James Torpy , Gold Miner and Publican
James Torpy was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1833 and arrived at Lambing Flat in 1860.
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He was an experienced gold miner having worked on the Turon. He had been a shareholder in a wet claim which was sold to a group of Chinese for £3000.
The deal was done at the Globe Hotel at Sofala.
Torpy set himself up at Stoney Creek and soon became involved in the miners’ agitation for the removal of the Chinese.
Soon after he arrived at Lambing Flat the Miners’ Protective League was formed, and Torpy was sent, as a representative, to Bathurst to induce the Bathurst miners to form similar leagues.
He abandoned mining and moved to Tipperary Gully where he erected a hotel, which he called ‘The Cosmopolitan’.
He had a clear, forceful and convincing manner of speaking and soon became influential. Torpy did not advocate violence and preferred to obtain his objectives through constitutional means.
Unsigned notices appeared on trees at Spring Creek, Stoney Creek, Tipperary Gully and Lambing Flat calling on diggers to attend a meeting at Golden Point (opposite Big W) to consider “whether Burrangong is a European goldfield or a Chinese territory “.
The first attack on the Chinese at Victoria Hill resulted from this meeting getting out of hand.
The Premier, Charles Cowper, visited Lambing Flat on March 2, 1861, and met with representatives of the Miners Protection League, including Torpy, but would not accept that they represented the diggers.
He did agree to address two massed meetings. At the meetings, Torpy lashed the Cowper Government for inaction. But Cowper did promise a Goldfield Act, and at a farewell dinner, Torpy proposed the Premiers health.
Cowper returned to Sydney and did nothing except withdraw the military, and on June 30 an attack on the Chinese occurred in which it was reported two Chinese were killed.
Torpy and E. A. Baker had gone to Sydney to meet with Cowper and the Governor (Sir John Young), in an attempt to have martial law lifted.The Governor refused to meet Torpy and Baker but met with Henry Greig who was representing the business people of Lambing Flat.Greig returned home, but Torpy remained on to give an address, chaired by the Mayor of Sydney, on behalf of the miners of Burrangong.
When Torpy returned to his hotel, he was arrested on the Lambing Flat magistrates’ warrant.
Torpy was remanded to the Burrangong Court at Lambing Flat. Bail was arranged by Bennett and Hanson the proprietors of the “Empire” newspaper.
He was promptly set free when he appeared before the magistrates at Burrangong.
The field settled down and late in 1861 Torpy de-licensed his Cosmopolitan at Tipperary and erected a larger hotel in sawn timber with an iron roof at Lambing Flat.
This was in Main Street opposite the end of Cloete Street.T Torpy sold out to James Smith in May 1862, for £400. He moved on to Forbes and then to Orange in 1863.
