bakery Hill, Victoria
Bakery Hill is an inner city suburb of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. It is the smallest suburb in the city of Ballarat in terms of both area and population, which at the 2006 census was just 191 people....
, Golden Point
Golden Point, Victoria
Golden Point is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located south east of the CBD. It is one of the few original suburbs of Ballarat that was established during the Victorian gold rush days. At the 2006 census, Golden Point had a population of 2,147...
, Soldiers Hill
Soldiers Hill, Victoria
Soldiers Hill is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located directly north of the CBD. It is one of the few original suburbs of Ballarat that was established during the Victorian gold rush days...
, Black Hill
Black Hill, Ballarat
Black Hill is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia in the northeast of the city. The population at the 2006 census was 2,127.It is bordered to the south and east by the Yarrowee River and to the north by Howitt Street, Walker Street and Boronia/Haimes Road and Reid Street to the west by...
, Brown Hill
Brown Hill, Victoria
Brown Hill is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia on the eastern rural-urban fringe of the city. The population at the 2006 census was 2,057....
, Eureka
Eureka, Victoria
Eureka is a small eastern suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. At the 2006 census, Eureka had a population of 609.Eureka is bordered by Specimen Creek to the north, Canadian Creek to the south, Queen and Joseph streets to the west and Kline and Stawell Street to the east...
, Canadian
Canadian, Victoria
Canadian is a suburb east of the regional city of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia on the rural-urban fringe. At the 2006 census, Canadian had a population of 2,498....
, Mount Pleasant
Mount Pleasant, Victoria
Mount Pleasant is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located south of the CBD. It is one of the few original gold mining towns in the Ballarat district established during the Victorian gold rush...
, Redan
Redan, Victoria
Redan is an inner suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia immediately south of Ballarat Central. The population at the 2006 census was 2,958....
, Sebastopol
Sebastopol, Victoria
Sebastopol is a southern suburb on the rural-urban fringe of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It is the second most populated area in urban Ballarat with a population of 8,045 at the 2006 census....
and Newington
Newington, Victoria
Newington is a suburb south west of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The population at the 2006 census was 1,747.Newington is bordered by Gillies Street to the West, Sturt Street to the North, Pleasant Street to the East and Winter Street to the South...
.
The post gold rush era has seen a boom in expansion, extending the conurbation
Conurbation
A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area...
north, south and west. To the west, Ballarat has expanded to Alfredton
Alfredton, Victoria
Alfredton is a rural-urban fringe suburb west of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The population at the 2006 census was 5,796 making it the fourth most populated in the Ballarat urban area.Alfredton is located west of Lake Wendouree along Sturt Street...
, Delacombe
Delacombe, Victoria
Delacombe is a large and rapidly growing industrial/residential suburb on the south west rural-urban fringe of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The population at the 2006 census was 3,811 making it the sixth most populated in the Ballarat urban area....
and Wendouree
Wendouree, Victoria
Wendouree is a large suburb on the north western rural-urban fringe of the City of Ballarat, in Victoria, Australia. It is the most populated suburb in urban Ballarat with a total of 10,752 inhabitants counted at the 2006 Census....
to the north it has expanded to Ballarat North
Ballarat North, Victoria
Ballarat North is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located north of Ballarat's central area. Ballarat North is bounded by Norman Street; Ballarat General Cemetery and Western Freeway to the north, Howitt Street to the south, Doodts Road to the east and the Mildura railway line to the west...
, Nerrina, Invermay and Invermay Park; to the east to Warrenheip
Warrenheip, Victoria
Warrenheip is a small suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located on the western rural-urban fringe. At the 2006 census, Warrenheip had a population of 435....
and south to Sebastopol
Sebastopol, Victoria
Sebastopol is a southern suburb on the rural-urban fringe of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It is the second most populated area in urban Ballarat with a population of 8,045 at the 2006 census....
, Mount Clear
Mount Clear, Victoria
Mount Clear is a semi-rural suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located south of the CBD is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located south of the CBD in the Canadian Creek Valley. At the 2006 census, Mount Clear had a population of 2,346....
and Mount Helen with the urban area encroaching the large town of Bunninyong
Buninyong, Victoria
Buninyong is a place in Victoria, Australia. The town is on the Midland Highway, south of Ballarat on the road to Geelong. It's known locally as the drug smuggling capital of the South West region. Local Dealers are said to import the majority of their cannabis supply from farmers in Durham Lead...
.
Wendouree is currently the only major suburban activity centre with a large indoor shopping mall – Stockland Shopping Centre (expanded in 2007) and also has a number of surrounding retail park
Retail park
In the United Kingdom, a retail park is a grouping of many retail warehouses and superstores with associated car parking. Its North American equivalent is a power centre. Retail parks are found on the fringes of most large towns and cities in highly accessible locations and are aimed at households...
s including a strip shopping centre along Howitt Street including the large retail chain Harvey Norman
Harvey Norman
Harvey Norman is a large Australian-based retailer of electrical, computer, furniture, entertainment and bedding goods. It is effectively a franchise and the main brand owned by Harvey Norman Holdings Limited...
. Elsewhere are small suburban hubs with supermarkets such as IGA (supermarkets)
IGA (supermarkets)
IGA is a brand of grocery stores active in more than 30 countries. Contrasting with the chain store business model, IGA operates as a franchise through stores that are owned separately from the brand. Many of these stores operate in small town markets and belong to families that manage them...
and small stretches of shopfronts.
Unlike Melbourne, Ballarat does not have a defined urban growth boundary
Urban growth boundary
An urban growth boundary, or UGB, is a regional boundary, set in an attempt to control urban sprawl by mandating that the area inside the boundary be used for higher density urban development and the area outside be used for lower density development.An urban growth boundary circumscribes an...
. This has put continuing pressure on the city council to approve development applications for subdivisions outside of the city fringe. In response to lobbying by landholders, the Ballarat West Growth Area Plan, a major Greenfield land
Greenfield land
Greenfield land is a term used to describe undeveloped land in a city or rural area either used for agriculture, landscape design, or left to naturally evolve...
development plan, was prepared and has approved by the city and state government to allow for planned fringe communities consisting of 14,000 new homes and up to 40,000 new residents, effectively doubling the city's urban area by extending the urban sprawl
Urban sprawl
Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a...
from Sebastopol, Delacombe and Alfredton west toward Bonshaw, Smythes Creek and Cardigan with a new suburb to be known as Lucas to be created. New activity centres are to be developed at Delacombe and Alfredton.
Climate
Ballarat has a moderate oceanic climate (Köppen climate classificationKöppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by Crimea German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen himself, notably in 1918 and 1936...
Cfb) with four seasons. Its elevation, at 435 metres (1,427 ft) above sea level, causes its mean monthly temperatures to tend on average 3 – 4 degrees Celsius below those of Melbourne. The mean daily maximum temperature for January is 25 °C (77 °F) whilst the mean minimum is 10.8 °C (51 °F) In July, the mean maximum is 10 °C (50 °F), with average July minimum is 3.2 °C (38 °F).
The mean annual rainfall is 695 millimetres (27.75 in), with August being the wettest month (77 mm/3.0 in). There are an average of 198 rain-free days per year. Like much of Australia, Ballarat experiences cyclical drought and heavy rainfall. Flooding of the Yarrowee catchment occurs occasionally. In 1869 a serious flood of the Yarrowee River put most of the lower section of business district including Bridge and Grenville streets underwater and causing the loss of two lives. Prolonged drought (an average annual rainfall with falls averaging as low as 400 mm (16 in) per year since 2001) caused Lake Wendouree to dry up completely for the first time in its history between 2006 and 2007. More recently higher rainfall levels have been recorded including 95 mm (3.74 in) in the 24 hours to 9 am on 14 January 2011, ending a four-day period of flooding rains across much of Victoria and Tasmania, and contributing to the wettest January on record, with a total of 206 mm (8.11 in) of rain for the month.
Light snowfall typically falls on nearby Mount Buninyong and Mount Warrenheip at least once a year but only in the urban area during heavy winters. Widespread frosts and fog are more common during the cooler months. Snow has been known to fall heavily. Heavy snow seasons occurred in 1900–1902, 1905–1907 (with record falls in 1906) and moderate snow seasons during the 1940s and 1980s. The most recent snowfalls to have occurred within the urban area were between 2006–2008 with falls in November 2006 (light); July 2007 (moderate); June 2008 (light) and August 2008 (light).
Ballarat's highest maximum recorded temperature was 44.1 °C (111 °F) on 7 February 2009 during the 2009 southeastern Australia heat wave
2009 southeastern Australia heat wave
The early 2009 southeastern Australia heat wave was a heat wave that commenced in late January and led to record-breaking prolonged high temperatures in the region. The heat wave is considered one of the, if not the, most extreme in the region's history. During the heat wave, fifty separate...
. This is 2.1 °C (36 °F) above the previous record of 42 °C (108 °F), set on 25 January 2003. The lowest ever recorded minimum was -6.0 °C at sunrise on 21 July 1982.
Environment
Ballarat has a healthy environment in comparison to Melbourne, however as a growing regional city there are issues including pollution, waterway health and invasive species. Air quality is generally good, however woodsmoke from fireplaceFireplace
A fireplace is an architectural structure to contain a fire for heating and, especially historically, for cooking. A fire is contained in a firebox or firepit; a chimney or other flue allows gas and particulate exhaust to escape...
s is a issue in the winter months. Ballarat's waterways have historically been affected by heavy pollution from both mining and industry. Feral pigeon
Feral Pigeon
Feral pigeons , also called city doves, flying rats, city pigeons or street pigeons, are derived from domestic pigeons that have returned to the wild. The domestic pigeon was originally bred from the wild Rock Pigeon, which naturally inhabits sea-cliffs and mountains. All three types readily...
s are also a problem in Ballarat.
The Ballarat Environment Network formed in 1993 to provide a voice for environmental and nature conservation issues in Ballarat and surrounds. Another large lobby group for sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
in the city is the Ballarat Renewable Energy And Zero Emissions – BREAZE formed in 2006. The City of Ballarat released an Environment Sustainability Strategy for the city in 2007.
