This webpage, "The Ben Hall Gang: Outlaws of the Australian Bush," will take you on a journey into the lives of these men, their exploits, and the society they rebelled against. We will explore the circumstances that led Ben Hall, a once well-respected squatter, to become an outlaw. We will delve into his alliances with other infamous bushrangers like John Vane, the lone survivor, Fred Lowry and John Dunn a young man termed the Terror of the Colony, and how together they set New South Wales' western districts ablaze with their criminal activities and murder between 1861-1865.
We will also meet the other members of the gang, each with their own stories and motivations. Men like John O'Meally, a "murderous-looking scoundrel" who was born into wealth and idleness, and who would become one of the most feared members of the gang.
Drawing from eyewitness accounts, government documents, historical newspapers, and police records, we will reconstruct the gang's bushranging activities, their daring robberies, their clashes with the law, and their eventual downfall.
"The Ben Hall Gang: Outlaws of the Australian Bush" is not just a tale of crime and punishment. It is a window into a tumultuous period in Australian history, a time when the discovery of gold brought wealth, migration, and lawlessness to the colonies. It is a story of men who chose to live outside the law, their reasons for doing so, and the impact of their actions on Australian society.
So, join us as we journey into the bush, following the tracks of Ben Hall and his gang, exploring their lives, their crimes, and their legacy. (All related historical articles incorporated into the narrative are coloured. Reproduced as originally published.)
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| John O'Meally (Maley) |
The brothers sailed from Ireland aboard the Norfolk, identified in convict records as the vessel’s third transportation voyage. Commanded by Captain William Henniker, with William Clifford serving as surgeon-superintendent, the 536-ton ship carried 199 Irish male prisoners and a crew of thirty-seven. It departed on 9 February 1832, bearing Patrick and Peter towards an uncertain future in New South Wales.
Their names appeared inconsistently in the transportation records. Patrick was entered as “Malley,” while Peter was recorded as “Mally.” Such variations were common in nineteenth-century records, particularly when officials attempted to render Irish names according to pronunciation. In subsequent colonial documents, Patrick appeared under several forms of the surname before the family settled upon O’Meally.
After serving approximately four years, Patrick received a ticket of leave in November 1836. This permitted him to work and support himself within a prescribed district, although he remained subject to official supervision. His certificate of freedom followed in February 1839, formally releasing him from the conditions of his sentence.
In 1840, at about forty-one years of age, Patrick married twenty-year-old Julia Downey. The marriage was recorded at Galgong. Their first child, John, was born later that year.
The circumstances behind Patrick’s adoption of the name O’Meally are unknown. The change need not necessarily indicate a deliberate attempt to conceal his convict past: Irish surnames were frequently recorded in several forms by shipping clerks, magistrates, clergymen and colonial officials. Nevertheless, a more settled spelling may have suited a former convict attempting to establish a family and secure a place in the pastoral economy of New South Wales.
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| Patrick O'Meally's Indent 1832. Note Malley. |
Julia Downey’s family connected the O’Meallys with another household of Irish convict origins. Her sister had married John Daley, who had been convicted at Limerick in 1825 and transported aboard the Sir Godfrey Webster the following year. Daley received his ticket of leave in 1834 and subsequently raised a family of nine children.
Among them was Patrick “Patsy” Daley. As John O’Meally’s first cousin, Patsy grew up within the same extended family network. The connection would later acquire darker significance when the cousins became associated in bushranging and other criminal activity.
By the late 1840s the families were moving beyond the older settled districts and into the country surrounding the Weddin Mountains. The region offered grazing land, permanent and seasonal water, and access to the road that later carried traffic between Lambing Flat and Forbes. Its broken ranges and secluded gullies would also provide ideal shelter for stock thieves and bushrangers.
Later accounts describe Patrick O’Meally and John Daley as working together in connection with Arramagong Station. The contemporary land notice, however, names only Patrick—under the spelling “Maley”—as the claimant. Daley may have assisted informally, lived nearby or entered into some private arrangement, but the surviving notice does not establish him as a joint leaseholder.
The land could support up to 800 head of cattle. Their formal occupation of the station was noted in the Government Gazette in September 1848.92. Maley Patrick. Name of the run, Arramagong. Estimated run, twenty-six thousand eight hundred and eighty acres. Estimated grazing capabilities eight hundred cattle. -Bounded on the north by the Weddin Mountains; south by White's creek until it meets Burramunda Troy boundary; east by Whites Creek and a marked tree line running north and south from the Tygong Creek one mile of Watt's sheep station at the Black waterhole; west by the Black waterhole.¹
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| An estimated layout of Arramagong Station. Google Earth. |
While Patrick O’Meally was establishing his family at Arramagong, tragedy struck. In 1849, his two-year-old son James wandered away from the station and disappeared into the surrounding bush.
A search was mounted, but the child was never found. No clothing, remains or other trace of him appears to have been recovered. It was eventually feared that James had died from exposure or starvation and that native dogs had scattered or consumed his remains.
The disappearance revealed the precariousness of childhood in an isolated pastoral district. The same landscape that offered grazing land and the prospect of independence could become lethal within hours. Dense timber, rough ground and the absence of clearly defined roads made it dangerously easy for a small child to become lost beyond the reach of searchers.
For eight-year-old John O’Meally, the disappearance of his younger brother must have been a powerful family event, although no surviving testimony records his personal response. It would be unsafe to claim that the tragedy directly shaped his later conduct, but it belonged to the harsh environment in which he grew up.
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| Mrs J.B. Wood Burraminda Station c. 1870. Courtesy NLA |
As John “Jack” O’Meally entered manhood, the qualities that had distinguished him as a stockman began to assume a more dangerous character. Confidence became audacity; high spirits hardened into defiance. His horsemanship, imposing appearance and taste for display attracted attention, but so too did his increasingly reckless conduct.
In later recollections, O’Meally was cast as a “Wild Colonial Boy”—a phrase that carried both admiration and warning. It evoked the independent native-born horseman who refused to be constrained by rank or convention. Yet the romance of the expression could obscure the intimidation upon which his eventual reputation rested.
Evidence for O’Meally’s private character is fragmentary. Much of it comes from accounts written after he had become notorious, when earlier acts of teasing, insolence and bravado were remembered as signs of the bushranger he would become. Such stories cannot always be accepted literally. Nevertheless, they repeatedly depict a young man who enjoyed provoking others and demonstrating that ordinary restraints did not apply to him.
One such recollection concerned Mrs Wood of Burramunda—or Burrowmunditroy—Station. When O’Meally was still a boy, he reportedly took pleasure in tormenting a young woman employed there as a domestic servant. He interfered with her work until Mrs Wood reprimanded him.
Her warning invoked one of the colony’s most feared penal establishments:
“There is a pick and shovel waiting for you at Cockatoo Island.”
Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour was closely associated with hard labour, particularly quarrying and excavation. To tell a troublesome colonial boy that a pick and shovel awaited him there was to predict that his conduct would eventually lead to imprisonment.
According to the later story, O’Meally neither forgot nor forgave the remark.
Approximately fifteen years afterwards, when he had become a bushranger, O’Meally held up Mrs Croaker at Burrowmunditroy Station, about sixteen miles from Young. He took £7 from her. Mrs Croaker protested that the money did not belong to her but to Mrs Wood, perhaps hoping that the name of a respected local woman would persuade him to return it.
It produced the opposite response.
Recognising the name, O’Meally reportedly declared:
“I am glad of that. You can tell Mrs Wood that the pick and shovel is not waiting for me at Cockatoo, but that the rope and soap are waiting for me at Darlinghurst.”
The meaning would have been unmistakable. Darlinghurst Gaol was the principal place of execution in Sydney, and a hangman’s rope might be soaped to help it run cleanly. O’Meally was acknowledging that his crimes had carried him beyond the prospect of imprisonment and hard labour. The penalty now awaiting him, if captured and convicted, was death.
The reply also revealed the persistence of his resentment. A rebuke delivered in childhood had apparently remained in his memory until he found an opportunity to answer it through robbery. Whether every word was preserved accurately is uncertain, but the anecdote reflects the vindictive reputation attached to him.
Another episode illustrates the intimidation underlying O’Meally’s bushranging. After robbing several travellers returning home with money, he encountered a Frenchman wearing a valuable ring. O’Meally decided to take it, but the owner protested that the ring was stuck and could not be removed from his finger.
O’Meally responded by drawing a large knife.
Instead of immediately attacking the man, he began sharpening the blade rapidly upon a rough stone. He then explained how the difficulty could be overcome:
“We will soon manage that, and you will get used to being one finger short.”
The Frenchman promptly succeeded in removing the supposedly immovable ring. Terrified, he offered it to O’Meally as though surrendering it voluntarily.
The episode was later related with the rhythm of a darkly comic bushranging story: the stubborn ring, the sharpening knife and the suddenly cooperative victim. Beneath that humour lay a threat of mutilation. O’Meally obtained the ring not through wit or daring but by convincing its owner that he was capable of cutting off a finger to possess it.
Whether O’Meally genuinely intended to carry out the threat cannot be known. Its effectiveness depended upon the victim believing that he might. Bushrangers commonly used exaggerated threats to secure obedience without wasting ammunition or attracting attention. In O’Meally’s case, however, the story was consistent with a reputation for volatility that made resistance especially dangerous.
These incidents should not be used to construct a clinical portrait of O’Meally or to claim knowledge of his inner nature. They survive as stories told about a notorious man, often years after the events. Their dialogue may have been polished in the retelling, while later writers naturally selected childhood episodes that appeared to foreshadow his criminal career.
They nevertheless show how his reputation developed. O’Meally was remembered not simply as a thief but as a man who personalised his crimes. He recalled old insults, mocked his victims and used humiliation alongside threats of violence. The performance was part of the robbery: he wanted those he confronted to recognise both his power and his contempt for restraint.
The Mrs Wood story transformed a childhood reprimand into a prophecy. The incident involving the Frenchman turned the removal of a ring into a threat of dismemberment. In both accounts, O’Meally controlled the encounter by making fear itself do the work.
By then, the description “Wild Colonial Boy” had lost much of its innocent romance. O’Meally was no longer merely the tall, flash stockman of Arramagong or the mischievous youth who obstructed a servant at her work. His knowledge of the district, physical confidence and contempt for authority were being directed towards armed robbery.
The transformation was not necessarily sudden. It occurred through a series of choices in a district disrupted by gold, crowded with travellers and imperfectly policed. What began as swagger became intimidation; intimidation became robbery; and robbery brought the expectation of lethal violence.
O’Meally’s own reported reference to “the rope and soap” demonstrated that he understood where the path might end. He no longer imagined Cockatoo Island and penal labour as his likely punishment. He believed the gallows at Darlinghurst awaited him—and spoke of that prospect with grim bravado.
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| License, The Weddin Mount Inn, 1860. |
The discovery of gold at Burrangong in 1860 transformed the country surrounding Arramagong. What had been a sparsely populated pastoral district was suddenly crossed by thousands of miners, carriers, merchants and adventurers. The rough encampment that arose near the diggings became known as Lambing Flat and later developed into the town of Young.
Patrick O’Meally recognised the commercial opportunity created by this movement of people. Arramagong stood near the road connecting Lambing Flat with Forbes and the western goldfields. Travellers required food, drink, accommodation, fresh horses and secure places to rest. A roadside hotel could profit from the traffic without abandoning the family’s pastoral activities.
Patrick therefore established the Weddin Mount Inn.
With its stables, garden and dependable supply of water, the inn became a convenient stopping place on an otherwise demanding journey. Its position near the Weddin Range gave travellers an opportunity to rest themselves and their horses before continuing towards the diggings. Miners rubbed shoulders there with stockmen, carriers, commercial travellers and men whose purposes were less easily explained.
The inn also placed the O’Meally family at the centre of the gold-rush traffic. News, gossip and rumours of new discoveries passed through its rooms. Travellers discussed successful claims, gold shipments, police movements and the condition of the roads. In a district where information could be almost as valuable as gold, a roadside public house offered an unusually clear view of who was travelling, what they carried and where they intended to go.
This made the Weddin Mount Inn commercially advantageous, but it also exposed the family to the disorder accompanying the rush. Gold attracted legitimate enterprise alongside gambling, sly-grog selling, horse theft and robbery. The distinction between pastoral homestead, public house and gathering place could become dangerously blurred.
John O’Meally was about twenty when the Burrangong rush began. Already regarded as a clever bushman and exceptional horseman, he found the new settlement at Lambing Flat difficult to resist.
The goldfield offered an excitement absent from station life. A town of tents, timber buildings and crowded streets appeared with extraordinary speed. Hotels and shops competed for the miners’ money, while gambling, drinking and horse dealing continued late into the night. Fortunes were displayed, lost and sometimes stolen almost as quickly as they were won.
O’Meally moved easily through this world. His height, conspicuous clothing and confidence in the saddle made him a recognisable figure. The skills learned at Arramagong—judging horses, navigating the bush and travelling rapidly across difficult country—were valuable on the goldfields. They were equally useful to anyone prepared to live by theft.
Later accounts remembered O’Meally as already inclined towards mischief and dishonesty during this period. Such descriptions must be treated cautiously unless connected to particular charges or contemporary reports. Once a man became notorious, youthful indiscretions were often recast as proof that criminality had always been inevitable.
Nevertheless, Lambing Flat provided both temptation and opportunity. Valuable horses stood outside crowded public houses. Miners travelled with cash or gold, sometimes along lonely roads. The constantly changing population made stolen animals and goods easier to dispose of, while the nearby Weddin Mountains offered concealment from police.
The Weddin Mount Inn consequently occupied an uneasy position in O’Meally’s development. It was evidence of Patrick’s commercial ambition and his ability to profit legitimately from the gold rush. At the same time, its bar and stables brought John into regular contact with travellers, horses, money and information.
The pastoral world had taught him how to ride and survive in the bush. The inn showed him the traffic moving through it. Lambing Flat supplied excitement, criminal associations and ready markets for stolen property. Together, they created the circumstances in which the admired stockman began his transition towards horse stealing and armed robbery.
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| Frank Gardiner. c. 1861 |
By the beginning of the 1860s, the O’Meally family appeared to be prospering. The gold rush created an extraordinary demand for beef and mutton, and Arramagong was well placed to supply the diggings at Lambing Flat. The Weddin Mount Inn brought additional business from the stream of miners, carriers and stock dealers travelling through the district.
Yet the same conditions that rewarded legitimate enterprise encouraged cattle theft. Livestock prices were high, ownership was sometimes difficult to prove, and cattle could be moved considerable distances before their absence was discovered. In this unsettled environment, the distinction between the stockman, cattle dealer and cattle thief could be deliberately obscured.
John O’Meally possessed all the practical qualifications needed to exploit that uncertainty. He was an accomplished rider, an experienced bushman and intimately familiar with the stations, roads and watercourses surrounding the Weddin Mountains. According to later accounts, he grew up in a district where cattle-duffing—the appropriation of unbranded or easily altered stock—was treated with greater tolerance than other forms of theft.
One description of the O’Meally brothers observed:
“They were great bushmen, but grew up in an atmosphere which made cattle-duffing and lawless proceedings of that kind familiar from their earliest years.”
The observation was retrospective and should not be treated as proof of particular offences. It nevertheless captures the pastoral culture from which O’Meally emerged. Cattle were widely scattered, brands could be changed and “clean-skin” animals—those carrying no recognised mark—were readily claimed by whoever succeeded in getting them into a yard.
Among the men drawn to the opportunities at Lambing Flat was Francis Christie, better known as Frank Gardiner. Already an experienced horse and cattle thief, Gardiner had received a ticket of leave for the Carcoar district after his release from Cockatoo Island in December 1859.
Gardiner established himself at Spring Creek, near the Burrangong diggings, where he became associated with William Fogg in a butcher’s business. The rapidly growing mining population ensured a strong demand for meat. A butcher with access to cattle could make considerable profits—but acquiring stock lawfully required substantial capital.
Fat cattle reportedly cost between £5 and £6 a head. For an operator willing to disregard ownership, stolen animals offered a much greater return. Cattle could be driven in from distant stations, mixed with legitimately purchased stock and slaughtered before their brands attracted attention.later accounts connected Gardiner’s business with cattle supplied by John Gilbert and John O’Meally. The alleged method was simple: purchase enough cattle to provide a legitimate transaction and then add stolen animals from another property. Once mixed together and delivered for slaughter, the origins of individual beasts became difficult to establish.
The precise formation of this arrangement remains uncertain. It cannot be stated confidently that Gilbert introduced O’Meally to Gardiner unless a contemporary witness confirms it. Their movements around Lambing Flat, however, placed all three men within the same small world of horse dealers, stockmen, butchers and goldfield opportunists.
Frank Gardiner & John Gilbert c. 1862
John Gilbert had come north from Victoria while still in his teens. After leaving the Kilmore district, he passed through the Snowy Mountains and Bathurst country before appearing around Marengo and Lambing Flat.
Gilbert was an excellent horseman and possessed an easy manner that contrasted with O’Meally’s harsher reputation. Contemporary and later descriptions presented him as handsome, fair-haired, humorous and socially confident. Like O’Meally, he dressed in the conspicuous style described as “flash.”
Neither young man appears to have been seriously interested in mining. The goldfield itself offered easier opportunities. Miners who had been drinking or gambling could be watched, deceived or robbed. Horses changed hands frequently, and the transient population made identification difficult. A man familiar with the hotels and gambling places could learn which miners had been successful and when they intended to leave the field.
Gilbert reportedly acted as a kind of informal “bush telegraph,” gathering information about promising targets and passing it among his associates. The term should not be understood as a formal occupation. It described the circulation of intelligence through public houses, stables, camps and criminal networks.
Lambing Flat offered fertile ground for such activity. In October 1860 a correspondent described a settlement already containing more than a thousand people:
“There are three stores, three butchers’ shops, and no end of shanties … to some of which all sorts of characters resort, where the dice, three-up, card playing, sparring, gambling, and all sorts of town games are carried on.”
For O’Meally and Gilbert, the field provided money, entertainment and an admiring audience. Their conspicuous clothing and superb horsemanship made them familiar figures around its hotels. Profits from horse dealing or cattle theft could be spent as quickly as they were acquired.
Other cattlemen were also supplying the goldfields. Ben Hall and his brother-in-law John Maguire operated from Sandy Creek, north of Lambing Flat, and benefited from the increased demand for meat. At this stage Hall was still principally known as a stockman and grazier rather than a bushranger.
Daniel Charters, a friend of Hall and a cattle owner in his own right, also became associated with men moving stock through the district. His cattle were reportedly distributed across several properties, including Hall’s farm, his sister’s station at the Pinnacle and land near Humbug Creek.
These overlapping arrangements brought Hall, Maguire, Charters, Gilbert and O’Meally into the same pastoral and commercial network. It does not follow that every transaction between them was criminal or that all were equal members of an organised cattle-stealing enterprise. Stockmen frequently assisted one another, shared grazing and travelled together when searching for cattle.
Nevertheless, the network created opportunities for theft. Men who knew one another’s properties, brands and movements could drive cattle across station boundaries and explain their possession as part of an ordinary pastoral arrangement.
Evidence that these associations predated the celebrated bushranging gangs appeared in a letter signed “An Old Settler on the Lachlan,” dated at Morpeth on 28 October 1863 and published in the Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News on 4 November.
The writer recalled an encounter said to have occurred about four years earlier. While taking cattle overland from a station on the Lachlan, he met the young Ben Hall, whom he described as stockkeeping near Bundaburra. Hall, O’Meally, Gilbert and several others had apparently returned from what the writer called their “usual trip after cattle.”
When asked about their success, the men replied that they had spent three nights camped at Humbug Creek but had found few cattle. In one mob, however, they had seen “a few duffers.”
The writer explained:
“The term ‘duffer’ is too well known to need description here; it simply means clean-skinned animals, which are appropriated by whoever can get them into a yard.”
Note: “An Old Settler on the Lachlan,” letter dated 28 October 1863, published in the Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News, 4 November 1863;
The passage is significant because it places Hall, Gilbert and O’Meally together before their better-known bushranging exploits. It also situates them within a culture in which the appropriation of unbranded cattle could be discussed casually.
It is not, by itself, proof that the men had committed a particular theft. The letter was written retrospectively in 1863, after Hall, Gilbert and O’Meally had become notorious. Memory may have been influenced by later events, while the writer’s statement that the men had returned from their “usual” cattle expedition carried an unmistakable implication. Even so, it challenges the idea that their association began suddenly when they took to armed robbery.
Ben Hall c.1862
The connections surrounding Gardiner’s butcher shop, the Weddin Mount Inn and the neighbouring cattle stations developed gradually. Gardiner, Gilbert, O’Meally, Hall and Charters did not enter one another’s lives on a single decisive occasion. They were brought together by the pastoral economy and the goldfields: buying, selling, mustering and moving livestock across a district where legal ownership was sometimes difficult to establish.
Other figures—including Bow and Fordyce, the latter reportedly employed by Patrick O’Meally—also belonged to this wider circle. Some participated directly in criminal activity; others may have dealt with suspected cattle thieves while maintaining plausible ignorance about the origin of their stock.
The O’Meally family’s hotel strengthened these connections. As a roadside inn, it provided food, accommodation, stabling and information. Its respectability as a family business could coexist with the presence of men suspected of stealing cattle. Travellers, stockmen and wanted men passed through the same doors.
Claims that the entire O’Meally family operated a coordinated criminal establishment require stronger evidence than reputation alone. Patrick’s documented ownership of a pastoral run and hotel was not itself unlawful. Nor does association with future bushrangers prove knowledge of every offence they committed. Yet John O’Meally—and later his brother Patrick—undoubtedly contributed to the family’s increasingly dubious reputation.
