The Last State in the Empire
Today it is a quiet spot for an easy amble through a bush reserve but Hustler's Reef Reserve is the site of the Bendigo Goldfield's worst mining accident. The families of the seven men killed there may have been the last in the Australian states to be left outside a legal system of compensation.
On a small hill in North Bendigo, seven stone slabs fan out around the head of an old mine shaft. In the centre, a modern bronze plaque is carefully positioned, upon which is listed the names of seven dead men. The plaque and a few broken slabs of cement are all that reminds as a public memorial for seven gold miners who died over a century ago, a thousand feet below.
At the opposite end of that scrubby block of land stands a rough cube of granite. It bears a similar plaque, this one for the hundreds of women who lost their husbands to gold mining on Bendigo’s Goldfields. Two thousand people died in mining related accidents on these fields, the last as recently as 2001. Thousands of others were left maimed and diseased, unable to earn a living. 
In May 1914, at the time of the Great Extended Hustler’s Reef Mine disaster, Victoria remains the last state in Australia with no worker’s compensation system in place. Although the legislation is finally passed in February 1914, it is not made active (‘gazetted’) until November. Consequently, the families of the seven men killed in the worst industrial accident on the Bendigo Goldfields are left with no means of support – unless they sue for it. 
A century later in a new millennium, “health and safety” has become the catch-all phrase for the complex rules and regulations seemingly enforced to prevent worker death and injury. However, such regulations are equally focussed on the cost of insurance premiums and are mocked in the media for creating a “molly-coddling nanny-state” preventing the advancement of business interests. The complexity of systems of workers compensation is by no means a recent development, but Victoria is particularly slow to respond to current trends.
An Awful Accident
Late at night on Saturday, May 2nd, 1914 an explosion on the 13th level - 1053 feet underground (or 321 metres) - kills all seven men working on that level, and a further seven men working in the levels below are injured. The newspapers are overflowing with details. From descriptions of the corpses in the morgue to the sobs of a new widow, every aspect is recorded. The description in Monday’s paper is graphic:
The sight of the seven bodies at the morgue was ghastly. They were still in their working clothes, or rather, what had not been blown away by the explosion; still begrimed by the black dust that adhered to them during their work where the flesh had not been reddened by blood. The bruised and battered bodies, with feet twisted and broken bones projecting through the flesh, were lying in sawdust.[iii]
While the reporting appears macabre it is also transparent. As soon as the accident is reported, subscriptions to a Families Relief Fund begin to flow. Every donation, from offers of “practical support” from the Melbourne Stock Exchange to a lecture night in Axedale that collects and passes on £1/15, is faithfully recorded:
A generous and modest shareholder in the Great Extended Hustler's Company living at California Gully has fulfilled his promise...that he would contribute the whole of his share of this week's dividend from the mine towards the relief fund. Yesterday his cheque for £11/5 duly came to hand... Would there were more like him.
The same article simply notes that “the Chinese community of Kangaroo Flat and Golden Square sent in a substantial aggregate collection yesterday which is also acknowledged with appreciation.”
£4000 is raised by the community and administered by Sandhurst Trustees for distribution to families. For all this public generosity, where is the mining company and what is its legal obligation? As it turns out, thanks to a delay in administrative bureaucracy, the families of the dead and those incapacitated have limited legal recourse.
A union meeting in the week following the accident noted that a deputation had met with the Minister for Mines in response to the “the terrible fatality” in the hope that the Minister would come to the conclusion that ‘check inspectors’ were needed:
If check inspectors had been appointed, the accident might not have happened… many of the accidents in the Bendigo mines would have been prevented... [and] would be in the interests of the mine owners as well as the men.”
Despite discussions about the introduction of Victoria’s own Compensation Act beginning almost immediately after the expiration of the Employer’s Liability Act (see boxed timeline next page), ongoing parliamentary debate prevented its passage for almost 16 years. While the legislation was passed in February 1914, it was not ‘gazetted’ until November.
On the second reading of the bill, Joseph Sternberg – prominent Bendigo representative in the State Legislative Council – noted that “we in Victoria had waited a long time for a bill [that] recognised the fact that men... should be dealt with under humanitarian conditions.” Local MLA Mr A.J. Hampson made his opinion clear in Parliament a few days after the disaster:
Had the Act, which was passed… last February been gazetted, the onus of insuring these men would have rested with the Great Extended Hustler’s Company. Victoria was the last state in the British Empire to pass a Workers Accident Compensation Act. The one just passed is certainly one of the best, and it is regrettable that any time should be lost in making it effective. This calamity should bring home to the directors of the Great Extended Hustler’s company their moral obligation to render adequate monetary aid, which, if the Workers' Accident Compensation Act had been gazetted, would have been a legal responsibility."