While there are no national parks in Ballarat's proximity, Ballarat is bordered by extensive bushland to the north, south and south west and sensitive wetlands to the east. There are a number of nearby state parks and large reserves including the Enfield State Park, Creswick Regional Park, Mount Warrenheip
Mount Warrenheip
Mount Warrenheip is an inactive Volcanic cone in Victoria, Australia rising 714 metres above sea level. The mountain is a landmark of Dunnstown, Victoria the closest large town as well as the city of Ballarat with the mountain being located at its outskirts in the suburb of Warrenheip, Victoria...
Flora Reserve Mount Buninyong
Mount Buninyong
Mount Buninyong is a hill overlooking Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. Formed from an extinct volcano, it rises to above sea level. The mountain was originally named Mount Bonan Yowing which is said to derive from an Aboriginal word meaning a man lying on his back with his knee raised...
Reserve and Lake Burrumbeet
Lake Burrumbeet
Lake Burrumbeet is a large but shallow eutrophic lake in central Western Victoria, Australia. Located 20 km west of Ballarat and 140 km west of Melbourne, the lake has been progressively emptying since 1997 and has been declared completely dry since 2004...
park. The region is home to a large koala
Koala
The koala is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae....
population with protected areas established in the city's outer southern and eastern settlements.
Many parts of urban Ballarat have been affected by the introduction of exotic species, particularly introduced flora. Common Gorse
Common Gorse
Ulex europaeus, gorse, common gorse, furze or whin is an evergreen shrub in the family Fabaceae, native to western Europe from the northerly point of the United Kingdom south to Portugal, and from the westerly point of the Republic of Ireland east to Galicia in Poland and Ukraine.-Description:It...
is one such problem which has prompted the formation of an official Ballarat Region Gorse Task Force in 1999 to control.
Economy
Ballarat's major industries include the service industries, tourism and hospitalityHospitality
Hospitality is the relationship between guest and host, or the act or practice of being hospitable. Specifically, this includes the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers, resorts, membership clubs, conventions, attractions, special events, and other services for travelers...
, manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
, education and information technology as well as primary industries including agriculture, mining and renewable energy.
As a major service centre for the populous goldfields region, Ballarat has large sectors of employment in retailing, service industries, state and federal government branch offices and agencies and health care.
Service industries
Ballarat is the main retail economy in the region. Central to the retail district is a pedestrian mallPedestrian mall
Pedestrian malls in the United States are also known as pedestrian streets and are the most common form of pedestrian zone in large cities in the United States. It is a street lined with storefronts and closed off to most automobile traffic...
known as Bridge Mall. There are shopping malls, the largest of which are Central Square Shopping Centre
Central Square, Ballarat
Central Square, Ballarat, is the largest shopping centre in the Ballarat CBD. The centre features a 4 level Myer store with access only available between the store and centre from the 1st level. There is also a large Target store on the 2nd level...
(completed in 1988) opposite the town hall which includes the major department stores of Myer
Myer
Myer is Australia's largest department store chain, retailing a broad range of merchandise including women's, men's and children's clothing, footwear and accessories; cosmetics and fragrance; homewares; electrical; furniture and bedding; toys; books and stationery; food and confectionery; and...
(located within the 1870s Mitchell building) and Target. Additionally the city has each of the major supermarkets, speciality stores and branches of the big four
Big Four (banks)
Big Four is the colloquial name for the four main banks in several countries, where the banking industry is dominated by just four institutions and where the phrase has gained currency.-Australia:...
Australian retail banks.
Ballarat has become a major education centre with the formation of the University of Ballarat which exports education through a large international students program and throughout Australia through distance education
Distance education
Distance education or distance learning is a field of education that focuses on teaching methods and technology with the aim of delivering teaching, often on an individual basis, to students who are not physically present in a traditional educational setting such as a classroom...
programs.
In recent years, a large technology park, the University of Ballarat Technology Park with communications centre has been established, with tenants including IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
and employing over 1,400 people.
Tourism and hospitality
Ballarat attracts 2.2 million visitors a year and the tourism and hospitality industry is a A$480 million a year sector which accounts for around 15% of Ballarat's economy and employs around 2,870 people.A significant heritage tourism
Heritage tourism
Cultural heritage tourism is a branch of tourism oriented towards the cultural heritage of the location where tourism is occurring...
industry has grown substantially in Ballarat since the 1960s. Ballarat is most notable for the award-winning open-air museum known as Sovereign Hill
Sovereign Hill
Sovereign Hill is an open air museum in Golden Point, a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Sovereign Hill depicts Ballarat's first ten years after the discovery of gold there in 1851. It was officially opened on 29 November 1970 and has become a nationally acclaimed tourist attraction...
, a recreated 1850s gold mining settlement opened in 1970. Sovereign Hill is Ballarat's biggest tourism drawcard and is consistently rated amongst one of the best outdoor museums in the world and continues to expand. Sovereign Hill accounts for over half a million of Ballarat's visitors and $40 million in tourism revenue.
Several tourist trap
Tourist trap
A tourist trap is an establishment, or group of establishments, that has been created with the aim of attracting tourists and their money...
s and spin-offs have capitalised on Sovereign Hill's tourism popularity, most of these have sprung up near the eastern entrance of the Western Freeway between Melbourne and Ballarat. They include Kryal Castle
Kryal Castle
Kryal Castle is an Australian replica medieval castle located on a foothill of Mount Warrenheip at Leigh Creek, just north of Dunnstown and 8 km east of Ballarat...
(1972), "Gold Rush Mini Golf" (2002) featuring the "Big Miner" (2006) one of Australia's big things
Australia's Big Things
The Big Things of Australia are a loosely related set of large structures or sculptures. There are estimated to be over 150 such objects around the country, the first being the Big Scotsman in Medindie, Adelaide, which was built in 1963....
(although the original proposal appeared larger and for the miner to hold the Eureka Flag) at Ballarat's eastern entrance.
Other tourist attractions include the Eureka Centre; The Gold Museum; Ballarat Botanic gardens and Lake Wendouree; the Tramway museum and Ballarat Ghost Tours. A large number of Ballarat hotels, motels and restaurants service the tourism industry. The Ballarat Tourist Association is an industry based non-profit, membership organisation representing the city's tourism industry.
Mining and gold
Gold historically has been one of the main industries of the Ballarat region. Gold mining has continued to the present date with a main mine operating and large deposits remaining deep underground. There are still thought to be large, undiscovered gold reserves around the Ballarat region, with investigations being made by local and national companies to extract potentially as much gold as the Gold RushVictorian gold rush
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...
days in the mid 1800s. Lihir Gold
Lihir Gold
Lihir Gold Limited was a gold mining company with operations in Papua New Guinea, Australia and West Africa.The company, incorporated in Papua New Guinea in June 1995, and named Lihir as its first project was to raise capital to build the Lihir Island gold mine was merged with Newcrest Mining at...
invested in Ballarat Goldfields in 2006 however downscaled its operations in 2009 due to the expense of extraction before selling its stake in 2010 to Castlemaine Goldfields.
Lignite
Lignite
Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, or Rosebud coal by Northern Pacific Railroad,is a soft brown fuel with characteristics that put it somewhere between coal and peat...
(coal), kaolin (clay) and iron ore have also been mined in the Ballarat region and nearby Lal Lal however many of the resource deposits have since been exhausted.
Manufacturing
According to the 2006 Australian Census, manufacturing is Ballarat's third largest employment sector, accounting for 14.8% of all workers.Ballarat attracts investment from several international manufacturers. The Australian headquarters of Mars, Incorporated
Mars, Incorporated
Mars, Incorporated is a worldwide manufacturer of confectionery, pet food, and other food products with US$30 billion in annual sales in 2010, and is ranked as the 5th largest privately held company in the United States by Forbes. Headquartered in McLean, unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia,...
was established in Ballarat in 1979 with the main Ballarat factory producing Mars bar
Mars Bar
Mars is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars, Incorporated. It was first manufactured in Slough, Berkshire in the United Kingdom in 1932 as a sweeter version of the US Milky Way bar which Mars, Inc. produced...
s for the Australian market. McCain Foods Limited
McCain Foods Limited
McCain Foods Limited is a privately owned company established in 1957 by four brothers—Harrison McCain, Wallace McCain, Robert McCain, and Andrew McCain—in Florenceville, New Brunswick, Canada...
Australian headquarters was established in Ballarat in 1970 and the company continues to expand its operations. The Ballarat North Workshops
Ballarat North Workshops
Ballarat North Workshops is a railway workshop located in the provincial city of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. They are located in the suburb of North Ballarat on Creswick Road, and occupy 5.5 hectares of land beside the junction of the Mildura and Serviceton railway lines.-History:The workshops...
is a major manufacturer of public transportation products with current investment from Alstom
Alstom
Alstom is a large multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets. According to the company website, in the years 2010-2011 Alstom had annual sales of over €20.9 billion, and employed more than 85,000 people in 70 countries. Alstom's headquarters are...
.
Ballarat also has a large number of home grown companies producing textiles, general industrial engineering, food products, brick and tiles, building components, prefabricated housing components and automotive components.
Agriculture
The outskirts of Ballarat are used for agriculture including wine growing and animal husbandryAnimal husbandry
Animal husbandry is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock.- History :Animal husbandry has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals....
. The Ballarat Livestock Selling Centre is the largest cattle exchange in regional Victoria. The Ballarat Agricultural and Pastoral Society formed in 1866 and has run the Ballarat Show annually each November at the Ballarat Showgrounds
Ballarat Showgrounds
The Ballarat Showgrounds is a multi-purpose venue in Wendouree, a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia owned by the City of Ballarat and since 1934, the home of the Ballarat Show, an agricultural show which since 2010 has had its own public holiday in Ballarat.The focus of the Ballarat Show is...
since that time.
There are also a number of small forestry operations in Ballarat's Canadian Valley around the suburbs of Mt Clear and Mt Helen areas with pine plantations and mills.
