Jackey Jackey, the Gentleman Bushranger; His Dispute with Paddy
Curran; Some Legends About Him; Jackey Jackey Always Well-dressed and
Mounted; His Capture at Bungendore; His Escape at Bargo Brush; Jackey
Jackey Visits Sydney; His Capture by Miss Gray; Paddy Curran's Fight
with the Police; Recaptured and Hung; John Wright Threatens to Make a
Clean Sweep.
William Westwood, better known as Jackey Jackey, was the darling of the
old hands. He was only an errand boy in England, and was transported
for some small peccadillo when he was sixteen years of age. He landed
in Sydney in 1837, and was assigned to Mr. Phillip Gidley King, at
Gidley, in the Goulburn district. He stayed at the station for nearly
three years, and then, in company with a notorious scoundrel named
Paddy Curran, stuck up and robbed his employer's house. The partnership
between Jackey Jackey and Curran, however, did not last very long.
Curran disgusted Jackey Jackey by his brutality to women. In one of
their mutual enterprises Curran criminally assaulted a woman, the
wife of the farmer whose place they had stuck up. Jackey Jackey was
furious. He declared that even if a man was a bushranger he might be
a gentleman, and added that he would never see a woman insulted. He
threatened to shoot Curran unless he left at once, and stripped him of
his horse, arms and ammunition. This story furnishes the key-note to
Jackey Jackey's character. To the old hands he was always the gentleman
bushranger. The stories told by them about the Jewboy and other
bushrangers, and even about Mathew Brady, were generally coarse and
sometimes brutal, but Jackey Jackey was always polite and well-behaved.
More legends have collected round the name of Jackey Jackey than round
that of any other of the bushrangers, and many of them are obviously
variants of the stories told of the historical highwaymen of England.
For instance, Jackey Jackey is said to have bailed up the carriage
of the Commissary. When he discovered that the Commissary's wife was
inside he dismounted, opened the door and, sweeping the ground with
his cabbage tree hat, as he bowed low before her, he invited her to
favour him with a step on the green. He rode incredible distances in
incredibly short periods of time. He is represented as bailing up a
man near Goulburn and telling him to note the time by his watch and
then racing away and bailing up another man at Braidwood or some other
place a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles away in a few hours and
asking that person to note the time. Many of the popular stories told
about him are so evidently apocryphal that little notice can be taken
of them. But one thing is certain and that is that he was always well
mounted. He scorned to steal an inferior horse and would travel miles
to secure a racer. He stole racehorses from Mr. Murray, Mr. Julian, and
many other gentlemen in the districts over which he ranged.
Although he appears to have been of humble origin he is credited with
having been highly educated. This point was especially insisted upon by
his eulogists among the old hands. By them he was always represented
as being "able to hold his own," in conversation, with "the best of
'em." I remember one old fellow telling me that when Jackey Jackey
met Governor Gipps (of which meeting, however, I can find no record)
the governor and the bushranger had a long conversation and parted
mutually pleased with each other. "You and me," said the old chap,
"couldn't have understood what they said though it was all English;
but, they talked grammar." What his precise meaning was I had no
idea, but I have always thought that he intended to suggest that
their conversation was all carried on in what he might have called
"dictionary words;" that is, words not used by the uneducated. But
everything said of Jackey Jackey redounds to his credit from the old
hand point of view. He was emphatically "a good man." The meaning
attached to words is purely conventional, and is therefore liable
to vary with the conventionalities. The point of view of the convict
being entirely different to that of the law-abiding citizen, the terms
"good" and "bad" changed places in their vocabulary. Thus the clergy,
the magistrates, the free men, were generally "bad men," while those
who resisted authority, who fought against law and order, were "good
men." Even the cannibal Pierce was a good man from their point of view,
however strongly they might condemn his methods. But Jackey Jackey,
although he continued the fight to the bitter end, and ended his life
on the gallows when he was only twenty-six, never did anything mean
or brutal or unworthy of a gentleman bushranger, until he was almost
goaded to madness by the cruel discipline of Norfolk Island.
Paddy Curran was "out in the bush" several months before Jackey Jackey
joined him, and he was not the only bushranger at work in the district.
On December 31st, 1839, the station of the Rev. Mr. Cartwright was
stuck up and robbed. On the same day a skirmish between the police
and seven mounted bushrangers took place near Yass. One of the police
horses was killed, and the police were compelled to retreat. On the
same day, Mr. Heffernan's house, not far from Goulburn, was stuck up
and robbed of £21 in money, a case of duelling pistols, a valuable
mare, and other property. Mr. Israel Shepherd also lost a valuable
horse, besides some money, and Mr. Charles Campbell was reported to
have been shot dead. This is a heavy record for one day, and as the
robberies took place so far distant from each other, there must have
been at least three separate parties concerned in them. About the same
time it was reported that Scotchy and Whitton were plundering the
stations on the Lachlan River in all directions, and that Mr. Arthur
Rankin had left his station and retired to Sydney in consequence of
the insecurity in the country districts. The robberies continued all
through the year 1840, and a great part of 1841.
