As Ben Hall entered 1865, the last year of his life, he was no longer merely the bold robber of the Lachlan roads, but the central figure in a crisis that had forced the colonial government toward extraordinary law. The shooting of Sergeant Parry at Jugiong, followed by the gang’s continued robberies through Goulburn, Binda, Collector, and the southern districts, convinced police and politicians that ordinary warrants were no longer enough. Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn moved through the country as armed fugitives, sheltered by friends, warned by sympathisers, and feared by those who might otherwise have helped the law. In response, the government framed the Felons Apprehension Act, a measure intended to strip such men of the protections normally owed to accused persons and to make harbouring them a punishable offence. For Hall, it marked the closing of every avenue except flight, surrender, or death. By the autumn of 1865, with a price on his head and the machinery of outlawry gathering around him, he had become a man hunted not only by police patrols, but by the full force of the colonial state.
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| The above dramatic painting of Ben Hall's death provides a graphic illustration of the last moments of Hall's life. Inspector Davidson and troopers portrayed in police uniform are inaccurate. The police wore civilian attire and removed both coats and boots to move more freely on a frigid May morning. Moreover, there is some evidence to support the hypothesis that Hall was shot dead in his bush bed and not as depicted above. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend! |
Ben Hall
After Parry’s death at Jugiong, Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert, and John Dunn entered the last and most reckless phase of their bushranging lives. The killing had raised the stakes beyond ordinary robbery. They were now men marked by murder, yet they continued to ride through the southern districts with a confidence that humiliated police and frightened whole communities into submission. The mails, stations, inns, and roads remained vulnerable. Travellers were bailed up, coaches stopped, public-houses entered, and those who resisted risked bullets or ruin.
By Boxing Day 1864, the gang had carried this armed theatre to Binda. Binda lay in country well suited to bushranging. Its scattered farms, rough roads and wooded ranges offered concealment, horses, provisions and a network of people who might help an outlaw voluntarily, reluctantly or merely through silence. By late 1864, Ben Hall was deeply embedded in this world. He had stepped from the ordinary colonial life and had spent more than two years ranging across central and southern New South Wales. With Johnny Gilbert and the newly recruited John Dunn, he moved between friendly stations, isolated inns and districts in which the gang could obtain information faster than the police.
That evening Boxing Day 1864, they rode to Edward Morriss’s Flagstaff Store. Morriss was a dangerous man to leave free: a former policeman, active, known locally, and precisely the sort who might organise a capture if given the chance. At the store were Ellen Monks and Christina McKinnon, apparently buying crinolines from Mrs Morriss. Then came a knock at the door. Morriss opened it and found Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn before him, revolvers drawn. He was ordered to bail up.
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| Flag Hotel, Binda |
Morriss, however, was not content to submit. Seeing the bushrangers drinking, he quietly proposed a rush, agreeing to take Hall himself. The plan failed before it began. Whether betrayed or merely suspected, it was detected. Hall and Gilbert turned on him, and Morriss escaped through a window while shots were fired after him. He ran for the bushrangers’ horses, failed to secure them, and hid in the scrub between the hotel and his store.
Hall’s mood turned from revelry to vengeance. The bushrangers declared that Morriss’s store would burn. Mrs Morriss begged them to spare it, but the plea failed. From his hiding place Morriss saw the gang and the women moving back toward the store. He later swore that Hall said he would make the place pay for it, and that Christina McKinnon and Ellen Monks encouraged him, while Margaret Monks asked that Mrs Morriss’s clothes be saved. Soon candles showed inside the store, boxes were broken open, and the smell of kerosene drifted through the night. Then the building caught. Morriss watched his property burn from the scrub.
However, Christina McKinnon enters the history of Ben Hall abruptly, on horseback, on the evening of Boxing Day 1864. Before that night she had lived for years in the isolated country around Binda and Laggan, but had attracted no known attention beyond her local community. After the events that followed, her name appeared in newspapers throughout the Australian colonies, associated with bushranging, robbery, arson and an apparent intimacy with the most celebrated outlaw in New South Wales.
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| Christina McKinnon c. 1875 |
Within the crowded hotel, however, Christina did not behave like one of Hall’s unwilling prisoners. Morriss testified that she and Hall were openly intimate. He saw Hall with his arm around her, embracing and kissing her. Mary Morriss similarly recalled Hall kissing Christina while Gilbert paid the same attention to Ellen Monks. Their behaviour was conspicuous enough to become a central part of the later court evidence.
This is the strongest contemporary evidence for a relationship between Christina and Hall. It proves familiarity, physical affection and voluntary companionship during the ball. It does not, by itself, prove that Christina was Hall’s established lover in the fuller sense later writers sometimes imply. No surviving letter, statement or independent witness describes an ongoing courtship. Nevertheless, their conduct was considerably more intimate than a polite encounter between acquaintances, and Hall’s apparent participation in arranging or accompanying her journey suggests that their association was not fleeting.
The Binda affair became more than a robbery. It was domination, spectacle, and revenge. Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn had taken a village Christmas function hostage, danced with the captives, flaunted their relationships with local women, and destroyed the property of the one man who tried to resist them. In the months that followed, the law would answer with increasing severity. The Felons Apprehension Act would be framed to put such men outside ordinary legal protection. Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn had made themselves symbols of colonial disorder; now in 1865, the government meant to make examples of them.
Authors Note: Ellen Monks and Christina McKinnon were said to have encouraged the fire, with words to the effect of “It serves him right” and “Do it, Ben.” Margaret Monks, by contrast, was not shown to have supported the burning. Indeed, the evidence attributed to her was of a different character: concern that Mrs Morriss’s clothing should be saved.This difference is important because later tradition has tended to flatten the women of Binda into a single romantic legend. Ellen Monks and Christina McKinnon were linked in witness testimony with Gilbert and Hall. Margaret Monks was present, but the surviving evidence does not place her in a comparable intimacy with John Dunn. The notion that Margaret was Dunn’s sweetheart, or that their supposed attachment produced a child, belongs to the realm of bushranging folklore fantasy rather than demonstrated fact.
The records of Margaret Monks’s later life point in another direction. Research into her family history indicates that she was in a long-term relationship with Coleman, not Dunn, and that the child John, registered at Trunkey Creek in March 1866, was not evidence of a secret union with the young outlaw. The timing alone makes the Dunn theory highly improbable. For Dunn to have fathered that child, contact would have needed to occur around May or early June 1865. By then Dunn was wounded, hunted, and in flight after Gilbert’s death near Binalong. He was moving through country under extreme pressure, seeking shelter where he could, and avoiding detection under the shadow of outlawry. Margaret Monks, meanwhile, was not shown to have been part of his flight, nor is there credible evidence that she joined or assisted him during that desperate period.
The romantic Dunn-Margaret story therefore appears to be a later invention, encouraged perhaps by the dramatic setting of Binda, the presence of the Monks sisters, and the tendency of bushranger legend to supply love affairs where the documents supply only suspicion, proximity, and gossip. Margaret’s later life further weakens the claim. She had a family with Coleman, bore further children, and eventually married him. Her life after Binda was not the hidden aftermath of a bushranger romance, but the more ordinary, traceable course of a woman whose name had been briefly caught in a notorious colonial scandal.
The women at Binda should therefore be treated separately. Christina McKinnon and Ellen Monks were remembered because witnesses placed them in flirtatious association with Hall and Gilbert and because they were later charged over the burning of Morriss’s store. Margaret Monks was present, arrested, and suspected, but then discharged. To attach her romantically to John Dunn is to impose a legend upon a record that does not support it. Binda was scandal enough without inventing a further romance. The evidence shows a hostage dance, two women openly familiar with Hall and Gilbert, a store burned in revenge, and a third woman whose later life points away from Dunn entirely.
After the trial Christina McKinnon's story fades almost entirely from the historical record. Unlike Ben Hall, whose death at Billabong Creek only months later ensured his place in Australian folklore, Christina disappeared into obscurity. No confirmed marriage, death notice, obituary or probate record has yet been securely linked to her. Whether she remained in the district, married under another surname, or deliberately sought a quieter life beyond the attention of the newspapers remains unknown.
Her brief appearance beside Ben Hall nevertheless provides a rare glimpse into the personal life of a man otherwise remembered almost exclusively through violence and outlawry. The relationship reminds us that Hall's existence was not confined to robberies, gunfights and police pursuits. Even while carrying a price upon his head, he still sought companionship, attended country dances, flirted openly and moved among people willing—whether through affection, loyalty or admiration—to receive him despite the risks.
For Christina McKinnon, that association proved both fleeting and enduring. It lasted only a few months in the documentary record, yet it became the reason history remembered her at all. Stripped of speculation, she remains one of the more enigmatic figures to pass briefly through the orbit of Ben Hall's gang: a young woman whose relationship with Australia's most famous bushranger is clearly documented, but whose own life before and after those remarkable months is still largely hidden from view.
The new year opened with no slackening in the career of Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn. If the burning of Morriss’s store at Binda had shown their capacity for spectacle and revenge, the first weeks of 1865 showed something equally dangerous: range. They were no longer confined to the old Lachlan ground, nor even to the familiar refuge country about Wheogo and the Weddin Mountains. They now rode across the southern districts with a speed and assurance that made every inn, store, station, mail coach, and racehorse vulnerable.
Their presence was apparently known to a number of people attending the meeting, yet the police remained unaware that the notorious gang was so close at hand. This circumstance suggested either that those who recognised the bushrangers were unwilling to inform against them or that news of their presence failed to reach the authorities until after they had departed.
The most startling incident allegedly occurred while Sir Frederick Pottinger was riding in one of the races. Watching his persistent police adversary upon the course, Hall was reported to have remarked:
“I have a good mind to shoot him.”
Whether the words represented a genuine intention or merely a boast made among his companions cannot be determined from the brief account. No attempt was made upon Pottinger, and the race meeting continued without violence.
The correspondent treated the gang’s appearance as another example of its growing recklessness. Hall and his companions had ventured within sight of a public gathering, remained there for two days and watched a senior police officer compete—all while many spectators apparently knew who they were. Such audacity, the writer predicted, could not continue indefinitely:
“The gang will venture too much one of these fine days, and will find themselves in the hole.”
The “racecourse” was not an enclosed metropolitan ground. It differed little from the surrounding open bush. At about seven o’clock only a few owners, trainers and jockeys were present, exercising horses before the day’s spectators arrived. Hall and Dunn could approach without passing gates, grandstands or a concentrated police guard.
They appeared at Tom Higgins’s booth, friend and owner of the Dog and Duck hotel, where they drank several nobblers. Their manner was casual, but their presence was a calculated act of bravado. They were wanted for serious offences, yet stood drinking beside the course as though ordinary racing men.
Among those exercising horses was H. Battye, who was leading or riding the racehorse Hollyhock. Hall stopped him at revolver-point and asked several questions. What Hall wished to learn was not recorded, but the gang’s interest may have included the horses assembled for the meeting and the disposition of police. Having obtained his answers, Hall allowed Battye to continue without robbing or injuring him.
Hall and his companion then reportedly joined the jockeys in an impromptu gallop. As the morning advanced, the bushrangers’ visit became an exhibition of “flash braggadocio.” Hall and Dunn mingled with the trainers and riders already on the course and joined them in an impromptu footrace. Dunn, the younger and lighter man, proved the strongest runner and won the contest. Hall, whose increasing weight and bad leg had already attracted contemporary comment, laboured behind and finished a distant last. The spectacle amused those present, but it involved little of the danger later attributed to it. Even so, the spectacle carried an unmistakable message. Hall had ridden back onto the racecourse where Pottinger had once arrested him, matched horses with the jockeys and departed without interference.
The gang’s appearance became inseparable from the controversy surrounding Sir Frederick Pottinger. Later that day Pottinger rode in a gentlemen’s race on his own horse Bushranger, despite police regulations restricting officers from participating in racing.
To his critics, the incident represented everything wrong with the pursuit of Hall’s gang. The bushrangers had been on the Wowingragong course while the officer responsible for capturing them was occupied with racing.
By the time Sir Frederick Pottinger rode in the gentlemen’s race, the bushrangers were no longer upon the course. A later correspondent defending Pottinger stated that “credible witnesses” had seen them at the Pinnacle, approximately twenty miles away, long before Pottinger’s race was run. No information concerning their early appearance had reached the police while they were still at Wowingragong, leaving no immediate opportunity for interception.
“…were seen by credible witnesses at the Pinnacle—a station distant twenty miles from the racecourse—long before the time when the race in which Sir Frederick rode came off on this same day.
The Pinnacle was familiar and potentially friendly ground. Its station was associated with Margaret Feehily, the widowed sister of Daniel Charters, one of Hall’s oldest friends and a former participant in the Eugowra escort robbery. It is therefore possible that Hall sought assistance or shelter through the Charters connection. The contemporary report, however, establishes only that the gang was seen at the Pinnacle; it does not prove that Hall entered Margaret’s home or met Daniel there.
Pottinger later argued that his participation formed part of a trap. Inspector Sanderson and a party of police had been concealed in one part of the surrounding bush, while Sergeant Condell and another detachment waited elsewhere. By behaving as though he were interested only in the meeting, Pottinger hoped to persuade the bushrangers that the police had relaxed their vigilance.During a second race, Pottinger reportedly intended to fall behind the other rider on an isolated part of the course. If Hall’s men attempted to cut him off, the concealed troopers could close upon them. Pottinger was armed while riding, and police galloped inside the course in readiness for an attack.
The bushrangers did not take the bait. According to the first report, Hall and Dunn reappeared near the course after nightfall, but nothing came of the police arrangements. However to the suprise of all Hall said of Pottinger riding, "he didn't know him."
No valuable racehorse was taken at Wowingragong, and no substantial robbery occurred. Yet the gang won the contest of appearances. Hall and Dunn had drunk at the booth of Messrs Watson and Morton for two hours, stopped Battye, inspected the racing scene and galloped with the jockeys. They then disappeared before police could respond.
Pottinger’s elaborate preparations remained invisible to the public. What people remembered was that the bushrangers had visited the races and escaped while the inspector himself rode in an event.
The incident gave Pottinger’s enemies the opportunity they needed. His participation was judged a breach of regulations, and he was dismissed from the police force on 16 February 1865. Many residents of Forbes defended him and petitioned for his reinstatement, insisting that he had been energetic, courageous and unfairly treated. Nevertheless, his attempt to use the race meeting as a decoy ended his police career.
For Hall, the return to Forbes carried a grim symmetry. He was still regarded locally as a grazier of good character. In January 1865 Hall nnow an armed fugitive, rode openly upon the same ground and departed untouched. On that summer morning at Wowingragong, the Lachlan still appeared to belong to him.
Dissapearing from Forbes their next foray began at the end of January near Tuena, where they visited W. Ford’s inn and took about £10 in cash. Three Chinese men were also robbed of a further £15 or £20. It was a small affair beside Binda, but it marked the continuation of the same pattern: sudden arrival, armed command, rapid plunder, and disappearance before pursuit could form.
From there they moved to the Lost River, near Wheeo, where James Christie, a farmer and small storekeeper, became their next victim. Christie’s store was stripped not merely of money but of goods. The bushrangers took a miscellaneous assortment and loaded the property onto a pack-horse, leaving Christie with a loss estimated at about £40. The incident shows the practical nature of much of their bushranging. Money was welcome, but supplies were just as valuable. A gang living by movement needed food, clothing, equipment, ammunition, and pack animals; country stores became unwilling depots for men who had placed themselves beyond ordinary trade.
By Saturday they were at John Warne’s place at Crookwell. There the object was horseflesh. They took three horses, including the racehorse Young Waverley, well known on the Goulburn course. Two of Warne’s horses, including Young Waverley, were recovered the same day, but the reason for their release soon became clear. Leaving Warne’s, the gang appear to have pushed on toward Willoughby’s, about ten miles distant, where they secured two better prizes: the racehorses Jerrawong and Peacock, recently run at Marulan and being kept for the Goulburn anniversary races leaving Young Waverley. The taking of these animals was not incidental theft. Good horses were the life of bushranging. They meant flight, endurance, prestige, and survival. Hall’s gang understood blood stock as well as any racing man in the district, and their seizure of horses intended for the anniversary races was both practical and insolent.
The next day brought a sharper encounter. On the Breadalbane Plains, between Lodge’s and Hilton’s public-houses, the Yass to Goulburn mail was travelling with several passengers: Mr Castles, a schoolmaster from near Sydney; an unnamed youth; two policemen, Cade and McCarthy; and a lunatic in their custody. Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn rode out from the bush and fired upon the coach from a distance of perhaps one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards, spread apart from one another across the ground. One ball passed close to the driver and Castles, while another was said to have struck the coach curtain, though the report doubted whether the hole had truly been made in that way.