By the early 1860s, the foundations of the later bushranging partnerships were already in place. The men knew one another, understood the same country and participated in an economy in which legitimate cattle dealing and stock theft could overlap. Gardiner provided experience and a market; Gilbert supplied charm, intelligence and horsemanship; O’Meally brought local knowledge, audacity and ready access to the Weddin country.
The transition from cattle-duffing to highway robbery was therefore less abrupt than later legend suggested. Before they began stopping coaches and raiding stations, these men had already learned to work together, move rapidly through the bush and convert stolen property into money. The gold rush did not create their criminal inclinations, but it supplied the wealth, traffic and disorder that allowed those inclinations to flourish.
The collapse of Frank Gardiner’s butchering enterprise in 1861 marked a turning point for the young men gathering around him. Police increasingly suspected that stolen cattle were being passed through the business at Spring Creek, and Gardiner—still officially Francis Christie—again attracted the attention of the authorities.
After his arrest on a charge of theft, Gardiner disputed or confused the identification evidence against him. Released on bail reportedly fixed at £400, he failed to appear and withdrew to William Fogg’s property on the Fish River, approximately one hundred miles from Lambing Flat. His departure deprived John Gilbert and John O’Meally of both an employer and a convenient market for cattle of questionable origin.
Gilbert and O’Meally also disappeared from the immediate scrutiny of the Lambing Flat authorities. They returned to the country around the Weddin Mountains, where proximity to the O’Meally family’s station gave them shelter, supplies and an intimate knowledge of the surrounding ranges.
Near the family’s licensed inn stood a rougher roadside shanty. There Gilbert and O’Meally reportedly operated a small butchering concern. Its legitimate trade provided a plausible explanation for the movement of cattle and meat, but later observers alleged that the principal business was the illicit sale of alcohol:
“In conjunction with Gilbert, O’Mealley was carrying on a small butchering establishment in that hut. This was the ostensible business, the real article of trade being rum, and grog-selling on the sly their real occupation.”
They stood behind the bar, served passing travellers and maintained the appearance of ordinary roadside traders. The location also allowed them to observe traffic moving between the goldfields. Even when police knew or suspected that the two men were there, the difficult country and lack of sufficient evidence discouraged immediate action.
Gardiner’s attempt to shelter at William Fogg’s property ended violently. When police confronted him there in 1861, a gunfight followed in which Gardiner narrowly escaped death. The encounter confirmed his transformation from suspected cattle thief and former butcher into an armed fugitive.
Known in some accounts as “the Darkie,” Gardiner returned to the Lachlan districts and renewed his association with the men he had known around Spring Creek. He no longer appeared as a tradesman attempting to maintain a veneer of respectability. He travelled armed, avoided the police and increasingly relied upon stations, inns and sympathisers for shelter and intelligence.
The Weddin Mount Inn became one of the places he was said to frequent. For John O’Meally and his younger brother Patrick, Gardiner presented a compelling example of open defiance. He was older, experienced and already practised in the movement of stolen stock. He appeared to possess the confidence to confront police and the bushcraft necessary to escape them.
A later account published in the Orange Leader described the development of John’s association with Gardiner:
“John O’Meally was little more than a boy when Gardiner commenced operations on the road. His father kept a shanty at the Weddin Mountains. Here he fell in with Gardiner. From being a sympathiser he soon became an active ally.”
The description simplified a gradual process. O’Meally was about twenty when the Burrangong rush began and therefore no longer a child, although an older generation might still have regarded him as little more than a boy. Nor did a single meeting with Gardiner suddenly convert an innocent stockman into a criminal. O’Meally had already been associated with questionable cattle dealings and with men operating around the margins of the law.
Gardiner nevertheless gave direction to those tendencies. He offered experience, criminal contacts and an example of how superior horses and local support could defeat ordinary police pursuit. The association helped move O’Meally from cattle-duffing and sly-grog selling towards organised armed robbery.
According to the same retrospective account, O’Meally’s participation in the Eugowra gold escort robbery completed the transformation:
“Having joined in the bold exploit at Eugowra, he threw off all restraint, and plunged into the robber business with an energy and daring that would have been meritorious in a better cause.”
Patrick O’Meally senior appears to have viewed Gardiner’s visits with increasing alarm. Whatever tolerance he may have shown towards minor stock offences, he understood that association with an armed fugitive exposed the entire household to police attention.
Gardiner, however, “wouldn’t be put off.” He continued visiting the district, meeting John in the bush and drawing him into his movements. Every visit tightened the connection between the Weddin establishment and a wanted man.
The most revealing account of Patrick’s attitude was recorded only after John’s death. In December 1863, about a month after O’Meally was killed during the attack on Goimbla, a correspondent encountered Patrick at a roadside shanty. The resulting narrative appeared in the Sydney Mail on 2 January 1864.
The correspondent stopped because he suspected that the horse and cart outside belonged to “O’Mealley père.” After dismounting, he drank with the older man and questioned him about his dead son.
Patrick complained bitterly of Gardiner’s presence:
“He was always after the poor boy … and wouldn’t leave him be—coming and going and meeting him in the bush, and taking him away here and making him go there.”
In Patrick’s version, Gardiner’s persistent attention eventually brought John under police suspicion. Once the police had “got a down” on him, Patrick claimed, his son had little choice but to take to the bush.
It was the explanation of a grieving father, not an impartial account. John was an adult who made repeated decisions to assist Gardiner, participate in robbery and use violence. Police suspicion did not compel those choices. Patrick’s account nevertheless reveals how he understood—or wished others to understand—his son’s downfall: Gardiner had pursued and corrupted a promising young man until return to respectable life became impossible.
Patrick’s feelings were more complicated than simple condemnation. The correspondent detected both sorrow and pride in the way he spoke of John. Patrick repeatedly called him his “poor boy,” but also remembered him as his “fine, noble boy.” He reportedly declared that no policeman had ever been born who could capture him.
The boast was poignant but also revealing. Patrick lamented the criminal influence exercised over his son while continuing to admire John’s courage, horsemanship and ability to evade authority. He blamed Gardiner for beginning the process but did not appear fully conscious—or willing to admit—how deeply John’s crimes had disgraced and endangered the entire family.
The newspaper correspondent was less forgiving. He described John as a misguided man who had surpassed his instructor in villainy and had become the first of the gang to shed blood. This was moral commentary written after O’Meally’s death, but it captured a contemporary distinction between Gardiner and his former protégé. Gardiner was remembered primarily as an organiser and robber; O’Meally developed a reputation for impulsive and sometimes lethal violence.
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| Patrick O'Meally |
Thus, even those relatives who had not participated in John’s principal crimes lived under the shadow of his reputation.
The lawlessness of the roads did not spare the O’Meally establishment itself. On 31 January 1862, two armed men intercepted a four-horse coach travelling from the Lachlan goldfields towards Lambing Flat.
When the coach reached O’Meally’s station, approximately thirty-two miles from the goldfield, its six passengers found that the robbery was already in progress. Everyone at the house had been bailed up, together with travellers and bullock drivers stopped earlier. Approximately eleven captives were already assembled outside.
One bushranger guarded the prisoners with two six-barrelled revolvers while his companion stopped and searched the coach passengers. The robbers also opened the mailbag and examined its contents.
The passengers had been warned that armed men were operating on the road and had concealed their valuables before reaching the station. Watches and money were hidden in the roof and other parts of the coach. One miner was reportedly carrying the proceeds from the sale of a profitable claim, but he had hidden the money so effectively that the robbers took only his valise and some clothing.
The house and its occupants were said to have been searched, although the first newspaper report could not establish precisely what was taken. Bullock drays travelling along the road were also stopped and their owners brought to the growing group of captives.
The incident created an extraordinary spectacle: seventeen people detained by a single armed guard while his companion conducted the searches. A newspaper correspondent expressed astonishment that so many prisoners had not overwhelmed him, observing that there appeared to be enough of them to “eat him.” Such criticism was easy to make from a distance. A man holding two revolvers could fire repeatedly before an unarmed crowd reached him, and none of the prisoners could know whether other accomplices were concealed nearby.
The robbers’ failure to discover the hidden valuables attracted almost as much attention as the hold-up itself. The Burrangong Cosmopolitan dismissed them as inexperienced “greenhorns” who had searched the coach carelessly and allowed a considerable prize to escape.
An experienced bushranger, the paper remarked, might have pulled the coach apart before admitting defeat. The correspondent confidently predicted that Lieutenant Frederick Pottinger and his mounted troopers would soon identify and capture the offenders.
That confidence proved optimistic. The expanding road system, transient goldfield population and rugged Weddin country gave mounted offenders substantial advantages. Descriptions supplied by frightened travellers were frequently inconsistent, while horses could carry a bushranger beyond the district before police assembled a pursuit.
The robbery also demonstrates that not every offence near Arramagong was committed by Gardiner’s circle. The O’Meally family’s association with suspected cattle thieves did not protect it from independent robbers. Nor does the attack prove that the family participated in staging it. The first report treated the occupants of the house as victims who were detained and robbed with the other travellers.
There is an irony in a family increasingly suspected of sheltering bushrangers finding its own house occupied by armed men. Yet the episode should not be forced into a moral lesson. It illustrates a broader reality: by 1862, robbery had become a danger to almost everyone using the roads around the goldfields, regardless of reputation or allegiance.
By the time of the coach robbery, O’Meally and Gilbert were already inhabiting the uncertain ground between fugitive, stock thief and roadside trader. Their small butchering concern and illicit grog shanty gave them an outward occupation, a meeting place and ready access to travellers. The Weddin Mountains supplied refuge, while family connections provided food, horses and intelligence.
Gardiner brought these elements together. His influence should not be exaggerated into complete control over O’Meally, but neither should it be dismissed. He demonstrated how cattle stealing could develop into organised robbery and how a network of associates could sustain men wanted by the police.
Patrick O’Meally later presented his son as relentlessly pursued by an older criminal who “wouldn’t leave him be.” There was truth in the picture of Gardiner as recruiter and instigator. But John was not merely a passive victim of corruption. He embraced the risks, rewards and notoriety of the life placed before him.
Once he participated in the Eugowra escort robbery in June 1862, the remaining restraints fell away. The clever bushman, flash horseman and sly-grog seller emerged as an armed bushranger. Gardiner had shown him the road, but O’Meally chose to ride it.
Source note: The recollection of Patrick O’Meally appeared in the Sydney Mail, 2 January 1864. The report of the hold-up at O’Meally’s was published at the beginning of February 1862. Later newspaper descriptions of Gardiner’s “influence” were written with knowledge of O’Meally’s subsequent crimes and should be treated as retrospective interpretations rather than neutral contemporary assessments.
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| John O'Meally's nephew John O'Meally, son of Patrick O'Meally. 1876-1965. Private Source. |
The sudden growth of Lambing Flat placed extraordinary pressure upon the small police force responsible for the country between the Burrangong and Forbes goldfields. Thousands of miners, carriers, traders and itinerant labourers travelled roads that passed through thinly settled country, while the ranges surrounding Arramagong offered almost limitless opportunities for concealment.
Police attempting to suppress horse theft, cattle-duffing and armed robbery were spread across immense distances. News travelled slowly, descriptions of offenders were often unreliable and mounted bushrangers could cross into another police district before an organised pursuit began. Officers consequently relied upon local intelligence and paid informers, but anyone identified as assisting the police risked reprisals.
Within this environment, the O’Meally establishment near the Weddin Mountains acquired an increasingly dubious reputation. Its location made it a natural stopping place for travellers, stockmen and cattle dealers. It was also frequented, according to police and newspaper reports, by Frank Gardiner and men suspected of assisting him.
To the authorities, the inn was more than a public house. It appeared to form part of a support network through which wanted men could obtain food, drink, horses and information about police movements. Whether every member of the O’Meally family knowingly participated in that network is less certain. Nevertheless, John O’Meally’s association with Gardiner and Gilbert ensured that the entire household came under suspicion.
In 1862 the government moved against the O’Meally family’s licensed establishment. Gardiner’s repeated appearances in the district and the inn’s reputation as a meeting place for suspected cattle thieves and bushranger sympathisers provided the immediate justification.
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| Floorplan Turland's Weddin Mountain Inn. Penzig. |
The closure did not end official concern about Arramagong. Police believed that the district continued to provide a rendezvous for Gardiner’s associates. By early 1863, the government was considering a more forceful solution: establishing a permanent police presence on the very ground from which the suspected support network operated.
Captain Henry Zouch, commanding police operations in the southern districts, travelled to the Weddin Mountains in March 1863. The Burrangong Star reported on 11 March:
“We understand that Captain Zouch intended on his journey to form a police station at O’Mealy’s station … ejecting, by orders of the government, him and his family, thus breaking up that rendezvous for bushrangers and their accomplices.”
The newspaper presented the proposed removal as a direct attack upon a bushranging refuge. By ejecting the family and placing mounted police in the locality, the government hoped to deny Gardiner’s associates a familiar meeting place while giving troopers immediate access to the roads between Lambing Flat and Forbes.
Later reports suggested that the operation had been carried out. The Yass Courier declared on 21 March:
“We hear that O’Mealy’s farm has been taken possession of for a police station.”
The paper welcomed the measure and urged the authorities to deal similarly with other suspected resorts:
“If a few more of these resorts of bushrangers were served in a similar manner, the roads about Lambing Flat and Forbes would again assume a state of order.”
Another report stated more bluntly that the government had ejected O’Meally from his station because he had “afforded countenance to Gardiner the bushranger.” Captain Zouch, it said, had arrived with a body of mounted troopers and the house was to become a police station.
These reports reveal the strength of official and public suspicion, but their language should not be read as a judicial finding against every member of the family. “Affording countenance” could mean knowingly sheltering Gardiner, tolerating his presence or simply failing to assist the police. No distinction was made between the activities of John O’Meally and the conduct of his parents and siblings.
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| c. 1863. Courtesy Des Sheil. |
Turland’s establishment was also called the Weddin Mountain Inn. It stood within the Arramagong locality but was not necessarily identical to the hotel operated by Patrick O’Meally. The similarity of their names, together with imprecise newspaper reporting, appears to have caused later confusion.
Zouch inspected Turland’s inn and recommended its purchase for £330. His memorandum described a sizeable but roughly constructed roadside establishment.
The principal building measured forty-eight feet eight inches by twenty-one feet and contained eight rooms. Verandahs, each seven feet wide, ran along the front and rear, although the rear covering was incomplete. The structure rested on foundation sleepers supported by blocks. Its walls were formed from single slabs and lined internally, along with the ceilings, with calico.
The roof was covered with bark, which Zouch judged to be in tolerable condition. Almost all the timber was colonial pine.
A separate kitchen measured twenty-two by thirteen feet. It had slab walls, a bark roof and an earth floor. The memorandum also mentioned a chimney, weatherboards and what appears in the surviving transcription as “marble shafts,” although that wording may require verification against the original document.
The stable and forage building was almost fifty feet long. It contained three five-stall sections and a forage room, but Zouch considered its construction inferior to that of the main house. A split-pine, two-rail fence extended approximately ninety-eight feet from the house to the stables.
Despite the defects, Zouch concluded in a memorandum to the Inspector General of police noting:
Description of 'Weddin Mountain Inn' proposed to be purchased for a Police Barracks.The main building is 48ft 8" long 21ft wide divided into eight apartments a verandah front and back 7ft wide.Foundation sleepers resting upon blocks. Walls and ceiling lined with calico. The bark covering the roof in tolerable condition. Back verandah only partially covered.The inside walls are single slabbed. The whole of the timber is colonial pine.Kitchen 22ft by 13ft slab covered with bark earth floor 7ft high chimney lined with marble shafts weatherboard.Stables and forage room 49ft 6" 7ft high built with slab, sawn timber and bark roof, earth floor. This building is not well put together divided into 3 five stall stables and forage room.Fence two rail split pine 98ft from house to stables.These premises are offered to the government by Mr Turland for £330. I consider them well worth the money.H Zouch.
The presence of stables, accommodation and reliable access to the road made the site suitable for mounted police. Troopers could live there, keep their horses ready and respond quickly to reports from either goldfield.
The purchase of Turland’s premises and the reported eviction of the O’Meally family were related parts of the same operation, but they should not automatically be treated as a single property transaction. The available evidence suggests that the government sought to establish a police station in the Arramagong locality, while the newspapers compressed the story into the more dramatic claim that O’Meally’s own house had been seized and converted.
Turland subsequently became associated with the Prince of Wales Hotel at Young. His former inn, strategically positioned near the Weddin Mountains, offered the government an existing complex that could be adapted more quickly and cheaply than a new barracks could be built.
For Captain Zouch, the location mattered as much as the structure. A police post at Arramagong would place armed troopers close to the roads, water sources and mountain approaches used by Gardiner’s associates. It would also signal to innkeepers, station owners and suspected sympathisers that providing refuge to bushrangers could bring direct consequences.
The press generally approved. Newspapers portrayed the occupation as evidence that the government had at last begun to act vigorously against bushranging. Establishing a barracks in a locality associated with the O’Meallys carried symbolic force: the state was planting its police inside country previously regarded as belonging to the bushrangers and their friends.
For Patrick O’Meally, the action represented a severe reversal. Fifteen years earlier he had secured a claim to an extensive pastoral run and begun building a prosperous future for his family. Arramagong had supported cattle and sheep, while goldfield traffic had made the roadside hotel commercially valuable.
Now his eldest son’s criminal associations had brought police surveillance, the loss of the public-house business and, according to the newspapers, removal from the family residence. The name O’Meally had become so closely connected with Gardiner that the authorities treated the family’s presence as a threat to public order.
A correspondent later found Patrick living under considerably reduced circumstances at another roadside shanty. The contrast with the earlier promise of Arramagong was striking. The station that had represented an emancipated convict’s rise into pastoral independence was now occupied—or at least closely controlled—by police.
The government’s action did not immediately end bushranging. Nor could one police post prevent armed men from obtaining assistance elsewhere. It nevertheless struck at the relationships that sustained them. Hotels, isolated stations and sympathetic households were essential to men who needed food, intelligence and replacement horses.
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| 'Yass Courier' June 1861. |
Note: The exact relationship among Patrick O’Meally’s hotel, Turland’s Weddin Mountain Inn and the premises occupied by police requires careful distinction. Newspaper reports referred loosely to “O’Mealy’s farm” and “the house,” whereas Zouch’s memorandum clearly states that the inspected building was offered by Mr Turland for £330. Until land, licensing and police records establish otherwise, it is safest to describe these as separate establishments within the same locality rather than claim that Turland owned the O’Meally family’s hotel.
In 1861 the relationship between Patrick O’Meally and his brother-in-law John Daley fractured in a bitter dispute over Arramagong Station. The two families had lived and worked in close proximity for years, and later accounts described Daley as participating in the operation of the run. Yet the legal foundation of that arrangement had always been uncertain.
When the Arramagong lease was advertised in the Government Gazette in 1848, the claimant was recorded as Patrick Maley alone. Daley’s name did not appear. This does not necessarily mean that he had no financial or working interest in the station. Colonial pastoral partnerships were often based upon family arrangements that were incompletely documented. One man might hold the lease while another supplied stock, labour or capital.
That informality became dangerous when the relationship failed.
By 1861 Arramagong was described as a valuable pastoral property. Later estimates credited it with more than 500 cattle and between forty and fifty good horses. One account valued the livestock at more than £6,000, although this figure is difficult to reconcile with the reported auction price and may represent an exaggerated retrospective estimate or include property not offered with the lease.
Daley evidently believed that years of shared labour and investment had given him a substantial interest in the station. Patrick, however, possessed the documentary advantage: the Crown lease had been claimed in his name.
In June 1861 the station was offered for sale by public auction. A brief newspaper notice reported:
“Mr Godfrey disposed of the Arramagong Station, Wedden Mountain, by public auction yesterday for £1370, the purchaser being P. H. Throsby, Esq., of Throsby Park, near Berrima.”
Later family accounts claimed that Patrick arranged the sale without Daley’s knowledge or consent. Daley supposedly learned of the transaction only when he was required to leave the property. Believing that he had been deprived of his share, he contested Patrick’s right to dispose of Arramagong unilaterally.
The surviving 1848 notice worked against him. Whatever private understanding may have existed between the two men, the official claim identified Patrick as the lessee. Unless Daley could produce an agreement, accounts or other evidence of partnership, establishing a legal interest would have been difficult.
It is tempting to describe the transaction as a calculated swindle devised by Patrick from the beginning. The evidence presently available does not justify that conclusion. The registration of the run in Patrick’s name was public from 1848 and may simply have reflected an informal family arrangement. What can be said is that sole registration gave Patrick decisive control when the station was sold—and left Daley believing that years of involvement had been disregarded.
The auction did not bring a clean end to occupation at Arramagong. Members of the O’Meally family remained associated with huts, hotel premises or portions of the old run after its purchase by P. H. Throsby. Daley likewise continued to assert a right to part of the property.
This explains the apparent contradiction between the 1861 sale and reports written two years later. The auction transferred whatever interest had been offered, but it did not immediately resolve every question of residence, stock ownership or possession of particular buildings. Pastoral tenure in the unsettled districts could involve overlapping claims that persisted after a nominal sale.
Daley’s resentment hardened into a feud with the O’Meally family. A report in the Yass Courier of 2 January 1864 described the disputed position:
“Although in possession of the hut and claiming part of the run, his tenure was a disputed one, the right to it being claimed by a man named Daley, between whom and the O’Mealleys a feud had existed for some years past in reference to it.”
The identity of the person described as occupying the hut requires confirmation from the complete article, but the essential point is clear: Daley continued to claim a portion of Arramagong, while the O’Meallys resisted him.
The dispute did not remain confined to legal argument. According to the Yass Courier, Daley made occasional “pounces” upon the O’Meallys. The expression probably referred to sudden appearances or attempts to assert possession, remove property or confront those occupying the disputed ground.
Each incursion increased the hostility:
“Daley used to make occasional pounces down upon O’Mealley, when, of course, the quarrel would become for some time more bitter and envenomed.”