On January 13th of the last-mentioned year a man ran into the township
of Bungendore, and said that Jackey Jackey had followed and fired at
him. A few minutes' later Jackey Jackey himself, mounted on a splendid
mare, which he had stolen from the Messrs. Macarthur, hove in sight
on the plains. He was dressed in a fine suit of clothes which he had
obtained when he stuck up and robbed the store at Boro a few days
before. He stopped to speak to a man near Eccleton's. In the meantime
Mr. Powell, the resident magistrate, and his brother, Mr. Frank Powell,
promptly mounted and went towards the bushranger, and were joined
by Richard Rutledge, who, however, had no arms. As they approached
Jackey Jackey wheeled round and fired at them, but failed to hit any
one. Mr. Balcombe and the Rev. Mr. McGrath drove up in a gig, and Mr.
McGrath jumped down and presented his gun. Jackey Jackey seeing himself
surrounded, surrendered. He explained that his mare had come a long
journey and was unfit to travel, and that his musket was out of order
and would not go off. He was conducted to the inn and placed in a room,
two ticket-of-leave men being placed there to guard him. Jackey Jackey
sat very quiet for some time. Then he jumped up suddenly, knocked down
one of his guards, snatched his musket, jumped through the window, and
ran across the plain. Frank Powell, who was close at hand, followed
him, and with the assistance of Dr. Wilson's postman, recaptured him.
Among other exploits previous to this capture Jackey Jackey had robbed
the Queanbeyan, Tarago, and other mails, stuck up Mr. Julian, Mr.
Edinburgh, and a number of other people on the roads at various times
and places, stolen horses from all the principal owners and breeders in
the district, fired at the driver of the Bungendore mail, who escaped,
and had robbed the Boro Creek store of clothing, money, provisions, and
other articles, on the Tuesday before his capture. For several months
Lieutenant Christie and the whole of the mounted police of the district
had been trying to capture him, and he had more than once escaped only
by the superior fleetness of his horses. As soon as possible after his
capture he was handed over to Lieutenant Christie, who conducted him
to Goulburn, where he was lodged in the lock-up. The following day he
was being taken to Bargo Brush, on the road to Sydney, when he made
a desperate attempt to escape on foot, running for a mile before he
was recaptured. He was then tied on the horse and the journey was
resumed, but at night he broke out of the Bargo lock-up, taking with
him the watch-house keeper's arms and ammunition. He soon procured a
horse, and on the following day stuck up Mr. Francis Macarthur on the
Goulburn Plains. He robbed Mr. Macarthur of his watch, money, and other
valuables, and took one of his carriage horses because it was better
than the animal he was riding.
In the meantime the other bushrangers in the district had not been
idle. In September, 1840, a fight took place between the police and the
bushrangers near Wellington. One of the bushrangers was shot dead, and
a mounted trooper was wounded in the shoulder. A few days later another
encounter occurred, when a constable was shot dead within two miles of
the township.
On October 3rd, Mr. Robert Smith's station, Newria, was attacked by
four armed bushrangers and plundered of everything worth carrying away.
Mr. Aarons had recently arrived from Sydney, with the intention of
opening a store in Wellington. The bushrangers threatened to throw him
into the fire unless he handed over his money. They got upwards of £400
from him. Mr. McPhillamy rode up at the time, and was invited by one
of the bushrangers to dismount and come in. He dismounted, and then,
discovering the class of men he had to deal with, quickly jumped on his
horse again and started. The bushrangers fired at him, and one of the
bullets so severely injured his hand that it had to be amputated. A
reward of £200 was offered for the capture of these men.
On Tuesday, May 18th, 1841, a gentleman, mounted on a spirited horse,
pulled up at the tollbar on the Parramatta Road, Sydney, and asked
the toll-keeper if he could oblige him with a pipe of tobacco. The
toll-keeper gave him a piece, and the gentleman dismounted and filled
his pipe. As he stood at the door of the toll-house he remarked a
firelock hanging over the mantelpiece, and asked what it was for. "For
bushrangers," replied the toll man. "But there are none now. I've never
seen it taken down since I've been here." "Did you ever hear of Jackey
Jackey?" enquired the gentleman. "Oh, yes," replied the toll man,
"but he's a long way away. He never comes to Sydney. If he did he'd
soon be caught." "Not at all," replied the gentleman laughing. "They
don't know how to catch him, nor to keep him when they do catch him.