The two policemen did not submit. Cade and McCarthy ordered the coachman to pull up, dismounted, took aim with their carbines, and returned fire. Cade believed he may have struck either Gilbert or Gilbert’s horse, though any injury was slight. Gilbert fired again, this time with a rifle. After some apparent signalling among themselves, the bushrangers wheeled away, returned briefly to a similar distance, then finally rode off. The coach resumed its journey, the police walking beside it until the horses were changed and the party reached more open ground. Despite the interruption, the mail reached Goulburn at its usual hour.
The encounter was important because it showed the altered atmosphere after Parry’s death. The gang were willing to fire on a coach carrying police, and the police were willing to answer. This was no longer simple highway robbery conducted under the old ritual of “bail up” and search. It was armed contest on the public road. The report praised Cade and McCarthy for their conduct and observed that, had they been armed with the newer revolving rifles rather than ordinary carbines, they might have shot the bushrangers outright. Such remarks show how closely the public now connected police equipment, government failure, and the gang’s continued survival.
That same day Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn called at Bean’s inn, three miles from Gunning. They ransacked the place, though the report did not yet know what had been carried away. A traveller named Richard Fenton was robbed of £2, and his horse and saddle were taken possession of; only after earnest pleading was he allowed to keep them. Dunn’s own horse was said to be knocked up, which explains the pressure for fresh mounts. Even at this stage, amid bravado and gunfire, the gang remained subject to the hard mechanics of distance, fatigue, and horse management.
Thus the opening of 1865 found Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn ranging through the Goulburn side of the country with renewed boldness. They robbed inns, plundered a rural store, seized racehorses, fired upon the Yass mail, tested police escorts, and took or spared horses according to necessity. Their crimes were becoming more frequent, more mobile, and more openly defiant. The government and police could see the pattern plainly enough: these were not isolated robberies, but a campaign of mounted predation across southern New South Wales. The answer, when it came, would be extraordinary law. Before autumn was over, the colony would move toward outlawry.
On Thursday 26 January, the affair moved toward Collector. Judge Meymott had left Goulburn for Yass, preferring the road by Collector rather than the usual main road, and was escorted by Constables Grey and Parker. Near Currawang, about three miles from Collector, Grey saw a mounted man emerge from the bush and took him for one of the bushrangers. The man was later identified as Gilbert. Grey moved toward him, but was called back by the judge. From later remarks attributed to the gang, it appeared that Gilbert had ridden out intending to capture Grey, but, seeing Parker behind him and seeing Grey face him without hesitation, thought better of it and returned to cover.
Only a short distance further on, the gang stopped Mr F. Hoare of Gundaroo. Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn searched him, took several half-sovereigns, examined but returned his cheque, silver, and watch, and told him that they intended to visit Collector that evening. For that reason, he was detained. The bushrangers then took possession of the road. They stopped horse-teams, bullock-teams, and travellers, gathering about thirty prisoners. Cases were broken open, clothing was taken, and Gilbert searched unsuccessfully for a suitable pair of boots. On one dray they found a new double-barrelled fowling-piece belonging to Mr Ranyard of Gundaroo; Gilbert loaded it and kept it. Cases of bottled porter were opened, and the liquor was shared freely among those detained. The scene had the familiar mixture of coercion and rough sociability: armed robbery conducted as roadside theatre.
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| Thomas Kimberley’s public-house |
About seven o’clock, the captives were released, and the gang rode into Collector. Their destination was Thomas Kimberley’s public-house. There they ransacked the premises, taking guns, boots, and other articles. The guns were later recovered, apparently dropped in haste. At this point the village had been stripped of its normal protection. After Mr Voss, J.P., warned Judge Meymott and his escort of the bushrangers’ presence, the available police went out in search of them. One party rode toward Wollogorang, another toward Rose’s Lagoon. The man left behind at Collector was the lock-up keeper, Constable Samuel Nelson.
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| Constable S Nelson |
It was a decision made in almost impossible circumstances. Nelson knew he was walking toward three armed bushrangers, men already associated with Parry’s death and fresh from a day of robberies. He had no proper support. The other police were out searching in the wrong directions. Yet he went. His action has to be understood not as rash heroics alone, but as the act of a local constable who believed the township, the prisoners, and the authority of the law had been placed directly in his hands.
The most painful evidence came from his son Frederick. At the inquest, Frederick Nelson stated that he saw his father approaching the inn. Near a fence, a bushranger sprang from cover, called on Nelson to stand, and fired almost immediately. Nelson staggered into the road. The bushranger fired again, and Nelson fell. Frederick was only about ten yards away. The same man then called on him to stand and fired at him as he ran, but missed. Frederick later found that his father’s body had been taken inside Kimberley’s house. He was dead. During the killing, another of Nelson’s sons had been forced to hold the bushrangers’ horses outside the inn under threat.
The witness William Leonard Edwards also placed Dunn in the role of sentry. Edwards had ridden toward Kimberley’s after hearing that bushrangers were there, saw a man come out as if to stop him, and turned back. He met Nelson and warned him that a bushranger was following. Shortly afterwards he heard the shots. Thomas Kimberley gave still more damaging evidence: the man outside the inn rode after Edwards, returned crying that the police were coming, called out for Ben, and soon after came back saying he had shot a “trap.”
The official and later police accounts identify the killer as John Dunn. NSW Police records state that Dunn hid behind a fence and shot Nelson without warning, and that Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn then fled after robbing the inn. The Police Roll of Honour records Nelson as having been shot by Dunn at Collector on 26 January 1865. The inquest evidence later returned a finding of wilful murder against Dunn, with Hall and Gilbert treated as aiding and abetting.
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| Couch Nelson was laid on. |
After the shooting, Mr Voss and the returning police briefly sighted three horsemen in the darkness. The bushrangers leapt their horses over roadside logs and escaped into the bush, leaving behind the horse stolen earlier from Pearce. Darkness, broken country, and the gang’s horsemanship again defeated pursuit.
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| Mrs Nelson and Grandson |
The latest murder of Constable Samuel Nelson at Collector on 26 January 1865 marked another hardening in the public understanding of Hall’s gang. Sergeant Parry had already fallen near Jugiong; now Dunn, the youngest of the three, had shot down a local lock-up keeper in front of Nelson’s own children. Yet the gang did not immediately break apart or flee the southern districts. Instead, the newspaper reports show them moving rapidly through the country between Collector, Gunning, Murrumburrah, Crookwell, Breadalbane, Binda, and the Goulburn side of Berrima. The pattern was familiar but increasingly desperate: road robberies, station visits, seized horses, commandeered food, forced shoeing, rough carousing, and constant reliance on warning networks.
After Collector, nothing was immediately heard of the gang until they reappeared near Cunningham Plains, about four miles from Murrumburrah. There they stopped several people, including a man named King, who was travelling with his wife and family from the Ironbark diggings. Dunn accosted them with the usual command to “bail up.” From Mrs King he took seven one-pound notes and nine shillings in silver, though the silver was returned. His behaviour was reported as especially insolent. He warned her that unless she was more civil he would treat her as he had treated the constable at Collector. The remark is important. Dunn was not merely fleeing from the murder of Nelson; he was using it as a threat. The same report says he took a hen from under a coop in the dray, wrung its neck, and told his companions it would make a good feed for the bush.
By Thursday 9th February 1865, the gang was again near Gunning, where they visited Mr Best’s station and took a horse. This was typical of their movements at this stage. Horses had become more valuable than money.
Meanwhile Inspector Roberts had been ranging for weeks about the gang’s old camping grounds. One report from Carcoar described Roberts and his men riding hard and camping in the bush, only to see the bushrangers galloping through the timber after dark. The police fired but did not hit the men. Next morning, following the tracks, they found that one of the bushrangers’ horses had been shot and lay dead, apparently wounded in the head. The correspondent expressed regret that the bullet had struck the horse rather than its rider. Such language shows the temper of the time: after Parry and Nelson, the bushrangers were increasingly written of not as daring rogues, but as desperadoes whose deaths would be welcomed.
That anonymity is part of the importance of his story. For a few violent minutes at Hanging Rock, Kippen refused the submission upon which Hall’s system of robbery depended—and survived.
The encounter occurred during Hall, Johnny Gilbert, and John Dunn’s movement through the Goulburn–Marulan district in early 1865. Hanging Rock in this context was not the northern goldfield settlement near Nundle, but the locality on the southern road near Marulan and Goulburn. The remote landmark showed a sweeping view of the countryside and those traversing it. Therefore, it lay within the country the gang traversed during their raids around Breadalbane, Gunning, Collector, Paddy’s River, and the approaches to Goulburn.
By then the gang’s reputation usually did much of its work for them. When three armed horsemen appeared and ordered a traveller to “bail up,” resistance was exceptional. The ordinary calculation was brutally simple: money and property could be replaced; a life could not. After the deaths of Sergeant Edmund Parry and Constable Samuel Nelson, no traveller could safely assume that defiance would be answered only with threats.
Kippen nevertheless refused.
Gilbert appears to have taken the leading part in the confrontation. He asked Kippen whether he possessed any money and then ordered him to fetch or surrender both his money and his gun. The demand for the firearm was significant. The gang commonly disarmed its victims before searching them. Once a traveller’s weapon had been handed over, the psychological and physical contest was finished.
Kippen would not give up either.
Gilbert answered the refusal with gunfire. The report states that he fired several shots, although it does not establish whether he fired directly to kill Kippen, fired hurriedly as the young man moved for his weapon, or intended some of the shots as intimidation. Whatever Gilbert’s intention, Kippen was now facing live fire from one of the colony’s most experienced and dangerous bushrangers.
Instead of retreating, Kippen presented his own gun.
Gilbert immediately turned his horse, apparently attempting to carry himself out of Kippen’s line of fire. The movement saved Gilbert from the full charge, but exposed the animal behind him. Kippen fired and struck the horse in the rump. Wounded or terrified, it began bucking violently and threw Gilbert to the ground.
In a few seconds the balance of the encounter changed.
Gilbert had approached as the mounted aggressor, supported by Hall and Dunn and confident that his name, weapons, and position would compel obedience. He was now on the ground, his horse plunging away and his intended victim still armed. The horse reportedly bolted, removing Gilbert’s immediate means of escape.
Hall moved to help his companion rise. That exposed him in turn.
Kippen fired a second time at Hall while Hall was assisting Gilbert. The report does not say that Hall was struck. It is possible that the shot passed wide, that Hall used the horses or ground as cover, or that the limitations of Kippen’s weapon prevented a quick and accurate follow-up. What matters is that Kippen had fired twice, remained on his feet, and showed every intention of continuing the fight.
Hall and Gilbert abandoned the robbery.
With Gilbert’s horse gone, the two men mounted together and withdrew. Dunn’s precise part in the encounter is not recorded. He may have remained mounted as cover, but the source gives him no active role. Nor does it explain why three armed bushrangers did not surround Kippen or renew their attack from a safer distance.
Their reported parting words provide the answer, or at least the explanation they chose to give: “Let him alone, he is a game fellow.”
The expression game carried more force in colonial usage than it does today. It meant courageous, spirited, and willing to fight despite the odds. Hall and Gilbert were acknowledging that Kippen had refused to be frightened into the passive role expected of a victim.
There was also an element of face-saving in the remark. The gang had failed to obtain Kippen’s money or gun. Gilbert had been unhorsed, one of their animals had been wounded and lost, and Hall had come under fire while helping him. By praising Kippen’s courage, they could present their withdrawal as a voluntary concession to a worthy opponent rather than an embarrassing defeat.
Note: Little is known of William Kippen beyond the contemporary account of his encounter with Hall’s gang at Hanging Rock. He was described only as a young man associated with Richmond and travelling towards Goulburn. His age, occupation, family, and later life have not been securely identified.
Even his surname should be treated cautiously until confirmed against the original newspaper image. Yet the incident itself preserves a vivid impression of the man. Kippen refused to surrender his money or firearm, returned Gilbert’s fire, wounded and unhorsed the bushranger’s mount, and fired again as Hall came to Gilbert’s assistance. The gang withdrew without robbing him, reportedly declaring him “a game fellow.”
Kippen then disappeared from the bushranging record. For a few moments, however, this otherwise unknown traveller broke the gang’s customary ritual of command and submission and forced three notorious bushrangers to abandon their attack.
The gang’s reach then extended to Murrumbah, or Paddy’s River, about eighteen miles on the Goulburn side of Berrima. There they reportedly stuck up the village, a settlement of only ten or twelve houses, and remained for much of the night carousing. A party of police was at Marulan, only twelve miles away, but knew nothing of the affair until the following morning. The contrast is telling: the bushrangers could dominate a village for hours while police close by remained ignorant. The state had men, horses, and weapons, but Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn still had surprise, local intelligence, and the power of fear.
In the following days the gang returned to horse-stealing in the Crookwell district. They paid a second visit to Mr Warne’s place and again stole Young Waverley, a racehorse previously lifted. Soon afterwards Gilbert appeared at Mr Chisholm’s forge near Merrila and compelled the blacksmith to shoe his horse. The animal was recognised as Young Waverley. Gilbert paid ten shillings for the work, while Hall and Dunn waited in a nearby gully and did not come into the forge. Before that, they had stopped Chisholm’s gardener and taken as much fruit as they could eat, but allowed him to keep the little silver he had about him. These details give the gang a strange, practical texture: they could be violent murderers one day, then pay a blacksmith, spare a poor man’s coins, and eat stolen fruit the next.
The newspapers also began to emphasise the “bush telegraph.” At Breadalbane Plains, the Goulburn mail stopped at Lodge’s inn. Lodge’s inn was a centrepiece for much of Halls depredations on the Breadalbane Plains. halted to change horses, accompanied by two constables as guard. While at the inn, the police noticed several persons whom they believed to be spies or “telegraphs” in the service of the bushrangers, probably sent to discover whether the coach was guarded and who was travelling by it. The gang themselves were said to be on an adjoining hill watching the inn. Seeing that police were present and apparently ready for their descent, they quietly rode away. This episode is one of the clearest contemporary statements of how Hall’s gang continued to operate. Their mobility was not only a matter of good horses; it depended upon eyes, messengers, sympathisers, and silence.
The same report widened the accusation beyond the familiar refuge districts. It had once been supposed that Hall’s gang was chiefly harboured about Murrumburrah, the Lachlan, and the Fish River. Now, the writer argued, there was reason to believe that people in other parts of the southern districts were countenancing the gang and supplying them not only with food and shelter, but with ammunition. The point was blunt: the bushrangers could not keep their cartridge-boxes filled with powder and ball unless they had friends wherever they went. By early 1865, the police were not merely hunting three men. They were fighting an informal support system.
Taken chronologically, these reports show the gang’s condition after Nelson’s murder with unusual clarity. They were under increasing pressure, but not yet crippled. They were pursued near old camps, fired upon near Binda, forced to replace horses, watched by police guards on the mail roads, and occasionally resisted by armed civilians. Yet they still moved fast enough to rob travellers near Murrumburrah, take horses near Gunning and Crookwell, appear at forges and inns, and hold small settlements in terror. Dunn’s threat to Mrs King, invoking the killing of Nelson, shows the moral descent of the youngest bushranger; Gilbert’s encounter with Kippen shows his recklessness and vulnerability; Hall’s continued command shows a leader trying to keep the whole enterprise moving even as law and public anger closed around them.
These weeks after Collector therefore form the bridge between the gang’s public bravado and its destruction. They were still active, still supplied, still feared, and still capable of humiliating police. But the reports also show the narrowing circle: patrols were closer, coaches were guarded, informers were suspected, and armed men were beginning to shoot back. The Felons Apprehension Act would soon give legal expression to what the newspapers were already demanding in tone: Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn were no longer to be treated as ordinary offenders. They were to be hunted as outlaws.
It was reported as Hall commandeered the southern roads that the captured Frank Gardiner's effects were sold under the hammer.
SALE OF GARDINER'S EFFECTS. - The Rockhampton Bulletin of 4th instant says; - Gardiner's property and effects were sold by public auction yesterday, at the Commercial Sale Rooms, by Mr. Miles Wormald. There was an unusual attendance, and the articles were disposed of at remarkably good prices. The horses, though of a very inferior description, sold for more than their market value, perhaps from the fact of their belonging to the notorious bushranger.
Every movement of Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn continued to depended on fresh mounts. A tired horse meant danger; a good one meant another district, another inn, another robbery, and another escape. Their repeated seizure of horses around Gunning, Binda, Crookwell, and the southern roads shows how constantly they had to renew their mobility.
However, rumours of a disagreement in the gang multiplied. On 22 February the Goulburn Herald and Chronicle reported the most remarkable of them: that John Dunn had been shot by Hall and Gilbert. The story had travelled as far as Sydney, but the newspaper’s metropolitan correspondent declared it untrue. No witness, locality or circumstances were given, and the gang’s subsequent movements soon demonstrated that Dunn remained alive and in their company.