The conflict divided two closely connected families. Daley was Patrick O’Meally’s brother-in-law, and their children were first cousins. John “Patsy” Daley would later be associated with John O’Meally and other bushrangers, demonstrating that personal relationships could continue even while their fathers quarrelled over land and property.
For John O’Meally, however, the dispute became intensely personal. By the time one confrontation reached its height, he was already an armed bushranger. The newspaper claimed that he temporarily interrupted his activities on the roads and spent approximately a week riding through the district in search of Daley.
O’Meally openly expressed an intention of “doing for” him.
In colonial usage, the threat could mean killing Daley or inflicting serious violence upon him. Whether O’Meally made a determined attempt on his uncle’s life cannot be established from the report. No resulting attack is recorded in the supplied evidence. Nevertheless, the threat was credible because it came from a man already known to carry firearms and use violence during robberies.
The episode also displays the vindictive side of O’Meally’s reputation. His quarrel was not directly with a traveller, police officer or resisting robbery victim. It arose from a family property dispute, yet he allegedly contemplated resolving it through the methods of the road: armed pursuit and personal violence.
The sale and subsequent feud marked another stage in the decline of the O’Meally family’s position. Arramagong had once represented Patrick’s success as an emancipated convict and pastoral settler. By 1861 its ownership was contested, its former partners were bitter enemies and its buildings were increasingly associated with sly-grog selling and wanted men.
The £1,370 sale to P. H. Throsby did not extinguish those problems. Patrick and members of his family remained in the district, Daley continued asserting his claim, and the police treated the locality as a rendezvous for bushrangers. In 1863 the government moved to establish a permanent police presence there.
The family feud should therefore be understood as more than a private quarrel. It weakened an already troubled household at precisely the moment John O’Meally was moving into organised crime. The sale reduced the family’s security, divided former allies and created another source of grievance and violence.
Yet the evidence does not permit every accusation made against Patrick to be accepted as fact. Daley’s sense of betrayal may have been entirely genuine, but the precise terms of their original arrangement remain unknown. The official record establishes that Patrick alone claimed the run in 1848 and that Arramagong was sold to Throsby in 1861. It does not, by itself, prove that Patrick had planned for thirteen years to defraud his brother-in-law.
What followed is clearer. The sale failed to settle possession, the dispute became a family feud, and John O’Meally threatened to carry the violence of bushranging back into his own extended family.
The freindship between John O’Meally and John Gilbert who both came from very different backgrounds, but the pastoral country surrounding Lambing Flat eventually brought them together. Most probably via Frank Gardiner.O’Meally was native to the district. Born in 1840, he grew up at Arramagong Station beneath the Weddin Mountains, where he acquired the skills of a stockman and an intimate knowledge of the surrounding ranges. His father’s inn stood beside the road between Lambing Flat and Forbes, placing the family in regular contact with miners, carriers, cattle dealers and passing travellers.
On 10 March 1862, four mounted men left a public house at Wombat, approximately forty miles south of the Weddin Mountains, and galloped along the road towards Stoney Creek. Soon afterwards, two storekeepers carrying a considerable quantity of gold and money departed for Lambing Flat.
The men were Mr Hossington and Mr Hewitt, local storekeepers and regular purchasers of gold. Hossington travelled in a spring cart with his wife, while Hewitt accompanied them on horseback. They intended to deposit their money and gold at the bank.
Between Wombat and Stoney Creek, the four horsemen intercepted them.
All four were armed. Neither Hossington nor Hewitt carried a weapon. When ordered to stop, Hossington reached towards the bottom of the cart as though attempting to retrieve a firearm. One of the robbers immediately fired. The bullet passed between Hossington and his wife but struck neither of them.
Hewitt turned his horse towards Wombat, but another man rode after him and prevented his escape. The travellers were searched and relieved of approximately £1,800 in gold, banknotes and cash—£1,100 belonging to Hossington and £700 to Hewitt. The first reports rounded the loss up to £2,000, emphasising the magnitude of the haul.
Hewitt was certain that one of the robbers was Frank Gardiner. The identities of the other three were less secure. Later accounts named John O’Meally, James Downey and Tom McGuinness as Gardiner’s companions, but the surviving contemporary report did not identify all four men with equal confidence.
The robbery demonstrated careful preparation. The gang apparently knew that the storekeepers bought gold and were likely to carry their takings to the bank. Their departure from the public house shortly before the victims began their journey suggests that the movements of Hossington and Hewitt had been observed or reported.
The Sydney Morning Herald published an account on 15 March 1862:
“Mr Horsington and his wife started for the Flat in a spring cart, accompanied by Mr Hewitt on horseback.… Between the Wombat and Stoney Creek they were stopped by four armed men on horseback.”
The newspaper rendered Hossington’s name as “Horsington,” a variation repeated in later histories. The spelling Hossington should be used if supported by family or business records, while noting the contemporary newspaper form when quoting the report.
Police responded quickly. Captain Battye’s patrol searched the country around Lambing Flat and the approaches to the Weddin Mountains, where Gardiner and his associates were known to find shelter.
John O’Meally, his cousin Patrick “Patsy” Daley and James Downey were apprehended and brought to Lambing Flat. Their arrest was reported as an important development in a district where highway robberies had become increasingly frequent.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 21 March:
“Three others … have been apprehended, namely, Downey, John Maley, and Deely—Downey being identified as one of the men that stuck up Messrs. Horsington and Hewitt … the other two on suspicion of highway robbery.”
This distinction is important. Downey was reportedly identified as one of the robbers. O’Meally and Daley were arrested on suspicion. The report does not say that either victim positively identified them as participants in the Wombat offence.
The correspondent used the arrests to renew demands for additional police:
“Sticking-up still continues, and without the Government increase the police force in this district considerably I see no chance of its being put down.”
The comment reflected the difficulty faced by the authorities. Arresting men reputed to associate with Gardiner was one matter; producing admissible evidence that connected them with a particular robbery was another.
O’Meally’s legal position was further complicated when his name appeared in connection with another serious allegation. The Empire reported:
“Rape and Highway Robbery.—On Friday night, John O’Mealey, Owen Fox, and Patrick Deely were brought before the Police Bench at Burrangong on the above charge, and remanded. No evidence was taken.”
The brief notice is ambiguous. It does not explain whether all three men faced both allegations, whether separate offences had been combined under one heading or what evidence originally prompted the arrests. Because no testimony was taken at that appearance, the report establishes an accusation and remand—not guilt.
Owen Fox, another relative within the extended O’Meally and Daley network, was also detained. This concentration of related suspects reinforced police suspicions about the family, but kinship and reputation could not substitute for identification evidence.
When Sergeant Musgrove returned to Lambing Flat on 28 March, the case against O’Meally and Patsy Daley apparently failed for lack of proof. Neither Hossington nor Hewitt had identified them in connection with the Wombat robbery, and they were released.
The rape allegation also did not result in O’Meally’s conviction. Later information attributed the offence to James Shepherd and Thomas Evans, supporting the conclusion that O’Meally and Daley had been detained through mistaken identity or association. Owen Fox’s precise conviction and sentence should be verified separately, as the supplied reports do not fully explain what offence was ultimately proved against him.
The secrecy surrounding part of the proceedings caused local resentment. A reporter was reportedly excluded from the Burrangong Police Court, preventing the public from learning what evidence—if any—had been presented. In a district already suspicious of both police efficiency and criminal influence, the absence of open reporting encouraged rumour.
O’Meally emerged from the episode without a conviction. That outcome did not prove he had no connection with Gardiner or the Wombat robbery; it meant that police could not produce sufficient evidence against him.
The distinction mattered. Later writers, knowing O’Meally’s subsequent career, tended to include him automatically among Gardiner’s four robbers. Contemporary reporting was more guarded. It positively named Gardiner through Hewitt’s identification and reported Downey’s identification, while describing O’Meally and Daley as suspects.
Their release allowed the cousins to return to the Weddin country. The feud between their fathers did not destroy their personal association. John O’Meally and Patsy Daley continued to move in the same circles and would remain linked with Gardiner’s followers.
The March arrests also taught them an important lesson: police suspicion was strong, but identification remained difficult. Witnesses confronted by masked or rapidly moving horsemen could seldom provide descriptions sufficient to secure a conviction. Local knowledge and family support made the problem still harder.
Within three months, the criminal network would undertake a robbery on an entirely different scale—the seizure of the western gold escort at Eugowra Rocks.
While John O’Meally moved towards open bushranging, the dispute over Arramagong remained unresolved. The station had been sold to P. H. Throsby in 1861, but notices requiring the O’Meally and Daley families to leave were apparently disregarded.
Both families remained associated with the property until at least September 1863. Their continued occupation illustrates the difference between purchasing a pastoral interest and obtaining effective possession of a remote run. Leasehold rights, improvements, stock ownership and residence could be disputed separately, while formal eviction was difficult to enforce without a sustained police presence.
John Daley eventually secured control of a reduced Arramagong holding. The reconstituted property comprised approximately 11,000 acres, considerably less than the 26,880 acres described in Patrick Maley’s original 1848 claim. Daley reportedly paid an annual government rent of £30.
It is difficult to describe this outcome simply as “poetic justice.” Daley obtained at least part of the country he had long claimed, but the precise legal process by which he did so remains to be established. The reduced acreage may have resulted from a new lease, subdivision or reassessment rather than the restoration of his alleged share in the original partnership.
A western portion, subsequently known as Arramagong West, was sold or transferred to Carlo Marina. Daley retained the remainder until his death in 1876.
After John Daley’s death, Arramagong passed into the hands of his brother Thomas. By 1884 Thomas Daley described himself as a grazier of Arramagong, near Grenfell.
On 3 April that year, he gave notice of his intention to seek a colonial wine licence:
“I, Thomas Daley, of Arramagong, near Grenfell, in the colony of New South Wales, grazier, do hereby give notice that I desire to obtain … a certificate authorising the issue of a Colonial Wine Licence for a house situate at Arramagong.”
The proposed premises had an estimated annual value of £10. Thomas intended to make his application at the Grenfell Licensing Court on 23 April 1884.
A colonial wine licence did not necessarily establish a full hotel equivalent to the earlier roadside inns. It generally permitted the sale of colonial wine under specified conditions. Thomas’s application nevertheless shows that Arramagong continued to combine grazing with roadside or hospitality-related enterprise.
The development carried an historical echo. During the gold-rush years, Patrick O’Meally had attempted to profit from travellers passing the Weddin Mountains. More than twenty years later, a member of the Daley family sought another licence on the same country.
By then the violent conflicts of the early 1860s had receded. John O’Meally was dead, Gardiner was imprisoned and the bushranging gangs that had made the Weddin country notorious had disappeared. Arramagong survived them all.
Its history had passed through several distinct phases: Patrick Maley’s original pastoral claim, the disputed partnership with John Daley, the 1861 auction, continued occupation despite eviction notices, police intervention and Daley’s eventual possession of a smaller run. Under Thomas Daley, the property entered a quieter period in which grazing and licensed trade replaced the feuds and police pursuits of the gold-rush years.
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| NSW Police Gazette 6th August 1862. |
By the opening months of 1862, John O’Meally had moved beyond cattle-duffing and clandestine dealings into armed bushranging. He had become closely associated with Frank Gardiner, whose knowledge of criminal organisation was matched by O’Meally’s horsemanship and intimate familiarity with the Weddin country.
Gardiner’s success encouraged the belief that the roads between Lambing Flat and the Lachlan goldfield could be robbed almost at will. Police were thinly distributed, information travelled slowly and the surrounding ranges offered numerous places of concealment. Yet Gardiner wanted something greater than the comparatively small returns obtained from stopping individual travellers.
His attention turned to the gold escort running from Forbes towards Bathurst and Sydney.
The most detailed account of the preparations appeared more than forty years later in The Biography of a Reliable Old Native. Written by W. H. Pinkstone from interviews and “fireside talks” with John McGuire, it claimed that the scheme originated with Gardiner and required about a fortnight of preparation:
“It was with Gardiner that the idea of taking the escort originated, and it took a fortnight to prepare for the attack.”
McGuire remembered Gilbert and O’Meally as Gardiner’s constant companions during the months preceding the robbery. According to his account, the three men had grown dissatisfied with petty hold-ups and wanted to secure one great prize before leaving the colony.
Gardiner assembled seven accomplices: John Gilbert, John O’Meally, Ben Hall, Daniel Charters, Alexander Fordyce, John Bow and Henry Manns. Meetings were reportedly held in the Wheogo district, possibly at Hall’s Sandy Creek home or at the nearby residence of his brother-in-law, John Maguire.
John McGuire, the narrator of the 1906 account, should not be confused with John Maguire, Hall’s brother-in-law. Nor should Maguire’s presence in the district be treated as proof that he planned or participated in the robbery. Although he was later prosecuted, a jury acquitted him.
On Sunday, 15 June 1862, the western gold escort departed Forbes carrying 2,719 ounces of gold and approximately £3,700 in banknotes. Four policemen guarded the coach as it travelled eastward towards Orange, Bathurst and ultimately Sydney.
Near Eugowra, about twenty-three miles from Forbes, the escort approached a prominent rock beside the road. Gardiner’s gang had dragged two bullock drays across the track, forcing the driver to slow the coach and manoeuvre close to the concealed bushrangers.
The eight men had blackened their faces and wore red shirts or caps. From behind the rock and surrounding cover they opened fire in organised volleys. As one group discharged its weapons, another continued the attack.
Several members of the escort were wounded. Sergeant Condell was struck in the side, while Senior-sergeant Moran received a wound in the groin. The coach horses, terrified and possibly struck by gunfire, bolted. The vehicle hit broken ground and overturned.
The attack had succeeded, but it had not unfolded flawlessly. Gardiner’s plan depended upon stopping the coach; its sudden overturning created confusion for both the police and the robbers. Once the escort scattered into the bush, however, the gang rushed down to secure the strongboxes and mailbags.
The plunder was loaded onto two of the coach horses. Its total value was estimated at approximately £14,000—an extraordinary sum and one of the largest hauls in Australian bushranging history.
O’Meally’s precise actions during the firing were never individually established. The gang had disguised themselves, and he was not subsequently tried for the robbery. Later accounts consistently included him among Gardiner’s eight men, but claims that he occupied a particular position beside Gardiner or performed a decisive individual act go beyond the surviving evidence.
After leaving the escort, the gang retreated towards Wheogo Hill, near the homes of Ben Hall and John Maguire. There they attempted to divide or conceal the proceeds.
Police pursuit began almost immediately. Sergeant Sanderson and his men followed tracks into the Wheogo country, assisted by an Aboriginal tracker. On 19 June they approached Hall’s property and saw a horseman who turned and galloped away as soon as he recognised them.
The tracks led towards a bush camp on Wheogo Hill. The gang had already left, but the speed of the police pursuit forced them to abandon a packhorse. Strapped to it were approximately 1,500 ounces of stolen gold, two police carbines and a police cloak taken from the escort.
Thus, a substantial part of the treasure was recovered within days. The Eugowra robbery had delivered a spectacular initial prize, but the gang’s triumph was neither complete nor lasting.
The police did not immediately capture all the suspected participants. Their operations unfolded over the following weeks and months.
Ben Hall, his brother William, John Maguire, Daniel Charters and John Brown were arrested in the Wheogo district in late July. Charters subsequently agreed to provide information in the hope of receiving a pardon. His statements helped police identify members of the escort gang, although he did not implicate Hall or O’Meally in the version initially presented to the authorities.
Police also turned their attention to the Weddin Mountains. Patrick O’Meally’s inn was searched repeatedly, and members of the family were detained or questioned. Alexander Fordyce was arrested there in August.
John O’Meally was eventually apprehended and held on suspicion of being an accessory to the robbery. His father Patrick and Frederick Trotter were also detained during the wider investigation, although the precise timing and legal grounds of their arrests should be distinguished from John’s later appearance at the Forbes Police Court.
A colourful story was subsequently told of Patrick’s arrest at his hotel. When the sergeant declared that he was arresting him in the Queen’s name, Patrick supposedly replied:
“What Queen?”
When told “Queen Victoria,” he answered:
“She’s not my Queen. She’s not the Queen of Ireland.”
The exchange fits the Irish nationalist sentiments attributed to Patrick, but its wording should be treated as later recollection unless an original contemporary report can be located. It should not be presented as a verbatim police record.
In September 1862 O’Meally and John Maguire appeared before the Forbes bench. They had already been confined for approximately seven weeks, but police were still attempting to assemble a case against them.
Sergeant Rush requested another seven-day remand because Sir Frederick Pottinger and Captain Battye were absent. Their solicitor, Mr Pendergast, protested vigorously. He declared his “surprise and disgust” at the prisoners’ treatment and complained that nothing had been proved against men held for so long.
The magistrates declined to entertain his protest and granted the further remand.
The proceedings illustrate one of the central difficulties created by the Eugowra robbery. The police possessed strong suspicions and knew the social network from which Gardiner had recruited his gang, but suspicion was not sufficient for conviction. The robbers had blackened their faces, and the escort officers could not identify every attacker. Much of the prosecution depended upon informers whose own involvement made their testimony vulnerable.
O’Meally was ultimately released without being tried for the escort robbery. His release did not amount to proof that he had been absent from Eugowra; it meant that the authorities lacked evidence capable of sustaining a prosecution.
John Maguire was treated more severely. He was eventually committed for trial alongside Fordyce, Bow and Manns. At the Special Criminal Commission in February 1863, however, the jury found Maguire not guilty. Fordyce, Bow and Manns were convicted of feloniously wounding Sergeant Condell during the attack. Their death sentences were later commuted in the cases of Fordyce and Bow, but Manns was executed.
Eugowra marked the decisive point in O’Meally’s criminal career. Before June 1862 he could still be described as a stockman drawn into Gardiner’s cattle network and suspected of several roadside robberies. After Eugowra, police and newspapers regarded him as a member of an organised, heavily armed gang.
Gardiner had demonstrated what preparation, intelligence and concentrated firepower could achieve. Gilbert and O’Meally learned the lesson. When Gardiner disappeared from the district after the robbery, they did not abandon bushranging. Instead, they carried his methods into a more violent series of operations.
The escort robbery therefore represented both Gardiner’s greatest success and the beginning of a new phase for O’Meally. He had joined an attack upon armed police, shared in the seizure of an immense treasure and survived the ensuing investigation. After seven weeks in custody, he walked free because the authorities could not prove their case.
To a young man already confident in his horses, weapons and knowledge of the country, that release may have appeared to confirm that the police could suspect him, pursue him and imprison him—but still fail to hold him.
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| John O'Meally's Bathurst Gaol Entry in September 1862. |
Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal' Wednesday 15th October 1862:
After spending several weeks in custody on suspicion of involvement in the Eugowra gold-escort robbery, John O’Meally was admitted to bail on 29 October 1862. He entered into a recognisance of £200, supported by two sureties of £100 each, and was ordered to appear at the next Bathurst Circuit Court.
The release gave O’Meally temporary freedom, but the case against the alleged escort robbers was still developing. At its centre stood Daniel Charters, an old acquaintance of O’Meally and one of the men involved in the robbery. After his arrest, Charters agreed to disclose what he knew and give evidence against his associates, apparently in expectation of a pardon.
His decision transformed the investigation. Charters supplied names and particulars that implicated several men, yet he consistently denied that either Ben Hall or John O’Meally had participated in the robbery. Their omission naturally aroused suspicion. Rumours circulated that Hall and O’Meally had paid—or promised to pay—Charters to keep their names out of his evidence.
Under examination, Charters was asked to clarify an answer he had given concerning the identities of the men present at Eugowra:
“You were asked a question yesterday whether you would not swear that some other people named were not the persons who were with you at the robbery. What were the names of these persons?”
Charters answered:
“Benjamin Hall and O’Mealy.”
Mr Isaacs then explained the earlier exchange. Charters had been asked whether the eight men included Benjamin Hall, O’Meally, Charles Darcy and William Forster. Charters replied that Hall and O’Meally had not been present. He acknowledged that two of the robbers were known to him only as “Charley” and “Billy,” but said he did not know whether those were their true names.
The examination then turned directly to the possibility of collusion. Charters admitted that he had decided to disclose his knowledge only after being arrested:
“I stated that I had been arrested on suspicion before I made up my mind to state all I knew of this matter.”
Although he and Hall had been detained beneath the same roof for approximately eight days, Charters denied that they had shared a cell or communicated about the robbery:
“I was not confined in the same cell as Ben Hall. I was under the same roof, but not in the same apartment. I had no communication with Hall at that time, nor had I any with him on this matter after my release.”
He also denied having communicated with O’Meally and rejected the allegation that money had influenced his evidence:
“Neither directly nor indirectly have I had any communication with O’Mealy or Hall relative to this matter. I will swear that I have not been offered a sum of money to leave their names out of the information I have given in regard to this robbery.”
Charters therefore maintained under oath that Hall and O’Meally were not among the eight men he had seen at Eugowra. His evidence did not necessarily prove their innocence: it established only what Charters was prepared to swear before the court. The contemporary rumours of payment remained allegations and were never demonstrated by the evidence quoted.
For O’Meally, bail brought the escort proceedings to an inconclusive end. A contemporary notice recorded:
“John O’Malley, charged with being concerned in the escort robbery, was admitted to bail to appear at the next Circuit Court, Bathurst.”
He was never brought to trial for the Eugowra robbery. Instead, he returned to the Weddin country and openly embraced bushranging, committing a succession of armed robberies during 1863. On 19 November that year, before the escort charge could be finally tested before a jury, O’Meally was shot and killed during the attack upon David and Amelia Campbell’s property at Goimbla.
The safer historical conclusion is therefore not that O’Meally was acquitted, nor that Charters conclusively exonerated him. He was accused, imprisoned and then released on bail; the charge was never determined at trial. Charters denied his participation, while later accounts continued to place him among Gardiner’s Eugowra conspirators. O’Meally’s death ensured that the contradiction would never be resolved in court.