Renewable energy
Renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
industry, in particular due to its abundant wind energy
Wind energy
Wind energy is the kinetic energy of air in motion; see also wind power.Total wind energy flowing through an imaginary area A during the time t is:E = ½ m v2 = ½ v 2...
, attracting significant investment and generating revenue for local landholders and local councils. The region is also a source of bountiful geothermal energy, solar power
Solar power
Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation, along with secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available...
and biomass
Biomass
Biomass, as a renewable energy source, is biological material from living, or recently living organisms. As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly, or converted into other energy products such as biofuel....
.
Through the Waubra Wind Farm the Ballarat region produces more than enough wind energy
Wind energy
Wind energy is the kinetic energy of air in motion; see also wind power.Total wind energy flowing through an imaginary area A during the time t is:E = ½ m v2 = ½ v 2...
to power every home in the city, however the electricity produced goes to the national grid. Additional nearby facilities include the first community-owned wind farm in Australia at Hepburn Wind Project
Hepburn Wind Project
The Hepburn Wind Project is a wind farm built and owned by Hepburn Wind, a community co-operative, and supported by the Victorian Government. The location of the project is Leonards Hill, 10 km south of Daylesford, Victoria, north-west of Melbourne, Victoria...
at Leonards Hill
Leonards Hill, Victoria
Leonards Hill is a town located in the Shire of Hepburn, Victoria, Australia.South of Daylesford on the Ballan road, the town takes its name from timber splitter, W P Leonard who took up of land on the hill in the 1860s....
which produces enough electricity to power the town of Daylesford
Daylesford, Victoria
Daylesford is a town located in the Shire of Hepburn, Victoria, Australia. It is a former goldmining town about 115 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. At the 2006 census, Daylesford had a population of 3,073...
as well as approved proposals for Chepstowe, Lal Lal
Lal Lal, Victoria
Lal Lal is a town in Victoria , Australia. The town is located in the Shire of Moorabool and on the Geelong-Ballarat railway line, west of the state capital, Melbourne...
, Mount Mercer
Mount Mercer Wind Farm
The proposed Mount Mercer Wind Farm will be located at Mount Mercer approximately 30 kilometres south of Ballarat in Western Victoria on 2600ha. The wind farm will consist of 64 Enercon E82 wind turbines, giving a total installed capacity of 131 MW...
and proposed facilities at Mount Egerton
Mount Egerton, Victoria
Mount Egerton is a town in Victoria, Australia. The town is located in the Shire of Moorabool Local Government Area, north west of the state capital, Melbourne. At the 2006 census, Mount Egerton had a population of 215....
and Ballan
Ballan, Victoria
Ballan is a small town in the state of Victoria, Australia located on the Werribee River north west of Melbourne. At the 2006 census, Ballan had a population of 1,807.It is the main administrative centre for the Shire of Moorabool Local Government Area....
.
Ballarat Solar Park opened in 2009 at the Airport site in Mitchell Park is Victoria’s first ground mounted, flat plate and grid-connected photovoltaic farm
Photovoltaic system
A photovoltaic system is a system which uses one or more solar panels to convert sunlight into electricity. It consists of multiple components, including the photovoltaic modules, mechanical and electrical connections and mountings and means of regulating and/or modifying the electrical...
. Built by Sharp Corporation
Sharp Corporation
is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employs more than 55,580 people worldwide as of June 2011. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder's first...
for Origin Energy
Origin Energy
-History:Origin Energy was formed in February 2000, as a result of a demerger from the Australian conglomerate Boral Limited, in which the energy business was removed from the building and construction materials business to form the new company....
is a 14,993 sqm produces the equivalent energy needs of around 150 homes.
Demographics
The 2006 Australian national census indicated that the permanent population of the City of Ballarat was 85,196. Of this the urban population was measured to be 78,221. Although surging land and house prices in Melbourne coupled with significant recent public transport upgrades between Melbourne and Ballarat has witnessed a significant growth surge. Ballarat's abundance of affordable land and highly established infrastructure have caught the notice of many people and families seeking a family friendly lifestyle. Since 2006 Ballarat has averaged an annual population growth of 1700 and in June 2008 had an estimated resident population of 91,787. In August 2009 the estimated resident population was 94,000.Whilst most of the city's population can trace their ethnic roots to Anglo-Celtic decendency, 13.6% of the population are born overseas, with New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy the most common places of birth outside Australia. More recently the city has welcomed new arrivals from the Asian sub-continent and Africa.
Almost 15% of the population is over the age of 65, with over a quarter of the population expected to be over the age of 65 by 2021. The median age in Ballarat is 36 years. 46.8% of the population are married, with almost 35% of the population having never been married.
The average income of Ballarat, while lower than Melbourne, is higher than average for regional Victoria. Ballaratians in the 2007/08 financial year earned on average A$38,850 a year with the highest earners living in the city's inner and northern suburbs and the lowers earners living in the city's southern suburbs.
There were 31,959 households in the 2006 census, with 56.5% of the population having access to the internet at home.
42.5% of the population have completed further education after high school, with only 11.1% of the population holding a bachelor degree or greater, well below the national average.
Religion
Christianity remains the dominant religion in Ballarat, with over 65% of residents claiming Christian affiliation, slightly above the national average of 64%. Catholics (27.1%), Anglicans (15.0%), Uniting Church (11.2%) and Presbyterians (4.0%) remain the largest Christian denominations in Ballarat.Over 21.6% of Ballarat residents claim no religious affiliation. Minority religious groups include Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, Judaism and Islam and total less than 5% of the population.
Governance
In local governmentLocal government in Australia
Local government in Australia is the third tier of government, administered by the states and territories which in turn are beneath the Commonwealth or federal tier. Unlike New Zealand, the US or the UK, there is only one level of local government in all states, with no distinction such as...
, the Ballarat region is covered by the City of Ballarat
City of Ballarat
The City of Ballarat is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia around Ballarat. It is located in the western part of the state. It has an area of 740 square kilometres. In 2001 it had a population of 81,000...
. The council was created in 1994 as an amalgamation of a number of other municipalities in the region with the council chambers located at the Ballarat Town Hall in central Ballarat. The City is made up of 3 wards, each represented by three councillor
Councillor
A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council.Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman.-United Kingdom:...
s elected once every four years by postal voting
Postal voting
Postal voting describes the method of voting in an election whereby ballot papers are distributed or returned by post to electors, in contrast to electors voting in person at a polling station or electronically via an electronic voting system....
. The Mayor of Ballarat is elected from these councillors by their colleagues for a one year term.
In state politics
Politics of Victoria
Victorian politics takes place in context of bicameral parliamentary system.The two main parties are the governing Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party opposition...
, Ballarat is located in the Legislative Assembly
Victorian Legislative Assembly
The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the Parliament of Victoria in Australia. Together with the Victorian Legislative Council, the upper house, it sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Melbourne.-History:...
districts of Ballarat East
Electoral district of Ballarat East
Ballarat East is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Victoria. It is a 3,323 km² part-urban and part-rural electorate covering areas to the east of the regional centre of Ballarat...
and Ballarat West
Electoral district of Ballarat West
-See also:*Parliaments of the Australian states and territories*List of members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly-External links:*...
, with both of these seats currently held by the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
.
In federal politics
Politics of Australia
The Politics of Australia take place within the framework of a parliamentary democracy, with electoral procedures appropriate to a two-party system. Australia is governed as a federation and as a constitutional monarchy, with an adversarial legislature based upon the Westminster system...
, Ballarat is located in a single House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
division – the Division of Ballarat
Division of Ballarat
The Division of Ballarat is an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria. The division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for the provincial city of Ballarat....
. The Division of Ballarat has been a safe Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
seat since 2001, and was the seat of the second Prime Minister of Australia
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
, Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
.
Newspapers
Ballarat has two local newspapers, both owned by Rural Press Limited, The CourierThe Courier (Ballarat)
The Ballarat Courier is a daily newspaper circulating in the Ballarat region of regional Victoria.Its editor is Angela Carey. The newspaper is owned by Fairfax Media.-History:...
is a daily, and the Ballarat News, a free weekly. The latter is distributed almost universally across the city every Wednesday, and containing news of community events, advertisements for local businesses, and a real estate and classifieds section.
Radio stations
Local radio stations include '3BA', 'Power FM' and also several community radio stations. There are also local branches of ABCAustralian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
-run ABC Radio, Triple J
Triple J
triple j is a nationally networked Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners between the ages of 18 and 30. The government-funded station is a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
and ABC Classic FM.
- 102.3 FM – 3BA (local "classic hits" commercial radio station)
- 103.1 FM – Power FM 103.1 FM (local "top-40" commercial radio station)
- 99.9 FM – Voice FM 99.9Voice FM 99.9Voice FM 99.9 is a Community radio station broadcast in Ballarat, Australia. It was established in 1982 to cater for the needs of those people who are denied access to, and those who are not adequately served by existing media in Central Victoria.The station began full-time broadcasting in 1984,...
– formerly known as 3BBB (local community radio station) - 107.1 FM – Triple JTriple Jtriple j is a nationally networked Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners between the ages of 18 and 30. The government-funded station is a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
(ABC Youth Radio) - 107.9 FM – ABC Local Radio (Government-funded local news, current affairs, light entertainment and talkback)
- 621 AM – ABC Radio National (Government-funded, current affairs, arts, science, social interest)
- 105.5 FM – ABC Classic FMABC Classic FMABC Classic FM is a classical music radio station available in Australia, and internationally online. It is operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . It was established in 1976 as "ABC-FM", and later for a short time was known as "ABC Fine Music" , before adopting its current name...
(Government-funded, classical music station) - 103.9 FM – Good News Radio 103.9Good News Radio 103.9Good News Radio 103.9 is a Christian radio station broadcast in Ballarat, Australia. It was established in 1993 to serve the communityby providing a Christian radio broadcasting....
(Christian community-based religious station)
Television
Television station BTV Channel 6 Ballarat commenced transmission of test patterns on 17 March 1962. Among the many local programs BTV6 produced, the 90 minute live variety program "Six Tonight" (1971–1983) hosted by local Ballarat identity Fred Fargher, was one of the few live Australian programs of this type being presented in Australia.In his 1999 book And Now Here's... (Four Decades of Behind the Scenes Fun in Australian Television), Mike McColl Jones fondly remembers local live television variety.
