Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo, on March 25th 1846 at the height of the Great Famine. He was the second of five children born to Martin and Catherine Davitt. At the tender age of four Michael and his family were evicted from their home and forced to emigrate to Haslingden, Lancashire, England. At the age of eleven while working in a cotton mill, Davitt had his arm so badly maimed in an accident that it had to be amputated. At sixteen, while working for the local postmaster, he began evening classes in Irish history at the Mechanic's Institute. It was at this time that his thoughts began to turn to politics and he joined the Fenian movement in England. The Fenians Joining the Fenians in 1865 he rose through the ranks to become organising secretary for England and Scotland but was arrested in 1870 for arms smuggling and sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude. After seven years he was released on a ticket of leave.(http://www.museumsofmayo.com/davitt1.htm, accessed 21 January 2014)Images of a bearded man known as Michael Davitt. He is writing at a large table in a large room with chandelier. ballarat irish, davitt, michael davitt

Following the founding meeting of the Mayo Tenants Defence Association in Castlebar, County Mayo on 26 October 1878 the demand for The Land of Ireland for the people of Ireland was reported in the Connaught Telegraph 2 November 1878. The first of many "monster meetings" of tenant farmers was held in Irishtown near Claremorris on 20 April 1879, with an estimated turnout of 15,000 to 20,000 people. This meeting was addressed by James Daly (who presided), John O'Connor Power, John Ferguson, Thomas Brennan, and J. J. Louden. The Connaught Telegraph's report of the meeting in its edition of 26 April 1879 began: Since the days of O'Connell a larger public demonstration has not been witnessed than that of Sunday last. About 1 o'clock the monster procession started from Claremorris, headed by several thousand men on foot – the men of each district wearing a laural leaf or green ribbon in hat or coat to distinguish the several contingents. At 11 o'clock a monster contingent of tenant-farmers on horseback drew up in front of Hughes's hotel, showing discipline and order that a cavalry regiment might feel proud of. They were led on in sections, each having a marshal who kept his troops well in hand. Messrs. P.W. Nally, J.W. Nally, H. French, and M. Griffin, wearing green and gold sashes, led on their different sections, who rode two deep, occupying, at least, over an Irish mile of the road. Next followed a train of carriages, brakes, cares, etc. led on by Mr. Martin Hughes, the spirited hotel proprietor, driving a pair of rare black ponies to a phæton, taking Messrs. J.J. Louden and J. Daly. Next came Messrs. O'Connor, J. Ferguson, and Thomas Brennan in a covered carriage, followed by at least 500 vehicles from the neighbouring towns. On passing through Ballindine the sight was truly imposing, the endless train directing its course to Irishtown – a neat little hamlet on the boundaries of Mayo, Roscommon, and Galway. Evolving out of this a number of local land league organisations were set up to work against the excessive rents being demanded by landlords all over Ireland, but especially in Mayo and surrounding counties. From 1874 agricultural prices in Europe had dropped, followed by some bad harvests due to wet weather during the Long Depression. The effect by 1878 was that many Irish farmers were unable to pay the rents that they had agreed, particularly in the poorer and wetter parts of Connacht. The localised 1879 Famine added to the misery. Unlike other parts of Europe the Irish land tenure system was inflexible in times of hardship. (Wikipedia) The Irish National Land League was founded at the Imperial Hotel in Castlebar, the County town of Mayo, on 21 October 1879. At that meeting Charles Stewart Parnell was elected president of the league. Andrew Kettle, Michael Davitt, and Thomas Brennan were appointed as honorary secretaries. This united practically all the different strands of land agitation and tenant rights movements under a single organisation. Michael Davitt Founder of the Land League The two aims of the Land League, as stated in the resolutions adopted in the meeting, were: ...first, to bring out a reduction of rack-rents; second, to facilitate the obtaining of the ownership of the soil by the occupiers. That the object of the League can be best attained by promoting organisation among the tenant-farmers; by defending those who may be threatened with eviction for refusing to pay unjust rents; by facilitating the working of the Bright clauses of the Irish Land Act during the winter; and by obtaining such reforms in the laws relating to land as will enable every tenant to become owner of his holding by paying a fair rent for a limited number of years. (Wikipedia)Image of a man with a moustache. He is T. Brennan.ballarat irish, brennan, thomas brennan, irish land act, rent