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| Bathurst Courthouse and Gaol. John O'Meally held here in 1862. |
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| John O'Meally's bail and conditions, 1st November 1862, O'Meally failed to appear and would never see the inside of a court again. |
As 1863 opened, John O’Meally returned to the bush after his release on bail over the Eugowra escort robbery. He had been ordered to appear at the next Bathurst Circuit Court, but did not do so. His sureties, McKell and Cheshire, consequently stood to forfeit the money they had pledged for his appearance.
Later accounts credited O’Meally with retaining twenty-two pounds weight of stolen gold and approximately £350 in cash from the Eugowra proceeds. Such precise claims are difficult to verify from the surviving judicial record, but there is little doubt that his release did not mark a return to lawful life. His movements between November 1862 and January 1863 are poorly documented. He may have withdrawn to the familiar shelter of the Weddin Mountains or the illicit shanty near Tyagong Creek, where friends, relatives and rough country provided concealment.
Johnny Gilbert had meanwhile disappeared from the district. He was reported to have travelled south with his brother and crossed to New Zealand, although the evidence for the precise route and duration of this journey is largely retrospective. By January 1863 he had returned to the central-western districts and resumed his association with O’Meally.
Their renewed partnership soon drew in Patrick “Patsy” Daley and Ben Hall, together with a changing body of lesser associates. This was not yet the compact and familiar Hall gang of later legend. Contemporary reports described as many as nine mounted men operating together, although only three entered the premises they robbed while the remainder waited outside as a reserve.
On 29 January the bushrangers raided George Tout’s Bentick-Morrell station and then descended upon G. Harcombe’s roadside accommodation house. A correspondent writing from Marengo acknowledged that exaggerated rumours were circulating, but claimed personal certainty that these two properties had been ransacked.
Only three men entered Harcombe’s house. Six more were counted waiting within call, apparently carrying property taken from Bentick-Morrell strapped to their horses. The robbers obtained only £7 at Harcombe’s.
The correspondent identified Gilbert as their leader:
“The rascals were under the leadership of one Johnny Gilbert, a henchman of Gardiner’s.”
This identification rested upon a witness who already knew him. Harcombe’s sister-in-law, a native of Marengo, recognised Gilbert from the period in which he had worked as a stockkeeper in that district. None of the men had attempted to disguise himself.
The episode marked Gilbert’s definite reappearance. It also revealed the gang’s early organisation. A small party entered and controlled the premises while the remainder stayed mounted nearby, guarding the plunder and prepared to intervene if resistance developed.
At about half-past eight on the evening of 2 February 1863, five mounted men appeared outside George Dickenson’s Commercial Store at Spring Creek. Dickenson was serving Mead when one of the strangers entered and ordered him to bail up. Thinking at first that the demand might be drunken foolery, Dickenson moved towards the bedroom where he kept his revolver. He was intercepted before he could reach it.
“There’s no bloody mistake about it,” one of the men warned, displaying his weapon.
Dickenson and Mead were marched outside and placed beneath the revolver of Patsy Daley, who wore clothing suggestive of a policeman. Three or four of his companions entered the store and began searching it. They took cash, gold dust, watches, clothing, boots and a revolver, helping themselves to brandy and gin as they worked.
Every traveller who passed along the road was stopped and added to the prisoners. Before long, approximately a dozen people were being held outside.
Daley’s youth and nervousness were apparent. He trembled while attempting to cover the captives, and several began edging towards him. Hall then stepped forward and warned them that more bushrangers were waiting within coo-ee. The threat halted the movement.
Constable David Stewart next rode unsuspectingly into the occupied ground. The gang ordered him from his horse, but Stewart resisted, attempting to break through. He was dragged down or otherwise overpowered and struck heavily across the hand and wrist. His private horse and riding equipment were confiscated, and he was placed with the other prisoners.
The bushrangers then plundered Dalton’s Golden Fleece Inn, taking cash estimated at £60 and several firearms. Having loaded their property—some of it upon Stewart’s horse—they mounted and disappeared.
Only after they had gone could Dickenson and Stewart reach the police camp. Captain Battye sent his men after them, but the gang escaped into the country towards Wombat.
The Spring Creek raid was important not because of any single spectacular prize, but because it showed the emerging gang working as a coordinated body. The men controlled two adjoining businesses, accumulated passing travellers, disarmed a constable, gathered weapons and equipment and withdrew before the police could organise. Within thirteen days, the same criminal circle would be associated with the fatal robbery at Adolph Cirkel’s inn.
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| NSW Police Gazette Feb 1863 |
Two mounted strangers approached separately by the rear of the premises. The ostler, James Fisher, offered to stable their horses, but they declined and tied the animals to the paling and garden fence. One invited Fisher inside for a “nobbler.”
The first man entered the bar and ordered a glass of port wine. The second came through the back passage, the sound of his spurs announcing his arrival, and asked for brandy. He remained near the passage rather than coming fully into the public bar.
As Stuhmer replaced the bottles, the first man produced a cocked revolver and held it within six or eight inches of his breast.
“You had better stop where you are.”
When Stuhmer attempted to turn and place a sixpence upon a shelf, the bushranger told him to keep it. He then followed Stuhmer’s movements with the muzzle of the revolver, ordered him from behind the bar and made him sit in a corner.
The cook and Fisher were brought in and placed beside him. Fisher initially refused, explaining that he had work to attend to in the stable. The bushranger threatened to knock or shoot his brains out unless he held his tongue and sat down.
The shorter of the two robbers then went behind the bar. He demanded the cashbox, but Stuhmer replied loudly that all the money in the house was upon the shelves and amounted to only a few pounds in silver. The cook repeated the information, apparently hoping the raised voices would alert Cirkel in the adjoining bakehouse.
The shorter man gathered the silver into his pocket and asked whether there was any paper money. He was told that, if any existed, it would have been kept in the same place.At that moment the front door opened.
Cirkel had left the bakehouse in company with a local digger, Richard Goss. As the two entered, Goss saw one of the armed strangers standing near the door. The man greeted him and then ordered him to join the other prisoners:
“You had better go back there among the others.”
Goss obeyed and leaned against the counter. Cirkel did not. He attempted to pass around the end of the bar, but the taller robber stopped him and ordered him back.
“Come back along with the rest. Now, you had better come—it will be better for you.”
Cirkel demanded to know what he meant and seized the bushranger. A struggle followed. Fisher testified that the taller man caught Cirkel by the collar and pulled him back as the publican tried to get around the corner of the bar.
The shorter robber, still behind the counter, called to his companion:
“Shoot the ——!”
Another witness heard the command expressed more fully:
“Blow his bloody brains out!”
The taller bushranger fired at close range. The ball entered approximately an inch above Cirkel’s left ear and fractured the occipital bone. Cirkel collapsed immediately and neither moved nor spoke again.
The two men fled through the rear of the premises, mounted their horses and rode into the bush in the direction of Mr James’s slaughteryard. They left the prisoners behind with Cirkel’s body.
Dr Henry Wilkinson of Young conducted the post-mortem examination. He found no exit wound. After reflecting the scalp, he discovered a fracture at the back of the skull and brain matter protruding through the damaged bone.
Wilkinson removed the skullcap and carefully examined the brain but could not locate the ball. He concluded that the head wound was sufficient to produce instantaneous death.
The jury found that Cirkel had died from a pistol shot fired by the taller of the two men. It returned a verdict of wilful murder against both offenders, whose names were then officially recorded as unknown. The shorter man had not fired, but his command that Cirkel be shot made him equally implicated in the killing.
Who were the two men?
The inquest establishes their respective actions much more securely than their identities:
- The taller man guarded the prisoners near the entrance, struggled with Cirkel and fired the fatal shot.
- The shorter man searched behind the bar, stole the silver and ordered his companion to shoot Cirkel.
The taller man was subsequently identified in reports as John O’Meally. That identification is persuasive. O’Meally stood approximately six feet tall, was already operating around Burrangong and was repeatedly associated with the gang responsible for robberies in the district. During a later robbery, members of the gang also referred threateningly to what they had done to the publican at Stoney Creek.
The identity of the shorter man is more difficult. Three names have been advanced: Johnny Gilbert, John Clarke and Ben Hall.
The description of the shorter man
Stuhmer supplied the most useful description. He said that the smaller robber:
- had no beard or whiskers;
- had brown hair cut short;
- appeared very young; and
- could be identified if seen again.
Fisher thought the man appeared about thirty, although estimates of age made during a brief and frightening encounter were notoriously unreliable.
This description is important when comparing Hall and Gilbert. The official description of Gilbert published in February 1863 presented him as between twenty-two and twenty-four years old, of boyish appearance, five feet seven or eight inches tall, slight, beardless and whiskerless. His hair, however, was described as light brown, straight and worn long in the native fashion.
Gilbert fits the youthfulness and absence of facial hair exceptionally well, but his conspicuously long hair conflicts with Stuhmer’s statement that the shorter man’s brown hair was cut short.The government description of Gilbert appeared within days of Cirkel’s murder.
Hall was older and more heavily built. A later official description gave his height as five feet seven inches, his build as stout and his hair as brown and wavy. By 1865 he wore a beard, but that does not establish his appearance two years earlier. Relative to the six-foot O’Meally, Hall would readily have appeared the “short man.” His brown hair is also more consistent with Stuhmer’s description than Gilbert’s long, lighter hair.
Neither comparison is conclusive. The inquest witnesses provided no description of the shorter man’s build, eye colour, clothing or voice that would allow a secure identification.
The weakness of the Clarke confession
A man named John Clarke was arrested after Cirkel’s murder while riding a horse stolen near Spring Creek. He reportedly confessed to Captain Battye that the killing had been committed by Gardiner, Gilbert, O’Meally and himself, with O’Meally firing the fatal shot.
The statement correctly—or at least consistently—identified O’Meally as the gunman, but it was unreliable in almost every other respect. The witnesses saw only two bushrangers at the Miners’ Home, not four. Frank Gardiner had apparently already left the Lachlan district, while Clarke may have been attempting to explain his possession of a stolen horse, trade information for leniency or attach himself to more notorious men.
Clarke’s confession therefore cannot safely establish that he was Cirkel’s shorter assailant. Its inclusion of both Gilbert and Gardiner makes it internally inconsistent with the eyewitness evidence.
The case for Ben Hall
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| Ben Hall c. 1862 |
First, Hall was operating with O’Meally in the same district. On 2 February, less than a fortnight before Cirkel’s murder, Hall was believed to have been among the five men who robbed Dickson’s Commercial Store and Dalton’s Golden Fleece at Spring Creek.
Second, on 21 February—six days after the killing—Hall, Gilbert, O’Meally and Patsy Daley attacked Meyer Solomon’s store at Little Wombat. During that robbery the gang threatened Solomon with Cirkel’s fate, reportedly telling him that they would serve him as they had served the man at Stoney Creek and “blow his bloody brains out.” The language echoed the command heard immediately before Cirkel was shot.
Third, Hall fits the relative description. O’Meally was conspicuously tall, while Hall was several inches shorter and considerably more solid. His brown hair appears closer to Stuhmer’s “brown hair, cut short” than Gilbert’s officially advertised long, straight hair.
Fourth, the conduct attributed to the shorter man is compatible with Hall’s usual position during early robberies. He controlled the premises and money while the more impetuous O’Meally dealt directly with resistance. This is suggestive rather than probative; patterns of behaviour cannot identify a man by themselves.
Against this must be placed Gilbert’s boyish, clean-shaven appearance, which agrees closely with part of the witness description, and his proven association with O’Meally at the time. Gilbert therefore remains a credible alternative.
Cirkel’s killing marked a decisive escalation. The raids of late January and early February had already involved armed occupation, theft and violence against a constable. At Stoney Creek, resistance was answered with immediate fatal force. O’Meally was never tried for the murder, but later accounts consistently regarded him as the man who fired the shot.
Furthermore, John O'Meally's brother Patrick bore a striking resemblance to his older brother and was arrested also on suspicion of Cirkel's murder.
However, Patrick would be released as the witnesses could not identify him as well. On his release, it was reported in the 'Burrangong Star' that he left court laughing:
Patrick Meally, who had been apprehended on suspicion of being concerned in the murder, of Mr Cirkel, at Stoney Creek, was discharged on the 24th ultimo. The Star says he left the court laughing.¹⁹
Authors Note: In 1871, Patrick O'Meally would marry one Mary Ann Hadcroft at Binda. Mary Ann is the half-sister of James Dunleavy, who would join Ben Hall some months after the death of John O'Meally.
Patrick Daley’s place in the emerging gang was brief. On 16 March 1863, Sir Frederick Pottinger discovered him hiding in a sixty-foot mining shaft on the Pinnacle Reef, also called Maguire’s Reef.
Pottinger repeatedly called upon Daley to surrender. Receiving no answer, he threatened to smoke him out like a possum and began making preparations to do so. Daley finally called from below:
“I suppose it’s no use; I must give myself up.”
He climbed the fixed ladder and was taken into custody. An Aboriginal tracker Billy Dargin identified him as one of the three men who had recently fired upon Sub-Inspector Norton near Wheogo. The other two were said to have been Hall and O’Meally. Daley was also charged with robbing the Pinnacle police barracks and stealing government firearms and equipment.
He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. His removal left Hall, Gilbert and O’Meally as the most recognisable core of the gang during 1863.
The partnership between Gilbert and O’Meally combined friendship, shared criminal experience and a persistent element of rivalry. Both were accomplished riders, proud of their reputations and sensitive to any suggestion of cowardice. Their disagreements became particularly evident after John Vane and Mickey Burke joined the gang later in 1863.
In the memoir attributed to Vane and transcribed by Charles White, Gilbert recalled one quarrel following an encounter with police. O’Meally accused him of cowardice for retreating up a ridge. Gilbert answered that the movement had enabled him to obtain a policeman’s revolver. O’Meally replied:
“If I hadn’t followed you, the trap would have shot you in the back—and that is the way you will be shot yet.”
The remark proved grimly prophetic in a general sense, although not literally. Gilbert was killed in May 1865 while exchanging fire with police near Binalong, rather than shot unsuspectingly in the back.
Vane remembered that the hostility between the two men was not confined to a single argument:
“More than once Burke and I had to act as peacemakers, for the two often used to have little growls, and we had to step in when they were getting too hot on the job.”
He added that Gilbert was fond of “turning tail” and that the others sometimes ridiculed him for avoiding a direct contest.
Vane’s judgement requires care. Gilbert’s willingness to withdraw did not necessarily indicate cowardice. Survival in the bush depended upon avoiding unfavourable engagements, preserving horses and escaping before police reinforcements arrived. Gilbert may simply have possessed a stronger instinct for self-preservation than O’Meally, whose impulsiveness repeatedly brought him into close and unnecessary danger.
The contrast between them was therefore not simply courage against cowardice. Gilbert combined conspicuous bravado with a readiness to retreat when an encounter turned against him. O’Meally treated withdrawal as a challenge to personal honour and was more inclined to meet resistance with violence. Their quarrels exposed two competing forms of bushranger pride: Gilbert’s determination to survive and escape, and O’Meally’s determination never to appear afraid.
That difference helped make O’Meally exceptionally dangerous. It also contributed to his early death. At Goimbla he continued attacking the Campbell homestead despite determined armed resistance, exposing himself repeatedly until David Campbell shot him through the neck. Gilbert, whom his companions mocked for “turning tail,” survived him by eighteen months.
The events and witness testimony can be read in the accompanying link below.
Empire
26th February 1863
Murder of Mr Cirkel
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60523339?searchTerm=%22Cirkel%22%20Clarke
Six days after the murder of Adolph Cirkel, four armed bushrangers rode up to Myers Solomon’s store at Little Wombat. The robbery occurred on Saturday, 21 February 1863—not 25 February as sometimes stated. Contemporary and later accounts identified the men as John O’Meally, Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert and Patrick “Patsy” Daley.
Mrs Solomon, who was heavily pregnant, saw the riders approaching and warned her husband. The men were dressed somewhat like plain-clothes police and led three spare horses, but Solomon suspected their purpose. Arming himself with a musket, he met them at the entrance and fired. The charge grazed one bushranger’s neck and tore the collar of his coat. Two shots were immediately fired in reply.
Solomon escaped through the rear of the premises, but two of the gang pursued, captured and brought him back. He was detained with his wife and a young employee, George Johnstone, while the store was systematically plundered. The robbers worked without haste, selecting goods and loading them onto their three packhorses.
During the robbery, Solomon was warned that further resistance would bring the same fate as that suffered by Cirkel at Stoney Creek. According to the contemporary report, the bushrangers threatened that they would:
“serve him like they did the man at Stoney Creek, who was too flash, and blow his bloody brains out, as they did his.”
The words are important, but they should not be treated as an unqualified confession by O’Meally. The newspaper did not securely identify which of the four men delivered the threat. Spoken collectively—“as we did his”—it showed that the gang wished Solomon to believe that they were responsible for Cirkel’s death. It may have reflected genuine inside knowledge, criminal boasting or simply an attempt to terrify him into submission.
The bushrangers remained until about seven o’clock that evening, departing with goods reportedly valued at approximately £250. Police followed their tracks for about ten miles towards the Weddin Mountains the following morning, but abandoned the pursuit through exhaustion and the absence of a competent tracker. Daley’s participation was subsequently placed beyond reasonable doubt when he pleaded guilty to the Wombat robbery at the Goulburn Circuit Court. The indictment fixed the offence on 21 February and listed the property taken from Solomon.
In 1863, a dramatic encounter unfolded in the Australian bush, involving prominent bushrangergers John O'Meally, Ben Hall, John O'Meally and Patsy Daley. Their target on this fateful day was none other than a police Inspector, marking a bold and brazen challenge to the law enforcement of the time.
The encounter took place on 28 February 1863, rather than later in March. Its principal police officer was John Oxley Norton, a sub-inspector newly arrived in the Lachlan district. (Right) He was accompanied by an Aboriginal tracker identified in the reports simply as Billy—Billy Dargin.
At about nine o’clock that morning, Norton and Dargin were riding through the country near Wheogo. Each man was leading a spare horse. Ahead of them, at a distance of roughly five hundred yards, Norton noticed two mounted men. One led another horse; the other carried a firearm across his thigh.
Norton signalled to Dargin, who was then riding along the opposite hillside. When the tracker came down, the two policemen cautiously approached the strangers. The riders immediately made off.
Norton and Dargin followed them into the scrub. Finding an opportunity, they dismounted and fired, but the men escaped among the timber. The police returned for their led horses and were preparing to move on when they again saw the two riders watching them from a distance. A second pursuit followed, accompanied by more firing, but the police horses could not gain upon the fugitives.
Norton eventually abandoned the chase and withdrew to some nearby huts. He and Dargin remained there for twenty minutes or half an hour. Norton then decided to ride towards the police station and obtain assistance from several troopers who were supposed to meet him in the neighbourhood.
The two men had travelled another three or four miles when Dargin detected danger behind them.
Three horsemen were rapidly approaching. The tracker called Norton’s attention to them. They were already so close that Norton could hear them shouting, “Bail up!” Dargin rode past the sub-inspector and released his led horse. Norton did the same, wheeled around and prepared to resist. Seeing him turn, Dargin halted approximately fifty yards away.
The three riders spread out across the country, each separated from the others by perhaps a hundred yards. One rode on the left, another on the right and the third remained nearer the road. It was a deliberate formation, designed to prevent Norton and Dargin from concentrating their fire upon a single target.
Norton believed the men were Ben Hall, John O’Meally and Patrick “Patsy” Daley. He could identify Hall positively, but his identification of the other two was less secure. Dargin, who apparently knew the district and its inhabitants better, supplied their names.
The partnership between Lowry and Gilbert reached its bloody culmination at Duffer Gully on 21 June 1863. There they attempted to rob the miner John McBride, who resisted with a revolver. A sharp exchange of gunfire followed, during which McBride was mortally wounded. He remained alive for several hours but died while being carried over the rough road towards medical assistance at Lambing Flat.
McBride’s death intensified an already determined police campaign throughout the Burrangong district. Patrols multiplied, known associates came under surveillance, and the country around Lambing Flat became increasingly dangerous for the bushrangers. Lowry separated from O'Meally, Hall and Gilbert and withdrew towards his familiar refuge in the Fish River country.
Gilbert chose a different course. Accompanied by John O’Meally, he abandoned the overheated Burrangong district and moved south to Junee before turning east towards Carcoar. Their movement should not necessarily be understood as following Lowry: while he sought shelter around the Fish River, Gilbert and O’Meally began operating independently, searching for fresh country, new targets and associates who knew the roads and hiding places of the Carcoar district. There they renewed contact with John Vane, whose local knowledge would soon help transform the pair into the nucleus of a larger and more formidable gang.
By late July 1863, Johnny Gilbert and John O’Meally had carried their operations into the Carcoar district, country with which neither man was well acquainted. If they were to work successfully beyond their familiar ground around Lambing Flat and the Weddin Mountains, they required a guide who understood the roads, settlements and disposition of the local police. They found one in John Vane.
Vane already knew O’Meally, having encountered him while droving cattle near the Weddins. Gilbert he knew chiefly by reputation. When the three met at Milpost Creek, O’Meally questioned Vane closely about Carcoar: where the bank stood, how the town was approached and, most importantly, whether the bank could be reached without passing the police station.
Vane supplied the information but did not accompany them into town. He was well known around Carcoar and would have risked immediate recognition. The actual undertaking was therefore left to Gilbert and O’Meally.
On Thursday, 30 July, the two bushrangers rode towards Carcoar. Somewhere between Blayney and the town, they encountered a solitary traveller. They stopped and searched him, taking his watch and approximately £3. According to Vane’s later recollection, they then led the man from the road and tied him to a tree. They assured him that they had business to transact in Carcoar and would release him when they returned
The precaution served an obvious purpose. If permitted to continue, the traveller might have reached Carcoar ahead of them and warned the police. By restraining him, Gilbert and O’Meally preserved the appearance of two ordinary horsemen riding into town on legitimate business.
