Bushranging in the Wild Paroo; A Raid into South Australia; A Relic
of the Bushranging Era; Agitation for the Release of Gardiner;
Official Reports as to Twenty-four Bushrangers Still in Gaol; The
Cases of Gardiner and William Brookman; Gardiner and the Other
Bushrangers Released; Gardiner Leaves the Country.
Bushranging in New South Wales practically ceased with the death of
Frederick Ward, alias Captain Thunderbolt. Previously to his tragical
death in the New England River, the few stragglers from the big gangs
had been captured, and any new men who attempted to revive the "reign
of terror" were speedily dealt with by the police. There were some few
robberies besides those already related which may be mentioned here.
They were distributed over a wide range of country, one party even
crossing the border into South Australia, where the bushranger had
hitherto been known only by hearsay. But these later bushrangers did
not inspire the terror which those who had passed away had done. They
were very small fry as compared with Gardiner, Gilbert, Hall, Dunn,
Morgan, Thunderbolt, and their companions. Three bushrangers stuck up
Mr. Wearne's station at Crookwell on January 6th, 1869, and stole £80
worth of property. The Carcoar mail was bailed up on the mountains,
near the Bathurst Road, by two bushrangers, when £15 were taken from
the passengers and the bags were searched. A desperate attempt was made
to stick up the Joint Stock Bank at Braidwood, but the robbers were
beaten off. The Southern mail was robbed on May 10th between Goulburn
and Marulan. An attempt was made to stick up the Yass mail on the 24th.
Mr. Longfield, a passenger, was wounded, but the robber was forced to
retire without having effected his purpose.
In December, a number of people were bailed up and robbed in the
Paroo and Warrego districts. The "Wild Paroo" had not been very long
reclaimed from its original desert state, but this did not prevent an
enterprising bushranger from finding his way there, though he did not
continue his career for any very lengthened period. He stuck up Messrs.
Lyons & Martin's station, and made the men sit on the top rail of the
stockyard fence while he rolled up a parcel of goods which he selected
from the store. Messrs. Browne, Zouch, and Bradley drove up in a buggy
while he was thus engaged, and were ordered to dismount and take their
places on the fence with the station hands. The robber escorted them,
pistol in hand, from where the buggy stood to the stockyard. While
walking across this intervening space, the bushranger inadvertently, or
carelessly perhaps, stepped rather too near to Mr. Browne, who stood
six feet five inches in his socks, and was proportionately strong. With
a whoop Mr. Browne pounced on to him and held him as in a vice. This
turned the tables completely. The men on the fence got off, and the
bushranger was in his turn securely tied to the fence and kept there
until the police could be brought from the nearest town, Bourke, about
a hundred and fifty miles away, to conduct him to prison. After this,
bushranging does not appear to have been popular in this district.
On the 9th May, 1869, Mr. Henry Kidder Gillham, manager of the
Australian Joint Stock Bank at Braidwood, returned home at eight p.m.,
and entered by the side gate, when a man sprang out from the shadow and
called on him to stand. The bushranger presented a revolver, which Mr.
Gillham pushed aside, when another man struck him with a life preserver
and knocked him down. Two shots were fired from revolvers. Michael
Collins, a gardener living on the bank premises, was in the kitchen
when the two bushrangers entered. One of them called out: "Not a word,
or it will be the worse for you." The tall man had a "Northumberland
voice--that is, he could not pronounce the r." They tied Collins, and
went out of the kitchen. In the meantime the firing had been heard, and
Mr. Finnigan, a teacher, with Sergeant Duffy and Constable Luke Dacy,
ran to the bank. When they got there two men ran out of the garden, and
after a chase, during which several shots were fired, Joseph Horne was
captured. He had no boots on. The other man, John Bollard, escaped at
the time, but was tracked and captured subsequently. The Chief Justice,
Sir Alfred Stephen, said that Horne had been sentenced to seven years'
hard labour at Maitland. He was afterwards convicted in Melbourne and
had escaped from Pentridge stockade, having been shot in the shoulder.