The rumour nevertheless arose in a plausible atmosphere. Less than a month earlier, at Collector on 26 January, Dunn had shot Constable Samuel Nelson. Public indignation was intense, and stories began to circulate that Hall had condemned the killing as unnecessary and quarrelled with his younger companion. It was claimed that Hall reproached Dunn while the gang divided its spoils at an old hut, telling him that Nelson’s killing had been needless and cold-blooded. Dunn allegedly taunted Hall as “chicken-hearted,” whereupon Hall knocked him down; Dunn drew his revolver, but Gilbert intervened. This colourful account may preserve a genuine tradition of disagreement, but it cannot independently prove the February rumour. But it was widely known Hall was disgruntled with the young bushranger.
However, the gang’s need for superior horses continued.
On Friday, two members of Hall’s gang were seen at Spring Valley, where they took a saddle from a man named Woods to replace one belonging to Johnny Gilbert that had broken. They were reportedly seen again among the neighbouring ranges on Saturday, although their precise movements during the day remained uncertain.
There was less doubt about their appearance at Molonglo on Saturday night. Hall, Gilbert and Dunn entered the stables of Peter M‘Alister and took three horses: the well-known racehorses Bergamotte and Bosco, together with a William Tell colt. The colt was released shortly afterwards.
The gang also took a horse belonging to James Sherwood and four sets of saddles and bridles. One belonged to Mr Rutledge, another to Sherwood, and the remaining two to the owner of Bergamotte. Although a subsequent letter described five valuable horses as having been stolen, the earlier report specifically identified four, one of which—the William Tell colt—was soon abandoned.
The Goulburn Herald subsequently published a letter condemning the police response. Its author maintained that the authorities had received ample warning of the gang’s presence. On Saturday evening, a traveller from Goulburn reportedly reached Bungendore with information that Hall’s gang had robbed a man of his horse and equipment near Wallaroo. The police were also said to have learned that the bushrangers intended visiting the properties of Messrs Bowen and M‘Alister.
Despite this warning, the three men reportedly rode through Bungendore at about eleven o’clock that night without being challenged. They then continued to Molonglo, where they secured the horses and riding equipment from M‘Alister’s stables at considerable expense to Bowen and M‘Alister.
News of the Molonglo robbery reached Bungendore with the mail on Sunday morning. According to the correspondent, the local police still made no effective movement.
At about four o’clock that afternoon, further information arrived. A clergyman travelling towards Molonglo had reportedly met and recognised Hall, who was riding with his companions and leading a chestnut horse in the direction of Bungendore.
Approximately an hour and a half later, numerous townspeople saw three horsemen approaching across the plain. One of them was leading a chestnut horse. Believed to be Hall, Gilbert and Dunn, the riders avoided the centre of Bungendore by making a slight detour to the left.
Around dusk, the gang was said to have stopped briefly in Mr Powell’s paddock, within a quarter of a mile of the town and plainly visible from it. There, according to the hostile correspondent, the bushrangers calmly prepared and ate their tea while Bungendore’s three heavily armed policemen remained within the settlement.
The writer’s account became increasingly satirical:
“[They] enjoyed a quiet tea—a repast in which our policemen were too polite to join uninvited.”
The gang’s boldness allegedly continued after dark. At about one o’clock in the morning, horsemen believed to be the bushrangers were seen and heard patrolling the streets of Bungendore. The correspondent remarked bitterly that they had temporarily relieved the police of an “irksome duty” and had performed the night patrol without being questioned.
By morning the gang had disappeared, leaving few discernible tracks. The letter concluded with a fierce attack upon the usefulness of Bungendore’s police. The writer asked why three able-bodied constables were stationed there if they could do nothing beyond lending ceremony to the monthly Petty Sessions and occasionally bringing an intoxicated offender before the court. The events of the weekend, he argued, demonstrated their inability to apprehend anyone “sober enough to use his limbs.”
The report illustrates both the gang’s dependence upon fresh horses and equipment and the intense public frustration with the police. Hall, Gilbert and Dunn had apparently moved through settled country despite repeated sightings, robbed stables containing valuable racehorses, passed near or through Bungendore and camped within sight of the town before disappearing.
Yet some caution is required. The most humiliating details—the gang’s unchallenged ride through Bungendore, its roadside tea and its nocturnal patrol of the streets—came from an anonymous and openly hostile correspondent. They reflect contemporary anger at the police but were not presented as sworn evidence.
The police response also changed in character. Sub-Inspector Brennan left Yass with a small independent party: volunteers Jones and Crommelin, Constable Cade, and Harry, an Aboriginal tracker. Brennan was to act independently except under the Inspector-General, and his movements were not to be confined to any one district. This was an important development. Ordinary district policing had repeatedly failed because Hall’s gang did not respect district boundaries. They crossed from Goulburn to Yass, from Binda to Gunning, from Murrumburrah to Breadalbane, and from the southern roads toward Molonglo and Bungendore. Brennan’s party was designed to follow the men rather than the map.
The composition of the party is also telling. Jones had formerly resisted a bushranger attack at a station and had been involved in a struggle in which one of the attackers was killed. Crommelin was the son of the police magistrate at Araluen. Cade had already shown courage when Hall’s gang attacked the Goulburn mail. Harry, the tracker, was described as shrewd and accustomed to firearms. The report’s tone was hopeful: this was a small but efficient band, intended to meet mobility with mobility and local knowledge with trained pursuit.
These post-Collector reports therefore show a gang still active but increasingly hunted. Hall remained the recognised leader, Gilbert the seasoned and dangerous lieutenant, and Dunn the reckless youth whose murder of Nelson had deepened the gang’s infamy. They robbed families on the road, took horses from stations, watched the mails from hilltops, relied on bush telegraphs, appeared at inns, and shifted across the southern country before police could close upon them. Yet the signs of pressure were everywhere. Coaches now had guards. Police were watching likely roads. Trackers were being deployed. Volunteers were joining the chase. Rumours of internal violence circulated. The public language hardened.
In these weeks the colony’s patience was running out. they were no longer being described merely as daring highwaymen. They were spoken of as marauders, murderers, and desperadoes, sustained by hidden friends and protected by a countryside the police could not easily penetrate. The road from Collector to the Felons Apprehension Act was therefore not a sudden leap. It was built from precisely these reports: murdered police, guarded mails, spies at inns, armed bushrangers watching from hills, horses stolen by night, and a gang that could still ride away laughing while the machinery of ordinary law lagged behind.
At Springfield, near Goulburn, Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn suffered one of their sharpest humiliations. As with Mr Kippen. Expecting another easy bail-up after robbing the Braidwood mail, they attacked a break carrying four Faithfull brothers. Two were armed, two were not; none submitted. The boys returned fire, killed Gilbert’s mount Young Waverley when the bushranger’s own revolver discharged as the horse reared, and then fought their way back to the homestead under pursuit. The gang escaped, but with no prisoners, no victory, and one valuable racehorse dead on the road.
The days events:
In early February 1865, Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn were ranging through the country between Goulburn and Berrima, still active after the murder of Constable Nelson at Collector. Their movements had become increasingly bold and unsettled. On one morning they called at Osborne’s place on the Wollondilly, about eight miles from Goulburn, compelled Mrs Osborne to prepare breakfast, behaved kindly to her infant twins, and left without searching the house. By Friday night they were at Paddy’s River, a small village between Berrima and Goulburn, where they bailed up the population and reportedly robbed Mrs Murray, a storekeeper. The following day they were at the Ploughed Ground, where Mr Kelly of the Black Horse Inn lost money and jewellery, and they also visited Brenan’s inn at the Cross-road.
Their progress then brought them toward Springfield, the estate of William Pitt Faithfull, a substantial pastoral property near Goulburn. The bushrangers had already detained travellers on the road. A bullock driver employed by Mr Faithfull was stopped near his master’s gate, and one or two other riders, including a girl, were also bailed up. About ten o’clock the Braidwood mail, driven by Owen Malone, came along. Hall’s gang stopped the coach, took £9 from Malone, opened the mail-bags, and removed £8 from letters, though they rejected cheques and allowed Malone to keep his watch. A second coach from Goulburn to Braidwood arrived, but as it carried no Monday mail and little of value, the bushrangers got nothing from it.
The gang might have expected another easy detention, but the next vehicle on the road was different. Mr Faithfull’s break, drawn by four horses, had just left Springfield. In it were four of his sons. Two of the boys, Monty and Reginald, were returning to school in Sydney after the holidays; their older brothers, William Percy and George, were driving them toward Goulburn to see them off by coach. The family were not travelling as armed police or volunteers. One had a single-barrelled rifle, apparently carried in hope of shooting a wild turkey, and another had a revolver. The other two were unarmed.
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| The Faithful Brothers |
This resistance surprised the gang. Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn first galloped off to a distance, then wheeled and charged back. Gilbert led the return attack, mounted on the stolen racehorse Young Waverley, a horse known in the district and remembered for having run on the Goulburn course. As Gilbert came within twenty or thirty yards of the carriage, he checked his horse and presented his revolver. At that instant the animal threw up its head. The revolver discharged, and the bullet struck the horse in the back of the head. Young Waverley fell dead beneath him.
Gilbert, dismounted, took cover behind a fence post. One of the Faithfulls and Gilbert then aimed deliberately at one another. Gilbert missed. The Faithfull shot struck the post that shielded him and almost passed through it. Later reminiscence placed the exchange even more narrowly, saying Gilbert’s shot struck the ground about a foot from Faithfull, while Faithfull’s bullet buried itself in the post. The marked post was remembered locally for many years afterwards.
By this time the boys had fired nine shots — five from the rifle and four from the revolver — and were nearly out of ammunition. They abandoned the break, crossed the fence, and began retreating toward Springfield on foot. One of the bushrangers, believed to be Hall, followed them on Barebones, another stolen racer, firing repeatedly. The retreat might have become a slaughter, but the armed Faithfull brother kept turning and presenting his rifle, forcing Hall to keep his distance. In this way all four boys reached the homestead unhurt. Contemporary reports estimated that the bushrangers fired between thirty and forty shots during the encounter.
Once home, the Faithfulls armed themselves more fully. Three of them then returned toward the road, determined to renew the fight on better terms, but Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn had gone. Meanwhile the abandoned break horses had bolted across the plains until they were winded. Hall caught them and brought them back to where the detained coaches and prisoners were gathered, handing the break and horses, still uninjured, into the care of Faithfull’s bullock driver. The bushrangers cut open the boys’ carpet-bags and portmanteaus, took boots, clothing, and some fruit, ate part of the fruit, and gave the rest to the people they had detained. Gilbert recovered the saddle from the dead Young Waverley and placed it on a spare horse.
The gang then rode away eastward toward Quialigo, saying they were going to Braidwood. Their horses were plainly jaded, and the loss of Young Waverley was a serious practical blow as well as a humiliation. That night three more of Mr Faithfull’s horses were stolen from one of the paddocks, and rumours soon circulated that the gang had vowed vengeance against the Faithfull brothers.
The outcome was remarkable. No one in the break was killed or wounded. The only casualty of the fight was Gilbert’s stolen racehorse. Yet the moral consequence was larger than the physical damage. The Faithfull brothers had nothing of value worth dying for; their resistance was made on principle. The Goulburn Herald praised them precisely for that reason, holding them up as an example to older men who had too readily submitted to Hall’s gang. Later accounts treated the encounter as one of the few occasions on which ordinary civilians not only resisted the gang but beat them off.
For Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn, the incident was a warning. After months of public submission, the countryside was beginning to stiffen. Coaches were guarded, armed travellers were more willing to fire, police parties were more mobile, and now four young men from Springfield had forced the gang to retreat. Within three months Hall and Gilbert would both be dead, and Dunn would be alone, hunted under the shadow of outlawry.
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| Brothers Medal |
After the Springfield encounter with the Faithfull brothers, Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn were still dangerous, mobile, and supplied, but the country around them was tightening further. Their horses were jaded, police parties were more active, and informers, trackers, and local intelligence were beginning to press upon the harbouring network that had kept them alive. By late February 1865, the police had reason to believe that the gang was sheltering at the farm of Thomas Byrne, or Byrnes, at Mutbilly, a few miles from Lodge’s Inn on the Breadalbane Plains.
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| James Pye |
Toward morning, while it was still dark, the police moved on Byrne’s place. They arrived at about four o’clock. Two of the party were left in charge of the police horses, while the others advanced to surround the buildings and wait for daylight. Almost at once they saw signs that they had found their quarry. Hall’s grey horse was tied to a fence, and in a nearby paddock were the racehorses Bosco and Bergamot, stolen from Molonglo. Five horses were seen in all. To mounted police, such evidence was nearly as conclusive as footprints. The gang’s horses had betrayed them.
Detective Pye and Constable Wiles moved toward a barn near the house, accompanied by another constable. The police may not at first have known that the bushrangers were actually inside. A later account stated that Pye advanced to the building merely to see whether there were more horses within, and only realised the men were close when the flash of Gilbert’s revolver lit the darkness. Gilbert was said to have been on watch, hidden in the barn, able to see Pye while remaining unseen himself. It seemed almost miraculous that Pye was not shot dead at the first discharge.
The surprise was spoiled by barking dogs and gunfire. The police called on Hall and his companions to surrender or be shot. Almost immediately Gilbert opened the barn door stood his ground as Dunn prepared to flee aso. Theyy fired rapidly with revolvers. One report claimed Gilbert discharged some twenty shots in quick succession. The police, not more than ten yards away, returned fire. In the darkness around the barn, muzzle flashes gave the men their only clear targets. Huthwaite and the rest of the party came up to support Pye and Wiles, and for several moments the barn, yard, and fence became the scene of a close-range exchange.
Constable Wiles was hit twice. One ball passed through his hand between the thumb and forefinger; another struck him in the leg, described in various reports as the calf of the right leg or near the knee. His conduct was praised. Even after falling, he turned toward the bushrangers and continued firing until they made their escape. He was later taken for medical treatment by Dr Waugh and brought into barracks that evening.
The bushrangers tried to reach their horses, but the police fire and the party's position prevented them from securing the paddock. Gilbert and Dunn made first for the fence. Hall followed shortly after, according to the early reports, and was seen to fall, perhaps twice, before crawling through. Huthwaite, reputed to be a good shot, fired deliberately at him and believed for the moment that he had killed him. A later account suggested that Hall’s fall may have been a ruse, deliberately used to draw fire away and save his life while the police turned their attention to Gilbert and Dunn.
The escape was desperate. The gang had been surprised before dawn, separated from their horses, and forced to run on foot. Contemporary reports said they got away wearing little more than shirts and trousers, leaving clothing, saddles, bridles, weapons, and horses behind. They vanished into a maize paddock or standing corn, where the darkness and crop concealed them from pursuit. For a short time the police believed Hall might be lying dead or wounded among the corn, but no body was found.
The material left behind was extraordinary. Near the spot where the bushrangers’ horses stood, police found saddles, bridles, a poncho and other clothing, two double-barrelled guns, and a large number of revolvers — one account gave eighteen, another nineteen. Some of the revolvers were still loaded. Two revolvers found later in the maize paddock had all their chambers loaded, though the cartridges appeared too large and had been cut to allow the cylinders to revolve freely. The police also secured several horses, including the stolen racehorses from Molonglo.
Byrne’s family was arrested on suspicion of harbouring the gang. Reports stated that Byrne, his wife, two sons, and two grown daughters were taken, although two girls were left behind to care for the children while the others were brought in. The fact that the bushrangers had been provided with beds in the barn strengthened police suspicion that this was not a chance stop, but shelter knowingly given.
For a moment the authorities believed the end was close. Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn had lost horses, arms, saddles, clothes, and shelter. They had fled half-dressed through the dark with police almost upon them. Yet the hope proved premature. The support system the police were trying to break restored the gang almost at once. Reports soon placed the bushrangers near the Cullarin toll-bar with fresh horses and other arms, apparently little the worse for the encounter.
The immediate aftermath, however, suggested that the escape had not been without cost. On the morning after the fight, Gilbert and Dunn appeared at the house of a farmer named Purcell, about a mile and a half from Byrne’s, without Hall. They took two horses, saying they had been “chased for their lives” and must have them. Hall’s absence was conspicuous. Ordinarily he was the central and visible figure of the gang, and his failure to appear with Gilbert and Dunn strengthened the police belief that he had been wounded during the escape.
Other traces reinforced the impression of a hurried flight. A man employed by Mr Lodge, while out looking for a horse, came across a quantity of letters in the bush. Captain Zouch proceeded to the spot and recovered enough mail matter to half fill a three-bushel bag, along with drafts and cheques valued at about £700. The place where these were found was about a mile and a half from Byrne’s. The abandoned mail, like the abandoned arms and horses, suggested that the gang had not merely slipped away; they had fled in disorder.