I'm Jackey Jackey." He raised the lappels of his coat as he spoke and
showed a brace of pistols stuck in his belt on each side. The tollman
looked very much alarmed, but the bushranger said to him, "Don't be
frightened, I am not going to hurt you. I've been in Sydney for three
days and I'm going back to Manaro." He informed the tollman that he
had taken a horse in Sydney, but that he was too old and stiff, so he
had taken the liberty of exchanging him for the one he had with him
at Grose's Farm. "Ain't you afraid of being took?" asked the tollman.
Jackey laughed. "I'd like to see who'll stop me while I've these little
bull-dogs about me," he said, tapping his pistols. He stood chatting
while he smoked regardless of the fact that Grose's Farm, now the
grounds of the Sydney University, was within a stone's-throw of the
tollbar. He offered the tollman some money and asked him to go to the
public-house for some rum. The tollman replied, "I can't leave the
bar." "All right," returned Jackey, "then I'll get it myself." He went
away to Toogood's Inn and returned in a few minutes with half-a-pint of
rum. He gave some to the toll-keeper and took a stiff glass himself.
Then he shook hands with the tollman, mounted his horse, and rode on
towards Parramatta.
On the 8th of July a great commotion was caused in George Street,
Sydney, by a soldier arresting a well-dressed man and asserting that he
recognised him as Jackey Jackey. A large number of people assembled and
there were plenty of them quite ready to assist in the capture of the
noted bushranger. On the prisoner being taken to the police court proof
was soon forthcoming to show that he was a free man. He was discharged
and the soldier was censured for being too officious. Since the visit
of the bushranger in May had become known a constant look-out had been
kept in case he should repeat his visit.
Jackey Jackey did not long maintain his freedom, however. He one day
went into Gray's Black Horse Inn on the Berrima road, called for some
refreshments, went into a sitting room, and threw himself on the sofa.
He was served by Miss Gray, and while he was drinking she pounced on
him and screamed. Her father and mother came to her assistance, but
Jackey Jackey fought with so much determination that he would no doubt
have got away. A carpenter named Waters was working near, however, and
hearing the noise he rushed in and struck Jackey Jackey on the head
with his shingling hammer. Knocked senseless, the noted bushranger
was easily secured. It will be remembered that Gray's Black Horse Inn
was about three miles from Mulligan's farm, and was the place where
Lynch had bought the rum to treat Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan just before
he murdered them. The capture of Jackey Jackey was effected for the
purpose of securing the reward of offered for him dead or alive. He
was tried for the robbery of the Boro store, and was sentenced to
penal servitude for life. He was first confined in Darlinghurst Gaol,
Sydney, but being detected in an attempt to escape, he was transferred
to Cockatoo Island at the mouth of the Parramatta River. While here
he organised a band of twenty-five prisoners, and made a desperate
attempt to escape. The gang overcame and tied a warder, and then jumped
into the harbour with the intention of swimming to Balmain. The water
police, however, were apprised of the mutiny and captured the whole
gang. It has been asserted that no prisoner has escaped from Cockatoo
Island. The distance from the island to the shore is not very great,
certainly less than half-a-mile to the nearest point, but all who have
tried to swim it have either been retaken by the police or eaten by
sharks.
The gang was tried for this attempt at escape and were sentenced to be
sent to Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land. Being such a desperate lot of
scoundrels they were chained down in the hold of the brig, in which
they were forwarded, for safety; but, in spite of this precaution, they
contrived to get loose and were only prevented from capturing the brig
by the hatches being put on and battened down. They reached Port Arthur
in an almost suffocated condition, and were nearly starved, as they
had had no food for several days; the captain of the brig not daring
to remove the hatches, either to let in air, or to pass food to the
prisoners.
Jackey Jackey succeeded in escaping from Port Arthur and immediately
resumed his bushranging career. He was captured, however, after a
very short run and was sent to Glenorchy Probation Station for milder
treatment. Probably this attempt at reformation came too late, but
however this may have been, it had little beneficial effect. Jackey
Jackey made his escape and again began bushranging. He was captured
in a house in Hobart Town and was sentenced to death. The sentence,
however, was commuted to penal servitude for life and he was sent to
Norfolk Island, where we shall hear of him again later on.