"...and in Ballarat, Victoria, a Tonight show ("Six Tonight") was carving its name into Australian television history. The show, hosted by Fred Fargher, ran for 13 years, and managed to attract many of the top name entertainers in the world, simply by offering them a limo ride to this beautiful country centre, a no-pressure spot on the show, and then a great dinner afterwards at one of the city's excellent restaurants. The sheer bravado of the offer enticed some of show business' biggest names."
Today Ballarat is serviced by numerous 'free to air' High Definition and Standard Definition Digital television services. Two television broadcasting stations are located in the city including WIN
WIN Television
WIN Television is an Australian television network owned by the WIN Corporation that is based in Wollongong, New South Wales. WIN commenced transmissions on 18 March 1962 as a single Wollongong-only station, and has since expanded to 24 owned-and-operated stations with transmissions covering a...
, GEM HD and GO!
Go! (Australian TV channel)
GO! is an Australian free-to-air standard definition digital television channel launched by the Nine Network on Sunday 9 August 2009.-Origins:...
(sub-licensees of Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
) and Prime7, 7Two
7Two
7TWO is an Australian free-to-air standard definition digital television channel which was launched by the Seven Network on Sunday 1 November 2009 at 12pm....
, 7mate
7mate
7mate is an Australian free-to-air high definition digital television channel, which was launched by the Seven Network on 25 September 2010.The network stated that 7mate would contain sport and regular programs aimed primarily at a male audience, with programming drawn from a combination of new...
(a sub-licensee of Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
). These two stations broadcast relayed services throughout regional Victoria. The city also receives Southern Cross Ten
Southern Cross Ten
Southern Cross Ten is an Australian television channel broadcast by the Macquarie Media Group in Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and South Australia. The channel is owned by the Macquarie Media Group as is affiliated to Network Ten...
, One HD and Eleven
Eleven (TV channel)
Eleven is an Australian free-to-air standard definition digital television channel, which was launched by ElevenCo, on 11 January 2011.-Joint venture:...
(sub-licensee's of Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
) that is based in Bendigo
Bendigo, Victoria
Bendigo is a major regional city in the state of Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne. It is the second largest inland city and fourth most populous city in the state. The estimated urban...
but operates a local office.
Ballarat television maintains a similar schedule to the national television network but maintains local commercials and regional news programming - WIN
VTV (TV station)
VTV is an Australian television station broadcasting in regional Victoria in Australia. The network was owned by ENT Ltd., before being purchased by the WIN Corporation.-Network history:...
produces a 30-minute local news bulletin each weeknight from its studios in the city, where bulletins for Albury
Albury, New South Wales
Albury is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia, located on the Hume Highway on the northern side of the Murray River. It is located wholly within the boundaries of the City of Albury Local Government Area...
, Bendigo, Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
, Shepparton
Shepparton, Victoria
Shepparton is a city located on the floodplain of the Goulburn River in the north east of Victoria, Australia approximately north-east of Melbourne. It is the fifth largest city in Victoria, Australia. The estimated population of Shepparton's statistical area is 48,926.It began as a sheep station...
and Mildura also originate. Southern Cross Ten provides short local news updates from its Canberra studios throughout the day. In addition to commercial television services, Ballarat receives Government ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
(ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, ABC News 24) and SBS
Special Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service is a hybrid-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television network. The stated purpose of SBS is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect...
(SBS One and Two) television services.
On Friday 5 May 2011, Analog television transmissions ceased in most areas of regional Victoria and some border regions including Ballarat and surrounding areas. All local free-to-air television services are now broadcasting in digital transmission only. This was done as part of the Federal Government`s plan for Digital terrestrial television in Australia, where all analogue transmission systems are gradually turned off and replaced with modern DVB-T
DVB-T
DVB-T is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial; it is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in the UK in 1998...
transmission systems.
Subscription television services are provided by Neighbourhood Cable
Neighbourhood Cable
Neighbourhood Cable is a telecommunications provider based in regional Victoria, Australia . Neighbourhood Cable owns and operates Hybrid Fibre Coaxial cable networks in three Victorian regional cities:* Mildura* Ballarat* Geelong...
, Austar
Austar
Austar is an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity is Subscription Television but it is also involved with internet access and mobile phones...
, and SelecTV.
Education
Ballarat is home to two universities – the University of BallaratUniversity of Ballarat
The University of Ballarat is a dual-sector university in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It was formed by the passage of an Act of the Victorian Parliament in 1994, from the Ballarat College of Advanced Education...
and the Ballarat campus of the Australian Catholic University
Australian Catholic University
Australian Catholic University is a national public university. It has six campuses and offers programs in five faculties throughout Australia.-History:...
.
The University of Ballarat originated as the Ballarat School of Mines, founded in 1870 and once affiliated with the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
. The university consists of six campuses, three of which are in Ballarat—two in the city (Camp Street and SMB campuses) and the main campus in Mount Helen, approximately 6 kilometres (3.75 mi) southeast of the city at the foot of Mount Buninyong
Mount Buninyong
Mount Buninyong is a hill overlooking Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. Formed from an extinct volcano, it rises to above sea level. The mountain was originally named Mount Bonan Yowing which is said to derive from an Aboriginal word meaning a man lying on his back with his knee raised...
.
The Australian Catholic University's Ballarat campus began life as the Aquinas Training College run by the Ballarat East Sisters of Mercy in 1909. It is ACU's only rural campus that is located outside of a capital ciy in Australia.
Ballarat has four State Government-operated secondary schools of which the academically selective Ballarat High School
Ballarat High School
Ballarat High School is a government secondary school located in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The school was opened in 1907 as an agricultural college before transitioning to an academic focus in 1925.- History :...
(established in 1907) is the oldest and the only state school member of the Ballarat Associated Schools
Ballarat Associated Schools
The Ballarat Associated Schools , was formerly the Central Highlands Independent School Sport Association until 2002 and before 1982 the Ballarat Public Schools Association . It is a group of six independent schools in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia...
. The other schools are Sebastopol College, Mount Clear College and Ballarat Secondary College. Ballarat Secondary College
Ballarat Secondary College
Ballarat Secondary College is a multi-campus college, formed in 1994 through the amalgamation of three existing secondary Colleges, Ballarat East Secondary College , Wendouree Secondary College and Midlands Secondary College .-Barkly Senior Campus:It has a senior...
was formed in 1994 by the amalgamation of Ballarat East Secondary College, Wendouree Secondary College and Midlands Secondary College.
Two private day and boarding schools in Ballarat Clarendon College
Ballarat and Clarendon College
Ballarat Clarendon College is an independent, co-educational, day and boarding school, located in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.Formerly affiliated with the Presbyterian Church of Australia, it is now a school of the Uniting Church and a member of the Ballarat Associated Schools.The school...
and Ballarat and Queens Anglican Grammar School
Ballarat Grammar School
Ballarat and Queens Anglican Grammar School is an independent, Anglican Church school located at Wendouree , Victoria, 123 km west of Melbourne.-History:...
provide education from Years 1 to 12. Both of these co-educational schools are classified as academically excellent as the only Ballarat schools to be ranked on the tables of the top 100 Victorian schools based on median VCE scores and percentage of scores of 40 and above. In 2010, Clarendon was placed at number 11 just below Melbourne Grammar and above Geelong Grammar, Scotch College and Haileybury College. Ballarat Grammar was placed at number 59 just below Wesley College and above University High, Ivanhoe Grammar, Geelong Grammar and Tintern.
The city is well serviced by Catholic schools, with eight primary schools and three secondary colleges which include the all-boys St Patrick's College
St Patrick's College, Ballarat
St Patrick's College was founded by the Christian Brothers in 1893. It is a Roman Catholic day and boarding school, located in Ballarat, Australia. It provides education for boys from Year 7 to Year 12, with an emphasis on sporting and academic programmes...
, the all-girls Loreto College
Loreto College, Victoria
Loreto College is a Roman Catholic secondary school for girls in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.-History:It is one of many Loreto schools distributed over the world. The school was founded in 1875 by the Loreto Sisters as their first foundation in Australia. Since then it has become one of seven...
and the co-educational Damascus College
Damascus College
Damascus College is a secondary, co-educational, Catholic day school situated in Ballarat- Origins :The College was established in 1995 after three separate Catholic colleges, St. Martin's in the Pines , Sacred Heart College and St...
, which was formed by the amalgamation of St Martin's in the Pines, St Paul's Technical School and Sacred Heart College in the 1990s.
Ballarat has several public libraries, the largest and most extensive of which is the City of Ballarat Library, run by the Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation and located on Creswick Road. Another library service is provided by the Mechanics' Institute in Sturt Street, which contains a collection of historic, archival and rare reference material.
Heritage
Ballarat is renowned for its cultural heritageCultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...
and decorative arts, especially applied to the built environment, combined with the gold rush, this has created a picturesque urban landscape.
In 2003 Ballarat was the first of two Australian cities to be registered as a member of the International League of Historical Cities and in 2006 hosted the 10th World League of Historical Cities Congress.
Restoration of historic buildings is encouraged including a low interest council Heritage Loans Scheme. and the prevention of demolition by neglect discouraged by council policies. Since the 1970s, the local council has become increasingly aware of the economic and social value of heritage preservation. This is in stark contrast to the 1950s and 60s when Ballarat followed Melbourne in encouraging the removal of Victorian buildings, verandahs in particular. Recent restoration projects funded by the Ballarat include the reconstruction of significant cast iron lace verandahs including the Mining Exchange, Art Gallery (2007), Mechanics institute (2005–) on Lydiard Street and in 2010 the restoration of the Town Hall and the long neglected Unicorn Hotel façade on Sturt Street.
Ballarat Citizens for Thoughtful Development formed in 1998 and was incorporated as Ballarat Heritage Watch in 2005 to ensure that the city's architectural heritage is given due consideration in the planning process.