The Irish National Land League (Irish: Conradh na Talún) was an Irish political organisation of the late 19th century which sought to help poor tenant farmers. Its primary aim was to abolish landlordism in Ireland and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on. The period of the Land League's agitation is known as the Land War. Within decades of the league's foundation, through the efforts of William O'Brien and George Wyndham (a descendant of Lord Edward FitzGerald), the 1902 Land Conference produced the Land (Purchase) Act 1903 which allowed Irish tenant farmers buy out their freeholds with UK government loans over 68 years through the Land Commission (an arrangement that has never been possible in Britain itself). For agricultural labourers, D.D. Sheehan and the Irish Land and Labour Association secured their demands from the Liberal government elected in 1905 to pass the Labourers (Ireland) Act 1906, and the Labourers (Ireland) Act 1911, which paid County Councils to build over 40,000 new rural cottages, each on an acre of land. By 1914, 75% of occupiers were buying out their landlords, mostly under the two Acts. In all, under the pre-UK Land Acts over 316,000 tenants purchased their holdings amounting to 15 million acres (61,000 km2) out of a total of 20 million acres (81,000 km2) in the country. Sometimes the holdings were described as "uneconomic", but the overall sense of social justice was undeniable. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_National_Land_League, accessed 21 January 2014) The Irish National Land League was founded at the Imperial Hotel in Castlebar, the County town of Mayo, on 21 October 1879. At that meeting Charles Stewart Parnell was elected president of the league. Andrew Kettle, Michael Davitt, and Thomas Brennan were appointed as honorary secretaries. This united practically all the different strands of land agitation and tenant rights movements under a single organisation. The two aims of the Land League, as stated in the resolutions adopted in the meeting, were: ...first, to bring out a reduction of rack-rents; second, to facilitate the obtaining of the ownership of the soil by the occupiers. That the object of the League can be best attained by promoting organisation among the tenant-farmers; by defending those who may be threatened with eviction for refusing to pay unjust rents; by facilitating the working of the Bright clauses of the Irish Land Act during the winter; and by obtaining such reforms in the laws relating to land as will enable every tenant to become owner of his holding by paying a fair rent for a limited number of years. Charles Stewart Parnell, John Dillon, Michael Davitt, and others including Cal Lynn then went to America to raise funds for the League with spectacular results. Branches were also set up in Scotland, where the Crofters Party imitated the League and secured a reforming Act in 1886. The government had introduced the first ineffective Land Act in 1870, then the equally inadequate Acts of 1880 and 1881 followed. These established a Land Commission that started to reduce some rents. Parnell together with all of his party lieutenants, including Father Eugene Sheehy known as "the Land League priest", went into a bitter verbal offensive and were imprisoned in October 1881 under the Irish Coercion Act in Kilmainham Jail for "sabotaging the Land Act", from where the No-Rent Manifesto was issued, calling for a national tenant farmer rent strike which was partially followed. Although the League discouraged violence, agrarian crimes increased widely. Typically a rent strike would be followed by evictions by the police, or those tenants paying rent would be subject to a local boycott by League members. Where cases went to court, witnesses would change their stories, resulting in an unworkable legal system. This in turn led on to stronger criminal laws being passed that were described by the League as "Coercion Acts". The bitterness that developed helped Parnell later in his Home Rule campaign. Davitt's views were much more extreme, seeking to nationalise all land, as seen in his famous slogan: "The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland". Parnell aimed to harness the emotive element, but he and his party preferred for tenant farmers to become freeholders on the land they rented, instead of land being vested in "the people".