Shortly before noon they entered Carcoar openly and rode directly to the local branch of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. They dismounted, secured their horses outside and walked into the banking room without masks or any immediate display of weapons.
The teller, Mr Parker, received them as ordinary customers. One of the men presented him with a cheque. It was badly blotted and suspicious enough to require careful examination. As Parker bent over the document, giving it his close attention, the deception ended. A revolver was levelled at his head, and he was ordered to remain still and silent or have his brains blown out.
The surviving contemporary account does not establish which bushranger presented the cheque and which held Parker at gunpoint. Later retellings have assigned the individual parts to Gilbert and O’Meally loitering at the entrance.
At that moment, Mr MacDonald, the bank manager, was a short distance down the street speaking with Mr Harrison, a shoemaker. MacDonald had noticed the two strangers ride up. Something in their appearance or manner aroused his suspicion, and when he saw them enter the bank, he followed.
Reaching the doorway, MacDonald heard the threat being made to Parker and stopped upon the threshold. One of the bushrangers noticed him and coolly ordered him to step inside.
MacDonald refused. Instead, he turned and ran to summon the police.
His decision destroyed the narrow advantage upon which the robbery depended. Gilbert and O’Meally now stood inside a confined building while the bank manager ran towards the nearby police station. Their horses remained tied in the street, and every moment spent searching for money increased the likelihood of their being trapped.
Parker immediately seized his opportunity. In one sudden movement, he dropped beneath the counter, where the bank kept a revolver. From this protected position, he fired two shots to raise the alarm.
The newspaper account did not say that Parker deliberately fired at either bushranger, nor did it report that either man was wounded. The effect was nevertheless decisive. The shots announced the robbery throughout the town and warned Gilbert and O’Meally that armed resistance had begun.
Recognising that their enterprise had failed, the pair made no further attempt to reach the bank’s money. They rushed through the doorway, mounted their horses and galloped from Carcoar. Police set out shortly afterwards, but the fugitives had gained sufficient distance to escape.
Not a penny had been taken from the bank.
The promise made to the traveller remained unresolved by the failure. Vane’s account records that the man had been tied to a tree and told that he would be released after the bushrangers completed their business, but neither the immediate newspaper report nor Vane’s surviving narrative clearly establishes when—or by whom—he was eventually freed.
Gilbert and O’Meally did not allow the reverse at Carcoar to end their day. Later that afternoon they appeared at Stanley Hosie’s store at Caloola, where an isolated premises offered fewer risks than a bank situated close to a police station. There they obtained money, clothing, footwear, miscellaneous goods and two horses before continuing into the surrounding country.
The incident has often been called the Carcoar bank robbery and has sometimes been described as one of the earliest daylight bank robberies attempted in colonial New South Wales. Strictly speaking, it was an unsuccessful attempt. Gilbert and O’Meally entered the bank under false pretences, placed Parker under armed control and intended to take its money, but MacDonald’s suspicion and Parker’s presence of mind forced them to flee empty-handed.
Ben Hall played no part in the affair. The immediate account consistently described two attackers, while Vane’s later recollection identified them as Gilbert and O’Meally and explained his own limited role in supplying local information. The attack belonged to the brief period when the two men were operating independently in unfamiliar country, before Vane joined them more actively and before the expanded gang reunited with Hall around the Young district.
The robbery of Stanley Hosie’s store at Caloola on 30 July 1863 followed directly upon Johnny Gilbert and John O’Meally’s unsuccessful attempt to rob the Commercial Bank at Carcoar. Forced from the bank before taking any money, the pair turned towards a more isolated and vulnerable target.
Hosie’s store served the surrounding pastoral and mining population and carried clothing, footwear, provisions and other goods difficult to obtain outside Bathurst. More importantly to two fugitives operating away from their accustomed country, it offered cash, supplies, horses and equipment without the immediate danger posed by Carcoar’s police station.
Gilbert and O’Meally reached Caloola during the afternoon. They approached without haste, dismounted and entered the store with what the contemporary report described as “the greatest coolness.”
Hosie was standing behind the counter. Four or five other people were also present. The two bushrangers carried four revolvers each and made no effort to disguise themselves. Their overwhelming armament established control without the need for immediate violence, and they spoke openly and familiarly with their captives.
Among those in the store was Mr Stephens, whom the bushrangers recognised as the survivor of an earlier murderous attack. Addressing him directly, one declared..
“We know you. There were two men hanged through you; but we don’t intend to shoot anybody unless there is any resistance.
The words were presented as reassurance, but the qualification carried the real meaning. Stephens and the others would remain safe only while they submitted.
The bushrangers emptied the till. The original Bathurst Times report, reprinted in the Empire, placed the amount at approximately £36. Some later reprints reduced it to £25, but £36 is the figure given in the fullest contemporary version.
Money was only part of what they required. Gilbert and O’Meally searched the store and began packing silk dresses, boots, shoes and assorted merchandise. When asked about the clothing, they said that it was intended for “their people.” This may have meant relatives, sympathisers or members of the wider network upon whom they depended for shelter and assistance. It also suggests that the raid was partly a provisioning expedition. Having moved into unfamiliar country, they needed clothing and supplies as much as ready cash.
Hosie refused to surrender his property meekly. He challenged either bushranger to put aside his firearms and settle possession of the goods in a fair fight.
The proposal amused them..“No, mate,” one replied, “we don’t do business in that way.”
Hosie’s challenge demonstrated considerable courage, but it also exposed the fiction underlying the bushrangers’ easy manner. Their apparent good humour rested upon eight loaded revolvers and the knowledge that nobody inside could resist without placing every person present in danger.
After selecting what they wanted, Gilbert and O’Meally went to Hosie’s stable and took two horses. The stolen goods were packed upon the animals, providing the bushrangers with both transport and fresh mounts for their continuing journey.
As they prepared to leave, one turned to Hosie and boasted:
“Ah, if you had as much money as is offered for me, you’d be well in.”
The contemporary report did not identify the speaker. The remark has sometimes been attributed to Gilbert because it accords with his flamboyant manner, but that attribution cannot be proved from the original account.Once the men had gone, Hosie rode urgently to Bathurst. He reached the police at about ten o’clock that night and reported the robbery. A detachment was dispatched, but the delay made interception unlikely. The newspaper concluded from the descriptions that the robbers were Gilbert and O’Meally and that they were the same two men who had attacked the Carcoar bank earlier that day.
The Carcoar and Caloola offences marked the beginning of Gilbert and O’Meally’s association with John Vane. Vane had supplied them with information about the district but had not accompanied them into either the bank or Hosie’s store.
During the following days the association deepened. Vane and Mickey Burke stole valuable horses from the Icely family’s Coombing Park estate on 2 August. Burke shot and seriously wounded the groom known as German Charley during that raid. Two of the stolen horses subsequently appeared beneath the bushrangers during their confrontation with police at the Five-mile Waterholes.
On 6 August, only a week after the Caloola robbery, a mail coach left Carcoar for Bathurst carrying three prisoners: Thomas Morris, Charles Green and James Burke. They were suspected of acting as bush telegraphs or otherwise assisting local offenders. James Burke was related to Mickey Burke and connected with Vane’s circle.The escort was unusually strong. Superintendent Edric Morrisset sat on the box beside the driver, with a female passenger, Miss Flanagan, between them. Senior Sergeant Grainger and Constable Merrin travelled inside with the prisoners. Mounted Constable Frederick Sutton followed behind on one of Morrisset’s horses.
Whether Gilbert and O’Meally deliberately intended to free the prisoners remains uncertain. Contemporary newspapers naturally interpreted the attack as an attempted rescue. Vane later maintained that the gang intended only to rob the coach and did not know that it carried so many police. The surviving evidence supports caution: the bushrangers were clearly waiting for the coach, but their exclamation upon seeing the escort suggests that they had not expected its strength.
Before the coach arrived, Gilbert stopped bullock-driver John M‘George about a mile beyond the Five-mile Waterholes. Riding a grey horse, he asked whether the coach had passed.
M‘George answered that he had not seen it.
“You stop there till it does come,” Gilbert ordered.
A dray stood nearby, narrowing the road and creating a favourable place at which to halt the coach. Two other armed men remained concealed in the bush. At about one o’clock the coach appeared.
Gilbert galloped towards it and ordered the driver to stop. The other two riders emerged, one on either side of the road. As they came close enough to see the occupants, one exclaimed:
“There is a bloody lot of traps!”
The remark strongly suggests surprise. Instead of a lightly defended mail carrying money and ordinary passengers, they had encountered Morrisset and three armed policemen.
Nevertheless, the bushrangers opened fire.
Superintendent Morrisset ordered the coachman to pull up and called upon the police to get out. As Grainger and Merrin scrambled from inside, several shots were discharged. Morrisset jumped from the box, and O’Meally—according to the later evidence—fired a revolver at him.
Grainger ran towards the coach horses and fired upon the man he believed to be O’Meally, then thirty to fifty yards away on a grey horse. The rider turned and made for the hill.
Meanwhile, another bushranger, generally identified as Gilbert, rode away into the scrub. Constable Sutton gave chase. The pursuit carried them approximately a quarter of a mile from the coach.
Gilbert repeatedly turned in the saddle and fired. Sutton later said that six shots were directed at him. He returned one shot, but both horses were moving too quickly and the distance was too great for accurate shooting.
As Sutton began closing upon Gilbert, O’Meally came across his line of pursuit. Sutton was preparing to fire again when O’Meally discharged his weapon first.
The bullet struck Sutton in the breast, passed through the upper portion of his body and travelled down his right arm before emerging near the elbow. Other reports reversed the course of the ball, describing it as entering the arm and leaving near the collarbone. Whatever its precise path, the wound was severe.
O’Meally fired a second time as Sutton attempted to escape. That ball passed so close that it severed the cord securing the constable’s hat.
The bushrangers pursued him for approximately two hundred yards, continuing to fire. Sutton then saw a third rider approaching on a grey horse. At John Vane’s later trial, Sutton identified this man as Vane and recalled him saying:
“Now, you bastard, I have got you.”
Sutton answered in substance that the man would first have to catch him. He turned back towards the coach, where Grainger and the other police could cover his retreat.
From the hill the bushrangers shouted that, had they possessed more ammunition, they would have followed the police “to hell.”
The police fire had not been entirely ineffective. One shot struck a bushranger’s horse through the ribs, although the animal carried its rider away.
A second ball apparently struck O’Meally himself. According to Vane’s later account, Morrisset’s shot hit O’Meally in the chest but struck a watch in his pocket. The impact shattered most of the watch and knocked the wind from him, but prevented the bullet from entering his body. O’Meally afterwards supposedly carried the remaining portion as a charm against police bullets.
M‘George saw one of the men remove a ball from his clothing and describe the escape as “a nigh go.” This contemporary evidence supports the substance of Vane’s story, although it does not conclusively establish which policeman fired the shot.
The police did not attempt to hold the road indefinitely. Sutton was faint from blood loss, the bushrangers remained mobile and the three prisoners presented a continuing risk. Morrisset reportedly warned the prisoners that they would be shot if they attempted to escape.
Two were said to have become sick with fear. James Burke, by contrast, appeared to enjoy the spectacle—possibly because the attackers were his friends or associates.
Miss Flanagan displayed notable composure throughout the gunfire.
The coach resumed its journey. Sutton was left at Blayney for medical attention while Morrisset and the remaining police continued to Bathurst with the prisoners. Dr Rowland of Carcoar and Dr Machattie treated Sutton. He survived, but the injury was serious: he was unable to return to duty for approximately four months and continued to suffer from its effects when he testified in January 1864.
After the coach had gone, the bushrangers returned to M‘George. One picked up a police revolver dropped during the confusion and remarked:
“This is a pretty thing to come forty miles for.”
They asked M‘George how many police had been aboard. When told there were four, they admitted that they had expected to stick up the coach much more easily. One asked whether the mounted constable had been hit. On being told that he had, the bushranger replied that he knew he was shot.
M‘George recognised Vane, whom he had known for six or seven years, and said that Vane carried a double-barrelled gun and admitted firing two shots. His evidence became central to Vane’s subsequent prosecution
The Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday 11th August 1863
DESPERATE AFFRAY WITH BUSHRAGERS
Nevertheless, on the morning of the 30th August 1863, as a new day dawned, John O'Meally and John Vane, on the evening before, held up and robbed 'Demondrille Station' in company with Ben Hall Gilbert, and Burke. Separated arriving at a hut of harbourers, the Tootle's. The two bushrangers, after some aperitifs, bunked down for the night. When day broke in what would become a fateful day for John O'Meally, four troopers and Mr Edmonds, Demondrille Station manager, arrived at Tootle's hut after information of O'Meally's presence reached them at the newly established police station at Murrumburrah. As the police approached without attracting observation toward the cabin, barking of dogs sounded alarm catching Vane and O'Meally by surprise. Therefore, like the scene from the end of the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, John Vane and John O'Meally cornered, burst out the front door, firing rapidly at the troopers and effected their escape. In the gun battle, Constable Houghey was shot in the knee and including three police horses. John Vane later describes the scene:
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| Alexander MacKay. 1815-1890. 'Wallendbeen' Penzig. |
James Brown deposed: I am a bullock-driver, in the employ of Mr. Mackey of Wallendbeen; yesterday (Sunday) morning about half-past eleven o'clock two men came to my hut, which lies a little way off the road leading from Murrumhurrah to Cootamundry, and told my wife to get them something to eat, which she did; when I came in they demanded my hat, which I gave them, on seeing that they were armed with revolvers; they then demanded my boots, but they would not fit them; they tried two pairs, aud they were both too small; one of the men was about to cut the boots when the other said, "dont, we'll get plenty up at Mackay's;" at this moment two men rode along the road a short distance off; they said, "We'll go and stop them, and get a saddle from them;"
I observed when they came they had two horses but only one saddle; a rug and surcingle was on the other horse; they then left my hut (having taken only my hat) in pursuit of the two men; I did not see them go up to the parties, very soon after they went away out of my sight I heard the report of firearms, which was such a noise as a revolver would cause; there were about five or six reports, as near as I can remember; I then saw two men, the one galloping after the other and firing at him; I did not go up till sent for by Mr. Mackay, when I saw Mr. Barnes, the storekeeper of Murrumburrah, carried upon a sheet of bark by four men; he seemed to be quite dead; I did not see the bushrangers after I last saw them in pursuit of the man; they asked me, when at my hut, if I had a saddle, and I told them "no;" they also asked me about the horses in the paddock, if they were good ones, to which I replied, that I did not know; they also asked me if Mackay had a good saddle, and said, "he was sure to have a banging one;" about an hour and a half afterwards three mounted police and a black tracker came to Wallendbeen; I immediately started off to Wombat to acquaint the police there and send information to the coroner of what had occurred, by order of my master, Mr. Mackay.²²
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| John Barnes |
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| My Photo. |
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| Barnes family arrival in 1841. |
The Yass Courier
Wed 9th Sep 1863
THE MURDER OF MR. JOHN BARNES OF MURRUMBURRAH
John Bernard Hanlon, assistant storekeeper, in the employ of Mr. Barnes junior, at Cootamundry, deposed On Sunday about half-past ten in the morning, I was riding with Mr. Barnes from Murrumburrah to Cootamundry; when opposite Mr. Mackay's stockyard fence I saw horses standing at the door of a hut near the dam, and said to Mr. Barnes, it looked suspicious to see them there; shortly after Johnny Meally or O'Maley, whom I knew and instantly recognised, galloped up to us and said to me; "I know you, you ---- "at the same time his comrade covered me with a revolver, and said, "Bail up you ---- ----- too;" Maley said, "Is that a good horse," alluding to Barnes's, to which Barnes did not reply; he then said "get off, 1 want that horse, saddle, and bridle;" Mr. Barnes then said, "Is that what you mean?" O'Maley said " You ---- , if you stir, I'll put daylight through vou; "Mr. Barnes turned away and galloped off, towards Mr. Mackay's house; O'Meally fired at him after he had got away about fifteen yards, and went after him in full gallop; he tired again as soon as he had time to cock the revolver; they got out of my sight, and I heard three more shots near to Mr. Mackay's house; the other man stood over me with his revolver cocked, and ordered me to dismount, which I did; when I got off my horse, he said, " If you stir an inch, I'll do the same to you;" he ordered me to come up to Mr. Mackay's and he turned the other way, leading my horse with him, and said, "For being quiet I'll give you your horse, saddle and bridle directly;" during this time I saw Mr. Barnes galloping down the hill; he sat loosely on his horse as if wounded, and was followed closely by O'Maley, who shouted out, "Will you stop now, you ---?" They again got out of my sight and I heard more shots fired— three or four; O'Maley came towards me, and I asked him where Mr. Barnes was; he said, "He is down in the gully." I said, "Oh, you have shot poor Mr. Barnes; "He said, "No, he fell off against a tree;" on going down to look at him I found him lying on his back and his horse gone; Mr. Barnes was not dead then, but unable to speak; he drew a heavy sigh and died; O'Maley was then up at the store, and the other man was gone I could identify both the men perfectly well; O'Maley stuck up the store, in which I am employed, on the 15th May last; he was very black and dirty on Sunday, and looked different to what he did when he stuck up the store; he was then very smart and clean; neither Mr. Barnes nor myself had any arms or money on us; a ball passed through the brim of Mr. Barnes's hat, but missed his head. -Yass Courier 9 Sep 1863.
The last to give his evidence was Wallenbeen squatter Mr MacKay who deposed.
Alexander Mackay, a squatter, residing at Wallendbeen, deposed: On Sunday morning (31st August), about half past eleven o'clock, I heard the report of firearms close to my house; I went to the back of the house and heard a second report; shortly after a horseman galloped into the yard, followed by another man, about twelve yards behind him; I thought the first man was a bushranger and the other a policeman; on crossing the yard I heard him shout out "Stand you ---- ;" this was between the two gateways in the yard behind the house, and they are eighty feet apart; the revolver of the man in pursuit went off at least three times; on passing the second gateway I recognised the man who fled as Mr. Barnes, storekeeper, of Murrumburrah; I called to him to stop, but he did not comply, nor speak; his reins were quite loose at the time, and he seemed to sit loose in the saddle; he then galloped towards the stockyard, about 500 yards from the house; after getting near to the stockyard he returned towards the house, but he fell from his horse; Barnes's man said, Barnes was killed by O'Maley; I asked him, if he identified O'Maley, and he said, "Yes ; I then went with him to see Barnes, but only got about fifty yards, when I was stopped by the man who pursued Barnes, and he indentified him; he asked me my name, and I told him Mackay; he asked me if I had a store, and I said, " Yes," I asked him if Mr. Barnes was dead, and he said, "I don't think he is; he struck against a tree;'' I said, " I'll go down and see," but he said, "no, I want boots, and a coat and hat for my mate, because he lost them last night in a skirmish with the police; "I said, "here is the store key, I must go and see Barnes;" he said, "no. you must go with me;" I then asked him to allow Barnes's man to go and see after his master, to which he assented; he then got the things he wanted out of the store, and asked me if I had good horses; I said, "no, the bushrangers have taken the best ones;" he said "Yes," and that he had my race horse "Chance;" he told me his name was O'Maley; Barnes's man returned and said, he could not find his master, and O'Maley directed him where to find him; we started off to the spot, and I saw Barnes lying dead; O'Maley said, "I am very sorry for him; it was his own fault; he ought to have stood, and he would not have been shot;" Barnes was then carried up to my house; the bushrangers took Mr. Barnes' horse, saddle and bridle. I sent information to the police as soon as I could; I did not examine his clothes to see if he had any money on him, nor do I know if he was robbed after he fell from his horse dead; I have seen his person since he was undressed, and I observed three distinct bullet wounds, and also a severe cut on his right temple, any of which, I think, might have caused his death; the wound on his temple was caused by his falling from the horse and coming in contact with a stump, on which I found hair; his lip was also slightly wounded, probably when he fell; I said to the bushranger, when first he came up, "I hope you have not shot poor Barnes; "he said, " who is he ?" and I told him; when I stood with O'Maley looking at the body of deceased, his mate stood at a little distance off; I could identify the man, who called himself O'Maley, he was a man about five feet ten inches in hight, dark hair, with a good deal of colour in his face. -Yass Courier 9 Sept 1863.
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John Bernard Hanlon b. 1839 d. 24 DEC 1887 Never before Published Private Source. |
However, as O'Meally ran riot, time and the law caught up with O'Meally's family. As far as the police were concerned, the O'Meally's home was a general rendezvous for bushrangers and rogues. Thus, despite a two-month notice to vacate the sold Arramagong Station, Jack's father Patrick O'Meally would finally be kicked dragged off by the police. Moreover, since mid-1862, the O'Meally's had continued to illegally squat on the station. For the past year, the family held on despite the current owner's wishes. Therefore, under the Lands Act of April 1861, the O'Meally's faced the same punishment previously dealt out to Ben Hall. The police burned them out. 'Sydney Morning Herald', 14th September 1863:
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| O'Meally's Description, June 1863. |
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| Stanley Hosie 1872. |
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| Illustration of Loudon hold-up, Grubbenbong Station. Courtesy NLA. |
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| William Rothery. Courtesy NLA. |
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| Cliefden. c. 1900 Courtesy NLA. |
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| Painting by Patrick William Marony (1858-1939) Courtesy NLA. |
Consequently, at the pleadings of Mrs Keightley and maid, Mrs Baldock Ben Hall and John Gilbert restrained O'Meally and Vane. However, throughout his captivity and unfortunately for Keightley, he would be toyed with and taunted by Vane and O'Meally. Simultaneously, Keightley's wife and Dr Pechey rushed to Bathurst to secure the agreed-upon ransom sum of £500 for Burke's life, equal to the Government bounty Keightley would receive for the lifeless body of Burke.