The Ballarat Botanical Gardens
Ballarat Botanical Gardens
The Ballarat Botanical Gardens Reserve, located on the western shore of picturesque Lake Wendouree, in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, covers an area of 40 hectares which is divided into 3 distinct zones. The central Botanical Gardens reserve in the 'gardenesque' style of the Victorian pleasure...
(established in 1858) are recognised as the finest example of a regional botanical gardens in Australia and are home to many heritage listed exotic tree species and feature a modern glasshouse and horticultural centre and the Prime Ministers Avenue which features bronze busts of every past Australian Prime Minister. The gardens are home to the annual Ballarat Begonia Festival.
Ballarat is notable for its very wide boulevards. The main street is Sturt Street and is considered among one of the finest main avenues in Australia with over 2 kilometres of central gardens known as the Sturt Street Gardens
Sturt Street Gardens
The Sturt Street Gardens is a central reservation running along one of the main thoroughfares of Ballarat — Sturt Street — after which it is named...
featuring bandstands, fountains, statues, monuments, memorials and lampposts. Ballarat is home to the largest of a collection of several Avenues of Honour
Avenue of honour
Avenue of Honour is the term given to a memorial avenue of trees, with each tree symbolising a person.The tradition, which originated in the Goldfields region of Victoria, Australia is an important part of Australian culture....
in Victoria. The fifteen kilometre (9.3 mi) long Ballarat Avenue of Honour consists of a total of approximately 4,000 trees, mostly deciduous
Deciduous
Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
which in many parts arch completely over the road. Each tree has a bronze plaque dedicated to a soldier from the Ballarat region who enlisted during World War I. The Avenue of Honour and the Arch of Victory are on the Victorian Heritage Register
Victorian Heritage Register
The Victorian Heritage Register lists places of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 1995 which establishes Heritage Victoria as the permit authority...
and are seen by approximately 20,000 visitors each year.
The city also has the greatest concentration of public statuary in any Australian city with many parks and streets featuring sculptures and statues dating from the 1860s to the present. Some of the other notable memorials located in the Sturt Street Gardens
Sturt Street Gardens
The Sturt Street Gardens is a central reservation running along one of the main thoroughfares of Ballarat — Sturt Street — after which it is named...
in the middle of Ballarat's main boulevard include a bandstand situated in the heart of the city that was funded and built by the City of Ballarat Band in 1913 as a tribute to the bandsmen of the , a fountain dedicated to the early explorers Burke and Wills, and those dedicated to monarchs and those who have played pivotal roles in the development of the city and its rich social fabric. The most recent memorial is dedicated to war hero Sir Albert Coates
Albert Coates (surgeon)
Sir Albert Ernest Coates OBE, FRCS was an Australian surgeon and soldier. He served as a medical orderly in World War I serving on Gallipoli, and as a senior surgeon for the Australian Army Medical Corps in World War II in Malaya...
.
Ballarat has an extensive array of significant war memorials, the most recent of which is the Australian Ex Prisoner of War Memorial
Ex Prisoner of War Memorial
The Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial was dedicated on Friday, 6 February 2004. It is located on the Southern approaches to the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, on Wendouree Parade and adjacent to Lake Wendouree.-Purpose:...
. The most prominent memorial in the city is the Ballarat Victory Arch
Triumphal arch
A triumphal arch is a monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. In its simplest form a triumphal arch consists of two massive piers connected by an arch, crowned with a flat entablature or attic on which a statue might be...
that spans the old Western Highway on the Western approaches of the city. The archway serves as the focal point for the Avenue of Honour. Other significant individual monuments located along Sturt Street include those dedicated to the Boer War (1899–1901), the World War II (1939–1945) cenotaph, and Vietnam (1962–1972) (located adjacent to the Arch of Victory).
Music and Live Entertainment
Ballarat has produced countless bands and music acts that have gone on to succeed in the Australian music industry. Notable acts include The Mavis'sThe Mavis's
The Mavis's were an Australian pop band from Ballarat, Victoria. The band was composed of Matt Thomas , his sister Becky Thomas , Nick Gill , Andrea Vendy , and Josh Alexander . They are best known for their 1998 synth-driven single "Cry", which appeared on the Triple J Hottest 100 for 1998...
, Epicure (band)
Epicure (band)
Epicure are an Australian rock band from Ballarat, in regional Victoria. Triple J radio helped bring Epicure to the Australian consciousness when they added "Feet From Under Me" and "Johnny Venus" to their playlists in 2000. Both songs are featured on the Fold album...
and The Dead Salesmen. More recently, former Ballarat High students Hunting Grounds (formerly known as Howl) won national Triple J Unearthed competition. Yacht Club DJs, formed in 2008, have been a bankable festival favourite for many years, selling out national tours and releasing two bootleg CDs. Another recent success story is Gold Fields, who have enjoyed high rotation on Triple J
Triple J
triple j is a nationally networked Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners between the ages of 18 and 30. The government-funded station is a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
.
Many of these acts had their first gig at Karova Lounge on the corner of Camp and Field streets, which in 2010 was named Best Entertainment Venue in Victoria, by the Australian Hotel Association. The venue was nominated for this award in 2009 and 2011 (winner yet to be announced). Other famous acts to play at Karova Lounge in its seven years of operating include Wolfmother
Wolfmother
Wolfmother is an Australian rock band from Erskineville, Sydney. Formed in 2000, the group was originally a trio composed of vocalist and guitarist Andrew Stockdale, bassist and keyboardist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett. Wolfmother released their self-titled debut album in October 2005,...
, Girl Talk
Girl Talk
Girl Talk may refer to:* Girl Talk , American music producer and mashup artist Gregg Gillis* Girl Talk , a British female duo of the 1980s* Girl Talk * Girl Talk...
, You Am I
You Am I
You Am I are an Australian alternative rock band, fronted by vocalist/guitarist and main songwriter Tim Rogers. They were the first Australian band to have three albums successively debut at #1 on the ARIA Charts, and are renowned for their live performances.-History:Tim Rogers formed the first...
and Ben Kweller
Ben Kweller
Ben Kweller is an American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.-Early life:Ben Kweller was born in San Francisco, CA in 1981. In 1982, his family relocated to Emory, Texas, where his father, Howard Kweller, became the town's first doctor. In 1986, the Kwellers moved to a much larger city,...
.
Commercial and civic buildings
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
buildings, many of which are on the Victorian Heritage Register
Victorian Heritage Register
The Victorian Heritage Register lists places of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 1995 which establishes Heritage Victoria as the permit authority...
or classified by the National Trust of Australia
National Trust of Australia
The Australian Council of National Trusts is the peak body for community-based, non-government organisations committed to promoting and conserving Australia's indigenous, natural and historic heritage....
.
Notable civic buildings include the Town Hall (1870–72), the former Post Office (1864), the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery (1887), the Mechanics' Institute
Mechanics' Institutes
Historically, Mechanics' Institutes were educational establishments formed to provide adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to working men...
(1860, 1869), the Queen Victoria Wards of the Ballarat Base Hospital (1890s) and the Ballarat railway station (1862, 1877, 1888).
Other historic buildings include the Provincial Hotel (1909), Reid's Coffee Palace
Coffee Palace
The term Coffee Palace was primarily used in Australia to describe the temperance hotels which were built during the period of the 1880s although there are references to the term also being used, to a lesser extent, in the United Kingdom...
(1886), Craig's Royal Hotel (1862–1890) and Her Majesty's Theatre (1875), the oldest intact and operating lyric theatre in Australia.
The Ballarat Fire Station, located near Bakery Hill, is one of Victoria's oldest fire fighting structures; operated by the Ballarat East brigade – it currently only houses fire trucks. The building was designed in 1864 by architect Henry Caselli as brick masonry; with the construction completed in 1911. Heritage Victoria described the buildings as unusual and sophisticated. Ballarat is also home to the oldest Jewish synagogue on mainland Australia which is located in Bakery Hill in the Ballarat CBD. The first stone was laid on 25 January 1861, during the Victorian Gold Rush period.
Events and festivals
Ballarat is home to many annual festivals and events. The oldest large annual event is the Ballarat Agricultural Show (since 1859), currently held each year at the Ballarat ShowgroundsBallarat Showgrounds
The Ballarat Showgrounds is a multi-purpose venue in Wendouree, a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia owned by the City of Ballarat and since 1934, the home of the Ballarat Show, an agricultural show which since 2010 has had its own public holiday in Ballarat.The focus of the Ballarat Show is...
.
Lake Wendouree is featured in many including the most prominent, the Begonia Festival (since 1953) and it now attracts over 100,000 visitors from around Australia. SpringFest (since 2001) now attracts more than 15,000 people from around Victoria and features market stalls and activities around the lake.
Ballarat Heritage Weekend (since 2006) celebrates the city's heritage with activities such as historic vehicles and displays in and around the CBD and also attracts visitors from around Victoria.
Other minor cultural festivals include the Ballarat Writers Festival, Ballarat International Foto Biennialle and the Goldfields Music Festival.
Entertainment
- Her Majesty's Theatre – Seating 940
- Post Office Box Theatre (University of Ballarat Arts Academy, Camp Street Campus) – Flexible Seating up to 100
- Helen Macpherson Smith Performing Arts Theatre (University of Ballarat, Arts Academy Camp Street Campus) – Seating 200
- The 1870 Founders Theatre (University of Ballarat, Mount Helen Campus) – Seating 600
- The Courthouse Theatre (University of Ballarat, SMB Campus) – Seating 140
- The Victoria Theatre (Sovereign Hill) – Seating 300
- Wendouree Centre for Performing Arts (Ballarat Grammar School) – Seating 900
- Gay E. Gough Theatre (Mount Clear Secondary College) – Seating 350
- Mechanics Institute hall (seating 700) is used from time to time for travelling performances and cinema shows.
The Ballarat Civic Hall is a large public building constructed in 1958 as a general purpose venue. Its stripped classical design was heavily criticised during its planning, however it has gained some cultural significance to the city with its cavernous spaces holding many significant events over the years. Civic Hall was closed in 2002 and there have been moves to redevelop it for many years with some calls to retain the building as a venue.
Ballarat has its own symphony orchestra, the Ballarat Symphony Orchestra which was formed in 1987.