Horne said that punishment had made him what he was, and pleaded hard
for Bollard, who was young and had been enticed from the right path by
him. Horne was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment and Bollard to
ten years.
John Baker and William Bertram divided their attentions between New
South Wales and South Australia. In May, 1869, warrants were issued
for their arrest for horse stealing from the Mount Murchison station.
They took to the road and stuck up a number of people. In October they
bailed up a hawker named Charles Young, who resisted and was shot
dead. This occurred at the Barrier Ranges, not a great way from where
the Broken Hill silver-lead lode was afterwards discovered. Bertram
was followed and captured, and was subsequently tried, convicted,
and hung at Bathurst. Baker escaped for the time and made his way to
Koringa. Said the _South Australian Register_, "He showed a remarkable
want of caution in returning to a district where he had passed his
hobble-de-hoy years and was consequently well known." He had been
employed as a horse-breaker at the Cross Roads Grounds, Burra Burra,
about seven years previously and had afterwards worked for Messrs.
Macdonald & Hockin, mail coach proprietors, on the Great Northern Road.
On his arrival at Koringa he went into a barber's shop and asked to
have his hair cut and dyed. The hairdresser refused to dye it. Baker
swore at him, but could not change his determination. The bushranger
also grumbled at the time spent in cutting his hair, and continually
urged the barber to "hurry up." When the job was completed Baker walked
to Redruth, and sat down in the main street opposite the Court House,
where the police sessions were being held at the time. There were a
number of people about, but Baker sat and cut his tobacco with all
the nonchalance of innocence. He filled and lighted his pipe, and was
smoking comfortably, when Corporal Smith and Constable Walker came up
and said "You're our prisoner." "What for?" asked Baker. "Bushranging,"
was the short reply. Baker sprang up from his seat, and raced away at
a great rate along the road. He was speedily followed by the police
on horseback and brought back. He struggled furiously, slipping his
hands from the handcuffs with the greatest ease. The police, however,
carried him into the lock-up, and put him into a cell. When questioned,
he said he had brought a mob of horses down country for sale, and
carried a revolver for his own protection. In the same cell was a man
named Dobson arrested for horse stealing, who had been quiet until
Baker came. But the door was barely closed and locked when the gaoler
heard a suspicious noise in the cell. On opening the door he found
that Baker and Dobson were trying to make a hole in the roof with a
heavy board seat which they had wrenched from its mortice, and were now
using as a battering-ram. Baker was placed in another cell and ironed.
He was a small wiry man, very active, and a daring rider. In company
with Bertram he had stuck up the Mount Murchison station; stuck up Mr.
Cobham's station two hundred miles from Wilcannia, and taken money, a
revolver, and several horses; stolen the horse he was riding from Mr.
O'Leary, of Poolamacca; robbed and murdered a hawker at the Barrier
ranges, and stuck up and robbed a number of people on the roads about
Tiers, Gummeracha, and other places near the Murray River, on both
sides of the New South Wales-South Australian border. When Bertram was
captured, Baker endeavoured to induce a young man whom he met to join
him, telling him that they could easily raise £200 to £300, but the
young fellow replied that he "didn't want to be hung yet." Baker was
extradited to New South Wales, and was tried and hung at Bathurst early
in 1871.
On May 20th, 1870, _The Queanbeyan Age_ reported the finding of a
mail bag near the Big Hill. The bag was still locked and the seal
intact, but the bottom had been ripped open. It had evidently, from its
appearance, been lying in the bush for a long time, probably several
years. It was referred to as "a relic of the bygone bushranging era in
the district."
The Muswellbrook and Cassilis coach was stuck up at Wappinguey, on
November 1st, 1870, by two armed men. When ordered to bail up, E.
Cummins, the driver, enquired "What for?" "You'll soon see. Drive into
that bit of scrub," was the reply. Cummins did as he was ordered, and
when the coach was out of sight of the road he was made to get down and
hold his horses while the robbers went through the letter bags. When
they had finished, they told him to gather up the letters and go.