(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_National_Land_League, accessed 21 January 2014)Image of a number of men sitting around a table. They are members of the Land League Committee during a meeting in Dublin.ballarat irish, land league, land league committee, dublin

Parnell was an Irish nationalist and statesman who led the fight for Irish Home Rule in the 1880s. Charles Stewart Parnell was born on 27 June 1846 in County Wicklow into a family of Anglo-Irish Protestant landowners. He studied at Cambridge University and was elected to parliament in 1875 as a member of the Home Rule League (later re-named by Parnell the Irish Parliamentary Party). His abilities soon became evident. In 1878, Parnell became an active opponent of the Irish land laws, believing their reform should be the first step on the road to Home Rule. In 1879, Parnell was elected president of the newly founded National Land League and the following year he visited the United States to gain both funds and support for land reform. In the 1880 election, he supported the Liberal leader William Gladstone, but when Gladstone's Land Act of 1881 fell short of expectations, he joined the opposition. By now he had become the accepted leader of the Irish nationalist movement. Parnell now encouraged boycott as a means of influencing landlords and land agents, and as a result he was sent to jail and the Land League was suppressed. From Kilmainham prison he called on Irish peasants to stop paying rent. In March 1882, he negotiated an agreement with Gladstone - the Kilmainham Treaty - in which he urged his followers to avoid violence. But this peaceful policy was severely challenged by the murder in May 1882 of two senior British officials in Phoenix Park in Dublin by members of an Irish terrorist group. Parnell condemned the murders. In 1886, Parnell joined with the Liberals to defeat Lord Salisbury's Conservative government. Gladstone became prime minister and introduced the first Irish Home Rule Bill. Parnell believed it was flawed but said he was prepared to vote for it. The Bill split the Liberal Party and was defeated in the House of Commons. Gladstone's government fell soon afterwards.(http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/parnell_charles.shtml, accessed 21 January 2014) The Irish National Land League (Irish: Conradh na Talún) was an Irish political organisation of the late 19th century which sought to help poor tenant farmers. Its primary aim was to abolish landlordism in Ireland and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on. The period of the Land League's agitation is known as the Land War. Within decades of the league's foundation, through the efforts of William O'Brien and George Wyndham (a descendant of Lord Edward FitzGerald), the 1902 Land Conference produced the Land (Purchase) Act 1903 which allowed Irish tenant farmers buy out their freeholds with UK government loans over 68 years through the Land Commission (an arrangement that has never been possible in Britain itself). For agricultural labourers, D.D. Sheehan and the Irish Land and Labour Association secured their demands from the Liberal government elected in 1905 to pass the Labourers (Ireland) Act 1906, and the Labourers (Ireland) Act 1911, which paid County Councils to build over 40,000 new rural cottages, each on an acre of land. By 1914, 75% of occupiers were buying out their landlords, mostly under the two Acts. In all, under the pre-UK Land Acts over 316,000 tenants purchased their holdings amounting to 15 million acres (61,000 km2) out of a total of 20 million acres (81,000 km2) in the country. Sometimes the holdings were described as "uneconomic", but the overall sense of social justice was undeniable. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_National_Land_League, accessed 21 January 2014) The Irish National Land League was founded at the Imperial Hotel in Castlebar, the County town of Mayo, on 21 October 1879. At that meeting Charles Stewart Parnell was elected president of the league. Andrew Kettle, Michael Davitt, and Thomas Brennan were appointed as honorary secretaries. This united practically all the different strands of land agitation and tenant rights movements under a single organisation. The two aims of the Land League, as stated in the resolutions adopted in the meeting, were: ...first, to bring out a reduction of rack-rents; second, to facilitate the obtaining of the ownership of the soil by the occupiers. That the object of the League can be best attained by promoting organisation among the tenant-farmers; by defending those who may be threatened with eviction for refusing to pay unjust rents; by facilitating the working of the Bright clauses of the Irish Land Act during the winter; and by obtaining such reforms in the laws relating to land as will enable every tenant to become owner of his holding by paying a fair rent for a limited number of years. Charles Stewart Parnell, John Dillon, Michael Davitt, and others including Cal Lynn then went to America to raise funds for the League with spectacular results. Branches were also set up in Scotland, where the Crofters Party imitated the League and secured a reforming Act in 1886. The government had introduced the first ineffective Land Act in 1870, then the equally inadequate Acts of 1880 and 1881 followed. These established a Land Commission that started to reduce some rents. Parnell together with all of his party lieutenants, including Father Eugene Sheehy known as "the Land League priest", went into a bitter verbal offensive and were imprisoned in October 1881 under the Irish Coercion Act in Kilmainham Jail for "sabotaging the Land Act", from where the No-Rent Manifesto was issued, calling for a national tenant farmer rent strike which was partially followed. Although the League discouraged violence, agrarian crimes increased widely. Typically a rent strike would be followed by evictions by the police, or those tenants paying rent would be subject to a local boycott by League members. Where cases went to court, witnesses would change their stories, resulting in an unworkable legal system. This in turn led on to stronger criminal laws being passed that were described by the League as "Coercion Acts". The bitterness that developed helped Parnell later in his Home Rule campaign. Davitt's views were much more extreme, seeking to nationalise all land, as seen in his famous slogan: "The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland". Parnell aimed to harness the emotive element, but he and his party preferred for tenant farmers to become freeholders on the land they rented, instead of land being vested in "the people".(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_National_Land_League, accessed 21 January 2014)Image of bearded man known as Charles Stewart Parnellballarat irish, parnell, charles parnell, home rule

Protection of Person and Property Act 1881 The ''Protection of Person and Property Act 1881'' was one of more than 100 Coercion Acts passed by the Parliament of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland between 1801 and 1922, in an attempt to establish law and order in Ireland. The 1881 Act was passed by parliament and introduced by Gladstone. It allowed for persons to be imprisoned without trial. On 13 October 1881, the Act was used to arrest Charles Parnell after his newspaper, the ''United Ireland'', had attacked the Land Act. On Gladstone's return to office in 1880, William Edward Forster was made Chief Secretary for Ireland. He carried the Compensation for Disturbance Bill through the Commons, only to see it thrown out in the Lords. On 24 January 1881, he introduced a new Coercion Bill in the House of Commons, to deal with the growth of the Irish National Land League. Despite a 41-hour long fillibuster in the House by the Irish Parliamentary Party, the bill passed, among its provisions being one enabling the British government in Ireland to arrest without trial persons "reasonably suspected" of crime and conspiracy. However those arrested were often not always suspect, only supportive of the Irish National Land League's movements. Over 100 such acts were passed, some of the more notable of which were "An Act for the more effectual Suppression of Local Disturbances and Dangerous Associations in Ireland", "The Protection of Life and Property in Certain Parts of Ireland Act", and the "Protection of Person and Property Act 1881". An Irish Coercion Bill was proposed by Sir Robert Peel to calm the