Some notable theatre organisations in Ballarat include BLOC (Ballarat Light Opera Company) founded in 1959.
Ballarat is also the home to Australia's oldest and largest annual performing arts eisteddfod. The Royal South Street Eisteddfod
Royal South Street Eisteddfod
The Royal South Street Eisteddfod is held annually in Ballarat, Australia. It is also known as The Grand National Eisteddfod of Australasia and is administered by the Royal South Street Society.- History :...
is an all-encompassing performing arts festival and competition event that is conducted over twelve weeks annually.
The city has several dance clubs as well as a highly active live music and jazz scene. Hotels are popular meeting places for young people. The city has many fine restaurants, wine bars and eateries as well as themed restaurants.
A large cinema complex consisting of several theatres is located behind the façade of the old Regent cinemas in the heart of the city.
Dance parties are popular within the Ballarat area; however, the director of Ballarat Health Services (BHS), Andrew Rowe, has stated that Ballarat is "an inappropriate place to hold a rave" and has called for the Moorabool
Shire of Moorabool
The Shire of Moorabool is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia. It is located in the southwestern part of the state. It has an area of 2,110 square kilometres. In 2006 it had a population of 25,474....
Shire Council to forbid raves (such as the one held at Kryal Castle
Kryal Castle
Kryal Castle is an Australian replica medieval castle located on a foothill of Mount Warrenheip at Leigh Creek, just north of Dunnstown and 8 km east of Ballarat...
) around the immediate Ballarat area. BTR is an organisation founded in 2006 that has begun hosting dance events in Ballarat.
Galleries
The Ballarat Fine Art GalleryBallarat Fine Art Gallery
Art Gallery of Ballarat is the oldest and largest regional art gallery in Australia. Established in 1884 as the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery by the citizens of Ballarat both the building and part of its collection is listed on the Victorian Heritage Registerand by the National Trust of Victoria.The...
houses one of Australia's oldest and most extensive collections of early Australian works. It is considered to have the best Australian collection outside any capital city in Australia.
The University of Ballarat operates the Post Office Gallery in the Wardell designed former Post Office on the corner of Sturt and Lydiard Streets.
Sport and recreation
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
and cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
are the most popular spectator and participation sports in Ballarat, while basketball, netball
Netball
Netball is a ball sport played between two teams of seven players. Its development, derived from early versions of basketball, began in England in the 1890s. By 1960 international playing rules had been standardised for the game, and the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball ...
, horse racing
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
and rowing
Rowing (sport)
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...
have large followings. There are stadiums, both indoor and outdoor as well as training facilities for most sports.
Australian rules football is played at semi-professional and amateur levels with a large number of players at numerous venues, both dedicated such as Eureka Stadium
Eureka Stadium
Eureka Stadium, formerly known as Northern Oval, is an Australian rules football ground in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.Eureka Stadium is the home ground of the North Ballarat Football Club of the Victorian Football League and the North Ballarat Rebels of the TAC Cup.The ground has been flagged as...
and shared with cricket. The North Ballarat Roosters
North Ballarat Football Club
North Ballarat Football Club, nicknamed The Roosters, is an Australian rules football club based at Northern Oval in Ballarat. The club is locally known as the Roosters and plays in the Victorian Football League are current competition premiers and one of only four clubs based outside of Melbourne...
based out of Eureka Stadium
Eureka Stadium
Eureka Stadium, formerly known as Northern Oval, is an Australian rules football ground in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.Eureka Stadium is the home ground of the North Ballarat Football Club of the Victorian Football League and the North Ballarat Rebels of the TAC Cup.The ground has been flagged as...
compete in the Victorian Football League
Victorian Football League
The Victorian Football League which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association , taking its new name as from the 1996 season, is the premier Australian rules football league in Victoria The Victorian Football League (VFL) which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association...
and currently have an affiliation with national Australian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
(AFL) club the North Melbourne Kangaroos
North Melbourne Football Club
The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Kangaroos, is the fourth oldest Australian rules football club in the Australian Football League and is one of the oldest sporting clubs in Australia and the world...
. Plans are currently in progression to upgrade Northern Oval (currently known as Eureka Stadium) for hosting regular AFL pre season matches, with an aim to accommodate seating for 20,000 people. The Ballarat Football League
Ballarat Football League
The Ballarat Football League is an Australian rules football competition that operates in the Ballarat region of Victoria, Australia.The competition formed in 1893 as the Ballarat Football Association and was renamed Ballarat Football League in 1908 and was briefly known as the Ballarat-Wimmera...
(founded 1893) is a strong regional league of which there are 3 teams (Ballarat, Lake Wendouree and North Ballarat City) from Ballarat. The Ballarat Football Club
Ballarat Football Club
The Ballarat Football Club competes in the Ballarat Football League in the Ballarat region of Victoria, Australia. The club, nicknamed the Swans, has a history dating back to 1860. Ballarat once competed in the Victorian Football Association....
(founded 1860) remains one of the oldest football club
Oldest football club
The history of the formation of the oldest football clubs is of interest to sport historians in tracing the origins of the modern codes of football from casual pastime to early organised competition and mainstream sport. Many early clubs did not use the word "football" in their name...
s in the world. A team from Buninyong competes in the regional Central Highlands Football League
Central Highlands Football League
The Central Highlands Football League is an Australian Rules Football League in the Ballarat region. The league coordinates Senior, Reserve, Under 18 and Under 15 grades.-History:...
.
Cricket is also played extensively with three international standard cricket ovals. Ballarat's Eastern Oval hosted a game in the 1992 Cricket World Cup
1992 Cricket World Cup
-New Zealand:-Round Robin Stage:Co-hosts New Zealand proved the surprise packet of the tournament, winning their first seven games to finish on top of the table after the round robin. The other hosts, Australia, were one of the pre-tournament favourites but lost their first two matches. They...
.
Horse racing and greyhound racing
Greyhound racing
Greyhound racing is the sport of racing greyhounds. The dogs chase a lure on a track until they arrive at the finish line. The one that arrives first is the winner....
are popular, with dedicated facilities. The Harness Racing centre is considered to be among the best in Australia. The Ballarat Turf Club schedules around 28 race meetings a year including the Ballarat Cup meeting in mid-November. Ballarat Harness Racing
Harness racing
Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait . They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, although racing under saddle is also conducted in Europe.-Breeds:...
Club conducts regular meetings at its racetrack in the city.
The Ballarat Greyhound Racing Club holds regular meetings at Sebastopol
Sebastopol, Victoria
Sebastopol is a southern suburb on the rural-urban fringe of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It is the second most populated area in urban Ballarat with a population of 8,045 at the 2006 census....
.
Basketball is played at various levels with the Ballarat Miners
Ballarat Miners
The Ballarat Miners play in the East Conference of the SEABL in the ABA.-Current roster:...
and Ballarat Lady Miners who competing in the South East Australian Basketball League
South East Australian Basketball League
The South East Australian Basketball League, often abbreviated to the SEABL consists of two men's and one women's conferences in the Australian Basketball Association . The SEABL conferences are considered the strongest in the ABA, developing many emerging Australian Boomers players, as well as...
and playing out of the WIN Minerdome
WIN Minerdome
WIN Minerdome is a stadium located at Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. It hosts Ballarat's #1 team guns in the sky in the second tier and semi-professional Australian Basketball Association.-External links:*http://www.ballaratbasketball.com/bba/index.htm...
. The venue hosted basketball games for the 2006 Commonwealth Games
2006 Commonwealth Games
The 2006 Commonwealth Games were held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia between 15 March and 26 March 2006. It was the largest sporting event to be staged in Melbourne, eclipsing the 1956 Summer Olympics in terms of the number of teams competing, athletes competing, and events being held.The site...
. Netball is similarly popular, with many netball clubs affiliated with local Australian rules clubs including Wendouree, East Point, Eureka, North Ballarat, Redan, Brown Hill and a the Ballarat Netball Association.
Rowing and kayaking is centred around Lake Wendouree and the sport is particularly popular with the schools. The lake hosts the Victorian Schools Rowing Championships as well as the annual 'Head of the Lake' rowing regatta – contested by Ballarat High School, Ballarat and Clarendon College, Ballarat Grammar School, St Patrick's College and Loreto College. The city hosted rowing events for the 1956 Olympic Games.
Association Football (known locally as soccer) is played mostly at an amateur level, with a competition known as the Ballarat District Soccer Association (BDSA). The Ballarat Red Devils
Ballarat Red Devils
The Ballarat Red Devils is an association football club based in Ballarat, Victoria. They currently play in the Football Federation Victoria State League division Two North-West...
play in the FFV
Football Federation Victoria
Football Federation Victoria is the state governing body for football in Victoria, Australia. It is affiliated with Football Federation Australia, the sport's national governing body....
State League division Two North-West.
Athletics
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
facilities include an international standard athletics track at Llanberris Reserve on York Street Golden Point
Golden Point, Victoria
Golden Point is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located south east of the CBD. It is one of the few original suburbs of Ballarat that was established during the Victorian gold rush days. At the 2006 census, Golden Point had a population of 2,147...
which is an Athletics Victoria venue and home to local athletics and little athletics clubs.
Swimming and water sport is facilitated at two Olympic sized pools as well as an indoor 25 metre (82 ft) competition short course pool. The main facility is the Ballarat Aquatic Centre located at Gillies Street Lake Gardens
Lake Gardens, Victoria
Lake Gardens is a relatively new suburb on the western rural-urban fringe of Ballarat, Victoria Australia located near Lake Wendouree and directly behind the Ballarat Botanical Gardens from which the suburb draws its name. The suburb is bounded by Gilles Street to the east, O'Donnell's Road to the...
in the city's west.
Baseball was first organised in Australia at Ballarat in 1857. The Ballarat Brewers field three teams in the Geelong Baseball Association
Geelong Baseball Association
The Geelong Baseball Association , is an Australian baseball association and league based in Geelong, Victoria. It runs a the Geelong Winter League, one of the premier winter competitions in Victoria. The GBA is affiliated with Baseball Victoria.-History:...
Winter Division, A Grade, A Reserve and C Grade.