Mutbilly therefore stands as the next major confrontation with authority after Springfield. It was not a robbery gone wrong, but a police attempt to capture the gang in shelter. It showed that the authorities were beginning to penetrate the bushrangers’ resting places, rather than merely chasing them after robberies. Yet it also showed why Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn had survived so long. Even surprised in the dark, separated from their horses, fired upon at close range, deprived of arms and clothing, and perhaps with Hall wounded, they nevertheless escaped, remounted, rearmed, and resumed their career. Mutbilly was not the end of the gang, but it was a warning that the end was approaching.
Within days of the Mutbilly affray, and Hall reappearing with Gilbert, and Dunn showed that the police had not broken them. At Byrne’s farm they had lost horses, saddles, clothing, firearms, and perhaps blood; yet by early March 1865 they were again mounted, armed, and on the road. Their next appearance was at Geary’s Gap, near Lake George, where the Goulburn and Gundaroo mail was exposed as it climbed from the low country.
The place suited them. At the foot of the hill, passengers commonly got down from the coach while the horses laboured up the steep ascent. On this occasion, as the coach reached the top and paused, three armed men came out of the bush and took command of it. They were Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn. The mail-bags were thrown down and opened. The robbery itself was not especially profitable, but its significance lay elsewhere. Less than a fortnight after being surprised at Mutbilly, the gang had resumed operations with enough confidence to stop another mail in daylight.
Among the passengers was William Davis, a local settler of standing and a man known for his nerve and marksmanship. Davis had a reputation as a capable shot, and later accounts remembered him as a grazier, overlander, racehorse owner, cricketer, and wheat farmer. More importantly for this episode, he had reportedly spoken openly of shooting Ben Hall if ever he met him. In response to the danger posed by the gang, he had obtained a valuable Tranter revolving rifle.
The rifle was no ordinary sporting piece. A Tranter revolving rifle gave its owner repeated shots before reloading, using a revolver-like cylinder rather than the single discharge of an ordinary long arm. For a man travelling in bushranger country, it was a formidable weapon. For Hall’s gang, always eager for superior arms, it was exactly the kind of firearm that could alter the balance in a coach robbery or escort attack. It had the range and steadiness of a rifle, but the repeated fire of a revolver.
The irony at Geary’s Gap was that Davis did not have the weapon in his hands when it was needed. Like the other passengers, he had got down to walk the hill while the coach ascended. The rifle had been left in the vehicle. When the bushrangers took command of the coach, one of them seized it. Hall was later said to have called down to Davis that he had “lost his chance,” reminding him that he had threatened to shoot Hall on sight. He then advised Davis that, if he meant to carry out such a threat in future, he had better keep the rifle in his hands rather than leave it in the coach.
Davis was also robbed of his gold watch and a bead-worked waist-belt. These, with the rifle, were remembered as trophies taken from a man whom the gang regarded as both a threat and a prize. The exchange gave the robbery a personal edge. Hall’s remark was not merely taunting; it was an assertion that even armed and outspoken men could be caught unprepared. Davis had the reputation, the courage, and the weapon, but at the decisive moment the rifle was in the wrong place.
While the mail was detained, the recent fight at Mutbilly became a subject of conversation. Gilbert gave the bushrangers’ version of the affair. He claimed that he and Dunn had been asleep and undressed in the barn, while Hall lay outside near Byrne’s hut. According to Gilbert, he heard the police approach, tried to wake Dunn, saw a policeman at the doorway, fired at him, then kicked Dunn awake and fired again. In his telling, the police retreated, the bushrangers walked out rather than fled, and the arms later found by police had not been abandoned in panic but had simply been left on their saddles near the horses.
It was a self-serving account, but it is valuable because it shows how quickly Gilbert tried to convert a narrow escape into a story of bushranger composure. Mutbilly had shaken them. They had been surprised in shelter, forced to flee on foot, and deprived of much of their equipment. Yet at Geary’s Gap, Gilbert recast the episode as proof of coolness under fire. The performance mattered. Hall’s gang survived not only by horses and firearms, but also by reputation.
The Davis rifle soon moved from trophy to weapon. A few days later, during the attempted robbery of the Araluen gold escort, Gilbert was reported to have carried Mr Davis’s rifle. The gun taken at Geary’s Gap had therefore entered the gang’s working armoury almost immediately. This was not just plunder carried for vanity. In the hands of Gilbert, a revolving rifle was a practical arm for confronting an escort, holding a road, or covering a retreat.
Its last known appearance gives the story its final irony. After Hall’s death, Gilbert and Dunn were surprised near Binalong. In the fight that followed, Gilbert tried to use the revolver-rifle taken from Davis, but it misfired. Contemporary reports state that the weapon was recovered after Gilbert was shot, with chambers still loaded and one discharged. Some later accounts confused this by suggesting the rifle, watch, and belt were found with Hall after his death, but the stronger contemporary evidence places the rifle with Gilbert at Binalong.
Thus the Geary’s Gap robbery forms a small but revealing sequence in the gang’s final months. The gang, bruised by Mutbilly, reappeared on the mail road. They stopped the coach at a place naturally suited to ambush. They robbed the bags and passengers. They seized from William Davis a prized revolving rifle, a weapon bought against them by a man who had threatened Hall. Gilbert then carried that rifle into the Araluen escort attack, and finally to his own last fight near Binalong, where the coveted weapon failed him. Taken from a brave civilian, used by a bushranger, and recovered by the law, the Davis rifle became one of the symbolic objects of the gang’s decline.
At Pudman Creek they encountered a teamster and questioned him closely. Had he seen three or four armed men riding along the road? The description almost certainly referred to Brennan’s independent police party, whose movements the gang was anxious to discover. The teamster replied that he had seen no such men, and the bushrangers continued towards Burrowa. They were next reported being pursued by the Burrowa police.
Before daylight on Tuesday morning the gang reached Barwang, on the road to Murrumburrah. They entered the stables of Mr Welman, J.P., and stole three horses. They then disappeared from public view for about twenty-four hours, possibly finding shelter in the house of a trusted sympathiser.
On Thursday afternoon they emerged at Albert Vale, near Gunning, where they called at the property of Peter Best and took another three horses. It was their second or third visit to the place, and the newspaper remarked upon their apparent fondness for Best’s stock. On earlier occasions they had abandoned horses taken from the property soon afterwards.
Their knowledge of Best’s establishment was remarkably precise. During a previous visit they had asked for a particular saddle with a good seat, knowing that it belonged there and had recently been sent to a Gunning saddler for repair. As soon as they departed on Thursday, a messenger was sent into Gunning to alert the police.
The gang’s familiarity with the district repeatedly brought them close to unsuspecting travellers. The Reverend Mr M‘Alroy of Goulburn was said to have passed them on several occasions without realising until afterwards that he had been near the notorious highwaymen. According to the report, the gang made a point of showing respect to clergymen, regardless of denomination.
Meanwhile, the number of civilian volunteers searching for Hall’s gang was increasing. These men were accredited by the Colonial Secretary and received the ordinary constable’s pay of six shillings a day. They generally provided their own weapons, although the government supplied ammunition and, when necessary, revolvers. Three volunteers had recently joined from the Queanbeyan district, and hopes were expressed that they might give a good account of themselves if they came within firing distance of the gang.
The growing number of independent search parties also produced confusion. One volunteer party followed the tracks of another for twenty miles under the belief that they belonged to Hall and his companions. Police patrols also recovered numerous horses which the gang had temporarily appropriated and then abandoned when the immediate need had passed. These animals became known as the bushrangers’ “posters”—a changing network of remounts scattered across the countryside.
The report concluded with a more extraordinary claim. A mysterious rider seen circling the horses of police and volunteers at J. W. Chisholm’s Wollogorang station was said to have been Dunn disguised in a woman’s riding habit. Gilbert and an unidentified fourth man were reportedly concealed nearby. The newspaper treated the identification as certain, although it supplied no named witness or corroborating evidence.
The Yass Courier ended with a bitter criticism of those who had allowed opportunities to capture the gang to pass. It cited the encounters at Toodles, Byrnes’s and Wollogorang as instances of poor management—or perhaps cowardice. The volunteer who watched the disguised rider at Chisholm’s without acting was dismissed contemptuously as a “stupid stargazer.”
The attempted robbery of the Araluen gold escort in March 1865 was one of the most ambitious ventures of Hall’s final campaign. Coming soon after the Mutbilly affray and the Geary’s Gap robbery, it showed that Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn were still prepared to attack heavily guarded government property. It also showed that the old ease with which they had once bailed up travellers was passing. However, police, miners, teamsters, and local residents were now faster to respond, and the gang’s boldness was increasingly matched by resistance. The gang’s freedom increasingly depended upon an exhausting succession of stolen horses, hurried meals and temporary hiding places.
During the weekend before the attack, Hall, Gilbert, Dunn and an unidentified fourth man appeared at Paul Burke’s property at Jinglemoney. Contemporary reports differ over whether the visit occurred on Saturday evening or Sunday night, but agree that the gang took several horses and left worn animals behind.
By Monday morning they had occupied Stony Gully on the Major’s Creek mountain road, approximately half a mile from the summit. The place was near the scene of an earlier attempt upon the Araluen escort and was well chosen for an ambush.
The narrow road climbed steeply from the Araluen Valley through several turns. A large hollow tree provided cover at a point from which the gang could watch bends above and below. Their horses were secured on the ridge, ready for retreat.
Gilbert carried the revolving rifle taken from William Davis during the recent robbery at Geary’s Gap. The handsome weapon had quickly passed from trophy to instrument of another crime.
The gold travelled in an iron safe enclosed within a nailed wooden case secured to the floor of John Huxham Blatchford’s specially constructed wagonette. Reports placed the consignment at between approximately 1,600 and 1,900 ounces. Whatever the precise figure, it represented several thousand pounds and one of the richest prizes regularly moving through the district.
The first traveller intercepted appears to have been Christopher Payne, a representative of Rodd Brothers. Near the hollow tree, a man armed with the revolving rifle ordered him to stop. Payne recognised that resistance was impossible and submitted.
He was taken from the road and held on the bank beneath the ridge. His horse was removed, and he was warned that any attempt to escape would bring immediate death.
Payne understood the rifleman to be Gilbert. The others were identified as Hall and Dunn, together with a fourth man of middle height and stoutish build whose face was covered by a red handkerchief. Unlike his companions, the stranger took pains to remain unidentified.
When Payne admired the revolving rifle, Gilbert told him that it was the weapon taken from Davis at Geary’s Gap. The boast linked the two crimes directly and displayed Gilbert’s satisfaction in carrying a weapon already associated with the gang’s recent success.
Further travellers were intercepted as the morning progressed. William Nairn of Farringdon, Patrick Griffin junior of Ballalaba and a woman variously named in reports as Mrs Jones or Mrs Jonas were brought into the bush and ordered to remain quiet.
Gilbert questioned the captives about the escort and asked who would be driving the wagonette. When told that Blatchford was expected, the bushrangers said they would not harm him unless he carried a weapon. If he was armed, they threatened to shoot him.
They brought a sledgehammer, an axe or tomahawk and a cold chisel with which to break open the escort safe.
The gang arranged itself around the road. Gilbert guarded the prisoners, Hall watched for the escort from higher ground, Dunn occupied a position below and the masked fourth man carried messages between them. Their horses waited above the captives on the ridge. Both the attack and the escape had been prepared.
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Araluen Gold Wagon, Braidwood Museum . |
The policemen rode some distance apart, a precaution that proved decisive. Byrne was in advance, Kelly rode near the wagonette, and Stapylton and MacEllicott followed behind. The separation prevented the bushrangers from bringing the entire escort under fire at once.
At about ten o’clock the party reached the selected ground. Byrne was allowed to pass through or beyond the main ambush position. The bushrangers waited until Kelly and the gold wagonette came within range.
Then Gilbert gave the order to fire.
The attack came without warning. Approximately eight shots were discharged. Kelly was struck in the upper body, the ball entering near the breast above the region of the heart. He threw up his arms and collapsed over the neck of his horse. The frightened animal wheeled and carried him briefly down the road before he fell to the ground.
Shots also struck the wagonette. One ball hit a metal tyre or fitting and rebounded against the vehicle, striking Blatchford low on the leg. The carriage horses bolted uphill, while Blatchford was thrown or forced to leap from the moving vehicle. For a moment the centre of the escort appeared to have collapsed.
The bushrangers briefly misread what had happened. Seeing Kelly fall and Blatchford move down the road, they appear to have believed that the escort had been beaten. Returning towards their prisoners, they announced that the police were “well licked.”
Payne asked whether anyone had been shot. Gilbert replied that nobody had been hurt. The boast was both false and premature. Kelly lay seriously wounded, but the gold remained beyond the gang’s reach, and the escort had not abandoned it.
Hall and his companions moved towards their horses. Gilbert mounted first and became impatient when Hall was delayed by a loose or broken stirrup leather. At the same time, Stapylton and MacEllicott had left the road and climbed through the timber. Their movement carried them above and behind the gang, threatening to separate the bushrangers from their horses.
Stapylton took deliberate aim and fired. The shot passed close to Gilbert’s head.
Gilbert turned and called out words to the effect:
“You’re a —— good shot. Take that!”
His answering shot struck Stapylton’s horse in the rump. The bushrangers later admitted that Stapylton’s unexpected fire from behind had forced them to decamp. They feared that their horses would be cut off before they could escape.
Blatchford meanwhile returned to the wounded Kelly. The constable reportedly pleaded:
“For God’s sake, Mr Blatchford, do not leave me here to die.”
Under continuing fire, Blatchford moved Kelly towards the shelter of the cutting and placed him with his back against the bank. One shot tore into the gravel above Blatchford’s head. Despite his wound, Kelly retained his carbine and prepared to defend himself if the bushrangers descended upon him. Blatchford caught Kelly’s horse and rode down the mountain to raise the alarm.
At Redbank the news was telegraphed to Braidwood within a short time of the attack. Superintendent Orridge ordered the available police to saddle immediately. Dr Pattison and the Reverend Edward O’Brien were also summoned.
Kelly was removed to Norman’s public house. Dr Pattison found two marks upon his waistcoat, although only one ball had entered his body. It had passed through and lodged between the flesh and skin of his back, from where it was successfully extracted. The wound was serious but did not prove fatal.
Kelly had served for approximately three years in the Braidwood police. It was believed to have been his first escort duty on the Araluen road. He had already given notice of his intention to leave the force and join his parents in Queensland. The attack made it his last.
Farther uphill, Constable Byrne intercepted the runaway wagonette and brought the horses under control. He blocked the wheels, placed his ammunition and revolver on the bank and took cover behind the vehicle with his carbine ready.
Seeing Blatchford retreat and losing sight of the other policemen, the bushrangers initially thought the road to the gold was open. They moved towards the wagonette, only to find Byrne waiting for them. He reportedly challenged them to come on, declaring that he would lose his last breath before allowing them to touch the gold. For approximately three-quarters of an hour the four bushrangers fired from behind trees while Byrne remained alone beside the wagonette. Their shots failed to dislodge him.
His resistance changed the whole calculation. To reach the gold, the attackers would have to descend an exposed section of road under Byrne’s fire. Even if they succeeded, they would need time to smash through the wooden casing and iron safe with their sledgehammer, axe and chisel.
Stapylton and MacEllicott were now above and behind them. Byrne guarded the wagonette below. The ground selected for their ambush had turned against them. Hall, Gilbert, Dunn and the fourth man mounted and fled towards the rear of Slade’s stockyard and Dwyer’s place. The gold remained untouched. The hurried retreat forced the bushrangers to leave behind their safe-breaking tools. Police and residents recovered a sledgehammer, axe, chisel, a packet of Eley’s patent cartridges and a tin pannikin. They also found a valuable gun. Mr Green, an Araluen gunsmith, identified it as a fine Joe Manton, although the stock had broken at the neck. Its original value was estimated at approximately £30. The gang took Nairn’s excellent horse and abandoned a grey bearing Paul Burke’s brand. The branded animal gave investigators evidence that the bushrangers had visited Jinglemoney before the attack.
Their prisoners were left behind to release themselves. Before the escort arrived, a timber splitter working nearby had seen the bushrangers stopping travellers. He hurried towards Major’s Creek and, finding Payne’s loose horse, used it to carry the warning more quickly. Approximately thirty residents responded, at least a dozen carrying firearms. They hurried towards the mountain and arrived within minutes of the gang’s departure. Workers from the Araluen claims also turned out. Had the bushrangers remained to break open the safe, they would probably have been caught between the escort police and armed residents approaching from Major’s Creek.
The local party found Byrne still guarding the wagonette. His cartridges and revolver lay ready upon the bank, and he remained under cover with his firearm prepared. Once Blatchford returned and reinforcements arrived, the escort was reorganised.
Sergeant Duffy, Sergeant Walsh, Constables Byrne and Lachlan, and Mr Martin of the Oriental Bank accompanied the gold safely into Braidwood, where it was deposited at the bank.