On the 3rd, Mr. Bellamy was lying under his cart asleep, about three
miles from Forbes, on the Currajong Road, when he was awakened by
some one calling "Come out o' that." He asked what was the matter,
and was told to come out unless he wanted his "brains blown out." He
crawled from under the tarpaulin which covered his cart, and handed
the bushrangers three £1 notes. "Where's the rest? We know what you
got for your load at Forbes," said one of the bushrangers. "I paid it
away to a man I owed it to," replied Bellamy. "That won't do. You never
stopped anywhere; we were watching you. Where is it?" As Bellamy still
persisted in saying that he had paid away the money, he was compelled
to stand with his face to the wheel and was tied there. A handkerchief
was also tied round his head, with the knot thrust into his mouth, as
a gag. They shook out Bellamy's blankets, searched the feed-bag of his
horses, and hunted everywhere, until at length they discovered thirteen
£1 notes tucked under the tilt of the cart. Having secured their booty
they cautioned Bellamy not to move for an hour under pain of being
shot, and went away. Two of them jumped over the track in what was
called the road, to avoid leaving footmarks in the dust, but the third
appeared to be stiff and walked across into the bush. After they had
been out of sight for a time, Bellamy began to struggle. He capsized
the spring cart before he succeeded in breaking the rope, but as soon
as he got loose he walked back to Forbes and informed the police of
the robbery. The robbers were followed and found in a public-house
drinking, a day or two after the robbery.
One day, about this time, a man walked into the branch bank at
Cassilis, pointed a pistol at the head of the cashier, and ordered him
to "bail up, or I'll blow your brains out." "Will you, by G--?" cried
the cashier, as he placed his hands on the counter and vaulted over.
The would-be robber was so startled by this unexpected action on the
part of the cashier that he dropped his weapon and ran. The cashier
immediately gave chase along Main Street, and soon captured and brought
back the pseudo bushranger. The news spread rapidly, and in a few
minutes the whole population of the little township was in the Main
Street. It was soon learned that the only policeman stationed in the
town had gone to Mudgee "on a case," the would-be robber was therefore
treated to a good cuffing and some threats, and turned adrift. The
revolver was found to be old, rusty, and useless, but for some time it
hung in the bank chamber as a caution to bushrangers. It may be there
yet for all I know. This attempted bank robbery appears to have been
conducive to thirst, as the bars of the two "hotels" were crowded for
the rest of the day by a laughing and jeering mob of citizens.
This little comedy furnishes a very appropriate finish to the story
of the many tragedies which were enacted during this the most serious
outbreak of bushranging which has occurred in New South Wales. During
the following two or three years the people were gradually becoming
convinced that the crime of bushranging had been thoroughly stamped
out, and a sort of reaction set in. Letters appeared in the newspapers,
in which the writers urged that some clemency might safely be shown to
some of the young men who were still in gaol. In spite of the brutal
indifference which many of the bushrangers had shown for human life, it
was almost impossible to help admiring the reckless courage exhibited
by them. One thought was frequently expressed in various ways. It was
that these bushrangers would have made magnificent soldiers if they had
been properly trained and made amenable to discipline. There was in
fact a disposition to regard them much as the philosopher regards dirt,
as "matter in the wrong place." Although no record of the movement
can be found in the newspapers and other publications of the period,
there can be no doubt that the growth of the spirit of humanitarianism,
now so prominent a characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon in all parts of
the world, had an immense influence. The convict system, which was
regarded as the basis of bushranging, had long since passed away.
The convicts themselves had almost died out, and had ceased to be a
prominent class in the community. Here and there one of the old fellows
lingered and told stories of the barbarous times which had once existed
in the colonies. But they were generally incapacitated by age from
doing much harm. There had been a time when horror and detestation of
the convicts was very general, but even these feelings had gone now,
and there was a prevalent opinion that the convicts had been made
worse by the brutal discipline to which they had been subjected. The
very papers which were most strenuous in their exhortations to the
Government of the day to stamp out bushranging at any cost, and which
urged the police and all orderly citizens to slay and kill any person
who interfered with the mails or who molested travellers on the high
roads, now admitted that the bushrangers had been harshly dealt with.