increasing difficult situation in Ireland as a result of the Great Famine 1844–47. The Bill was blocked and this led, in part, to Peel's retirement as Prime Minister. Later attempts to introduce Irish coercion acts were blocked by the filibustering of Joseph Biggar. As a response to the Plan of Campaign of the mid-1880s the new Chief Secretary for Ireland Arthur Balfour secured a tough Perpetual Crimes Act (1887) (or Coercion Act) aimed at the prevention of boycotting, intimidation, unlawful assembly and the organisation of conspiracies against the payment of agreed rents. The Act resulted in the imprisonment of hundreds of people including over twenty MPs. The so-called ''Crimes Act'' (or "Coercion" Act) was condemned by the Catholic hierarchy since it was to become a permanent part of the law and did not have to be renewed annually by parliament, but the Papacy issued the bull Link: "Saepe Nos" in 1888 which was uncritical of the Acts. Trial by jury was abolished. An influential analysis of the pros and cons of the Act was published in 1888 by W. H. Hurlbert, a Catholic Irish-American author. Many hundreds were imprisoned at times under the Acts, including many prominent politicians and agrarian agitators, Joseph Biggar, Alexander Blane, Michael Davitt, John Dillon, James Gilhooly, Patrick Guiney, Matthew Harris, John Hayden, J. E. Kenny, Andrew Kettle, Denis Kilbride, Pat O'Brien, William O'Brien, James O'Kelly, Charles Stewart Parnell, Douglas Pyne, Willie Redmond, Timothy Sullivan. [http://shelf3d.com/i/Irish%20Coercion%20Act, accessed 13/12/2013]A many sits on a table holding the lapels of his Jacket. ballarat irish, cabin, rent, tenants, quill, biggar, davitt

1 - Issue 1 - March 2007 - with photo of the Police Tram (2109) - Welcome message from the CEO Dennis Cliche, Good Friday appeal, Burwood highway works, new sub-stations at Coburg, Royal Park, Brunswick depot, Camberwell depot, East Preston, Essendon, Bundy Clock, Glenhuntly, Kew Depot, Malvern, Southbank,, Safety, events, Lunar Festival .2 - issue 2 - June 2007 - 18 pages, Malvern Depot (a green depot), Paul Matthews profile, trackwork at Glen Huntly and Essendon depots, Depot news, Joyce Barry tribute, Hawthorn depot museum, fund raising. .3 - issue 3 - Octr. 2007 - 16 pages - fund raising - Melbourne city romp, Des Davies retirement, CPR rescue of a collapsed driver, depot news, retirements and a chemical and fire incident on the Vermont South line. .4 - issue 4 - Jan. 2008 - 12 pages - fundraising, family events, depot news, retirements, TramTracker Jake .5 - issue 11 - Winter 2010 - 16 pages - St Kilda Road Superstops, Michel Mason - CEO, Malvern depot centenary, Transformation, new maps on trams, fundraising, the leadership team, depot news, uniforms, South Caulfield Junction upgrade. .6 - 20 pages issue 12, Summer 2010, published soon after Keolis took over operations of Yarra Trams. The first 10 pages, look at Trams on the Fringe, Feedback, Football trams, staff matters, and features a story on page 10 of the Hawthorn Tram Depot museum and Driver Shaun McCarthy wearing the brown uniform in front of tram 1041. Fully Scanned. The second ten pages are reversed (upside down) and titled "Le Pantographer", featuring a Bordeaux tram on the cover. Provides details of Keolis operations such as Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Le Mans, Caen, Angers, Dijon and other operations. .7 - issue 6 - Spring 2008 - Meerkats, fleet operations, training, Art Alive, Kew depot - new inspection pits, Long Lay Malvern, Did You Know campaign, and looking for Cricket players - part scanned. .8 - issue 13 - Autumn 2011 - Michel Masson CEO, visit of French Media, Ron Scholten Retirement, photo of Geoff Dean of Camberwell, - part scanned. .9 - issue 5 - June 2008 - Tram works Swanston and Flinders, tram 111, cricket .10 - issue 8 - Autumn 2009 - Good Friday appeal, public transport ombudsman, Malvern centenary, my friend Mike .11 - issue 9 - Spring 2009 - Chris Cairns safety campaign, route 48, Myki, Tramtracker, Jake.Demonstrates Yarra tram staff newslettersEleven issues of Yarra Tram's internal newsletter "The Pantograph", all A4, center stapled. Issues not fully scanned, unless noted.trams, tramways, keolis, yarra trams, fohtd, hawthorn, uniforms, coburg, substation, royal park, burwood highway, fund raising, bundy clock, environment, glenhuntly depot, essendon depot, malvern depot, south caulfield, tram 2109, tram 84, route 48, tram 111, good friday