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| Superintendent Orridge |
At about two o’clock they called again at Paul Burke’s property. Gilbert then appeared at Mackellar’s and demanded tea. They took Mr Dickson’s favourite grey hack, valued at approximately £25, and continued to Joseph Taylor’s at Little Bombay, McElroy’s at Warri and, later that night, Wilson’s station at Manar.
Senior Constable Thompson of Mongarlowe and an Aboriginal tracker reportedly reached McElroy’s approximately twenty-five minutes after the gang had departed.
The admissions reveal how completely the police had overturned their plan. The bushrangers had chosen the site, controlled the road, gathered prisoners and opened fire with the advantage of surprise. Yet separated police positions, Byrne’s refusal to retreat and the flanking movement by Stapylton and MacEllicott deprived them of the initiative.
Hall’s broken stirrup leather continued to trouble him during the retreat. At one house he asked for a saddle. When the occupants hesitated, he explained that he required only the stirrup leather and iron and that taking them would “not hurt” anyone. He removed what he needed and left his damaged gear behind.
The small incident reveals the practical strain beneath the drama. Even in the aftermath of a failed gold robbery, the gang remained dependent upon ordinary necessities: tea, food, sound saddlery, fresh horses and the reluctant cooperation of isolated settlers.
Lastly the newspapers reported stressing that the Araluen gold had, for the second time, been saved from bushrangers. The police of the district were praised, and Blatchford was so satisfied with Constable Byrnes’s bravery that he gave him a cheque for £50. Public feeling, however, centred especially on Constable Kelly. The attack upon him was described as cowardly and brutal. He was young, well regarded, and had served about three years in the Braidwood police. The report added the sad irony that this was believed to have been his first escort duty on the Araluen line and likely would have been his last, as he had given notice of his intention to join his parents in Queensland. A letter appeared commending Constable Byrnes efforts.
Sir,
While the murderous gang now terrorising the colony has numerous abettors and admirers in the districts it frequents—people who appear to glory in deeds of robbery and bloodshed—it may not be out of place to draw public attention to the heroic conduct of Constable Burns.
For approximately three-quarters of an hour, Burns reportedly defended 1,600 ounces of gold single-handedly against four armed men who fired upon him from behind trees. Despite their superior numbers and concealed positions, their shots failed to take effect. Through courage and devotion to duty, Burns ultimately compelled his attackers to withdraw.
It would be a disgrace to the community if such an exceptional display of civic courage were allowed to pass unrewarded. I therefore enclose one guinea and hope, through the favour of your columns, that others will add their contributions. The money might be used to present Constable Burns with a purse of gold as a modest expression of public admiration for his distinguished service.
J. Berncastle
1229 Macquarie Street, Sydney
29 March 1865
The Araluen affair also gave renewed importance to the question of a fourth man. Early reports had suspected Thomas “Tommy” Clarke, but later proceedings shifted attention to Daniel Ryan, a young associate of Dunn’s from the Murrumburrah district. Ryan was arrested at Murrumburrah on 17 April and remanded to Braidwood for identification on suspicion of being the fourth man present at the escort attack. Later evidence remained uncertain, and the identity of the fourth man was never conclusively proved. However, when Hall was later asked at Mackay’s station what had become of Clarke, he replied that Clarke was close at hand. The young man was also reportedly seen at a shepherd’s hut on the morning of the gang’s forthcoming encounter with police.
Further support came from Gilbert himself. While camped that evening near the Chinaman’s dam, he reportedly referred several times to Clarke as one of the party.
After Araluen, the gang’s movements became more erratic and more strained. Reports had them pushing back toward the Lachlan and central-western country, seeking horses, supplies, and shelter. Horses were stolen near Murrumburrah, at Barwang, and elsewhere, some newspapers suspecting that bush telegraphs had taken the animals ahead of the gang so that Hall and his companions could meet them later. Other reports had horses taken from paddocks after knocked-up steeds were left behind. This was the mechanics of survival: the gang’s freedom depended on a chain of remounts.
On Wednesday morning, 15 March, four armed men appeared at Milora, the station of J. J. Garry, approximately five miles from Binalong. Dunn found Garry working in a cultivation paddock and brought him back to the house, where Hall, Gilbert and the fourth man were waiting.
The stranger asked whether Garry could obtain the old racehorse Ploughboy. Dunn wanted Pigeon, while Gilbert expressed a preference for Willy-the-Weazel. The last two horses had previously fallen into the gang’s hands but had been abandoned in Mr Smellie’s paddock.
Garry explained that his horses were not in because a fence had broken down. The bushrangers then ordered breakfast, saying they had eaten nothing since the previous morning. As they ate, they spoke freely about the attack at Araluen. They claimed to have “beaten” five policemen, only to encounter another party of five and abandon the attempt upon the escort gold.
Dunn praised the courage of Constable Burns, who had remained with the treasure and defended it under fire. The constable, he said, could not have been dislodged without the bushrangers losing two of their own men. Dunn was much less generous towards Constables Stapleton and M‘Ellicott, whom he accused of cowardice.
He also claimed that he and Gilbert had pursued the two constables down the steep mountain road until five approaching troopers forced them to turn back. The newspaper doubted this story, questioning whether two experienced horsemen would have exhausted their already jaded mounts in a fruitless descent when they knew they would have to climb the mountain again.
Two of the gang’s horses had reportedly been taken from a paddock at Gunning earlier that morning and were already “baked” by the hard journey. After breakfast the men rode away through the paddock, but apparently concealed themselves nearby for the remainder of the day. They were seen in another of Garry’s paddocks around midnight. By morning the exhausted Gunning horses had been abandoned and two of Garry’s animals were missing.
Dunn apologised for taking the racehorses, saying that police pursuit had left them no choice. He promised that they would be returned once the gang obtained suitable replacements.
Despite Milora’s proximity to Binalong, Garry did not report the visit until three o’clock on Thursday afternoon. Two of Binalong’s three constables were away, and the remaining officer could not safely pursue the gang alone. When Senior Constable Hales and Constable Bright returned after five o’clock, they followed the mail towards Bowning, expecting that the bushrangers might attack it. Finding nothing, they rode to Milora at daylight and recovered the two abandoned horses.
On Friday, 17 March, the gang was reported at Little Wombat, where several Chinese men were bailed up. The robbery produced little money. During the encounter Dunn fired upon one of the Chinese men, the bullet passing through his thigh. The outcome is unreported.
The shooting demonstrated Dunn’s growing readiness to resort to violence. The gang complained that travellers no longer carried much cash and that even country stations yielded little money. By their own account they were in poor condition, sometimes going twenty-four hours without food because the police pressed them so closely. They spoke of having to obtain money and clothing before winter, while observers described them as worn by hunger, exposure and hard riding.
At about six o’clock on Saturday morning, 18 March, five mounted police encountered Hall, Gilbert and Dunn near Alexander Mackay’s Wallendbeen station, outside Murrumburrah.
The bushrangers had camped near a sheep station close to the homestead, but their horses had strayed during the night. One version placed Hall, Gilbert and Dunn asleep at Cullingar while the fourth man searched for the missing animals. Another stated that Hall and Gilbert had been left on foot while Dunn and the fourth man went in search of remounts.
According to the latter account, Dunn collected a mob of Mackay’s horses and began driving them towards the Wallendbeen stockyard. Hall and Gilbert followed on foot. As Dunn approached the yard, the five troopers suddenly appeared.
Dunn immediately dismounted and fired. The shot alerted Hall and Gilbert, who rushed to his assistance. The fourth man was absent, supposedly searching elsewhere for the strayed horses.
A running gunfight followed through the rocks and scrub. Senior Constable Keane of Murrumburrah was wounded in the arm or shoulder. One purported eyewitness said that Gilbert struck Keane with the first shot. Keane then dismounted and fired at Gilbert, who was standing partly behind a tree.
Gilbert was wounded in the arm, although reports disagreed over the precise injury. It was variously placed in his wrist, beneath his left elbow, and in his right arm and side. Later sightings confirmed that he had received an arm wound, but its exact position cannot now be stated with confidence.
Sergeant Murphy of Gunning narrowly escaped being shot through the head. As he stooped beneath a branch, a bullet from Gilbert’s revolving rifle struck and broke the timber immediately above him. After being wounded, Gilbert handed the rifle to Hall, who carried it during the remainder of the fight.
One account claimed that the exchange continued for nearly two hours. Gilbert used the revolving rifle from behind a tree to hold the police at a distance while Hall and Dunn withdrew. Hall later said that the bushrangers concealed themselves among rocks while the troopers reloaded. The police passed close by without seeing them, one reportedly remarking that the fugitives were “as cunning as foxes.”
Hall, Gilbert and Dunn abandoned their saddles and escaped on foot. The police recovered the equipment but failed to capture any of the three men.
The escape provoked severe criticism. The Yass Courier demanded to know how five mounted constables had permitted three men, one of them wounded, to walk away in broad daylight. An unnamed spectator credited Keane with dismounting and wounding Gilbert but dismissed the remaining policemen as “rank cowards.” Such language reflected contemporary frustration rather than an impartial finding. The scrub, the bushrangers’ covering fire and the police expenditure of ammunition all contributed to the outcome.
After escaping, the three bushrangers made their way to Macdonald’s station, where they rested. A shepherd told them that a station employee named Richard was expected to arrive to count a flock of sheep. As the gang needed another horse, they concealed themselves nearby and waited for him.
Four hours passed without Richard appearing. Dunn became enraged and threatened to “blow off his roof” when next they met. Richard’s absence was accidental and fortunate. He had left his mare saddled and intended to ride out that afternoon, but Templeton persuaded him to travel in a break instead. When the horse drawing the vehicle fell or threw itself down, the delay prevented Richard from reaching the station before nightfall.
Having failed to secure his horse, the gang divided. Gilbert, weakened by his wound, remained at the hut while Hall and Dunn walked to Haughton’s residence. They arrived at about nine o’clock, after the household had retired. Mrs Haughton rose and prepared supper for them, and the two remained until the moon had risen.
At about three o’clock in the morning Hall and Dunn proceeded to the men’s hut. Mr Edmonds had brought additional hands to assist with a muster, making approximately fourteen men present. The bushrangers ordered them outside. Hall kept guard while Dunn compelled John Doyle to catch a horse named Old Shepherd from the paddock.
They also took two horses belonging to men who had come to receive stock, together with Richard’s saddle, bridle and hobbles, Templeton’s saddle and another saddle belonging to one of the musterers. A man named French was forced to ride a spare horse back to Macdonald’s station, where Gilbert was waiting.
Despite the number of men detained, no alarm was raised until French returned after six o’clock. The letter describing the incident angrily accused some station hands of sympathising with the gang. Several were said to have declared that they would sooner cut off their right hands than permit Mr Colley, or anyone from the main house, to “sneak” upon the bushrangers. Whether this language was reported accurately cannot be established, but it illustrates the distrust then dividing station owners, employees, police and suspected bush telegraphs.
Hall asked Mrs Haughton to identify Richard’s and Mr Colley’s rooms. She refused, appealing to him not to enter a house occupied by two young women and several children. A station hand similarly warned that the bushrangers’ appearance would terrify the household. The appeals apparently succeeded, and the main residence was left undisturbed.
By seven o’clock on Sunday morning, 19 March, the gang had reached the Plains. They took two pairs of blankets, tobacco, a gun and a pistol from a store before proceeding to J. D. Macansh’s station at Bagen Bagen. There they detained upwards of forty people and appropriated whatever property suited their needs.
At Macansh’s woolshed near Murrumburrah, they took approximately twenty pounds of tobacco, new bridles, cash and numerous other articles. Among those detained was J. W. Edmonds, whose life Gilbert had reportedly threatened during the earlier affair at Tootal’s, when Constable Haughey was wounded.
While searching a desk, Hall discovered approximately seventy bullets, powder and percussion caps kept for shooting cattle. He immediately seized them, calling the find “a regular godsend.” There was also silver in the desk. Hall gathered the coins but hesitated and announced that he would not take them. Gilbert subsequently returned and carried them away.
The gang demanded to know where Edmonds kept his firearms. Mrs Edmonds replied evasively that her husband had parted with them long before. Hall declared that he was not a man of many words and threatened to burn the place unless the weapons were produced within ten minutes. The threat secured two revolvers and a double-barrelled gun, one barrel of which was rifled.
They also obtained horses, saddles and bridles. Two animals taken during the night from gentlemen visiting from Melbourne were described as a dark bay and a fine grey.
Within twenty-four hours of escaping the police on foot, the gang had again equipped itself with mounts, saddlery, firearms, ammunition, blankets, tobacco and provisions. Gilbert’s wound and the loss of their equipment had inconvenienced them but had not ended their capacity to move and strike.
The gang appears to have separated temporarily while Gilbert sought rest for his wounded arm. At a place known as the Chinaman’s Dam, he complained that they had been very unlucky and said that another member of the party had also been wounded in the leg.
Gilbert bitterly resented the manner in which he had been shot. He declared that he would not have minded so much had the constable met him “in a manful manner,” but complained that the “crawling villain” had fired from behind a tree. He threatened to visit the police barracks and shoot the man responsible.
The complaint was ironic, for Gilbert had himself relied upon a tree for protection during the encounter. His anger arose less from any accepted code of combat than from the humiliation of being wounded and forced to abandon his saddle.
On the following Sunday morning, the gang called at Hill’s farm on the Fish River. John Thorn, who lived in the neighbourhood, was apparently the only person present. Hall and Gilbert entered the house and washed their hands and faces while Dunn stood sentry at the door. When they had finished, Dunn took his turn.
Nothing was stolen. The arrangement nevertheless illustrated Dunn’s position within the gang. As its youngest and newest member, he was regularly given sentry duty and employed as a scout or special messenger.
From Hill’s farm they rode to Maurice Moore’s property at Blakeney’s Creek, where the company was continuing festivities after a wedding. One of the bushrangers had lost a poncho along the road, and Dunn was sent back to recover it while Hall and Gilbert entered the house and helped themselves to the feast.
The two ate heartily but limited themselves to a couple of glasses of spirits. Dunn’s absence began to trouble them. Knowing that Sub-Inspector Brennan’s independent police party was somewhere nearby, Hall remarked:
“I expect the young Dunn has fallen into Brennan’s hands.”
Gilbert replied:
“It would serve the young villain right.”
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| Alexander Mackay |
Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert and John Dunn appeared at Alexander Mackay’s Wallendbeen station, near Murrumburrah. Although the three bushrangers remained for approximately three hours, the encounter unfolded with an almost deceptive informality.
Gilbert entered the drawing room, followed by his companions, and found Mr Harris of Goulburn tuning a pianoforte. Hearing Harris strike several notes, Gilbert remarked that it was a very pleasant tune. Harris explained that he was not playing a piece at all, but merely tuning the instrument.
The conversation soon turned to horses. The bushrangers asked Mackay where his animals could be found. Mackay replied that they were running in a bush paddock and that, if the men wanted any, they would have to find them there themselves.
Dunn accepted the task. For much of the gang’s stay, he galloped through the paddocks searching for suitable mounts while Hall and Gilbert remained around the homestead.
The men carried two bottles of gin, from which they treated the station servants they encountered. They later drank tea in the kitchen. According to the report, they neither threatened anyone nor presented their firearms during the visit. Nevertheless, their presence was inherently coercive. Hall and Gilbert were heavily armed and notorious, and everyone at Wallendbeen understood the possible consequences of resistance.
Gilbert appeared well dressed and in remarkably buoyant spirits. He joked freely and behaved as though he were visiting acquaintances rather than occupying a station while wanted for murder and armed robbery. Hall presented a striking contrast. He looked exhausted and careworn, and remained visibly alert to the possibility of betrayal.
Gilbert’s humour was not always kind. Upon seeing the station cook, he remarked to Mackay:
“That’s an ugly —— cook you have in the kitchen, and if I were you I would get something better looking. I would be ashamed to eat anything where he is.”
The unidentified word was suppressed in the newspaper, but the insult was characteristic of Gilbert’s mocking and irreverent manner.
While Dunn searched for horses, Mackay held a lengthy conversation with Gilbert beneath the verandah. He remonstrated with the bushranger about the life he was leading and warned him that sooner or later he must fall into the hands of justice.
Gilbert laughed at the suggestion. Calling to Hall, who was pacing nearby, he said:
“Ben, he wants me to give myself up to the police.”
Turning back to Mackay, Gilbert added:
“There’s no fear as long as I’ve a bullet.”
He gave Mackay to understand that the gang had resolved never to be taken alive. The meaning of his answer was plain: while he retained ammunition, capture would be resisted to the last.
Gilbert appeared far more relaxed than Hall during Dunn’s absence. He moved freely around the house, verandah and yard, apparently offering several opportunities for anyone prepared to fire upon him. Hall was more guarded. Even while conversing, his eyes shifted continually from side to side, watching the people and buildings around him as though expecting a treacherous shot.