Those who had been convicted of murder, or of attempts to murder, had
been hung or shot, while the lesser criminals had been sentenced to
penal servitude for life or for very long periods. The juries all over
the country had shown no leanings towards mercy or clemency, and the
judges had treated the bushrangers with great severity. The people
generally, it was asserted, had given ample proof that they would not
tolerate a reign of terror such as the bushrangers had striven so hard
to establish, and if there should ever be another outbreak, which was
not considered probable, it would be crushed out long before it could
possibly assume such vast proportions as it had gained during the past
era. If there were evil-disposed persons in the colony they would be
aware that public opinion was opposed to them and would hesitate before
they decided to adopt bushranging as a profession. It is worthy of note
that although the brutalities exercised under the old convict system
were said to have tended towards the demoralisation of the community,
and were largely responsible for the prevalence of bushranging and
other crimes, the practice of flogging for serious offences is still
the law in many of the colonies. The general public, however, is seldom
logical, and therefore even the Australians still strive to abolish
brutal crimes by punishments no less brutal, although the history of
the colonies affords such ample evidence of the futility of these
means. But the spirit of mercy was abroad. Public meetings were held in
all centres of population, petitions were sent to the Governor and the
Legislature, and the Press was full of letters praying that mercy might
be shown to the evil-doers. The prisoner most frequently mentioned
was Frank Gardiner. It is true that he had organised the first gang,
and had given a vent to the evil passions of a class. But for him
this terrible bushranging era might never have been inaugurated. But
he had never committed murder, and had retired from the country and
endeavoured to lead a lawful life after only a few months on the
road. It had been said that he was engaged in sly grog selling, even
when he was ostensibly keeping a store on the road to the diggings
in Queensland, but if so it was for the Queensland authorities, not
those of New South Wales, to punish him for this offence against the
licensing laws. The Queensland authorities had, however, never made
any charge against him, and the report might not be true. At length
the Chief Justice (the late Sir Alfred Stephen) wrote to the Sydney
newspapers. His letter appeared on June 23rd, 1874. Sir Alfred said
that the end and aim of all punishment are, first, the preventing of
individuals, and secondly, the deterring of other individuals, from
the committing of similar crimes.... Sentences aggregating thirty-two
years had been passed in a time of great excitement, and the punishment
seemed to have been measured more in view of the crimes he was supposed
to have committed than with reference solely to those which were proved
against him.... He could not say whether the reported reformation
was sincere, but he thought that the prisoner had been sufficiently
punished and, therefore, recommended a conditional pardon.
Emanating from such a source, this opinion carried great weight, and
almost coincident with its publication, the Governor, Sir Hercules
Robinson, afterwards Lord Rosmead, laid before the Executive Council
six petitions signed by a number of well known and responsible persons
in various parts of the colony praying for the release of the convict
Gardiner. He said it was true that no hope of an absolute remission
of his sentence had ever been held out to him, but in the Governor's
minute of December 5th, 1872, it had been implied that if the prisoner
continued to conduct himself well he might hope for remission at the
end of ten years.
Official returns were laid on the table showing the number of prisoners
still in penal servitude for highway robbery. The prisoner whose case
attracted most attention next to Gardiner was William Brookman. His
parents were said to be respectable. He was only seventeen years of age
when he was charged on January 16th, 1868, with wounding with intent
to murder. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but his sentence
was commuted to fifteen years' penal servitude. It was said to have
been his first and only attempt at highway robbery, and he had never
previously been arrested or charged with any offence against the law.
At the time of this enquiry he had served six and a-half years of his
sentence.
The other bushrangers in gaol were:--Samuel Clarke, sentenced April
18th, 1866. Served five years, one month. No previous conviction.
Daniel Shea, sentenced November 6th, 1865. Served eight years, six
months. Previously sentenced for two years for horse stealing.
William Willis, alias Dunkley, sentenced May 16th, 1866. Served eight
years. Three previous convictions for horse stealing, of nine months,
eighteen months, and six months respectively.