The mine did eventually render monetary aid, but not until well after community efforts raised almost double the mine’s contribution (more on this later).
Australian workers’ compensation originated in nineteenth-century British law. Before the implementation of modern workers’ compensation arrangements, an injured worker’s only means of receiving compensation was to sue their employer for negligence.
The compensation of workers for injuries incurred in the workplace is a practice that dates to approximately 2050 B.C. in ancient Samaria. Ancient systems of payments for loss of body parts were gradually replaced as the feudalism of the Middle Ages saw compensation decided at the will of the local lord and changed again with the development of English common law in the Renaissance.
The common law system across Europe and America came to rely on a combination of employer defences that made it particularly difficult for an employer to be found culpable for the death or injury of a worker. If a worker was in any way at fault then contributory negligence applied and the employer was not liable. If injury or death resulted from the action of another worker, the employer was not liable. If it was a dangerous job, it was assumed the worker knew it was a dangerous and thus the employer was not liable.
The Industrial Revolution saw the introduction of more specific systems of compulsory compensation insurance funds. In 1838, the Prussian railroads became legally responsible for most injuries to workers and passengers and in 1884 the German government introduced the Accident Insurance Bill. In 1880 the United Kingdom had introduced a bill that gave workers the right to sue their employer but it proved to be little more than a system that tied up the courts in costly cases. By 1897 the United Kingdom introduced its own Workingman’s Compensation Act as a “no fault system”. The first compensation law in Australia was introduced in South Australia in 1900 while Victoria lagged behind, becoming the last Australian state to introduce legislation in 1914.
All those killed at Hustler's Reef had at some stage been a member of the Bendigo Miners Association (herein referred to as ‘the union). The union’s Watson Benevolent Fund bequeaths £100 to eligible families of those who die in mining accidents. At the time of the explosion only two men, William Ryan and Leslie Martin, are up to date with their dues. In fact they pay them the day before the accident, to steward T. Trevorah. Two others, William Blair and Frederick Chinn, pay Trevorah some of what they owe but still have two weeks fees outstanding. The remaining men were not members at the time and so, only Ryan and Martin’s families are eligible to receive the £100 bequest.
When it comes time to distribute the funds raised from community efforts, controversy arises at the suggestion that the families of the “union men” should receive an adjusted lower amount to allow for them having already received support from the union. The Advertiser however sees no reason for such distinction:
It would be a shame if the families of the men who would not join the [union]…were to receive more money from the relief fund than the families of those men who had regularly paid their subscription to the association for years.
Allowing for marriage status and children the final figure is equal. Fathers (not mothers) and wives alike are paid a standard £1/10 to be paid per week for the life of the fund, plus an extra 5 shillings for each child (see list on page 7). According to local historian John Kelly, the fund is expected to last just six years but “good management and investment...meant the funds lasted...until June 1922”.
Ten days after the accident the families meet with the mining company, where they learn that:
...aided by the insurance company to the extent of £1000 [the company] had decided to give the relatives £2100. Of course, the company admits no liability in making the payment, whilst the families, in taking the money, regard the matter as ended.”
The Martin family’s son was the youngest of those killed – tragically the second to be killed in such circumstances – and an unmarried union member. The mine grants his parents £200. The only other similarly unmarried was the non-financial union member Chinn (Figure 1, cover page). His family received £245. The childless widow of union member Ryan is granted £300 and the remaining, non-unionised families are all paid £340, except that of Blair. The mine granted Blair’s widow £345. Her infant son Herbert died of colitis a few day later.
Had the Workmen’s Compensation Bill been active at the time of the accident, the widows would have received approximately £374 each. Seven men survived the explosion and were rescued within hours. One of those rescued was John Bawden, who gave evidence at inquest. He was left incapacitated by the inhalation of heavy fumes and joined union rep T. Trevorah as a coffin bearer for William Blair. The medical certificate from Dr. P.J. Rockett stated that Bawden suffered from the effects of the fumes and shock, and would in his opinion “never be able to resume active work of any description.” He received £50 from the Families Relief fund. There are no records of any payment being disbursed by the union or the mine.
In addition to the seven men killed at the Great Hustler’s Extended Mine Disaster, in 1914 three more miners were killed in Bendigo and 15 in total in Victoria 15. Australia-wide, 53 men died in mining accidents that year. A century later, in the same year that the federal government opened a Royal Commission into Trade Union Corruption and Governance, 12 miners were killed. Targeted for investigation by the Commission are mining union health and safety representatives – the modern day equivalent of the ‘check inspectors’ sought from the Minister for Mines following the Great Extended Hustler’s Reef disaster. 10 have been killed in the mining industry this year.
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