Golf is played at four main venues which include the Ballarat Golf Course on Sturt Street in the Easter suburb of Alfredton
Alfredton, Victoria
Alfredton is a rural-urban fringe suburb west of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The population at the 2006 census was 5,796 making it the fourth most populated in the Ballarat urban area.Alfredton is located west of Lake Wendouree along Sturt Street...
, home to the Ballarat Golf Club; the Midlands Golf Course on Heinz Lane in the northern suburb of Invermay Park which is home to the Midlands Golf Club; the Eureka Golf Course at Elford Street in the eastern suburb of Ballarat East and in the southern suburb of Buninyong at the Buninyong Golf Course.
The Ballarat Roller Derby League
Ballarat Roller Derby League
Ballarat Roller Derby League is a roller derby league based in the Victorian city of Ballarat. Founded in 2008, the league has two competitive teams in the league and a combined team that competes in interleague bouts.-History:...
was formed in 2008, and held their first match in 2009. They have two teams who compete in local events, and a combined travelling team, the Rat Pack, who compete in interleague roller derby
Roller derby
Roller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Game play consists of a series of short matchups in which both teams designate a scoring player who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team...
competitions.
Lake Wendouree
Lake Wendouree
Lake Wendouree is an artificially-created and maintained shallow urban lake located in the suburb of the same name in the city of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia...
is a large recreational lake that was created out of former wetlands and hosted the rowing
Rowing (sport)
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...
events for the 1956 Summer Olympics. Victoria Park is an expansive reserve with tree lined avenues and sporting fields in suburban Newington. The suburbs feature some privately run wildlife parks including Ballarat Wildlife Park in Ballarat East and Ballarat Bird World in Buninyong.
In popular culture
Ballarat has inspired many visual artists, with several celebrated works depicting the city. In the Australian Collection of the Ballarat Art Gallery are some of Eugene von GuerardEugene von Guerard
Johann Joseph Eugene von GuérardHis first name is variously spelled "Eugen", "Eugene", "Eugène", one source mentions "Jean" ; his surname is spelled "Guerard" or "Guérard". The most frequent combination is that used by the National Gallery of Australia: "Eugene von Guérard"...
's works documenting the city's establishment as a gold digging settlement, Albert Henry Fullwood
Albert Henry Fullwood
Albert Henry Fullwood was the Australian official war artist to the 5th Division in the First World War.Fullwood was born in Erdington, Birmingham, son of Frederick John Fullwood, jeweller, and his wife Emma, née Barr. From 1878, Fullwood studied art at evening classes at the Birmingham Institute...
's depictions of boom era streetscapes and Knut Bull's View of Ballarat Across Lake Wendouree. Several other artists have painted depictions of historic events such as the Eureka Stockade.
Historic Lydiard Street features prominently in national television advertisement advertisements including the Gold Lion award (Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
) and Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association award winning "The Regulars" (2009) for Victoria Bitter
Victoria Bitter
Victoria Bitter is one of the many iconic beers manufactured in the Australian state of Victoria. VB currently maintains the highest market share of all beer sold in Australia, both on tap and packaged...
and "What About Me
What About Me (song)
"What About Me" is a song written by Garry Frost and Frances Swan, first recorded by Australian rock band Moving Pictures from their album Days of Innocence. It was the band's first number-one single in Australia spending six consecutive weeks on the top; there, it was the second-highest selling...
" (2010) Safe Driver Rewards campaign for AAMI.
Ballarat is also a popular filming location with the city making cameos in film including My Brother Jack
My Brother Jack
My Brother Jack is a classic Australian novel by writer George Johnston. It is part of a trilogy centring on the character of David Meredith...
(2001), Ned Kelly
Ned Kelly (2003 film)
Ned Kelly is an Australian drama film directed by Gregor Jordan. The film portrays the life of Ned Kelly — a legendary bushranger in northeast Victoria. Ned Kelly, his brother Dan, and two other men — Steve Hart and Joe Byrne — formed a gang of Irish Australians in response to Irish and...
(2003) and The Writer (2005).
Ballarat also features prominently in literature and fiction, including The Boscombe Valley Mystery
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
"The Boscombe Valley Mystery", one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by British author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the fourth of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in the Strand Magazine in 1891.-Plot summary:Lestrade summons Holmes to a...
(1891) from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his famous detective and illustrated by Sidney Paget....
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
, the King Billy of Ballarat and Other Stories (1892) by Morley Roberts
Morley Roberts
Morley Roberts was an English novelist and short story writer, best known for The Private Life of Henry Maitland.-Early life:Roberts was born in London, the son of a superintending inspector of income tax...
, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a three-part novel by Australian writer Henry Handel Richardson. It consists of Australia Felix , The Way Home , and Ultima Thule . It was collected in 1930 under the title by which it is now best known...
(1917) by Henry Handel Richardson
Henry Handel Richardson
Henry Handel Richardson, the pseudonym used by Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, was an Australian author. She took the name "Henry Handel" because at that time, many people did not take women's writing seriously, so she used a male name...
, Murder on the Ballarat Train (1993) by Kerry Greenwood
Kerry Greenwood
Kerry Greenwood is a solicitor from Melbourne, Australia. She is also the author of many plays and books, most notably a string of historical detective novels centred on the character of Phryne Fisher. She writes mysteries, science-fiction, historical fiction, and children's stories, as well as...
, Illywhacker
Illywhacker
Illywhacker is a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. It was published in 1985, short-listed for the 1985 Booker Prize, and won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and The Age Book of the Year Award...
by Peter Carey (1985) and The Supply Party by Martin Edward (2009).
The town of Ballarat, California
Ballarat, California
Ballarat is an unincorporated community in Inyo County, California. It lies at an elevation of 1079 feet .Today, Ballarat is a virtual ghost town. It was founded in 1896 as a supply point for the mines in the canyons of the Panamint Range. A quarter-mile to the south is Post Office Springs, a...
is named after Ballarat.
Two ships of the Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
have been named HMAS Ballarat
HMAS Ballarat
Two ships of the Royal Australian Navy have been named HMAS Ballarat, for the city of Ballarat, Victoria., a Bathurst class corvette serving from 1940 to 1947., an Anzac class frigate commissioned in 2004 and active as of 2011.-Battle honours:...
after the city, HMAS Ballarat (J184)
HMAS Ballarat (J184)
HMAS Ballarat , named for the city of Ballarat, Victoria, was one of 60 Bathurst class corvettes constructed during World War II and one of 20 built for the Admiralty but manned by personnel of and commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy .-Construction:Ballarat was laid down by HMA Naval...
and HMAS Ballarat (FFH 155)
HMAS Ballarat (FFH 155)
HMAS Ballarat is an Anzac class frigate of the Royal Australian Navy . The frigate was laid down in 2000 and commissioned into the RAN in mid-2004...
.
Popular nicknames used by locals for the city include "The 'Rat", a shortened version of the name derived from the brown rat
Brown Rat
The brown rat, common rat, sewer rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Brown Norway rat, Norwegian rat, or wharf rat is one of the best known and most common rats....
, the name and symbol was further popularised by Rebellion Brewery's The Rat beer. Another enduring nickname is Golden City which dates back to the gold rush and appears in several names including Golden City Hotel (1856) and the Golden City paddlesteamer (1885) and in numerous non-fiction works.
Health
Ballarat Base Hospital
The Ballarat Base Hospital is a hospital located in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It is a public hospital operated by Ballarat Health Services...
which services the entire region and the Queen Elizabeth Centre. Private hospital
Private hospital
A private hospital is a hospital owned by a profit company or a non-profit organisation and privately funded through payment for medical services by patients themselves, by insurers, or by foreign embassies. This practice is very common in the United States and Australia...
s include a St John of God Health Care
St John of God Health Care
St John of God Health Care is Australia's third largest private hospital operator, with 13 hospitals and facilities in the states of Western Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, as well as in New Zealand....
centre, established in 1915 and is currently the largest private hospital in regional Victoria.
Utilities
Central Highlands Water supplies Ballarat with water. The main reservoir is the White Swan reservoir which is topped up through the Goldfields Superpipe sourced from the Goulburn-Murray waterway system. Secondary supplies include the Gong Gong Reservoir.Ballarat's data communications services now come from several providers, however for a long time the city went without broadband services. An extensive private broadband network was built by Neighbourhood Cable, now Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
and Optus
Optus
SingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications...
also provide broadband services. No announcement of Ballarat's rollout of the National Broadband Network
National Broadband Network
The National Broadband Network is a national wholesale-only, open-access data network under development in Australia. Up to one gigabit per second connections are sold to retail service providers , who then sell Internet access and other services to consumers...
has yet been made however it is seen as vital for the city's growing IT industry.
Ballarat's electricity supply is provided and maintained by Victorian electricity distributor Powercor
Powercor
Powercor is an electricity distribution company that operates throughout western Victoria and the western and southern suburbs of Melbourne....
.
Road
The main mode of transport in Ballarat is the road network and the automobile. The Western FreewayWestern Freeway (Victoria)
The Western Freeway is a 125 kilometre Australian freeway linking the state capital of Victoria to the major regional city of Ballarat...
is dual carriageway
Dual carriageway
A dual carriageway is a class of highway with two carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation...
in Ballarat providing a connection to Melbourne (approximately 90 minutes) and bypassing the central city on its way westward to Ararat
Ararat, Victoria
Ararat is a city in south-west Victoria, Australia, about west of Melbourne, on the Western Highway on the eastern slopes of the Ararat Hills and Cemetery Creek valley between Victoria's Western District and the Wimmera...
(approximately 75 minutes) and Horsham
Horsham, Victoria
Horsham is the largest city by population and regional centre of the Wimmera region of Victoria, Australia and is approximately north-west of Melbourne via the Western Highway. At the 2006 census, Horsham had a population of 14,125. Horsham is in the federal Division of Mallee...