Both men were heavily armed. Hall wore a poncho reaching almost to his heels. Beneath its folds was a belt studded with revolvers, visible only when he threw the garment back. Gilbert was similarly equipped.
While in the drawing room, Hall produced a gold watch and asked Mackay for the correct time. After receiving it, he wound the watch and adjusted its hands.
Harris asked whether it was the watch Hall had taken from Mr Davis. Hall admitted that it was and immediately asked Harris whether he carried a watch of his own.
Harris replied that there was little chance of him doing so while travelling through that neighbourhood. The answer greatly amused Hall and Gilbert. Both bushrangers wore several gold chains, conspicuous ornaments which complemented their carefully cultivated “flash” appearance and may also have represented the proceeds of earlier robberies.
Hall and Gilbert found further amusement in an elderly station servant who had ridden twelve miles to Murrumburrah for what he claimed was a single glass of grog. They delighted in the idea that a man would undertake a twenty-four-mile round journey for one drink.
They soon discovered that the servant had actually returned with an entire bottle of rum.
The old man mistook Hall and Gilbert for plain-clothes policemen. The bushrangers obtained the bottle from him and began teasing him for what they called “a bit of sport.” Unaware of their identities, the servant became increasingly angry and abused them without restraint.
He declared that he earned his bread by the sweat of his brow, unlike men who loafed from hut to hut pretending to search for Hall and his party. He added that he cared nothing for either the police or the government.
The bushrangers listened with amusement as the servant condemned the supposed constables for failing to capture the very men standing before him. They eventually returned his bottle and allowed him to depart in complete ignorance of the danger he had faced.
When he returned to the homestead the following morning, he was astonished to learn that his tormentors had been Hall and Gilbert. He had insulted two heavily armed bushrangers to their faces and departed unharmed, still carrying his rum.
During the visit Hall produced the revolving rifle taken from Mr Davies and handed it to Mackay and Harris for inspection. Neither man could discover how to lower or operate its hammer. The weapon apparently contained a concealed stop or safety mechanism with which they were unfamiliar.
Their difficulty greatly amused Hall.
The exchange appeared playful, but it also demonstrated the bushrangers’ control of the encounter. Hall could permit two other men to handle the rifle because he knew they could not immediately operate it against him. His belt remained filled with revolvers, and Gilbert was close at hand.
After approximately three hours, the bushrangers brought their visit to an end. Dunn had spent much of the time searching the paddocks for horses; Gilbert had drunk tea, joked with the servants and dismissed Mackay’s warning; Hall had adjusted his stolen watch, displayed his revolving rifle and watched every movement around him.
No shots were fired, no explicit threats were made and no one was physically harmed. Yet the encounter was not the friendly social call which its surface details might suggest. Three heavily armed and notorious men had taken possession of a country station. Their hosts conversed with them, drank with them and examined their weapons, but always under the unspoken authority of the revolvers concealed beneath Hall’s poncho.
The visit also revealed the differing temperaments within the gang. Gilbert remained animated, sociable and confident that he could evade justice so long as he retained a bullet. Hall looked tired, suspicious and burdened by the strain of pursuit. Dunn, less interested in conversation, concentrated upon the practical necessity of finding fresh horses.
The Wallendbeen account provides a rare glimpse of Ben Hall when he was not performing the confident role commonly associated with the leader of the gang. Gilbert was well dressed, talkative and in “very buoyant” spirits; Hall appeared “fagged and careworn.” He paced rather than settled, and even while conversing kept his eyes moving from side to side, evidently afraid that someone might attempt to shoot him treacherously.
It would be easy to describe this merely as sullenness, but the report suggests something deeper: physical exhaustion joined with constant vigilance. Hall did not refuse all conversation. He laughed at Harris’s reply about carrying a watch, displayed the revolving rifle and joined in teasing the elderly servant. Yet he never surrendered himself completely to the humour of the visit. Gilbert relaxed; Hall only participated intermittently, his attention continually returning to the people, buildings and approaches around him.
The chronology helps explain his condition. Within the preceding fortnight the gang had failed to seize the Araluen gold escort, fled under police fire and abandoned valuable weapons and equipment. Five days later police surprised them near Wallendbeen. Gilbert and Constable Keane were wounded, while Hall, Gilbert and Dunn escaped on foot after losing their saddles. They had since been moving repeatedly between stations in search of horses, ammunition, food and shelter. By their own account, police pressure sometimes left them without food for twenty-four hours.
Hall also carried the responsibility of command. Dunn was away in the paddocks searching for horses, leaving Hall and Gilbert at the homestead. Gilbert treated the interval as a social entertainment, but Hall appears to have assumed the burden of watching for danger. His pacing and constantly shifting gaze were not necessarily signs of cowardice. They were the habits of a hunted man who knew that a servant, station hand or concealed volunteer might fire without warning.
Wallendbeen itself could hardly have offered Hall complete ease. The station stood in country thoroughly familiar with bushranging violence. Near Mackay’s homestead in August 1863, John O’Meally had pursued and fatally shot the storekeeper John Barnes. Hall therefore knew that the district remembered the gang’s crimes and that resentment could survive beneath an outwardly civil reception.
The contrast with Gilbert is revealing. Gilbert’s confidence rested upon immediate action and his declared determination never to surrender—“There’s no fear as long as I’ve a bullet.” Hall’s behaviour showed a fuller appreciation of the danger. He watched because he understood how easily an apparently friendly station could become an ambush. The gang’s survival had always depended upon surprise, superior horses and the hesitation of others. By March 1865, those advantages were weakening. Police patrols were more numerous, civilian volunteers had joined the pursuit, and local people were increasingly prepared to resist.
Nothing in the report proves that Hall was remorseful, frightened of death or contemplating the abandonment of bushranging. Nor can his appearance safely be treated as evidence of depression or an internal quarrel within the gang. “Fagged and careworn” may simply describe a man exhausted by continual movement and lack of sleep. Nevertheless, the account captures a meaningful change. The commanding and often convivial bushranger of earlier reports had become guarded, restless and unable to trust even a quiet conversation beneath a station verandah.
Gilbert could joke about justice because he believed a final bullet placed capture within his own control. Hall seemed to understand that the greater danger was the shot he would never see coming. At Wallendbeen he behaved less like a master of the district than a man conscious that the district was closing around him. Within six weeks, his apprehension would prove justified.
By late March 1865, many residents of Forbes had begun to believe that the Weddin bushrangers had exhausted their old country. Hall, Gilbert and Dunn had been operating for some months through the Goulburn, Yass and Braidwood districts, and it appeared that necessity—or preference—had carried them permanently towards what one correspondent called “solder fields of plundering enterprise.”
That comfortable assumption was abruptly disturbed when intelligence reached Forbes that the gang had returned to the Lachlan. At the Bundaburra paddocks they took two racehorses belonging to Mr Martin, Gulnare and Dozey. The theft carried the familiar signature of Hall’s gang: they knew good horses, selected them deliberately and relied upon superior blood stock to remain ahead of pursuit.
The police moved quickly. Sub-Inspector James Davidson and a party of troopers spent the following days in the saddle, hunting the gang through the surrounding country. The patrols may have disturbed the bushrangers’ comfort, but they did not prevent them from entering Forbes itself.
Until then, the town had largely escaped the direct attentions of Hall’s gang. That immunity ended on Saturday night, 25 March 1865.
At about half-past eleven, Johnny Gilbert and John Dunn quietly entered William Jones’s store at the junction of Rankin Street and the Caledonian Road. Rather than forcing their way inside, they passed through the only door still open.
Two young shopmen remained in the store. Gilbert and Dunn presented their revolvers and ordered them away from the counter to the upper end of the building. The young men were made to sit silently upon two kegs. Dunn stood guard over them with a revolver in each hand while Gilbert began searching the drawers, chests and other places likely to contain money.
Gilbert eventually found a double drawer. One compartment contained approximately £84 in banknotes and £3 10s. in silver; another held a cheque for £14. He took the notes and coins but treated the cheque with what the correspondent described as “the usual contempt of his order.” A cheque could be stopped, traced or recognised and was of little use to a man living outside ordinary commerce.
With the money secured, Gilbert turned his attention to the drapery department and began fitting himself with a hat. Everything proceeded with such quietness that the scene might almost have resembled an ordinary late-night transaction—except for Dunn’s revolvers and the two shopmen detained upon the kegs.
William Jones was away in Sydney. His wife was eating supper in an adjoining room with several assistants and wondered why the two young men had not joined them. Suspecting nothing of the robbery, she entered the store and saw a stranger behind the counter examining the stock.
Mrs Jones approached him and demanded to know who he was and what business he had there.
Gilbert initially answered by telling her that she was wanted at the other end of the store. When she repeated the question, he replied that, if she must know, he was Gilbert. Upon asking the identity of his companion, she was politely informed that the other man was Dunn.
Rather than retreat, Mrs Jones walked directly towards Dunn and challenged his right to enter and rob the premises.
Dunn responded with an appearance of modest regret. He said that he and his companions were sorry necessity had brought them to Jones’s store, but explained that they had been driven from a place during the previous week without clothing or other essentials. They were therefore compelled to refit themselves. Having considered the other stores in Forbes, they had found none so well suited to their requirements as Jones’s establishment.
The explanation referred to the encounter near Wallendbeen on 18 March. Five police had surprised the gang after its horses strayed. Gilbert and Constable Keane were wounded, while Hall, Gilbert and Dunn escaped into the scrub on foot, abandoning their saddles and equipment.
Their loss was genuine, but their claim of reluctant necessity was self-serving. Since Wallendbeen they had already robbed stations for horses, firearms, ammunition and supplies. Jones’s store offered better clothing and a substantial amount of ready money.
When Mrs Jones learned that Gilbert had taken the contents of the drawer, she rushed towards him, seized him by the arm and insisted that he return the money.
Gilbert did not react violently. Smiling at her determination, he remarked that she was:
“A very funny woman.”
He reminded her that they had taken neither the cheque nor any gold, although they knew that “there was plenty of gold in the place.”
Mrs Jones continued arguing and accused the bushrangers of shabbiness for taking the silver. Her persistence achieved a limited victory. After some bantering, Gilbert returned the £3 10s. He retained the banknotes.
The return of the coins should not be mistaken for generosity. Silver was heavy in relation to its value, while notes were easily carried. Nevertheless, Mrs Jones’s defiance compelled Gilbert to modify the robbery without provoking him into violence.
Having returned the silver, Gilbert demanded her assistance in selecting boots and clothing. The gang equipped itself with several changes of clothes, replacing articles lost during the recent encounter with police.
Before leaving, Gilbert asked one of the young men for a glass of wine. He refused to drink it, however, until the shopman formally performed the office of host—as though the armed intruder were an invited customer rather than a robber. Dunn displayed a more youthful taste and helped himself to some lollies, apparently to sweeten the night’s journey through the bush.
After approximately three-quarters of an hour, Gilbert and Dunn politely wished the occupants goodnight and departed.
The newspaper observed that never had “a piece of ruffianism” been conducted in a more orderly or decorous fashion. Yet its civility was theatrical. Two employees had been held under revolvers, Mrs Jones had been compelled to assist the men robbing her husband’s store, and Hall stood armed outside. The polite farewell did not alter the coercion upon which the entire transaction depended.
The following morning, further inquiries established that Hall had remained outside the store, guarding the entrance through which Gilbert and Dunn had entered.
During the robbery, Hall stopped a passer-by. The unfortunate man was bailed up and forced to wait until Gilbert and Dunn emerged. He was then compelled to help carry the stolen goods to a place near the slaughteryard on the hill, approximately half a mile away, where four horses were tied.
Inside the store, Gilbert attempted to conceal Hall’s presence. When Mrs Jones asked about him, Gilbert claimed that he had not seen Hall for three days. Dunn was less guarded and admitted that Hall was stationed outside.
According to Dunn, Hall had declined to enter because he had known Mrs Jones personally in former times. If correctly reported, this provides an insight into Hall’s conduct. His absence was not evidence that he had separated from the gang, as Gilbert suggested, but an effort to avoid confronting a woman who would recognise him and perhaps appeal to an earlier acquaintance.
Hall nevertheless remained an active participant. He guarded the door, detained the passer-by and supervised the removal of the stolen property. Personal reluctance kept him outside the store but did not prevent the robbery.
After leaving Forbes, the gang proceeded to the hut of a milkman named Robinson, approximately two miles from town. There they remained for about two hours, sorting the stolen goods, arranging their swags and preparing for the journey ahead.
This pause explains why they had required the passer-by’s assistance. The store had supplied several changes of clothing and other goods that could not conveniently be carried loose. Before resuming their movement, the men needed to divide the property and secure it to their horses.
Between ten and eleven o’clock they reached Grudgery, Mr Morris’s station, where they took another horse and two new saddles.
There they encountered a young man named Watkins. Hall threatened to shoot him, alleging that Watkins had previously placed police upon the tracks of Hall and his companions. The threat revealed a harsher side than the decorous performance at Jones’s store. A person suspected of supplying information to the police occupied a very different position from an unresisting shop employee.
From Grudgery the gang proceeded to one of Mr Lee’s stations and took a horse belonging to the superintendent.
On Tuesday afternoon, Hall, Gilbert and Dunn were seen camped upon a plain approximately seven or eight miles from Forbes. The observer knew them and carried the intelligence into town. Reports circulated that the gang intended to rob Pendleburg’s saddlery for fresh saddles and then visit several other establishments. If such plans were ever seriously entertained, they were not carried out.
The robbery demonstrated that Hall’s return to Forbes was deliberate rather than accidental. The gang first took Martin’s racehorses at Bundaburra, observed the movements of the town police, selected a store that met its needs and waited until the premises were nearly empty. Hall remained outside because of his former acquaintance with Mrs Jones, while Gilbert and Dunn controlled the people within.
The episode also showed the division of roles within the gang. Hall acted as lookout and controlled the approach. Dunn guarded the captives. Gilbert conducted the search, chose the clothing and managed the conversation. Each man performed a distinct part, allowing the robbery to proceed quietly for approximately forty-five minutes within a town patrolled by police.
The claim that the gang was “hard up” was not merely an excuse. The failed Araluen attack and the Wallendbeen encounter had cost them weapons, saddles, clothing and physical strength. Gilbert was still suffering from his wounded arm. Their repeated horse thefts revealed how severely continuous movement was exhausting their mounts.
Yet their hardship should not be confused with helplessness. They had sufficient knowledge of Forbes to compare its stores, observe the police beat, locate secluded huts and prepare an escape route towards the slaughteryard and river country. Even while Davidson’s troopers were searching the district, the gang entered the town, remained inside a store for three-quarters of an hour and escaped without a shot being fired.
Note: Contemporary reports differ slightly over the value of the money and goods taken. One account gave the receipts as £81, including about £5 in silver, and valued the selected goods at £34. The fuller Forbes communication placed the cash at £84 in notes and £3 10s. in silver, together with the rejected £14 cheque. Both agree upon the central facts: Gilbert and Dunn entered the store, Hall remained outside, the silver was returned, clothing was taken and no one was physically harmed.
The fuller account is particularly valuable because it preserves Mrs Jones’s confrontation with the bushrangers, Hall’s attempt to conceal his presence and the gang’s movements after leaving Forbes.
The pursuit following the robbery was led by Sergeant Condell, while Sub-Inspector Davidson continued searching the surrounding country.
At about six o’clock on Saturday evening, 29 April 1865, Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert and John Dunn appeared at Yamma, the station of Charles William Cropper near Forbes. Their arrival was unexpected, but it caused little surprise in the district. Cropper had long been an outspoken opponent of bushranging and had assisted efforts to capture the men who now appeared at his home.
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| Yamma Station |
Cropper himself was absent, travelling home from Sydney. His wife and children were at the station.
Gilbert and Dunn were first seen ascending the hill upon which the Yamma homestead stood. Each carried a revolver in either hand. They entered the enclosure through a wicket at one end of the house while Hall approached from the opposite direction.
The division was deliberate. By entering from both ends, the bushrangers could control the house and prevent anyone from escaping to raise an alarm.
Hall moved on tiptoe into the sitting room and intercepted Mrs Cropper as she entered from a bedroom. He asked her not to be alarmed, assuring her that the gang did not intend to injure her. He then inquired whether any men were about the station and where her husband kept his firearms.
Before leaving for Sydney, Cropper had placed most of his weapons somewhere safe. Once the bushrangers learned this, Hall and Gilbert entered the bedroom and began searching the drawers for money, firearms and other portable valuables.
Their search yielded little. They found a four-barrelled pistol valued at approximately £8, together with powder, percussion caps and bullets. These were immediately appropriated.
Hall declared that he was determined to have something belonging personally to Cropper and took one of his pocket handkerchiefs. The gesture was more symbolic than profitable. It suggested that the visit was directed partly against Cropper himself rather than being merely another search for supplies.