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| The layout of O'Meally and the bushrangers attack at Dunns Plains 23, 24, 25th October 1863. |
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| Mural at Binalong depicting a new reward of £4000 for the remaining four. |
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| Goimbla Homestead c. 1937. |
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| William Farrand. Courtesy NLA |
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| Death of John O'Meally, by Patrick William Marony 1858-1939 |
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| Mural at Binalong, Hall & Gilbert kneeling over a dead O'Meally. 2018. |
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| William Hollister |
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| Amelia Campbell 1835-1870. Private source. |
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| Mrs Campbell Coffee Urn Presentation. 19th March 1864. |
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| "Presented to Mrs Campbell with the following inscription, The ladies of Upper & Middle Adelong present this token of esteem To Mrs Campbell as an appreciation of her heroic conduct displayed during the attack at GOIMBLA by bushrangers on 19th Nov. 1863." Presented to NMA by Mrs V. A. Hope and Mrs R. G. Hanmer, Granddaughters of Mr and Mrs Campbell. Courtesy NMA. |
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| Pocket watch presented to David Campbell, 1863. Courtesy NSW State Library. |
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| David Henry Campbell. (1829-1885) Private Source. |
(COPY)
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| After O'Meally's death, a curiosity emerged. |
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| This Plaque is at the Forbes Cemetery. |
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| John Vane 1880. |
It was no long step to a sticking-up event by which a solitary Chinaman, travelling along a road leading to Bathurst, found himself the poorer by a £5 note and two ounces of gold-dust, and a very short one to the "bailing-up" of a public-house in the neighborhood of the Fish River. Although this affair was more or less intended as a "lark," the publican gave information to the police, and a warrant was issued for the arrest of Vane and his companions. Soon afterwards he barely escaped capture by the police, and after one or two further adventures of a similar sort, found himself in a position of being "wanted," which left him no alternative but that of adopting a bushranging career in earnest. In the course of a month or two he fell in with Gilbert and O'Meally, and from that time became a real bushranger."
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| The NSW Police Gazette report and warrant for John Vane. This warrant was issued on 3rd May 1863, which sent John Vane to the bush and eventually joined Gilbert and O'Meally. |
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| Comus II stable, Coombing Park. Courtesy Craig Bratby |
(Vane, during his conversations with his biographer Charles White denies involvement at Coombing Park and states it was another in company with Burke. Furthermore, in Vane's reminiscence, he writes himself out of many of the atrocities he was proven to be directly involved with.)
As a result of the horse taking and shooting of the stable hand at Icely's, Burke and Vane had begun the exploits that would lead to many a highway robbery and gunfight with the police as well as the sticking-up of stores, coaches, and for Vane, an accessory to murder and would cost Burke his life. However, in July 1863, John Gilbert and John O’Meally, members of Hall's gang sought fresh horses and new districts to operate in, arrived in the Carcoar district and sent the word out amongst the locals that Vane's local expertise was required. O'Meally and Vane had known each other earlier while Vane was stock keeping at the Weddin Mountains and had a fine reputation for handling high spirited horses. Subsequently, the two met with Vane at one of his camps at Millpost Creek, resulting in plans for an attack on the Carcoar bank. On 30th July 1863, the idea came into action. Vane's job was to provide logistics for the raid. However, he did not participate. Gilbert and O’Meally rode into Carcoar and performed one of the first daylight bank robberies in the colony of NSW.
A short video of the Millpost Creek area often used by Vane, Ben Hall, Gilbert & Co.
Filmed by Craig Bratby.
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| Frederick Sutton. Private Source. |
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| Frederick Sutton police employment. Note a bricklayer as previous employment. |
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| Demondrille Station. |
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| The roster of NSW Police wounded 1862-1867. |
Consequently, O'Meally levelled his drawn revolver at the fast retreating shopkeeper and fired some shots which found their mark in the back of the defenceless man. Despite being hit several times and lolling in the saddle, Barnes held on. The chase covered some distance with O'Meally still firing and yelling imprecations as the wounded man's horse entered Wallendbeen homestead. Tragically, Mr Barnes, with blood flowing freely from his body, collapsed from his horse and striking his head on an obstacle on the ground. Within moments he was heard by those nearby to sigh a long breath or death rattle as poor Mr Barnes entered the next world. Meanwhile, as the gunfire rang out, John Vane remained covering Hanlon without robbing him. Subsequently, at Barnes death, Vane became an accomplice, including Burke's wounding the stable groom, German Charley at Icely's station, Coombing Park. The difference this time was that the gunfire resulted in the death of the victim. At the inquest the eyewitness Mr Hanlon stated:
Another report of the 22nd September affair:
After the capture of the three troopers, Vane and the other bushrangers the next day arrived at the store of Stanley Hosie at Caloola, whom Vane and Burke knew well. However, this did not prevent Vane from robbing the storekeeper of a considerable amount of goods and participated in shooting horses held in a stockyard. In December 1863, Hosie would give evidence at Vane's trial regarding the events of that day. Below is a recorded version of Hosie's evidence;
Eventually, they rode away, taking with them the horses, saddles, and bridles, belonging to Messrs. Machattie and Battye; saying they would leave the horses where they would be found as soon as they were better suited. Shortly after the foregoing occurrence, another man was stuck up and robbed by the same persons in the same neighbourhood, but they only took from him a few shillings. Mr Machattie had to walk several miles before he could procure another horse, after which he rode into Bathurst and gave information to the police.
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| The attack on Mr Keightley. Courtesy NLA. |
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| Dunns Plains attack in which Micky Burke was fatally wounded and Vane assaulted Dr Pechey, 23, 24, 25th October 1863. |
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| Letter separating the two men. Note also Vane was to be kept apart from Frank Gardiner. New South Wales, Australia, Sheriff's Papers, 1829-1879 |
It has also transpired that this worthy visited the shop of Mr Pedrotta, the gunsmith, and Mr Craig, the saddler, and, at each place, succeeded in passing some of the money extorted for the ransom of the gallant commissioner. As a result, Cheshire would be convicted and sentenced to five years on the roads and was released in 1868. However, later while Darlinghurst and John Vane were incarcerated, the two men would be formally kept apart. Whether this was due to animosity on Cheshire's behalf due to Vane lagging him for the money from Keightley's is more than likely.
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| 'Surrender' |
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| Fr. Tim McCarthy. c. 1870's. Courtesy NLA. |
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| Bathurst Court with Gaol in the background where John Vane was sentenced in 1863. |
When Vane was sentenced this advertisement appeared in the Sydney newspapers:
Vane's court appearance and trial were published in the 'The Sydney Morning Herald' Friday 15th April 1864: see link below.
Friday 15th April 1864
TRIAL OF VANE THE BUSHRANGER.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13097035
The Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday 20th April 1864
BATHURST CIRCUIT COURT
Sentence on Vane
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13084542
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| Vane denies his involvement in this gunfight in Vane's narrative, but on surrendering in 1863, Vane gives an account of the incident. Vane later said that; "a bullet fired by Superintendent Morrisett had struck O'Meally in the chest" a validation of Vanes presence. |
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| John Vane, Entrance Book Bathurst Gaol November 1863. |
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| John Vane, Return of Prisoners Cockatoo Island 1866. |
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| John Vane, Return of Prisoners Darlinghurst 1867. |
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| John Vane, released March 1870 Darlinghurst Gaol. |
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| Released |
Soon after his release for sheep-stealing, Vane was arrested again on suspicion of robbery. However, he was released when evidence revealed no involvement. Accordingly, his notoriety as a member of Ben Hall's gang, although only over a short period, kept Vane in the police spotlight. However, for all his protestations and his claims that his incarceration for bushranging, he had learnt the ills of his former ways amounted to nonsense when in May 1880, John Vane was arrested once more for sheep stealing. The age-old saying a 'Leopard Never Changes its Spots' rang true for a Bona Fide villain who through sheer luck had only been associated with blood on his hands:
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| John Vane prison record 1880. |
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| John Vane and James Burke at Bathurst Gaol 1880. |
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| Sheep stealing 1880. |
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| John Vane released in September 1884. |
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| John Vane c. 1898. |
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| Jane Vane c. 1912. |
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| Artist impression. © Penzig. |
("an exceptionally good horseman")
"Micky" was uneducated, however, being reared in the bush as with his contemporaries he was an excellent horseman and bushman:
The bushranger Micky Burke was known in the district in which he conducted operations as 'True Blue' by reason or the fact that he usually went about dressed in a suit of blue coloured tweed. He was a neighbour and mate of Johnny Vane and they had both lived in the Carcoar district, to the south of Mount Macquarie.¹
The youth, Burke, was a native of the colony, and was reared at the Dam Station, belonging to Mr. Walt the ex-MP for Carcoar. From his childhood, he was shepherding for that gentleman.
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| The Burke's arrival in NSW 1838, as well as the brother of Burke's father and his family. |
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| Michael Burke's father's reward offer for the stolen horse, note, Daniel Charters senior also had a horse stolen at Carcoar. |
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| Comus II's stable, Coombing Park. Courtesy Craig Bratby. |
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| Superintendent Morrisset c. 1860 |
A letter from Mr. F. Rothery to his uncle, Mr. Icely, J.P, dated Bathurst, 3rd instant, gives the particulars of the daring robbery by bushrangers of that gentleman's stables, at Coombing, near Carcoar, on the previous day. The following are extracts;
"I am sure you will be very surprised when you hear that the Coombing stable was robbed yesterday evening. Mr. Icely had been down to Stoke in the afternoon, and returned a short time after dark, and, putting his horse in the back stable, came down to the house. Mr Morrisset and T Lawson happened to be present, and we had not been at dinner more than half an hour when Edward came in and said that he heard two shots in the direction of the stable.
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| Thomas Rothery Icely. 1832-1918. Private Source. |
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| NSW Police Gazette October 1863. |
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| 'Clifden' c. 1900. Courtesy NLA. |
On Saturday, at half-past three o'clock, p. m., Mr Rothery, Junior, rode into town, stating that about two hours previously, Gilbert and four other bushrangers had taken their quiet departure from Clifden about 15 miles from Carcoar. He stated, that at eleven o'clock that morning, he saw Gilbert, Ben Hall, O'Meally, Vane, and Burke, riding up to the house, when he gave the alarm to his father, who ordered the door to be closed and fastened. This done, Mr Rothery and his two sons armed themselves with fowling pieces and revolvers—the cook and ostler being shortly afterwards admitted by the window. The cook was armed with a carving knife and toasting fork, and the ostler with a stable fork and a sickle. By the time these arrangements were completed, the bushrangers came up to the front of the house, when the young men wanted to fire, but their father ordered them not, directing them to plant the firearms and open the door. The bushrangers accordingly entered and took immediate possession of the premises, so that the pluck of these three gentlemen exploded instead of their powder. The ostler and cook were despatched to their several departments—the one to feed the bushrangers' horses, and the other to cook dinner for them; of which, when ready, they partook with excellent appetites. They ordered a bottle of brandy and champagne, which was brought them without delay, when Gilbert, filling glasses round, proposed the health of Mr Rothery, J P., and his sons, the latter of whom, he said, he hoped shortly to see gazetted as sub-inspectors; believing, as he did, that they possessed as much pluck as most of them. Mr. Rothery, J.P., in a neat speech, returned thanks for himself and sons, and assured them that he felt deeply the compliment they had paid him and was not able to express all he felt, but would represent to the Government the flattering opinion they held of his own and his sons' pluck, as no doubt they would be considered better authorities on such matters than Captain McLerie. After a few more compliments, they inquired of Mr R. what horses he had, and being shown them they tried the animals and selected three, which they took with two new saddles and bridles. It was now two o'clock, and they took their departure, stating that they were bound for Canowindra. As there was no police in town, Mr Rothery returned by himself, being advised to keep the back "slums" in his way back.
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| Canowindra township. c. 1860's |
This morning, the mail coach arrived without the mail bags. It appears from the account given by the coachman that he was bailed up by Gilbert and party, about fourteen miles from Carcoar, and ordered to turn out the bags. Every letter was opened but of this, I will give you full particulars next mail.⁵
After the dare by young Machattie, that the bushrangers didn't have the pluck to enter Bathurst, the gang took up the challenge appearing on the Saturday evening of the 3rd of October 1863, titled: THE BUSHRANGERS IN BATHURST.
The Canowindra raid was the first time in Australian history that a town was captured and sacked by bushrangers, as follows headlined:
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| Sketch of Keightley and Dr. Peachey observing the gangs arrival. By Percy Lindsey. Truth 1935. |
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| This is the back door of the Keightley home peppered with the bullets fired by the Gang. This historical piece can be seen at the Bathurst Historical Museum. (My Photo's 2019.) |
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| Very rare photograph of Dunns Plains Homestead. c. 1920's Courtesy NLA. |
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| c. 1880's. Courtesy NLA. |
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| A woodcut of Mrs Keightley imploring Ben Hall "..save his life!" Courtesy NLA. |
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| NSW Police Gazette November 1863. List of banknote No's from reward paid to Ben Hall. |
We have said O'Meally was absent, and Mrs. Keightley, fearing least he might not agree to accept the ransom, prevailed upon one of the party to fetch him. When he came, he at first refused to listen to the proposal, and declared his intention to revenge the death of his companion; but he was, however, eventually pacified by the others. They then went into the house and remained there for a considerable time awaiting Dr. Peachey's return, and drank some spirits and wine, Mrs. Keightley having first tasted it, in order to assure them the liquor was not drugged. Some conversation passed, in which the bushrangers told that the reason Burke was so daring, arose from the fact that they had just previously been twitting him with the want of courage, and seemingly he was determined to convince them to the contrary. In answer to a question from Mrs. Keightley, as to what could induce them to pursue the course they did, when, by the many robberies they committed they must possess considerable wealth, Gilbert replied that with all their depredations, they had not as much as would keep them a week.
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| Henry Rotton. M.L.A. Father of Caroline Keightley. c. 1870's Courtesy Penzig.© |
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| A dramatization of Mrs Keightley and Dr. Peachey's Buggy ride for the £500. |
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| The layout of the attack at Dunns Plains 23, 24, 25th October 1863. |
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| Bridget Burke, Micky's younger sister. c. 1900's. |
Subsequently, at the arraignment of John Vane at Bathurst in December 1863, Dr. Peachey was again asked to give evidence on Burke's death and said:
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| Edward Brady. Located Burke's body near Carcoar, after fallen from a cart. |
The irony in the death of Mickey Burke was that had the attack and the consequences of Burke dying been two days later, Mr Keightley would have been entitled to £1000, as the reward for the gang had doubled. Reported, REWARD FOR THE APPREHENSION OF BURKE:
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| Micky Burke headstone. |
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| Portrait of Dr. Pechey |
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| Caroline Keightley |
At the inquest into young Mickey Burke's death this was stated as to the shots fired at the time;
There was some suspicion in the press as to whether or not Keightley fired the fatal shot, as reported in the 'Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser', 8th December 1863, when raised at Vanes court appearance after his capture:
Henry McCrummin Keightley passed away on the Saturday 8th January 1887; DEATH OF MR. KEIGHTLEY.
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Painting by Patrick Marony depicting Mrs Keightley and Mrs Baldock pleading for the life of her husband. Courtesy of the NLA (Pic-an2292621) |
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| James Mount 1879. |
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Streetscape County Monaghan 1800s |
A report from the voyage in the Sydney Herald stated that a hospital attendant, John Pollen—formerly an officer in the 48th Regiment—warned ship authorities that a group of convicts, encouraged by repeat transportees, were plotting to seize the vessel and sail it to America. Although initially dismissed, Pollen became suspicious after noticing convicts holding secretive meetings and later overheard details of a planned mutiny: the prison doors would be opened by a convict boatswain, coordinated attacks would overpower the guard and crew, and most aboard were to be killed, sparing only the women and three sailors (who would later be forced overboard near America).
Pollen immediately reported the plot, leading to the arrest and shackling of thirty-eight ringleaders, who subsequently confessed. Despite being put in irons, the conspirators continued planning a second attack near the Cape of Good Hope, but their movements were again detected. To prevent violence, authorities handcuffed them in pairs for the remainder of the voyage to Sydney. The report concludes that the mutiny would likely have succeeded without Pollen’s vigilance and the decisive actions of the officers and guard; in recognition of his role in preventing the mutiny, Pollen was granted a conditional pardon in October 1841.
Whether Mount was among the conspirators is unknown from the material at hand; what is clear is that the voyage’s turbulence formed the opening chapter of a long career in conflict with authority—one that would recur, in different shapes, for the rest of his life.
Mount’s arrival was reported in the 'Sydney Herald' on the 21st November 1836:
The Convicts per Captain Cook were landed last week; sixteen were removed, in irons, direct to Goat Island, for being concerned in the mutiny which broke out on board that vessel on her passage to this port; and we observed twenty-two, in double irons, proceeding to Hyde Park Barracks, on suspicion of the same offence. No doubt these mutineers will make admirable Botany Bay Jurymen, at the expiration of their sentences.
In 1842 Mount under the alias Stavin was sent to Tasmania for work arriving on the ship 'Seahorse' where he was employed for 12 months and returned to NSW. |
| James Mount Tasmania 1842. Registers of the employment of probation pass holders, 1848-1857 |
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| James Gordon alias Mount Indent |
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| James Mount alias Gordon transfer to Cockatoo Island 1842 |
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| James Mount alias Gordon, Mount had a variety of alias' both First and Surname. Mount had been released in 1862. In 1856 then used the alias of James Gordon thereafter. |
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| James Mount absconded as a Ticket of Leave holder in June 1864, and was soon after bushranging with Ben Hall. |
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| On the 20th July 1864, Mount's Ticket-of-Leave was cancelled. |
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| The famous shootout at the Bang Bang Hotel (above) |
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| Newspaper report of Ben Hall's Break-up with Gordon and Dunleavy (above) |
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| Mount's capture October 1864 |
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| James Mount Court Appearance (above) |
Mount could read and write, and later records described him as exceptionally tall (around 5'11½") with identifying marks and tattoos—traits that made him memorable on the colonial frontier.
By the early 1860s—decades after arrival—Mount surfaced in the orbit of the Lachlan goldfields’ most hunted men. In police-court reporting he appears as James Mount alias Gordon, and most tellingly as “the Old Man”—a nickname that did not necessarily describe frailty, but seniority: he was older than the hard young riders who made bushranging a kind of grim fashion.
His defining association was with Ben Hall. Mount wasn’t presented as the gang’s charismatic leader; instead, he reads like the durable auxiliary—an experienced hand, valuable in intimidation, robberies, and forced escorts.
The starkest portrait comes through court reportage: Mount was charged with robbery under arms, accused of participating in the stick-up of the store of Pearce and Hillier at Canowindra, where the attackers took cash and clothing, burned account and post-office books, and compelled the manager into the bush under threat of ransom. In that telling, Mount’s role is chillingly practical—standing guard, enforcing movement, then returning alone to release the captive before rejoining Hall.
It’s the kind of detail that distinguishes a hanger-on from a performer: not the man playing the piano in a raided homestead, but the one watching the door and making sure fear does its work.
After his arrest, reports describe Mount as powerful, tall, defiant, and indifferent in court—again reinforcing the sense of a man hardened by institutions and long practice. He was sentenced with others connected to Hall’s operations, and what follows is the slow grind that often defines “bushranger” lives more than the gunfights do: years of incarceration, release, and reappearance under fresh names.
The 'Bathurst Times' reported the arrest of James 'The Old Man' Mount at a hotel near the Murrumbidgee at Gellenbagh. As reported titled: CAPTURE OF BEN HALL'S' MATE.
It is reported 'the old man,' Ben Hall's mate, has been captured Constables Nichols, Summers, and Billy (the black tracker) who dogged him from Wheogo to the Murrumbidgee. It appears that White went out on the spree, and was, literally caught napping in a public house. He was taken into Forbes and lodged in the lock-up. THE OLD MAN. This noted bushranger was brought into Bathurst under escort from Forbes (where he had been committed for trial) on Saturday last. As a matter of form he was taken before the police magistrate, who endorsed the warrant, and he was removed to gaol. In appearance, he is not more than middle-aged, and we can divine no other reason to account for his being called 'old,' than that which might result from a comparison with his more youthful companions in crime. He is a man of powerful frame, walks upright, and is very tall. The expression of his countenance is somewhat scowling, though defiant and reckless. We are given to understand that he is to be brought on another charge, viz., that of sticking up the Cowra mail.
After release in March 1881, Mount re-entered public record under other aliases—Staven among them—accused (and acquitted) in a serious sexual offence matter at Goulburn in 1882, then later arrested again for forgery in the mid-1880s. The descriptions attached to him in this period—“powerful,” “savage,” physically imposing—suggest the same core figure enduring into old age: a man whose violence, or the fear of it, remained part of how authorities and newspapers framed him.
By 1890, he appears as finally “set free,” aged about 73—a striking endpoint on paper for someone transported for life as a teenager. His death is unrecorded.
Mount is a useful corrective to the romantic bushranger silhouette. He wasn’t a folk-hero on a poster; he was a career offender across systems—convict ship, colonial labour regimes, and later the mobile predation of Hall’s circle. If Hall’s legend is speed and audacity, Mount’s is endurance: a man who survived the era’s punishments, outlasted younger outlaws, and—through aliases and repeat offending—kept slipping back into the public record long after the Lachlan escorts stopped running hot.
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| James Mount alias Gordon, Entrance book Bathurst Gaol November 1864. |
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| James Mount alias Gordon and Dunleavy, Darlinghurst Gaol Entrance record April 1865.   Gaol December 1865.