. A network of state highways from Ballarat. The Midland Highway is a dual carriageway which runs north along Creswick Road to the Western Freeway interchange but becomes a single carriageway north of Ballarat to Creswick (approximately 25 minutes) and runs south as the dual carriageway of Skipton Road to Magpie before becoming a single carriageway to Geelong (approximately 87 minutes). The Glenelg Highway
Glenelg Highway
The Glenelg Highway is a 301 kilometre highway in south-eastern Australia, linking Mount Gambier with Ballarat. Most of the highway is located within the Western part of the state of Victoria; except for a short, 15 km stretch from the South Australia/Victoria state border near Ardno to...
connects directly to Mount Gambier and the Sunraysia Highway
Sunraysia Highway
The Sunraysia Highway , is a important north-south route in western Victoria. The highway extends north a length of 331 km from the Western Highway near Ballarat to the Calder Highway near Ouyen....
west of Ballarat which connects directly to Mildura. Sturt Street and Victoria Street, both dual carriageways carry the bulk of the east-west CBD traffic, while Mair Street is planned to become dual carriageway to relieve pressure on these main streets. Other dual carriageway main roads in the west include Howitt Street and Gillies Street. The remainder of Ballarat's roads are mainly secondary single carriageways or service lanes to the inner suburbs.
Ballarat is also served by an extensive public bus service branded as Ballarat Transit which is currently operated mainly by Ballarat Coachlines and Davis Bus Service. The taxi system operates in all suburbs and is currently operated by Ballarat Taxis Co-op Ltd.
Regional coaches operated by V/Line
V/Line
V/Line is a not for profit regional passenger train and coach service in Victoria, Australia. It was created after the split-up of VicRail in 1983. V/Line is owned by the V/Line Corporation which is a Victorian State Government statutory authority...
connect Ballarat with other regional centres such as Warrnambool, Bendigo, Mildura and Maryborough
Maryborough, Victoria
-Education:Maryborough has three schools:*Highview Christian Community College*Maryborough Education Centre Years Prep–12*St Augustine's Primary School Grades Prep–6-Music:...
. There is also a direct bus service to Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport.
Rail
Ballarat has historically been a major railway hub in Victoria, situated at the junction of the Ballarat line, Ararat line and Mildura lines it currently has several connections for both passenger services and freight.Ballarat has two passenger railway stations, the hub of Ballarat railway station and suburban Wendouree railway station out of which V/Line
V/Line
V/Line is a not for profit regional passenger train and coach service in Victoria, Australia. It was created after the split-up of VicRail in 1983. V/Line is owned by the V/Line Corporation which is a Victorian State Government statutory authority...
operates VLocity trains running at up to 160 km/h (99 mph) east to Melbourne, west and Ararat
Ararat, Victoria
Ararat is a city in south-west Victoria, Australia, about west of Melbourne, on the Western Highway on the eastern slopes of the Ararat Hills and Cemetery Creek valley between Victoria's Western District and the Wimmera...
and north to Maryborough. Peak hour commuter services to Melbourne running from 69 minutes remain highly popular with commuters despite the controversial removal of "flagship" express services in 2011. The Regional Rail Link
Regional Rail Link
The Regional Rail Link is a 47.5 km railway track currently under construction through the western suburbs of Melbourne from Southern Cross Station, running through Sunshine, Tarneit and meeting the Geelong Line at West Werribee...
project is underway to separate Ballarat's trains from Melbourne's suburban rail network for more regular services. Interurban services (Ballarat-Melbourne) now run half hourly during weekday peak and hourly on weekends from Ballarat station. A twice daily (53 minute) service connects Ballarat to Ararat
Ararat, Victoria
Ararat is a city in south-west Victoria, Australia, about west of Melbourne, on the Western Highway on the eastern slopes of the Ararat Hills and Cemetery Creek valley between Victoria's Western District and the Wimmera...
while there is a (57 minute) service to and from Maryborough (stopping at Creswick) once a day each way.
The Ballarat to Geelong (the Geelong-Ballarat railway line) currently operates as a freight line only (passenger services were withdrawn in 1978) and the city has several disused railway corridors and stations along the Skipton railway, Buninyong railway and the Ballarat Cattle Yards railway.
Ballarat once operated an extensive tramway network which began in 1887, however it was closed in 1971 and replaced by buses. A small section of track remains used as a tourist and museum tramway. There have been proposals to extend the network, particularly to connect it to the railways and return it as a viable component of the Ballarat public transport system.
Air
Ballarat AirportBallarat Airport
-Motorsport:The airfield had a brief motor racing career, beginning on Australia Day in 1947 when it held its first motor race meeting. Racing returned in November of both 1950 and 1951, then finally for an International Formula Libre race in February 1961, which was attended by some European...
located 8 km (5 mi) North-West of the CBD consists of two sealed runways (each approximately 1,400 m/4,600 ft length and 30 m/100 ft wide) as well as extensive sealed aprons, night lighting and NDB Navaid. In 2005 the City of Ballarat commissioned a Master Plan 2004–2014, that outlined future development and growth of the Airport. The report made a series of recommendations and forecasts that included eventual lengthening, widening and strengthening of the existing main runway up to 1800 metres (5,900 ft), consideration for expansion of the passenger terminal and recommendations for future use of aprons and development of future structures supporting larger aircraft and increased frequent usage. It is forecast that by 2012–15 regular domestic passenger services using 40–50 seat commuter aircraft may feasibly commence.
Cycling
Ballarat has a long history of cycling as a form of transport and recreation. The current cycling network continues to grow and consists of several marked on-road routes and 50 kilometres of segregated bicycle facilities including several main routes :Ballarat–Skipton Rail Trail, Yarrowee River Trail with connections to the Gong Gong Reservoir, Buningyong Trail, Sebastopol Trail, and the Lake Wendouree shared path. The Ballarat Bicycle Users Group provides advocacy for the growing number of cyclists in the city. The popularity of cycling in Ballarat is also demonstrated by the large number of spectators and participants drawn to cycling sporting events held in the city.Notable residents
A great many notable people's origins are in the Ballarat region with the most prominent being high ranking politicians and sportspeople.Several former Prime Minister of Australia
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
were from Ballarat (recognised by the city's Prime Minister's Avenue) – Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
, Sir Robert Menzies
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
, James Scullin
James Scullin
James Henry Scullin , Australian Labor politician and the ninth Prime Minister of Australia. Two days after he was sworn in as Prime Minister, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred, marking the beginning of the Great Depression and subsequent Great Depression in Australia.-Early life:Scullin was...
and John Curtin
John Curtin
John Joseph Curtin , Australian politician, served as the 14th Prime Minister of Australia. Labor under Curtin formed a minority government in 1941 after the crossbench consisting of two independent MPs crossed the floor in the House of Representatives, bringing down the Coalition minority...
. Several Premiers of the Australian states
Premiers of the Australian states
The Premiers of the Australian states are the de facto heads of the executive governments in the six states of the Commonwealth of Australia. They perform the same function at the state level as the Prime Minister of Australia performs at the national level. The territory equivalents to the...
are also from Ballarat, including Victorian premiers Sir Henry Bolte
Henry Bolte
Sir Henry Edward Bolte GCMG was an Australian politician. He was the 38th and longest serving Premier of Victoria.- Early years :...
, Steve Bracks
Steve Bracks
Stephen Philip Bracks AC is a former Australian politician and the 44th Premier of Victoria. He first won the electoral district of Williamstown in 1994 for the Australian Labor Party, and was party leader and Premier from 1999 to 2007....
, Duncan Gillies
Duncan Gillies
Duncan Gillies , Australian colonial politician, was the 14th Premier of Victoria.Gillies was born at Overnewton near Glasgow, Scotland, where his father had a market garden. He was sent to the high school until he was about 14, when he entered an office in Glasgow...
, Thomas Hollway
Thomas Hollway
Thomas Tuke "Tom" Hollway was the 36th Premier of Victoria, holding office from 1947 to 1950, and again for a short period in 1952....
and Western Australia premier Henry Daglish
Henry Daglish
Henry Daglish was the sixth Premier of Western Australia and the state's first Labor Premier.Henry Daglish was born in Ballarat West, Victoria on 18 November 1866. He was educated in Geelong, and attended Melbourne University...
.
Outside of politics, other prominent public figures include Peter Lalor
Peter Lalor
Peter Fintan Lalor 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 :...
, an important historical figure in Australia as the leader of the Eureka Rebellion (1854); the inventor George Alfred Julius, who spent part of his childhood in the town when his father was a local Anglican cleric; and Cardinal George Pell
George Pell
George Pell AC is an Australian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the eighth and current Archbishop of Sydney, serving since 2001. He previously served as auxiliary bishop and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne...
, the current Catholic Archbishop of Sydney.
Ballarat has also produced many notable athletes including the Olympic long distance runner Steve Moneghetti
Steve Moneghetti
Stephen James "Steve" Moneghetti is an Australian long-distance runner. Moneghetti has a degree in civil engineering, a graduate diploma in education and an honorary doctorate from the University of Ballarat...
. A large number of notable Australian rules football identities have come from Ballarat, including Tony Lockett
Tony Lockett
Anthony Howard "Tony" Lockett is a former Australian rules football player. Lockett is the highest goal scorer in the history of the VFL/AFL with 1,360 goals in a career of 281 games, that commenced in 1983 with the St Kilda Football Club, and finished in 2002 with the Sydney Swans...
, an AFL Legend player and record holder of the most goals scored in a career; premiership coaches Mick Malthouse
Mick Malthouse
Michael "Mick" Malthouse is a former Australian rules footballer and the former coach of the Collingwood Football Club.While his playing career included a premiership for Richmond in the VFL, he is best known for his Australian Football League coaching career.Malthouse is the most successful coach...
and Geelong Football Club
Geelong Football Club
The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed The Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club, named after and based in the city of Geelong, playing in the Australian Football League . The club has been the VFL/AFL premiers nine times, with a record equalling 3 in the AFL era. Geelong has also...
legend Bob Davis. North Melbourne forward Drew Petrie
Drew Petrie
Drew Petrie is an Australian rules footballer for the North Melbourne Football Club. Since debuting in 2001 he has played over 100 games for the club. He has played in a variety of roles for the Kangaroos including centre half-forward, defence and ruck...
is also from the town.
External links
- Ballarat City Council
- Ballarat – Tourism Victoria – Government tourism site.