Some Lalor details
Don't be mistaken, Peter was not a poverty-stricken, uneducated, illiterate Irish peasant with a family of a worn out wife and fifteen kids. He was young, unmarried, and, as far as we know, childless. He came from a fairly prosperous, although not wealthy, family, and was university educated, with an excellent technical qualification. William Bramwell Withers, a journalist and historian, wrote the following description of Lalor at this time in his book The History of Ballarat in 1887:
The insurgent commander at the time of the Stockade collision was in the prime of early manhood, and his brown hair, blue-grey eyes, broad face, and rather heavy brows were those of a handsome presence. Not more than about twenty-five years old, full six feet in stature, broad-chested, and generally well-proportioned, and possessing a rather impulsive temperament, he was just the man to embody the physical-force-spirit of the movement.
Raffaello Carboni, or, as he preferred, Carboni Raffaello, wrote the following about Lalor, whom he appeared to idolise, in his book The Eureka Stockade in 1856 (Ballaarat is the earlier spelling of Ballarat; St Patrick's Hall is where Victoria's Legislative Council met, of which Lalor became a member at the end of 1855):
Thank God there is among us a man; not so tall as thick, of a strong frame, some thirty five years old, honest countenance, sober forehead, penetrating look, fine dark whiskers. His mouth and complexion denote the Irish, and he is the earnest, well-meaning, no-two-ways, non-John-Bullised Irishman, PETER LALOR, in whose eyes, the gaseous heroism of demagogues, or the knavery of peg-shifters is an abomination, because his height of impudence consisted in giving the diggers his hand, and leaving with them his arm in pawn, for to jump the Ballaarat claim in St. Patrick's Hall. More power to you Peter! Old chummy, smother the knaves! they breed too fast in this colony.