 Gaol December 1865 note Mounts release date of 1890. He would be 73yrs old. |
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| Dunleavey and Gordon, Quarter Sessions and sentence 1865. Note Micky Burke's cousin James Burke also sentenced. |
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| James Mount alias Gordon, Return of prisoners record April 1869, note the death of James Dunleavy. |
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DATE OF ADMISSION/PHOTO:16 Dec 1879, GAOL: Wagga Wagga, GAOL LOCATION: Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, RECORD TYPE: Photograph Description Book. The information contained in this book is incorrect as has been previously noted. Gordon was Mount's alias. The ship 'Christina' made one trip in 1840, and carried one Irishman Mr. W. Rollands convicted in S.A. and transferred to NSW. Once more the authorities took for granted the identity and personnel details provided by the felon. Mount's identity is unquestionable due to his tattoo's recorded both in 1836 and 1879.
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| James Mount alias Gordon, back at Parramatta Gaol May 1885.  Aged 70 yrs. |
("a bad character in the neighbourhood")
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| Patsy Daley 1874 |
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| William Hollister. c. 1870's. Courtesy R.A.H.S. |
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| Hollister's diary contact with Hall and Daley. Courtesy R.A.H.S. |
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| Inspector Norton c. 1880. Private Source. |
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| Sir Frederick Pottinger. |
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| Hollister diary entry, March 1863. Courtesy R.A.H.S |
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24th;-Patrick Daley pleaded guilty, to the charge of feloniously assaulting one Myers Solomon, at Wombat, on the 21st February last. Prisoner was remanded for sentence.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 25TH;-Patrick Daley, who had pleaded guilty on Thursday to a charge of robbery under arms, and had been convicted on the same day of another charge of a similar nature, for which he had been sentenced to ten years hard labour on the roads, was now sentenced to fifteen years hard labour on the roads, the first year in irons; this sentence to commence at the same time as the former one.
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| Daley at Goulburn Gaol, 28th April 1863 |
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Daley was also thought to have been involved with the murder of a German hotelier Mr Cirkell in February 1863, but the witnesses could not identify him. |
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| Patsy Daley's Sentence (Note above: Cummings who was Fred Lowry's cohort and Jamieson lost his family fortune.) |
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| Daley's transfer to Maitland Gaol, 23rd Sept 1863 Note; Cummings to Parramatta Gaol. |
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| Patsy Daley's Maitland Gaol Entry Log 25th Sept 1863. |
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| Maitland Gaol Entry log 1863 |
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| Daley at Cockatoo Island August 1864, punishment. |
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| Cockatoo Island 1864. |
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| Patrick Daley, Darlinghurst 1866, note conduct of Daley. |
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| Patsy Daley at Darlinghurst Gaol with Francis Christie alias Gardiner 1867. |
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| Patsy Daley's release 23rd Sept 1873 |
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| Daley's conduct reported in 1865 at Darlinghurst Gaol. |
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| Patrick Daley 1873. |
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| Hunt St, Wrightville NSW c. 1910 |
Correspondence read was of minor importance. The Inspector of Nuisances' report showed that five new cess-pits had been sunk, and six new closets erected. Certain ratepayers had neglected to comply with his notice in regard to the sinking of cess-pits. Ald Buckland was of the opinion that the Inspector should use the powers conferred upon him, and prosecute the defaulters. Alderman Buckland thought that the Inspector of Nuisances' report was very unsatisfactory, and he moved that he be instructed to proceed against persons neglecting to comply with the by-laws. This was seconded by Ald. Daley, and carried.
Daley also was a participant in various sports, mainly shooting wherein 1902 Patsy's past prowess as a bushranger won some money this time shooting at targets, not police inspectors or trackers:
In 1912 Patsy Daley became ill and was reported in the 'Cobar Herald' of travelling to Sydney for medical help:
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| One of Daley's hotels |
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| Obituary 5th May 1914. Courtesy NLA. |
Death of P. B. Daley.
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| Daley's Grave at Rookwood, NSW. |
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| John Jameison c. 1900s |
Jamieson was raised in a district where kinship, neighbourhood ties, and long familiarity bound families closely together. His father, William Jamieson, lived near John Walsh, Bridget Walsh's father, who would later marry the bushranger Ben Hall. The Jamieson and Walsh households were therefore well acquainted, and their children grew up in habitual association, sharing both schooling and the daily rhythms of pastoral life in southern New South Wales.
From an early age, John formed a close companionship with John “Warrigal” Walsh, Bridget’s brother and thus Ben Hall’s future brother-in-law. The two boys attended school together and were remembered locally as spirited and adventurous, occasionally engaging in the sort of minor mischief common to energetic youths in a frontier district. Their upbringing in a rural, stock-working environment fostered in them an early familiarity with horses, firearms, and bush travel—skills that were not merely recreational but essential to survival and labour in the region.
Both Jamieson and Warrigal Walsh became recognised as excellent horsemen while still young, being the sons of cattlemen and accustomed from childhood to riding over long distances and handling stock. Riding formed an integral part of daily existence, and their proficiency in the saddle, combined with an intimate knowledge of the surrounding country, instilled in them a strong sense of independence and confidence. Such attributes, admired in pastoral society, also placed them within a cultural milieu where daring horsemanship and bushcraft were highly prized.
Like many young men of their generation in the Lachlan and Yass districts, Jamieson grew up amid the rising legend of bushrangers, whose exploits were widely discussed and, in some circles, romanticised. In particular, the figure of Frank Gardiner exercised a powerful influence upon local youth. Stories of Gardiner’s horsemanship, bush knowledge, and defiance of authority circulated freely throughout the region, contributing to an atmosphere in which bushranging, though feared, also possessed a certain notoriety that captured the imagination of impressionable young riders accustomed to the freedoms of the bush.
The social position of the Jamieson family further deepened these associations. William Jamieson maintained close relations with several men later associated with bushranging circles, including Ben Hall, Daniel Charters, and members of the O’Meally family. In the small and interdependent communities of the district, such relationships were often the product of shared labour, travel, and necessity rather than ideology; neighbours, stockmen, and travellers regularly crossed paths across stations, tracks, and townships. Nevertheless, these connections placed the Jamieson household within a social network that overlapped significantly with some of the most prominent bushranging identities of the era.
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| William Jameison c. 1862 |
Growing up in the aftermath of this loss, Jamieson matured in a district increasingly affected by the tightening police campaign against bushranging. A campaign that drew earler the ire of William on the occasion of the incineration of his friend, now bushranger Ben Hall’s home in march 1863, criticising Sir Frederick Pottinger for turning out into the wet and cold, Hall’s relations, including Susan Prior and their three-month-old baby, Hall’s daughter Mary.
However, the Lachlan, Burrangong, and Young regions were under sustained surveillance, as mounted troopers and officers sought to suppress the activities of men such as Hall, Gardiner, and the O’Meallys. Hall's home incineration was also the fate of the O'Meally home. In such an atmosphere, young men of known horsemanship and bush familiarity, particularly those connected by neighbourhood or reputation to bushranging circles, an anti police stance which inevitably attracted the authorities' attention. Especially Sir Frederick Pottinger who temed many as 'that class of people'.
Thus, Jamieson’s formative years were shaped by a convergence of influences: close familial ties to prominent district families, early mastery of horsemanship, exposure to the mythology and reality of bushranging together, these factors situated him within the volatile social landscape of western New South Wales during the height of the bushranging era, where the boundaries between respectable settler life, frontier independence, and criminal notoriety were often perilously thin. Jamieson’s transition from a locally known colonial youth into a figure of police attention occurred against the backdrop of an increasingly coordinated campaign against bushranging in the Lachlan and Burrangong–Young districts during the early 1860s. As mounted patrols intensified and intelligence networks expanded, the police grew particularly attentive to young horsemen of known bush experience and social proximity to bushranging circles. John Warrigal Walsh also came under Pottingers wrath and was arrested gaoled and finally died fron the effects of his incarceration of Gaol Fever. The death drew Jameison further into Ben Hall's orbit. Therefore, Jamieson, by upbringing, skill, and association, fell squarely within this category.
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| Police Gazette 1863 |
Contemporary commentary also alludes to earlier offences attributed to him, including the sticking up of drays laden with produce travelling from Tumut toward Young. Such robberies targeted the very arteries of regional commerce, where isolated carriers were vulnerable to mounted assailants familiar with the bush tracks and river crossings. These incidents, whether conducted alone or in loose company, align with the pattern of youthful offenders drifting into the highway robbery sphere during the height of bushranging activity. Later reporting states that, after involvement in another robbery, Jamieson eventually surrendered to the police, reportedly under the urging of his family—a detail that reinforces the impression of a young man not wholly severed from domestic influence despite his criminal trajectory.
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| Arrest |
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| Loss of inheritence |
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However, Jamieson’s interactions with the police were not limited to court proceedings and warrants. A particularly clear intersection with senior law enforcement occurred following his re-arrest, when contemporary correctional reporting clarified that, although Sub-Inspector Roberts was responsible for retaking him, Sir Frederick Pottinger personally escorted the bushranger Jamieson through Marengo on the 9th. This episode is significant: Pottinger was one of the foremost officers engaged in suppressing bushranging in the Lachlan district, and his direct supervision of Jamieson’s custody demonstrates that the young offender was considered more than a minor criminal. He was a figure sufficiently enmeshed in the bushranging milieu to warrant close handling at a high operational level.
Within this framework emerges the long-circulating claim that Jamieson was, at one stage, used by Pottinger as a “police runner”—a quasi-informal operative whose intimate knowledge of local terrain, families, and bush tracks was potentially more valuable than his immediate incarceration. Later accounts suggest that, rather than being handled solely through conventional judicial channels, he may have been employed to assist in locating members of Ben Hall’s network, leveraging his familiarity with the same social and geographic environment in which the bushrangers operated. While the precise administrative arrangements and duration of any such role remain poorly documented, the claim is consistent with contemporary policing practices, which frequently relied on informants, intermediaries, and reformed or compromised offenders to penetrate bushranger support systems. In John Vanes biography he refers to a person as 'J' working with the police for their apprehension. The person is no doubt John Jameison.
Taken together, these developments depict a young man whose life intersected repeatedly with the machinery of colonial law enforcement. From the issuance of warrants describing him in detail, to his guilty plea in a serious robbery-related assault, the forfeiture of his inheritance upon conviction, and his escorted movement under the watch of Sir Frederick Pottinger, Jamieson’s trajectory reflects the tightening net cast by police across the Lachlan during the peak of bushranging suppression. Whether as offender, watched associate, reluctant surrenderer, or alleged police intermediary, his interactions with the authorities were continuous and consequential, marking him as both a product of and participant in the turbulent law-and-order struggles of southern New South Wales in the 1860s.
John Jameison died at Narranderra on 4th May 1919, aged 74.
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| Representation only |
Born at Kelso, near Bathurst, in 1843, Dunleavy was the younger son of James and Johanna Dunleavy. His mother, Johanna Cleary, had arrived in the colony two years earlier aboard the Alfred, a free immigrant from County Tipperary, accompanied by her cousin Bridget. She married soon after her arrival, but was widowed young; her husband’s death in 1845 left her with two small boys, Patrick and James. The family possessed Tinpot Station on the Lachlan River, where Dunleavy’s intelligence and good conduct earned him quiet respect among neighbours.
“A smart young fellow,” the Bathurst Times later recorded, “of fair complexion and gentle appearance, nothing in his countenance betrayed the daring bushranger.” Yet, by his twentieth year, Dunleavy had cast in his lot with Hall’s gang — a fateful step that would bind his name to one of the most infamous chapters of the colonial frontier.
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| James Dunleavy's mother's arrival on 19th January 1841, free on the 'Alfred' as Johanna Cleary from Tipperary, Ireland. |
Following her husband’s death in 1845, Johanna Dunleavy remarried at Carcoar the following year. Her new husband, William — known locally as John — Hadcroft, was a Lancashire man and former convict, transported to New South Wales aboard the Dunvegan Castle, which arrived in the colony on 30 March 1830. Sentenced to seven years for burglary, Hadcroft had by the 1840s earned a modest reputation as a working settler, though rumours later hinted that he may have turned again to less lawful pursuits, dabbling in cattle and horse theft in the years around 1845.
Johanna and William’s union produced several children, beginning with a son, Joseph, born in 1848 — a half-brother to young James — followed by four daughters. Yet the family’s fortunes remained fragile. In August 1858, Hadcroft died at the age of forty-eight, leaving Johanna a widow for the second time, with children to raise and a small pastoral property to manage on the margins of the Lachlan district.
Their property, Tinpot Station, lay between Gooloogong and Grenfell, near the meandering bends of the Lachlan River. The run, spanning some 50,000 acres, was capable of carrying fifteen thousand sheep and a few hundred head of cattle. By the time James reached manhood, the station was home to roughly 2,100 sheep and 130 young cattle, together with a comfortable four-roomed cottage, a kitchen and garden, two-stall stables, a woolshed, and a pair of small cultivation paddocks. From this homestead, life for the Dunleavy and Hadcroft children revolved around the quiet rhythms of the district — droving, shearing, and church on Sundays — yet it was also a region increasingly marked by lawlessness.
For the Lachlan country, in those years, was thick with rumour and rebellion. The gold rushes had drawn men of every stripe, and the bush beyond Forbes was fast becoming a refuge for the desperate and the daring. Among those whose names echoed through the gullies were the O’Meallys — a family notorious for their entanglements with bushranging. In 1871, James’s half-sister Mary Hadcroft married Patrick O’Meally, brother to the infamous John O’Meally, who had ridden with Ben Hall and John Gilbert until he was shot dead at Goimbla Station in November 1863. Mary bore Patrick five children before dying young in 1879, perhaps in childbirth — a grim reminder of the hard fates that often followed such lives.
The friendship between the Hall and Dunleavy-Hadcroft families was no secret. According to John Maguire, a contemporary of the outlaws, Hall found one of his earliest refuges at Tinpot Station:
“Hall’s first retreat in his outlawry was Tinpot Station, between Grenfell and the Lachlan. This place was owned by a widow, who had three daughters. With all of these people Hall had been on the friendliest of terms for years. They sympathised keenly with him in his troubles, as they had admired him in his prosperous days. Ben took up a position of vantage on a high hill near the Tinpot homestead, from which he could see a great distance and notice the approach of any enemy. The widow and her daughters, in the kindest manner possible, kept him supplied with all the food he wanted whilst he sojourned there. The girls used to carry provisions to him every night, and often afterwards, when occasion compelled him to seek safety in the same sanctuary, these excellent friends saw to it that he wanted for neither food, drink, nor intelligence of his enemies.”²
Such recollections, though softened by time and sentiment, reveal the bonds of loyalty and sympathy that crisscrossed the Lachlan frontier. For the Dunleavys and the Hadcrofts, friendship with Ben Hall was not merely acquaintance — it was kinship born of shared hardship, geography, and perhaps a quiet defiance of colonial authority. It was within this web of connection that young James Dunleavy, by turns impressionable and adventurous, found his way toward Hall’s outlaw band.
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| Bailliere's New South Wales 1866 Gazetteer and Road Guide. |
The close friendship between Ben Hall and the Dunleavy–Hadcroft family fostered an intimacy that would prove fateful. Hall was often a welcome figure at Tinpot Station, where he found not only shelter but sympathy. For young James Dunleavy, still in his teens, the bushranger’s charisma was irresistible. What began as small favours — errands run, messages passed, perhaps the quiet delivery of supplies — gradually drew him deeper into Hall’s confidence.
Locals whispered that Dunleavy had become Hall’s “bush telegraph,” carrying word between sympathisers along the Lachlan and beyond. It was a dangerous role, but one that carried a certain prestige among the settlers who half-admired Hall’s defiance of authority. Dunleavy later confided to a friend:
“Hall and his mate,” he said, “had trusted him, and were still trusting him in the matter; and if he had wanted to refuse the job, the proper time to do it was at first, when it was proposed to him, and not now, when it should have been completed.”³
The line between loyalty and outlawry had been crossed.
Before long, Dunleavy made his decision known, reportedly declaring that “he would join Hall and Jim, as there was plenty of amusement and a good deal of money to be got out of that business.”
Thus, the young man from Tinpot — once the diligent schoolboy of Bathurst — entered the most perilous game of all.
The widesread news of Ben Hall's former confedeate John Vane's sentencing appeared to have little effect on Dunleavy's decision to step out side the bounds of an ordered society:
The bushranger Vane, lately sentenced to fifteen years at Cockatoo, arrived in Sydney on the 22nd instant having been brought down from Bathurst in charge of a strong party of police under the command sub-inspector Roberts. A large number of persons, assembled at the terminus for the purpose of seeing this unhappy young man, who has gained such, an unenviable notoriety in the annals of crime.
Regardless, Dunleavy joined forces with Ben Hall and James Mount. Mount was a grizzled veteran of crime known throughout the district as “The Old Man.” Mount, a ticket-of-leave absconder from the Mudgee district, had worked as a roustabout near Cowra when Hall summoned him to the field. Mount alo went under the names of Gordon and Slaven. By early 1864, Hall was rebuilding his gang after the deaths and dispersal of earlier comrades — O’Meally shot dead at Goimbla, Gilbert ill and in hiding. The vacancy in the ranks was filled by two men at opposite ends of experience: Mount, the seasoned hand, and Dunleavy, the novice.
Hall’s presence near Tinpot in mid-1864 sealed Dunleavy’s fate. His mother, Johanna, had long aided Hall with supplies and shelter — no doubt for a small stipend, but also out of neighbourly loyalty and pity. Yet when she learned that her own son had joined the gang, her grief was overwhelming. She implored him to abandon the outlaws and flee the district before the police closed in. Her pleas went unheeded. The excitement, the promise of easy money, and perhaps the thrill of belonging to something larger than himself held him fast.
Years later, traces of that friendship still surfaced in local memory. A story printed in The Sun in 1916 recalled the curious fate of one of Hall’s revolvers — a silver-plated pistol stolen from a Mrs. Cropper of Yamma Station in 1865.
“When Ben stole a flash, silver-plated weapon from Mrs. Cropper, of Yamma, he offered his old and trusty pistol to Mr. Pat Dunleavy, a Forbes district resident, but Dunleavy would have nothing to do with it. Why the bushranger was so anxious to discard the revolver he had carried so long is remarkable, but is probably accounted for by the fact that Hall, who had a love for showy goods, was pinning his faith in the weapon he stole from Mrs. Cropper.”
The anecdote, perhaps apocryphal, nevertheless captures the strange entanglement of respect and regret that shadowed the Dunleavy family for years after. For James’s elder brother Patrick to be offered a weapon so closely associated with Hall was both an honour and a curse — a relic of friendship with a man the law branded a criminal.
By mid-1864, James Dunleavy was no longer merely a friend to Ben Hall. He was one of his men — and the die, as they say, was cast.
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| NSW Police Gazette 31st August 1864. |
The excitement and glamour of bushranging soon gave way to its grim realities. For James Dunleavy, the thrill of the chase and the comradeship of the campfire faded quickly beneath the smoke of gunfire and the sting of hunger. In the short months he rode with Ben Hall and James Mount, he took part in gun battles, robberies, and countless close escapes. In one encounter with police he was shot through the wrist — a wound that never properly healed and served as a brutal reminder of what his new life truly meant. Disillusioned and weary, Dunleavy would not last long in the field.
He began his brief but notorious bushranging career at the end of May 1864, joining Ben Hall and the veteran outlaw James Mount. Only days before, Hall himself had been engaged in the infamous Bang Bang Hotel battle at Koorawatha, a fierce exchange of gunfire that left the countryside ringing with rumours. On 20 May 1864, Hall, his sometime ally John Gilbert, and Mount had descended on the township to steal several high-bred racehorses — Dick Turpin, Duke of Athol, Hollyhock, and Bergamot — all under police escort.
The attempted theft erupted into a running gunfight. Trooper Scott’s bullet blew Hall’s cabbage-tree hat clean from his head, and though the bushrangers loosed twenty-five rounds, the police fire proved far more accurate. Beaten back, Hall and Mount retreated toward the Lachlan, seeking safety at Tinpot Station — while Gilbert vanished once more into the bush. Some accounts later suggested that a young horse-thief named Daniel Ryan had been mistaken for Gilbert.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 7 June 1864:
“Ben Hall and two others paid him another visit and demanded dinner for themselves and provender for their horses… Gilbert was not one of the party. The fellow who has been mistaken for him, and who is now in company with Hall, is said to be a youngster called Ryan, who is ‘wanted’ by the police for horse-stealing in the Burrowa district.”
Ryan was a close friend of John Dunn — soon to become one of the colony’s most feared bushrangers — and both were already wanted for horse theft.
On 4 June 1864, Dunleavy took part in his first recorded hold-up: the robbery of Mr. J. Roberts’s Young to Yass coach at Emu Flat, six miles beyond Binalong. The Goulburn Herald, reprinted in Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Chronicle, described the scene vividly:
“On last Saturday afternoon Mr. Roberts’ coach… was stopped by Ben Hall and two of his confederates… The driver and passengers were ordered to alight, a command they appear to have obeyed with much alacrity… Curran, on seeing the bushrangers approach, slipped his albert-chain and watch, but was less fortunate in concealing twenty-one £1 notes, which Hall compelled him to hand over… From the driver they took a meerschaum pipe and gave him a common black one in exchange, Hall promising to return the meerschaum in a few days. On examining Miller's watch and finding it to be a silver Geneva, it was returned as not worth taking. The coach was detained for several hours. A man named Kelly happened to pass by on horseback and was stopped, but nothing of value was found upon him. He was permitted to depart with the coach. A team passing by on its way to Lambing Flat was also detained, and several of the cases broken open, Hall and his companions helping themselves freely to such articles as suited them. The rifling of the dray had not ended on the coach leaving. Shortly after the coach to Yass was permitted to start, it passed a Mr. Barnes, who was driving a carriage to Illalong. He was told the bushrangers were ahead, and advised to turn back to Bowning; but he proceeded on his way, and rumour states that he received very rough treatment from the scoundrels. The companions of Hall are described—one as quite a young man (not thought to be Gilbert), and the other as a very tall elderly person. It is supposed the latter at one time resided in Goulburn, and he is reported to be a 'ticket-of-leave' man.”
