WILSON, Elizabeth
Elizabeth’s husband ran a store opposite the Eureka Stockade on a site subsequently occupied by the smoke room of the bacon factory in Eureka Street.
Elizabeth Wilson (Thompson) was the daughter of Isabella (McNee) and the sister of Mary Chalmers. Elizabeth, was born around 1828 at Bo’ness, Linlithgowshire, Scotland. Elizabeth’s husband ran a store opposite the Eureka Stockade on a site subsequently occupied by the smoke room of the bacon factory in Eureka Street. On the 1841 census Elizabeth was living with her mother Isabella and stepfather Robert Graham. Her sister, Mary McNee, married Robert Chalmers. Mary and Robert Chalmers immigrated on the Europa with their children Isabella and Annie.
Elizabeth Wilson was alleged to have been inside the Eureka Stockade and actively participating. She helped to load guns for her husband, when soldiers attacked. Elizabeth Wilson’s grandson recalled that she was wild and she used to load his gun and she kept the bullets etc. in the shop. She kept supplying them to him. During the battle he ran away and left her, but she was in the stockade area still …. Elizabeth hid the insurgents and possibly saved one from death or being arrested. “All of a sudden one of the miners raced up to her. … The miner said, ‘Look Mam, where can I hide?’” He apparently knew her. She replied, “Right where you stand.” With that she hit him on the shoulder and knocked him down. … She stepped over him, pulled up her hoop skirt, and stood over him.
Elizabeth is buried in the Ballarat New Cemetery, Presbyterian A Section 4 Grave 36