Alexander Fordyce, sentenced February 23rd, 1863. Served eleven years,
nine months. No previous conviction.
John Payne, sentenced January 14th, 1868. Served six years, six months.
No previous conviction.
James Jones, sentenced March 31st, 1864. Served ten years, one month.
No previous conviction.
Robert Cotterall, alias Blue Cap, sentenced April 29th, 1868. Served
six years, one month. No previous conviction.
James Boyd, alias McGrath, sentenced February 24th, 1864. Served nine
years, three months. Previously sent to gaol for five years for horse
stealing.
Thomas Cunningham, alias Smith, sentenced April 9th, 1867. Served seven
years, one month. No previous conviction.
Charles Hugh Gough, alias Wyndham, alias Bennett, sentenced April 9th,
1867, served seven years, one month. Previously sentenced to three
years for assault with intent to rob.
Thomas Dargue, sentenced March 28th, 1867. Served seven years, two
months. No previous conviction.
Henry Dargue, sentenced March 28th, 1867. Served seven years, two
months. No previous conviction.
John Kelly, sentenced March 11th, 1867. Served seven years, two months.
Previously sentenced to two years for embezzlement.
Edward Kelly, sentenced January 14th, 1867. Served six years, seven
months. No previous conviction.
James Smith, sentenced April 15th, 1866. Served seven years, one month.
Previously sentenced to three years for horse stealing.
John Foran, sentenced October 18th, 1867. Served six years, seven
months. No previous conviction.
John Williams, sentenced to death January 14th, 1868. Sentence commuted
to fifteen years' penal servitude. Served six years, four months. No
previous conviction.
William H. Simmons, sentenced April 6th, 1868. Served six years, one
month. Previously sentenced to ten years on two charges of larceny.
William Taverner, sentenced April 5th, 1867. Served five years, one
month. No previous conviction.
Daniel Taylor, sentenced October 24th, 1865. Served eight years, one
month. No previous conviction.
John Bow, sentenced February 26th, 1863. Sentence death, commuted to
imprisonment for life. Served eleven years, six months. No previous
conviction.
John Bollard, sentenced October 19th, 1869. Served four years, seven
months. No previous conviction.
All these prisoners were very young men, little more than boys,
when they were convicted; and, of the twenty-three, sixteen had
had no charges brought against them previously to their arrest for
highway robbery. The four others who had been previously convicted of
horse-stealing were cattle duffers and horse planters, which had been,
a few years before, scarcely considered to be crimes by the residents
of the districts in which these young men were born; although the law,
when it came to be enforced in these districts, called these acts
criminal. It was said that if Gardiner was to be released these young
men, who had been led away principally by his example, should also have
their sentences remitted.
The reports with such comments as had been made on them by the
Executive Council were placed before the Legislative Assembly, and on
July 3rd a debate began relative to the cases of Gardiner and Brookman,
it being understood that the decision in the case of Brookman should
apply to the other twenty-two named in the reports. On a division being
taken the vote stood twenty-six for and twenty-six against a remission
of the sentences. The Speaker gave his casting vote with the ayes, and
it was consequently resolved that the two prisoners should be released
on July 8th, 1874.
The Governor extended the prerogative of mercy to the others named
above, and they were all released at the same time. In the case of
Gardiner the pardon was coupled with the condition that he should leave
the colony forthwith, consequently a short time after his release he
sailed to California, and was reported to have died there about nine
years later. Mrs. Brown, his paramour, had died in New Zealand during
his incarceration.
The release of the bushrangers was not carried without opposition,
however. A monster meeting of diggers was held at Grenfell to protest
against any mercy being shown them. Large meetings were held elsewhere,
and it was said that remitting the sentences of the bushrangers
was tantamount to encouraging other evil-disposed persons to rebel
against the laws. The speakers deplored the action of the Governor,
the Executive, and the Legislature, and prophesied a new outbreak of
lawlessness. But the spirit of the opposition was less active than that
of the persons in favour of mercy, while the majority of the population
were more or less indifferent. And so ended the great outbreak of
bushranging in New South Wales.