A writing desk was carefully unlocked and its papers examined. Nothing inside was considered worth taking.
Having completed what the correspondent called “the business part” of the visit, the bushrangers entered the cellar and brought out three bottles of porter. They drank the porter and a small quantity of brandy before sitting down to tea.
They invited Mrs Cropper to join them. She resolutely refused. When it became clear that she would not change her mind, the men did not press the invitation.
Throughout the occupation their demeanour was described as extremely respectful. They spoke freely about their past activities, their present circumstances and their future intentions. Yet the outward civility remained inseparable from the fact that three armed men had surrounded the house, searched the bedrooms and taken possession of its contents.
During the evening Hall lifted Cropper’s little boy onto his knee. He called him “a fine little fellow” and remarked that he would make a good man in a few years.
Hall then said that he would like to take the child into his own keeping. Mrs Cropper emphatically rejected the suggestion. Whether Hall intended it as a joke, an expression of melancholy affection or an attempt to unsettle the boy’s mother cannot now be determined. Nothing further was done to remove the child.
The scene is striking because it occurred during Hall’s final days. In other late reports he appeared tired, careworn and unable to relax. At Yamma, holding another man’s son upon his knee, he briefly displayed the domestic sentimentality that sometimes emerged amid his robberies. Yet the tenderness was intrusive: Mrs Cropper had not invited him into her home or entrusted her child to him.
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| Charles Cropper c. 1880s |
Conversation eventually turned to a speech Cropper had delivered at Lambing Flat some months earlier, in which he had condemned bushranging.
Hall claimed that he had been outside the building during the speech and had called through a window. He complained that the words attributed to him afterwards had been reported incorrectly. According to Hall, his actual threat had been:
“Ben Hall will some day cut your head off.”
The newspaper remarked that, if this was an example of how Hall had been misrepresented, the justice of his complaint was questionable. His correction scarcely made the threat less serious.
Hall frequently protested that newspapers and informers blamed him for words and deeds that were not his. At Yamma, however, he simultaneously complained of false attribution and confirmed that he had threatened Cropper with decapitation. The episode demonstrates how readily Hall combined concern for his reputation with an acceptance of violent intimidation.
The gang spoke openly about future operations. They mentioned plans to visit Hanbury Clements at Eugowra Creek and David Campbell at Goimbla because, as they expressed it, both men had been “blowing so”—speaking publicly against the bushrangers and assisting efforts to suppress them.
Campbell had killed John O’Meally while defending Goimbla station in November 1863. Hall and his companions had subsequently attempted to burn Campbell’s buildings and destroy his property. More than a year later, the resentment remained alive.
Hall expressed particular indignation at the conduct of Amelia Campbell, who had carried ammunition to her husband during the attack. He asked Mrs Cropper whether she would load firearms for her own husband under similar circumstances.
She answered promptly that she would.
Her reply produced no visible disapproval from Hall. Mrs Cropper had made clear that, despite the gang’s present assurances, she would actively assist her husband in resisting them.
Hall also addressed what would happen if the gang met Cropper. He said they did not intend to shoot him unless he fired first. Given the earlier threat to cut off Cropper’s head, the assurance offered limited comfort. It placed responsibility for any violence upon the victim while three armed intruders reserved the right to decide what constituted resistance.
As the gang approached the homestead, it encountered Cropper’s cook in an adjoining paddock. The man was travelling towards Mr Bowler’s Wallawalla station and was taken into custody.
A carpenter working at Yamma was similarly detained and compelled to move wherever the bushrangers directed him.
The gang’s knowledge of the property disturbed the correspondent. Hall, Gilbert and Dunn appeared familiar with the arrangement of the house, the location of its rooms and even the names of Cropper’s horses. Their movements suggested that they had obtained detailed information before arriving.
Such knowledge illustrated the importance of the bush telegraph. The gang’s ability to operate depended upon people who supplied information about household arrangements, firearms, horses, police movements and the presence or absence of station owners. Whether the information about Yamma came from a deliberate sympathiser, a casual conversation or earlier observation was not established.
Hall had also learned that a daughter of Mr Farrand, the police magistrate, was staying at Yamma. He remarked that he wished her father had been present. Hall said he would have compelled Farrand to write a cheque for £500 as ransom and, if he refused, adopted an unspecified but “unpleasant alternative.”
The threat showed that, beneath the evening’s polite conversation, Hall still contemplated kidnapping and coercion as means of obtaining money.
The gang initially announced that it intended to remain at Yamma throughout the night. Mrs Cropper then told them that she was unwell and wished to send the servant girl to fetch Mrs Paterson.
The bushrangers objected to allowing the girl to leave while they remained at the station. They explained that a servant girl had recently caused the death of Daniel Morgan. On 9 April, a maid at Peechelba station had escaped from the house and raised the alarm while Morgan detained the occupants. The warning enabled station employee John Quinlan to arm himself and fatally shoot the bushranger.
Hall’s gang had understood the lesson. A servant leaving an occupied homestead could summon armed assistance before the bushrangers were ready to depart.
Nevertheless, out of consideration for Mrs Cropper’s condition, the men decided to leave immediately rather than prevent her from obtaining help. They apologised for the intrusion and said that, had they known she was unwell, they would not have troubled the household.
The apology was characteristic of the peculiar moral performance surrounding many of Hall’s robberies. The gang expressed regret for inconveniencing Mrs Cropper while simultaneously searching her bedroom, stealing firearms and preparing to take valuable horses.
Before leaving, the bushrangers took a valuable racing mare worth between £40 and £50 and two other horses. They told Mrs Cropper that the animals would soon be released or abandoned.
The promise reflected their usual treatment of stolen mounts. Horses were taken to satisfy an immediate need, ridden until the gang found better animals and then turned loose. Whether Cropper recovered all three is not established by this report.
The raid yielded little money. Its principal proceeds were the four-barrelled pistol, ammunition, a pocket handkerchief and three horses. In material terms it was a modest affair. Its importance lies in the conversation it preserved and its place at the end of the gang’s career.
Yamma was one of the last occasions on which Hall, Gilbert and Dunn were reliably reported together. The summons issued under the Felons Apprehension Act required the three men to surrender at Goulburn Gaol by 29 April—the very day of the Yamma visit. They did not surrender.
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Yamma Station carved stool c 1937 |
These were not necessarily signs of a divided conscience. Hall’s courtesy operated within boundaries fixed entirely by himself. So long as the household submitted, he could afford to be polite. His assurances always carried the unstated qualification that resistance might produce a very different result.
The reference to Morgan is especially revealing. His death at Peechelba had demonstrated how rapidly control of a homestead could be lost. Hall, Gilbert and Dunn were no longer merely cautious about the police; they were alert to servants, station hands and anyone capable of carrying an alarm.
Their knowledge that the country was turning against them sat beneath the conversation at Yamma. The Felons Apprehension proceedings were advancing, the rewards were enormous and the gang’s former support network had become less dependable. Even an apparently compliant household might contain the person who brought armed men upon them.
The outwardly courteous occupation of Yamma was therefore not merely another episode of bushranger theatre. It was the final domestic performance of a gang whose time had almost expired.
In retrospect, the period after Araluen was the last narrowing corridor of Hall’s career. The gold escort had resisted them. Daniel Morgan had been killed. The Felons Apprehension Act had passed. Old associates were pleading guilty in court. Suspected harbourers and bush telegraphs were under attention. The gang still had friends, but friendship now carried grave legal danger. The Act would soon become fatal in its consequences:
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| Sir Frederick Pottinger |
Pottinger’s record was mixed but never timid. After the great Lachlan escort robbery of June 1862 he pursued the offenders for weeks, recovered stolen gold, and was praised by some for endurance and determination, though criticised by others for failing to prevent the robbery and failing to return with prisoners. His career was dogged by embarrassments: the failure to capture Gardiner at Kate Brown’s, allegations of rough conduct, political attacks, and the cruel nickname “Blind Freddie.” Yet even hostile observers rarely accused him of cowardice. He was unlucky, impulsive, and often indiscreet, but he was also tireless.
By early 1865, however, Pottinger’s position had collapsed. Hoping to lure Hall and John Dunn into the open, he rode in the Wowingragong races near Forbes in January. Pottinger defended the act as a justified departure from the letter, though not the spirit, of police regulations. The authorities disagreed. He was dismissed from the New South Wales Police on 16 February 1865. The dismissal angered many in the Lachlan district, where meetings and petitions called for his reinstatement, but the government did not relent. Pottinger therefore resolved to go to Sydney and seek redress personally.
On 5 March 1865, while travelling toward Sydney, Pottinger reached Wascoe’s Inn in the Blue Mountains, now associated with Blaxland. The coach had stopped, and Pottinger left it briefly before reboarding. As he got back on, a small pistol he was carrying discharged accidentally. Reports differ slightly on the exact mechanics, but the essential fact is consistent: the weapon fired while in his possession, and the ball entered his upper abdomen or just below the ribs. Early newspaper notice treated it as a severe accident but believed he was out of danger.
The injury did not at first appear fatal. Pottinger recovered enough to be conveyed to Sydney, where he stayed at the Victoria Club. A fortnight before his death, the bullet was extracted, and his recovery was expected. For a few days he was even able to move about. Then, on 2 April, he suffered a relapse and was confined to bed. On 5 April serious inflammation set in, and leeches were applied. His condition deteriorated steadily. By Saturday, 8 April, hope had gone. On Sunday morning, 9 April, he became insensible, and at a quarter before two in the afternoon he died at the Victoria Club, aged thirty-three, in his thirty-fourth year.
His death came at a grimly symbolic moment. On 8 April 1865, the very day before Pottinger died, the Felons Apprehension Act received assent — the extraordinary law intended to bring Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn to destruction. Pottinger did not live to see the Act take effect against the men he had hunted for years. Pottinger’s death therefore sits almost as a tragic prelude to the final extinction of Hall’s gang: the old pursuer gone just as the law he had long seemed to desire came into being.
The funeral took place on the morning of 11 April 1865 at Randwick Cemetery, associated with St Jude’s Anglican Church. It was not the funeral of a serving officer in triumph, but neither was it an obscure burial. Several principal government officials attended, along with gentlemen personally attached to the deceased baronet. The mourners included the Premier, the Minister for Public Works, the Hon. T. A. Murray, the Hon. T. Icely, members of the Legislative Assembly, the Surveyor-General, the Sheriff, the Water Police Magistrate, the Inspector-General of Police, Superintendent Morisset, and Major Wingate. The burial service was read by the Rev. Mr Britten.
Before his death, Pottinger had requested that George F. Wise arrange his affairs and communicate with his mother and brother. That detail gives the end a human weight beyond the public controversy. Pottinger had come to the colony as a titled but ruined gentleman, remade himself as a mounted policeman, became the most famous and mocked hunter of bushrangers in New South Wales, and died while trying to reverse the dismissal that had broken his career. His monument at Randwick later remembered him as a former Guardsman and a zealous police officer. For Hall’s story, Pottinger remains the adversary who never quite caught his man, but whose own ruin was bound up with the same restless, violent bushranging crisis that consumed Hall himself.
Note: Contemporary accounts described Pottinger’s wound as accidental. Later suggestions of suicide are not strongly supported by the circumstances; he was travelling to Sydney to seek reinstatement, survived for more than a month after the shooting, and early reports expected his recovery. In a side issue the civil war in America came to an end.After Sir Frederick Pottinger’s dismissal in February 1865, the Forbes pursuit of Ben Hall fell into younger hands. Sub-Inspector James Henry Davidson, still only in his mid-twenties, inherited one of the most difficult police commands in the colony: the Lachlan district, where Hall’s name carried both terror and familiarity. Pottinger had been the old public antagonist, the aristocratic hunter who had chased Hall for years and failed to finish him. Davidson’s task was different. By April 1865 he was not trying to win a duel of reputation. He was trying to end the gang.
The pressure had become intense. The Felons Apprehension Act had passed, the rewards were enormous, and every man who fed, housed, or warned Hall, Gilbert, or Dunn now faced the possibility of being treated not as a neighbour doing a favour but as an accessory to murder. The reward-notice summary places the reward culture in context: £1000 had been offered for each of the principal bushrangers, a sum large enough to transform a struggling settler’s prospects. Therefore by the 10th May if the gang had not surrendered as orderd the outlaw proclamation became law.
In this atmosphere, information became more valuable than courage. Police parties could ride until their horses failed, but without an informant they were still chasing shadows. Hall’s gang moved through a countryside of watchers: old friends, timid selectors, relations by marriage, paid informers, reluctant harbourers, and men who said nothing because silence was safer. To penetrate that country, Davidson needed someone close enough to the gang to know where they would sleep.
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| Mary Coneley |
On 23 April 1865, Sub-Inspector James Davidson received intelligence that Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert and John Dunn were preparing to leave the Forbes district for Merro Creek. The three bushrangers were gathering saddle horses and intended to remain for several days at a place about fifteen miles from Forbes, beyond Billabong Creek, while their horses were shod.
Davidson saw an opportunity to mislead the gang before striking. He sent Sergeant Condell with a mounted party under unusual orders: if the police encountered the bushrangers, they were to reveal themselves and make a show of pursuit, but not press the chase. They were then to return to Forbes on Friday.
Condell found Hall, Gilbert and Dunn at Monwonga on Wednesday, 26 April. Following Davidson’s instructions, the troopers pretended to pursue them, then doubled back and reached Forbes on Friday evening.
The manoeuvre was calculated to deceive the gang’s scouts and sympathisers. Davidson encouraged them to believe that the mounted police had ridden away and that Forbes had been left virtually unguarded. With the bushrangers reassured and their movements being secretly reported, he prepared the operation that would lead his party to Hall’s camp beside Billabong Creek.
Davidson then was incommunication with the one he needed the most, an informant. That man has long been identified as Michael “Mick” Coneley, husband of Mary Strickland. Coneley lived near Billabong Creek, on land owned by his in-laws in the country where Hall was still able to move with a degree of confidence. Mary’s family connection to Hall gave the betrayal its particular bitterness. As a girl, Mary Strickland had known Hall before his full descent into bushranging, and later tradition held that she helped nurse him after a broken leg in his youth. Some accounts go further and suggest an early romantic affection between them, but that should be treated as tradition rather than proven fact. What matters historically is the bond of old acquaintance. Hall had reason to believe that this was friendly ground.Coneley’s position was more complicated. He was not a prosperous independent man. He was an Irish immigrant and stockman, married into the wealthy Strickland family, and later accounts portray him as a man living under the shadow of in-laws who regarded him as socially beneath Mary. The reward for Hall’s capture therefore represented more than police money. It offered independence, status, and release from dependence. Evidence shows Coneley received £500 of the reward money; whether one calls it reward, blood money, or the price of betrayal depends on where one stands in the story.
The plan of capture was therefore not simply to follow the gang after another robbery. Davidson intended to place a police party near the proposed rendezvous, conceal its presence and wait until all three bushrangers had assembled.
Davidson’s official deposition, however, referred only to “my informant” and did not name him.
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Sub-Inspector James Henry Davidson |
At four o’clock on the morning of Saturday, 29 April, Davidson quietly left Forbes with Sergeant Condell, Constables Edward Buckley, John Caban, John Boyan—whose name also appears as Bolan or Boland—and Thomas Hipkiss. They were accompanied by the Aboriginal trackers Billy Dargin and Charley or Charley Goolagong.
The party took precautions to conceal its movements, destroying or covering the tracks left by its horses. Rather than riding directly towards the rendezvous, Davidson established a hidden camp in dense oak scrub about seven miles from the place where the bushrangers were expected to meet.
A watch was maintained along the edge of a broad plain so that the informant could approach without exposing the police position. For several days Davidson’s men remained concealed, their supplies diminishing as they waited for the three outlaws to assemble.
On Tuesday, 2 May, word arrived that Gilbert and Dunn had reached the district, but Hall had not yet joined them. Davidson decided to wait. His intention was to close upon the entire gang at night, while they were sleeping in scrub so dense that an ordinary mounted pursuit would have little prospect of success.
The informant warned that surprise was essential. If the bushrangers obtained even a yard’s start, he claimed, the police would never see them again. Their superior horses, local knowledge and ability to scatter through the scrub had defeated pursuit many times before.
Davidson accordingly contemplated firing upon the men in their camp. He later explained that he believed the Felons Apprehension Act was already in force. In fact, the legal process required to proclaim Hall, Gilbert and Dunn outlaws had not been completed. The proclamation did not become operative until several days after Hall’s death.
On Wednesday, 3 May, the plan began to unravel. Gilbert and Dunn were disturbed by stockmen searching the country for wandering horses. Mistaking the men for police, the two bushrangers abandoned their camp and fled towards Monwonga.
They left two horses and several ponchos behind, apparently intending to return the following day and collect Hall. They did not return. Davidson later admitted that he received no reliable information about their immediate movements after they departed.