In the meantime, Jackey Jackey's old mate, Paddy Curran, continued to
rob as before. He went to Major Lockyer's station and entered the men's
hut while they were having their Christmas dinner, in 1840. He had a
pair of handcuffs hanging at his belt, and was therefore thought to
be a constable out on the spree. He helped himself freely to the good
things on the table, and behaved generally so as to induce the idea
that he had been drinking. One of the men, however, said he did not
believe that the visitor was "a drunken trap," and Curran immediately
knocked him down with the butt of his gun. The man jumped up at once
and rushed at Curran. There was a struggle for a time, and the man
got Curran down. He was, however, too much exhausted to hold him, and
Curran got up. The other men, who were all assigned servants on the
estate, looked on and applauded the wrestlers, but not one of them
made any motion to assist his mate, otherwise Curran might easily have
been captured. After his wrestling match Curran walked out of the hut,
mounted his horse, and rode away. On the following day Curran again
went to the station, and found Mr. North, son-in-law to Major Lockyer,
and another man in the store. He called on them to bail up, and both
men held their hands up. Curran was about to enter the store-door when
he was pinioned from behind. Mr. North and his store-keeper rushed
forward, and after a severe struggle, during which the bushranger
tried hard to get his gun free, he was captured and tied. The man who
had pinioned him was the man with whom he had had the wrestling match
the day before. Curran was taken to Goulburn for examination, and was
remanded to Berrima to take his trial, "where," said the _Port Phillip
Herald_, "it is to be hoped he will be more securely confined, and not
allowed to escape, as he did before."
Paddy Curran and James Berry, another bushranger, were sent to Berrima
for trial in charge of Constables McGuire and Wilsmore. They stopped at
a hut on the road for a rest and food. After they had finished their
meal Constable Wilsmore left the hut, and stayed away for some time. At
length Constable McGuire went to the door of the hut to call him, and
Berry and Curran, taking advantage of his action, immediately rushed
upon him. They were handcuffed together, and this no doubt hampered
their movements. McGuire fought hard. The bushrangers had seized the
guns, and each held one. McGuire endeavoured to wrest the gun from
Curran with one hand, while he held Berry's gun off with the other
hand. He yelled for Wilsmore, but Wilsmore did not come. At length
Berry got his gun loose and shot McGuire in the back of the head and in
the shoulder. At this moment Constable Wilsmore returned, and seeing
his mate dead and the prisoners in possession of the guns, ran away
again. Curran and Berry beat McGuire about the head until he was dead,
and a "fearful spectacle to look upon." Then they searched his body,
and finding the key of the handcuffs, released themselves and made off.
The two bushrangers continued their depredations for only a few months,
however, as they were tracked down by the police and captured. Curran
was tried on September 15th, 1841, for the murder of Mr. Fuller. He
afterwards confessed to this murder. He said he was in company with
two other bushrangers on the road near Bungendore when he heard two
men quarrelling. Curran and his mates went towards the road and hid
behind trees. Presently two men, riding on one horse, came in sight
and appeared to be having a dispute about something. They were talking
loud and swearing at each other. Curran stepped out from behind the
tree and called on them to stop. Instead of doing so they wheeled the
horse and began to gallop away. Curran fired and both men fell, while
the horse bolted along the road and soon got out of sight. One of the
men jumped up as soon as he fell and ran into the bush and they did not
see him again. The other man was Mr. Fuller, and he was either dead or
at point of death. "I turned him over and took about £11 in money and
a pocket knife out of his pockets," said the bushranger.
Curran was also tried for having committed a rape on Mary Wilsmore.
He went to the hut occupied by Wilsmore on the 8th of February. It
was near Bungendore. He ordered Mrs. Wilsmore to get him some tea. A
bushranger, named White, was with him. Mrs. Wilsmore went outside to
get some wood to make up the fire and Curran followed her, knocked
her down, and dragged her away to some scrub where he committed the
offence. He was found guilty of both crimes and was sentenced to be
hung. There were another case of rape, several cases of murder, and
numbers of robberies and burglaries charged against him, but none of
these were heard.
James Berry was tried for the murder of Constable McGuire, and was
sentenced to death.
At the same sessions John Wright, another bushranger, was also
sentenced to death. The case against him was as follows;--On May 17th,
1840, Mrs. Margaret Foley, living at Long Swamp, about thirty miles
from Bathurst, was going from her house into the detached kitchen
at the rear, when three armed men appeared. She shouted "Here's the
bushrangers" and ran into the kitchen. Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Foley's
partner in the farm, came out of the house and fired both barrels of
his gun at the intruders, but failed to hit any of them. The leader of
the gang followed Mr. Cunningham, who went back into the house; and
saying, "It'll be a long time before you and Steel (son of Captain
Steel) hunt us again," shot him dead. Wright then went to the kitchen,
pushed the door open, and asked where Foley was? On being informed that
he had gone to Bathurst, he replied "I'm sorry for it. I'd 'a served
him the same as Cunningham if I'd 'a caught him." He swung his gun
about in such a reckless manner that one of the assigned servants in
the kitchen requested him to be careful, adding "Recollect that there
are women and children here." Wright told him to mind his "own----
business and be----" to him. He continued to swear about Foley's
absence and declared that he'd a "good mind to make a clean sweep."
He became cooler afterwards, and having collected all the jewellery
and other valuables, went away. In passing sentence the Chief Justice
commented on the great number of robberies which had been committed by
Wright and his gang and said there was no hope of mercy. Wright thanked
his Honour and then coolly asked whether he might have a candle in his
cell, as it was very dark.