This 1862 petition was initiated in protest to the sentencing of William Spicer who was convicted for his involvement in rioting against the Chinese community at Lambing Flats gold fields in 1861. The individual collated sheets of signatures were pasted together, 2 abreast and then end to end to form a single 13 metre long document. For storage, the petition was folded in half lengthways, and then compactly rolled over and over. The problem for anyone who wanted to read the document was that in order to open up the petition, the entire length needed to be unrolled first.