For days he had waited in the hope of trapping all three men. Now two had escaped and the third had still not appeared. Yet Davidson continued to trust the information about the rendezvous.
On Thursday evening, 4 May, the informant returned with decisive news: Hall had arrived alone.
Davidson abandoned his original hope of taking the entire gang. Hall was regarded as its leader, and there was no assurance that he would remain once he discovered Gilbert and Dunn were gone. Davidson therefore resolved to close upon Hall and, if successful, continue watching the camp in case the other two returned.
Guided towards the hiding place, Davidson’s party approached scrub bordering a wide plain near Billabong Creek. The country was typical of the flat Lachlan landscape north-west of Forbes: open ground broken by belts of pine, oak scrub and creek timber. It offered water and concealment while remaining close to horses and friendly habitation.
Approximately a quarter of a mile from the suspected camp, Davidson ordered his men to remove their boots and coats. Bare feet would make less noise among the dead leaves and fallen branches, while removing their coats would leave them less encumbered if Hall attempted to escape.
The police moved silently through a narrow belt of pine scrub. At about ten o’clock they found two horses hobbled near a poncho. Davidson immediately believed that the animals belonged to Hall, but the bushranger’s sleeping place could not be located without risking noise.
The moon appeared intermittently through broken cloud, and a bitter wind crossed the plain. The police watched the horses rather than search blindly through the scrub.
After approximately half an hour, a man emerged from the darkness. He caught the horses, led them about one hundred yards, hobbled them again and disappeared into thick cover. Davidson did not immediately obtain a clear enough view to identify him. Billy Dargin subsequently heard movement among the leaves, as though the man were clearing or scratching out a place in which to sleep.
The sounds confirmed that someone had settled close by. After days of waiting upon the informant’s reports, the police were finally within striking distance of their quarry.
Davidson left five men watching the position while he moved with Sergeant Condell and Billy Dargin in an attempt to approach the sleeping place. The horses became restless and snorted, threatening to alert Hall. Unable to advance silently, Davidson withdrew and decided to wait for daylight.
The trap was now set. Hall’s horses were watched, the approaches from the scrub were covered and the police lay between him and the open plain. Davidson’s method had been deliberate throughout: false pursuit, misleading information allowed to reach the bush telegraph, concealed movement from Forbes and several days of patient waiting.
The operation had not unfolded as he intended. Gilbert and Dunn had escaped before Hall arrived, the police were running short of supplies, and the darkness prevented Davidson from locating Hall’s exact sleeping place. Nevertheless, the informant had accomplished what years of mounted pursuit had failed to achieve. He had placed the police beside Hall’s camp without warning him of their presence.
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| Map of the ground where Hall died drawn by Sub-inspector Davidson. Sent to his father following the shooting. Note: Hut marked as Strickland is Coneleys. (To enlarge open in new tab.) |
Before dawn on 5 May, Hall lay in the scrub near Billabong Creek, unaware that Davidson’s men surrounded the ground between him and his horses. At first light he rose and walk towards them. His last morning had already begun.
The location place is on Ben Halls Road, between Forbes and Bogan Gate. Davidson’s contemporary notes and map formed the basis of its modern identification. Billabong Creek and the probable site of Coneley’s hut lie nearby, although the precise role attributed to Coneley rests upon later historical reconstruction rather than Davidson’s sworn deposition.
Note: Peter Bradley conducted a dig at the site and categorically confirmed the house. Bradley also indentfied Coneley through extensive research of banking records. However, the actual site of Halls death marked by the Forbes Historical Society is subject to much speculation as to its correctness.
The police watched the horses for about half an hour. At around ten o’clock a man came out of the scrub, caught them, led them about a hundred yards, hobbled them again, and returned to thicker cover. Davidson did not yet recognise him as Hall. The first critical observation came from Billy Dargin. Dargin told Davidson he heard the man scratching among the dead leaves, as though preparing a place to sleep. That detail matters because it is probably the root of the later story that Dargin crept close to Hall at night. In the sworn version, however, Dargin heard Hall making his bed; he did not shoot him then.
Note: Later tradition claimed that Billy Dargin crept close to Ben Hall during the night and shot him while he slept. The contemporary inquiry does not support this. Davidson’s evidence states that Dargin heard Hall making a bed among the leaves, but that Davidson, Condell, and Dargin could not approach within one hundred yards because the horses snorted. They waited until daylight. In the official sequence, Davidson fired first, Condell and Dargin fired immediately afterwards, and the remaining police then fired as Hall ran toward the scrub.
Davidson then divided his party. Five men were posted where they stood, while Davidson, Sergeant Condell, and Billy Dargin moved to the other side, intending to attack the man in his camp if they could confirm he was Ben Hall. But they could not get within a hundred yards because the horses snorted at their approach. Rather than risk alarming him in the darkness, Davidson resolved to wait until daybreak.
At about half past six on the morning of 5 May, Davidson saw a man with a bridle in his hand walking toward the horses. When the man was about halfway between the scrub and the animals, Davidson, Condell, and Dargin ran toward him. They covered about fifty yards before he noticed them. By then Davidson recognised him as Ben Hall. Hall turned and ran toward the scrub and toward the position where the other police and tracker Charley had been posted. Davidson called on him several times to stand.
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| Sgt Condell |
Condell’s evidence sharpened the sequence. He said Davidson fired first; Condell then covered Hall fully in the back with his rifle and fired, believing his shot struck between Hall’s shoulders. Billy Dargin then fired with a double-barrelled gun, and Condell thought Dargin’s shot also hit him. When Hall saw the other police emerge from the scrub, he changed direction. The men opened fire again.
Hall reached a cluster of timber and caught hold of a sapling. Davidson saw Constable Hipkiss fire with a revolving rifle, after which Hall’s revolver belt fell to the ground. Still holding the sapling, Hall gradually fell backwards. Davidson said about thirty shots were fired altogether, several after Hipkiss fired. He also said Hall spoke after being shot, crying, “I’m wounded; shoot me dead.” Condell remembered the words slightly differently: “I’m wounded, I’m dying.”
The medical evidence shows why the firing was so final. Dr Charles Ashenheim examined the body and found it perforated by several bullets. He identified multiple fatal wounds: a shot between the shoulders, two shots through the brain, and one through the body, any of which would have been sufficient to cause death. Therefore the claim by Davidson and Condell of Halls last words appear fabricated. Hall was dead before he hit the ground.
Davidson searched the body. He found £74 in notes in two chamois leather bags, three gold chains, a gold watch, a woman’s portrait, three revolvers, bullets, and a gold keeper ring. Hall’s saddle, poncho, blankets, and wearing apparel were also found nearby. His clothes were pierced through and through by bullets. The police then caught his horses, strapped the body across a saddle, and carried it back toward Forbes.
The body reached Forbes on Saturday 6 May at about four in the morning. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Forbes correspondent reported that Hall had been killed near the North Billabong, about twelve miles from Forbes, and that his body was pierced with eight or nine bullets, any one of several wounds being fatal. By ten o’clock that morning, the room where the body lay was crowded with townspeople. Four or five hundred people reportedly came to view him at the police barracks, and some took locks of his hair after the inquiry.
The public reaction was uneasy and fascinated. The correspondent noted that there was “nothing forbidding” in Hall’s dead face and that several people remarked on how handsome he looked. Others said they recognised the face but could not place where they had seen it. Hall, the hunted man who had become a public legend, had in death become an exhibit.
The magisterial inquiry was held at noon in the dining hall of the police barracks before Police Magistrate William Farrand. Davidson and Condell gave the main police evidence. William Jones, a Forbes storekeeper, and John Newell, a Forbes publican, identified the body as Ben Hall’s. The medical evidence confirmed multiple fatal bullet wounds.
Billy Dargin’s part was real and important, but the best evidence does not support the story that he crept up in the night and fired the fatal shot into a sleeping Hall. Dargin heard Hall making his bed in the leaves; he helped Davidson and Condell manoeuvre toward the camp; he fired during the morning pursuit; and Inspector Davidson later praised his conduct noting that his “last and crowning exploit” was his part in bringing about Hall’s death, and that Davidson spoke admiringly of his conduct.
A modern myth-checking summary reaches the same conclusion: the claim that “Billy Dargin crept up on Ben Hall and shot him while he was asleep” is not supported by the weight of the coroner’s inquiry or the medical evidence. The more reliable reconstruction is that Hall was surprised at dawn, ran for the scrub, was struck first by Davidson and Condell, then by Dargin and the other police, and was finally shot down beside the saplings without firing a shot.
Hall was buried in Forbes Cemetery on Sunday 7 May 1865. His hearse was followed by about fifty people and three buggies, including some family members and curious locals. At the time his sister-in-law Ann Hall commented "he would not be lying there if not for his wife." His grave later became part of the public memory of the bushranger story, but in May 1865 it marked the abrupt end of the man whose career had forced the colonial government into extraordinary law.
Summary of the death of Ben Hall: Davidson’s party brought Ben Hall’s body into Forbes before dawn on Saturday, 6 May 1865. The corpse had been strapped across one of Hall’s own horses after the shooting near Billabong Creek, about twelve miles from town. News of the death spread quickly. Davidson had hoped, according to later accounts, to keep Hall’s death quiet long enough to trap Gilbert and Dunn, but that was impossible. The body itself became an event. Contemporary reports described townspeople crowding to see him at the police barracks, with several hundred people passing through to view the dead bushranger.
The magisterial inquiry was held at the Forbes police barracks on Saturday, 6 May, before Police Magistrate William Farrand. Davidson gave the principal evidence. He stated that he had left the Forbes police camp on 29 April with five men and two Aboriginal trackers in pursuit of Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn. On the night before the killing his party found two hobbled horses near Billabong Creek, watched them, and saw an unidentified man come out of the scrub to move and hobble them again. Billy Dargin then heard the man among the leaves, apparently preparing a bed. Davidson, Sergeant Condell, and Dargin tried to close in during the night, but the horses snorted and prevented them getting within one hundred yards. Davidson therefore waited until daybreak.
At about half-past six the next morning Davidson saw the man approaching the horses with a bridle. Davidson, Condell, and Dargin ran after him; after about fifty yards the man realised they were there and ran toward the other police who had been posted ahead. Davidson then recognised him as Ben Hall and called on him to stand. Hall kept running. Davidson fired first with a double-barrelled gun from about forty yards, believing he had hit him. Condell and Dargin fired immediately afterwards, and the other police then closed in and fired as Hall slowed near a group of saplings. Davidson said about thirty shots were fired in all, and that Hall cried, “I am wounded; shoot me dead,” before he fell.
The body was searched before being taken to Forbes. Davidson found £74 in notes in two chamois leather bags, three gold chains, a gold watch, a female portrait, three revolvers, bullets, and a gold keeper ring. Hall’s saddle, blankets, and clothing were nearby, and Davidson noted that the clothing was perforated by bullets. The State Library of NSW gives a similar inventory and identifies Davidson as the officer who shot Hall with a double-barrelled gun.
The medical evidence was decisive but grim. Dr Charles Ashenheim examined the body and found it pierced by several bullets. He stated that the shot between the shoulders, the two shots into the brain, and the shot through the body were each sufficient to cause death. The body was identified by William Jones, a Forbes storekeeper who said he had known Hall for seventeen years, and by John Newall, a Forbes publican who had known him for about nine years.
Reports state that the inquest returned a verdict of justifiable homicide. The official evidence accepted the police version: Hall had been surprised at dawn, called upon to stand, and shot while running for the scrub. Later controversy would gather around the killing, especially because the Felons Apprehension Act had not yet taken practical effect against Hall in the way it soon would against Gilbert and Dunn. But in May 1865, the local proceeding cleared Davidson and his men. One report also stated that Davidson was promoted to inspector and Sergeant Condell to sub-inspector shortly afterwards.
Hall’s funeral took place the following day, Sunday, 7 May 1865, at Forbes Cemetery. The Heritage NSW listing records that the hearse was followed by about fifty people and three buggies, including some family members and curious locals. The Australian Dictionary of Biography notes that Hall’s funeral was “rather numerously attended,” reflecting the strange sympathy he retained among some colonists despite his crimes. He had been violent, defiant, and long associated with armed robbery, yet he was also remembered for personal courage, courtesy to women, humour, and hatred of informers — qualities that complicated public feeling after his death.
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Ben Hall's Grave c. 1906 |
The immediate aftermath was therefore double-edged. Officially, Davidson’s ambush was vindicated: Hall was dead, the inquest justified the shooting, and the officers involved were rewarded. Publicly, however, Hall’s body drew crowds and his funeral attracted enough attendance to show that he was not regarded merely as a dead criminal. His death broke the gang, but it also fixed his legend. Within days, Gilbert and Dunn would be hunted in their turn, and the machinery of outlawry would move fully into effect.
The killing of Ben Hall occurred in the shadow of the new Felons Apprehension Act, but not technically under its completed authority. The Act had received assent on 8 April 1865, after months of public alarm over armed bushranging, the killing of police, and the failure of ordinary warrants to bring men such as Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn before a court. Its purpose was plain from its title: it was “an Act to facilitate the taking or apprehending of persons charged with certain felonies and the punishment of those by whom they are harboured.”
The Act was directed at precisely the circumstances Hall’s gang had created. Its preamble referred to men charged with murder, robbery under arms, wounding, and other capital felonies who remained at large while being sheltered by “evil-minded persons,” continuing to commit robberies and murders and to resist or kill officers of justice. This was the legislative answer to Parry’s death at Jugiong, Nelson’s death at Collector, the repeated mail robberies, the Araluen escort attack, and the harbouring networks that had enabled the gang to move from district to district.
The process, however, was not instantaneous. A judge first had to issue a summons requiring the accused men to surrender at a specified place and date. If they failed to surrender, and if the required proof and publications were made, they could then be adjudged outlaws. Only after a proclamation of that outlawry was published in the Government Gazette and newspapers could any person, constable or civilian, apprehend or take the outlaw “alive or dead,” with or without a demand to surrender.
That distinction is crucial in Hall’s case. The legal machinery had begun against Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn for the murder of Sergeant Edmund Parry, and they had been called upon to surrender. But Hall was shot near Billabong Creek on 5 May 1865, before the proclamation declaring them outlaws had been gazetted. Later legal scholarship notes the sequence clearly: the summons called on Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn to surrender by 29 April; Hall was killed on 5 May; Gilbert and Dunn were outlawed on 10 May, the same day Hall’s death was reported in the Sydney press.
Thus, while the spirit of the Felons Apprehension Act hung over Davidson’s operation, Hall was not yet an outlaw in the strict legal sense when he was shot. The police justified the killing on the basis that Hall was a heavily armed fugitive resisting apprehension and attempting to escape. The Forbes inquiry accepted that view and returned a finding favourable to Davidson and his party. But the timing left a lasting ambiguity. Had Hall lived until 10 May and still remained at large, the Act would have placed him outside the ordinary protections of arrest and trial. As it was, he died in the interval between summons and proclamation — hunted as if outlawry had already arrived, but killed before the law had formally completed the process.
Epilogue
Of all the voices surrounding Ben Hall's death, one is conspicuously absent—that of his mother. Eliza Hall was still living at Murrurundi when her son's violent career reached its end beside Billabong Creek in May 1865. She had watched brushes with the law fracture her family long before Ben became a bushranger, had appeared in court when her elder son William was prosecuted, and had remained behind when her husband took young Ben towards the Lachlan. If mother and son did not meet again, the boy she farewelled at about thirteen was the son she next knew through reputation: stockman, husband, landholder, accused accomplice of Gardiner, bushranger and finally outlaw. The newspapers recorded Ben Hall's death in extraordinary detail. They recorded the bullets, the inquest, the body at Forbes and the circumstances of his burial. Yet they appear to have recorded nothing of the woman at Murrurundi who had given birth to him twenty-seven years earlier. Whether Eliza mourned him, condemned the course he had taken, blamed those who had helped lead him towards it, or privately believed that the police had murdered her son is unknown. On Ben Hall, history preserved almost everybody's opinion except his mother's.
Excellent. The best account of Hall's later career that I have read. Question: does anyone know the location of Warne's at Crookwell? I have tried in vain to find the spot many times. This account rightly dispels the falsehood of Dunn having a baby with Margaret Monks. It also shows that Dunn was no country yokel out for a lark. He was a criminal at odds with decent society. I think it is a shame that the owners of the property at Breadalbane where the shootout occurred are averse to historians visiting the site, and to having a marker placed. This is an exciting incident in our colonial history. Of course, many of the sites of historical significance are unmarked. I appreciate that you give alternative accounts of some events. Most historians just relate the most popular view. A search of trove reveals differing accounts of so many incidents. Onya. I would have liked to have seen an account of the raid of Nubrygyn inn. This inn has been recently restored. Great photos. The first time I have seen some of these. Love the photo of Yamma homestead. An enjoyable and informative read. Thank you for the time and effort you have put in, and for making the information freely available.
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