The hold-up lasted several hours. A dray passing toward Lambing Flat was detained and ransacked, and later a Mr. Barnes, overseer to the Patterson brothers, encountered the gang and suffered Hall’s wrath. Barnes was accused of giving information to police; he was stripped naked, tied to a tree, and whipped before being released.
Hall, angered by what he called the “unfair play” of the police at Bang Bang, swore vengeance. Witnesses later recalled him declaring:
“That in future he would lay in wait for policemen and shoot them without hesitation… He complained of not having received fair play at Bang Bang, one of the police having deliberately rested his rifle, aimed, and fired at him, and added that he had a very narrow escape.”
Hall dismissed reports that his hat had been pierced by a bullet: “It was not true,” he said, “that the bullet pierced my cabbage-tree hat.”
By now, Dunleavy was fully entangled in the bushranging life. Alongside Hall and Mount, he lay in ambush near the road from Binalong to Yass, intending to intercept the police-escorted mail coach that same evening. As one newspaper put it, “he also stated his intention to shoot the police who escorted the mail… and rob the mail. This threat, so far as the attempt went, he carried out.”
Meanwhile, rumours swept through Goulburn that Ben Hall was dead — his body allegedly discovered in the bush. The story soon proved false. Hall had indeed collided with a tree while pursued by police, losing his horse and his hat in the confusion, but had escaped capture by climbing into the branches above his pursuers’ heads.
“Hall’s horse ran him against a tree,” the papers reported, “and before he could recover himself and regain his horse he observed the police approaching. He therefore climbed up a tree, from which he saw the police pick up his hat and ride off with his horse, double-barrelled gun, etc.”
Uninjured, Hall stole another mount and continued his campaign — now with James Dunleavy riding in his shadow.
For Dunleavy, what had begun as adventure was hardening into something darker: a life of sleepless nights, empty saddlebags, and the constant terror of discovery. Within weeks, the boy from Tinpot would be forced to confront the full cost of his allegiance — and to decide whether to live as a fugitive or to face the law.
So far as we have been able to ascertain, the following is the case ;—Ben Hall's horse ran him against a tree, and unseated him, and before he could properly recover himself and regain his horse he observed the police approaching. He therefore abandoned the idea of recovering the animal, and climbed up a tree, when he saw the police pick up his hat and ride off with his horse, double-barrelled gun, &c. Hall, who was not injured by coming into collision with the tree, subsequently selected a horse, saddle, and bridle from one of the neighbouring stations, and is now again fully prepared to pursue the course of life he has adopted.
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| Fred Lowry dead. Goulburn Hospital September 1863. |
The first clear account of Dunleavy’s baptism by gunfire appeared not long after the Emu Flat coach robbery. A report in the Freeman’s Journal of Wednesday, 1 June 1864, cast new light on what had transpired that week:
“Roberts’ coach from Young to Yass was stuck-up by Ben Hall and two of his gang on Saturday evening, and after robbing the passengers they declared it to be their intention to attack the Binalong mail. Before they could carry their design into execution, however, the two troopers who escorted the mail discovered their whereabouts by means of a fire the rascals had lit in the bush. Several shots were exchanged by the police and bushrangers, the latter of whom beat a retreat, not however before one of them, supposed to be Ben Hall, was wounded by King, one of the troopers. The Yass police were in pursuit as soon as they received information of the circumstance. They found Hall’s horse, saddle, and bridle, double-barrelled gun, and hat, with Lowry’s likeness in it, which had been abandoned in escaping from the troopers.”
The “Lowry” mentioned was Fred Lowry, a notorious bushranger and one-time ally of Hall’s. After escaping from Bathurst Gaol in February 1863, Lowry had joined Hall and John Gilbert in a string of audacious robberies before fleeing the Lachlan following the murder of a miner named McBride. Later that year, Lowry turned up at Cooks Vale Creek near Vardy’s Inn, where Senior Sergeant Stephenson confronted him. The ensuing gunfight left Lowry mortally wounded. As he lay dying from a throat wound, he uttered the words that would echo through bushranging folklore: “Tell ’em I died game.”
Those words — defiant, fatalistic — might well have been directed at Ben Hall and the circle of men who followed him into legend.
In the firefight near Binalong, Dunleavy experienced his own initiation into that brutal brotherhood. The troopers escorting the mail spotted the glow of a campfire off the track and rode toward it.
“They were challenged as to who they were,” the papers reported, “and on replying ‘Police,’ several shots were fired at them. They returned the fire, and the robbers immediately mounted their horses and galloped off. The mail driver, some distance behind, saw the exchange and, fearing ambush, unloosed the horses from the cart, placed the mailbags on one, mounted the other, and rode into Yass safely.”
The bushrangers’ mounts — Teddington, Harkaway, and Troubadour — had been stolen only days earlier from the stables of the Burrangong Station Hotel. It was a reckless encounter, fought more out of instinct than strategy, and for the young Dunleavy it was the beginning of the end.
Meanwhile, the law was closing in elsewhere. Word reached the Lachlan that Frank Gardiner, the man who had once been Ben Hall’s mentor and perhaps the founding spirit of the new breed of bushrangers, had been captured at Apis Creek in Queensland. After years of evasion, Gardiner was again arraigned in Sydney on charges of highway robbery.
“Gardiner has been remanded for a week,” reported the press. “A second charge of highway robbery is pending against him.”
Gardiner’s downfall was a warning the younger bushrangers could not afford to ignore. Yet, for Dunleavy, already wounded and in too deep to retreat, it came too late. The brief exhilaration of the bushranging life was giving way to its true face — exhaustion, pursuit, and the inescapable reach of the law.
The precise moment of James Dunleavy’s wounding is uncertain, though the surviving reports from late May and early June 1864 leave little doubt that it occurred during the running exchange of gunfire that followed the attempted robbery of the Binalong mail. In the aftermath of the Emu Flat coach hold-up, Ben Hall, James Mount, and their youthful recruit had camped near the road, intending to intercept the evening mail from Binalong to Yass. Their fire in the scrub betrayed them.
As the Freeman’s Journal reported on 1 June 1864:
“Before they could carry their design into execution, however, the two troopers who escorted the mail discovered their whereabouts by means of a fire the rascals had lit in the bush. Several shots were exchanged by the police and bushrangers, the latter of whom beat a retreat, not however before one of them, supposed to be Ben Hall, was wounded by King, one of the troopers.”
In the confusion of gun smoke and darkness, Trooper King’s bullet struck home. Whether the wounded man was Hall or Dunleavy remains uncertain — contemporary journalists, relying on rumour, named Hall, but later accounts suggest that it was in fact Dunleavy who suffered the injury. Family tradition and retrospective commentary describe the wound as a severe shot through the wrist — enough to cripple his hand and set the path to end his brief experiment with bushranging.
For Dunleavy, the glamour of the game had vanished. What had begun as adventure was now a grim battle for survival, and the young man who had once carried messages for Hall was at last beginning to count the cost of the outlaw’s life.
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| NSW Police Gazette June 1864. |
The Sydney Morning Herald reported the incident in brief but telling words:
“Ben Hall and his two mates stuck up Mr. Clements’ station, about ten miles from Currajong. They took £2 in cash, a quantity of firearms, and two horses. After feasting and yarning for a couple of hours, they departed.”
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| Reputed photo of Pearce's store, Canowindra. c. 1860's |
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| Rothery's Cleifden Homestead. c. 1900. |
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| NSW Police Gazette July 1864. |
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| King's Plains, Halfway House c. 1870's Penzig |
Furthermore, on leaving the hotel, on the following day, the three bushrangers remained in its vicinity robbing several travellers, one named Patterson, who had in tow a horse fitted with a side-saddle. The saddle was returned, and the horse was taken leaving the gentleman to slog it towards Bathurst on foot finally arriving worst for wear at Evans Plains. The gang then hit some local homes looking for food and new mounts where not even a man of the cloth was exempt:
It is highly probable that the brush with death—and the constant threat of it—pushed James Dunleavy toward quitting the game. The wrist wound that never properly healed turned every mount, every reload, into a test of endurance; courage becomes calculation when your gun-hand falters. Without the steadying presence of Hall or the hard example of Mount beside him, the campfire bravado thinned, replaced by long hours and longer doubts. In that space, a mother’s counsel carried farther than any bushranger’s boast.
By August, the pattern reads like a decision made in stages: fewer sightings, no confirmed rides with Hall or Mount, and a young man testing the path back—away from the quarrel of firearms and toward surrender. Meanwhile, public scrutiny had intensified. Law-abiding settlers, weary of the raids, began voicing their frustration. One correspondent wrote of those who sheltered Hall’s gang and the uneasy “safety” they offered. Many petitioned the government to extend telegraph lines into their towns, desperate for faster reporting and protection.
BEN HALL AND HIS GANG
(From the Correspondent of the Yass Courier, July 2, 1864)“The bushranging seesaw still continues to oscillate up and down the Lachlan and its affluents. The gang has evidently only one theatre of action, which, the observation of a good map will show, may be compared to an isosceles triangle—Marengo being its centre, Yass the apex, and Bathurst and Forbes the extremities of its base; and until the ruffian leader is either pistolled or captured, the respectable inhabitants of this particular line of country will never be free from periodical attack.
“... Hall is sufficiently cunning to know that, were he to forsake the abovementioned line of country, his successful career as a bushranger would not last a month. For his harbourers are his sheet-anchor, divided into active and passive:
Active harbourer—generally an ‘old hand,’ who under the cloak of free selection manages the robbers’ commissariat and ‘fencing’ department, while his stripling, horse-riding sons act as scouts and ‘telegraphs.’
Passive harbourer—a well-to-do farmer or squatter who, on the principle that self-preservation is nature’s first law, has no objection to quietly assist the banditti with rations, temporary horseflesh, or occasional shelter, on the condition that his own person and property are held inviolate.”
— Freeman’s Journal, July 2, 1864
As Dunleavy contemplated his future, he and his two companions never lingered in one place, covering fifty or sixty miles a day to evade pursuit. Hall, however, knew the district intimately. During hard times he returned to familiar ground near Forbes, to stations whose owners continued to turn a blind eye to his presence. Bundaburra Station was one such refuge—its owners, the Stricklands, were a pioneering family of the district, and it was there in the mid-1850s that Hall’s broken leg had once been mended.
While camped at Bundaburra, the three bushrangers were startled by the cry: “Stand, in the Queen’s name!”—troopers had surprised them and seized their horses. A gunfight ensued as the bushrangers darted from tree to tree, finally abandoning their equipment in a desperate flight. As the police closed in, their shots found their mark: both Hall and Dunleavy were seriously wounded.
The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, 24 August 1864:
“Another fight is reported between Ben Hall, the ‘old man,’ and young Dunleavy on one side, and three Bogolong troopers on the other, in one of Strickland’s paddocks, ten miles from Bundaburra... Hall was believed to be wounded in the shoulder as he dropped his rifle, which, together with the horses and accoutrements of the robbers, is now in possession of the police.”
The Sydney Mail, 3 September 1864, added:
“The history of bushranging as regards these districts has consisted of late in flying fights between the ruffianly freebooters and the police, in all of which, although the latter have had the best of it, the villains have made good their escape... Hall was wounded in the muscle of the arm, and Dunleavy in the wrist. Both sides fired from behind trees, obtaining what is technically termed a ‘pop’ whenever opportunity offered.”
After the fight, Hall, Dunleavy, and the “old man” made their way to another of Hall’s acquaintances, William Gibson, who owned several stations in the district.
The Goulburn Herald, 27 August 1864:
“On Friday week, Ben Hall, young Dunleavy, and their companion called at a station belonging to Mrs. Gibson, seventeen miles from Strickland’s paddocks, the scene of their late encounter with the police. Mr. W. Gibson, who was in bed at the time, awoke to find Dunleavy standing guard over him... They stated they had been pressed by the police and were in want of horses... Hall declared he was wounded in the fleshy part of the arm and Dunleavy in the wrist and shoulder... After selecting three horses, saddles, and bridles, they went away without touching anything else.”
Word of Hall’s presence at Gibson’s spread quickly, reaching police headquarters and infuriating the Inspector-General. Orders were sent to the Forbes district commander, Sir Frederick Pottinger, demanding immediate action against the suspected harbourer. Pottinger, however, took a more measured view—replying to Sydney with an explanation of Gibson’s difficult circumstances.
The memo in Sir Frederick own hand is illustrated below. |
| This letter was handwritten by Sir Frederick Pottinger to the Inspector-General of police Captain McLerie on the 9th September 1864. The content describes the situation at William Gibson's home in detail. Pottinger as well states the plight of other well-known squatters subject at times to Hall's visits. |
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| W.B. Dalley 1831-1888. |
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A newspaper report of Hall and Dunleavy's wounding
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| James Dunleavy Bathurst Gaol entrance book November 1864 Note James Burke cousin of Micky Burke sentenced. |
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| James Dunleavy Darlinghurst Gaol April 1865 |
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| James Dunleavy Return of Prisoners Darlinghurst Gaol December 1866 |
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| Coroner's Report of Dunleavy's death 20th October 1868 at Darlinghurst Gaol |
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| An account of young Dunleavy's death 1868. (above) |
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| Thomas Frederick Lowry. © Penzig |
For over four years, between 1861 and 1865, the bushranger Ben Hall roamed the western and south-western districts of New South Wales, conducting a series of daring robberies in the company of a motley band of outlaws. Among those who joined his ranks was a seasoned criminal whose bushranging career had begun years earlier, in the mid 1850s — Thomas Frederick (Fred) Lowry.
In the year 1858, Lowry was arrested for horse stealing and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, serving time in several New South Wales gaols, including the notorious Cockatoo Island.
Over time, Lowry’s name became synonymous with armed robbery, attempted murder, and murder. Yet on his Darlinghurst Gaol release papers in 1862, he recorded his native place as Windsor, strongly suggesting that he had been born there c. 1835.
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| Bathurst Free Press, 24th July 1858. |
There has long been speculation surrounding Fred Lowry’s true identity. The mystery came to light in dramatic fashion as he lay dying from a gunshot wound to the throat, inflicted by Senior Sergeant Stephenson. As blood filled his lungs and his life ebbed away, Lowry spoke clearly to the attending physician, Dr. Waugh, declaring,
“My name is Thomas Frederick Lowry.”
Why he made such a deliberate and emphatic statement in his final moments remains uncertain. Perhaps it was a deathbed confession — a final attempt to set the record straight, or to spare his sister the shame of confusion over his name.
Archival records show that Lowry was in the habit of adopting several aliases, as was common among criminals of the 1800s. In 1858, he was incarcerated under the name Frederick McGregor, and at other times went by Samuel Barber. These shifting identities made tracing his movements difficult for police and later historians alike. Yet in the end, facing death, Lowry chose to reclaim his true name.
Achival records reveal that Fred Lowry's parents were James and Ellen (née Jackson) Lowry, were both former convicts who had served sentences on Norfolk Island. During their imprisonment there, they had a daughter, Elizabeth, born c. 1830. Following Fred’s birth in c. 1835, the couple had another son, James, born in c. 1838.
Upon release, the Lowry's settled near Seven Hills, west of Sydney, where James Sr. became a small farmer known for his fierce and uncompromising temperament. There is no record of other siblings besides Elizabeth and James.
In 1853, Fred’s sister Elizabeth Lowry married Frederick Elliot at Bathurst, and the couple later settled there. After the marriage, Fred joined his sister and brother-in-law, becoming well known throughout the Bathurst and Abercrombie districts.
By the mid-1850s, Fred Lowry had earned a reputation as an excellent stockman, fine horseman, and skilled horse-breaker. He was employed in 1855 at Macquarie Plains, between Bathurst and Oberon, and quickly became a familiar figure throughout the region.
Physically, he was an imposing man — six foot two, raw-boned, with long arms, fair hair, and a freckled, sandy complexion. His gait was described as awkward, his features angular, and his expression often distant, as if forever weighing his next move.
But despite his abilities and strength of character, Lowry’s associations soon darkened. He fell in with local criminal elements, notably John Foley, whose friendship would draw him further into the lawless underworld of the western plains — a path from which he would never return.
Lowry was described in contemporary police notices as:
“Height, six feet two inches; raw-boned and of awkward build; very long arms; long, light-coloured hair; small beard; small head; small and angular features; walks with an awkward gait.”
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| NSW Reports of Crime for Thomas Lowry. |
In 1855, Fred Lowry first appeared in official police records — not yet as a hardened bushranger, but as a young man wanted for absconding from employment. Listed under the name Thomas Lowry, he was reported to have deserted the service of Joseph West, of James Park, Macquarie Plains, where he had been engaged as a horse-breaker. Prior to that, he had been formally employed by a Mr. Canter of Sydney.
A reward of £2 was offered for his apprehension. The wanted notice described him as:
“Height, six feet; sandy complexion; freckled; light brown, long hair.”
It was a modest beginning to a criminal career that would, within a decade, make the name Fred Lowry feared across the western districts of New South Wales.
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| Sarah Cowell 1845. |
Pursued by the law and determined to avoid capture, Lowry adopted the alias “Frederick McGregor” around 1855. At this time, he also formed a close romantic attachment with a woman ten years his senior, known as Sarah McGregor.
Sarah’s real name, however, was Sarah Cowell. Born in 1825, she had arrived in Sydney from Tasmania aboard the Waterlilly on 12 May 1845, travelling as a free settler in the company of her husband Joseph Cowell and their two daughters, Mary-Ann and Elizabeth.
Around 1849, Sarah deserted her husband in Sydney. That same year she was arrested under the name “Sarah McGregor” for assaulting a woman named Margaret Clarke, though the charge was later dismissed.
By reputation, Sarah was an attractive and spirited woman, known for her temper and independence. She and Lowry — then a youth of eighteen — travelled together to the Bathurst district, where they lived under assumed names:
“Frederick McGregor, alias Thomas Lowry, alias Samuel Barber; and Sarah McGregor, alias Cowell.”
Together, they began a life on the margins — one that would soon draw them into the rugged ranges and outlaw camps of the Weddin Mountains.
During this period, there is strong speculation that Lowry became acquainted with several of the notorious young men of the Weddin district, including John and Patrick O’Meally, and the quiet, well-regarded stockman Ben Hall, who in 1855 was employed at Wheogo Station.
There can be little doubt that, as Lowry began lifting horses of fine quality, certain local settlers and station hands — including those later drawn into bushranging — benefited from his activities. Evidence suggests that Hall and Lowry developed a close friendship during these years, a connection that would later resurface when both men took to the bush as outlaws.
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| NSW Police Gazette 1858 for Thomas Lowry. |
In June 1858, Thomas Lowry surfaced at Wagga Wagga, working as a horse-breaker under the alias Samuel Barber. While there, he stole two horses belonging to John Lupton, who subsequently offered a reward of £50 for their recovery.
Only a month later, Lowry and his companion Sarah McGregor (née Cowell) were arrested in the Weddin Mountains for stealing horses from Oma Station, near Forbes.
At the time, Ben Hall — later to become one of the colony’s most renowned bushrangers — was employed as a stockman at Wheogo Station, not far from Oma, and was frequently present at local musters. It is during this period that many believe Lowry and Hall first became acquainted.
The connection between the two men seems supported by later evidence. In 1864, when Ben Hall was surprised and forced to flee from pursuing troopers, he abandoned his horse, saddle, bridle, double-barrelled gun, and hat. Inside the hat was found a portrait of Fred Lowry.
“They found Hall's horse, saddle, and bridle, double-barrelled gun, and hat, with Lowry's likeness in it, which had been abandoned in escaping from the troopers.”
This discovery strongly suggests that Hall and Lowry were well acquainted long before Lowry joined the ranks of the bushrangers in the early 1860s.
A long-held belief that Lowry met Frank Gardiner while serving time on Cockatoo Island has since been disproved. Records show that Gardiner was released in December 1859, whereas Lowry did not commence his servitude there until March 1860, having been transferred from Darlinghurst Gaol. It appears therefore that the two men never met during their imprisonments, and that Gardiner — by all accounts a solitary and distrustful figure — had few close companions.
The Weddin Mountains arrest confirmed that Lowry and Sarah had long been in contact with many of the local settlers and families of the district — among them the O’Meallys, Walshes, Taylors, Jamiesons, Halls, and Maguires — names later to become notorious in the chronicles of bushranging. These settlers were frequently on the lookout for quality horses, and the legitimacy of their “purchases” was often conveniently overlooked.
Lowry and Sarah were reported to have been living rough in the Weddin ranges, taking shelter at a spot known as “The Black Fellows’ Ladder”, a former hideout of the 1840s bushrangers Whitton and Scotchy.
The Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal of Saturday, 31 July 1858, recorded:
“We lately adverted in our columns to the capture of a young man named Lowry, a notorious horse-stealer on the Widdin Mountains, who was brought down to Bathurst last week under escort, together with a young woman, who has been cohabiting with him for some time past.”
While being escorted to Bathurst, the pair were lodged overnight at King’s Plains lock-up. During the night, the gaol’s keeper, James Leonard, attempted to sexually assault Sarah as she slept in her cell. The commotion awoke Lowry.
The Bathurst Free Press described the event in vivid detail:
“Lowry was awoke from his slumbers by sounds familiar to his ear, and immediately detected the voice of his chere amie expostulating with some person in very violent tones. He immediately discovered the cause of this disturbance in the person of the lock-up keeper, availing himself of the temporary absence of his wife, who was attending a sick friend, had entered the cell of the female prisoner, and had made improper overtures to her, which she indignantly repulsed. It subsequently appeared that he repeated this abominable conduct at a later hour of the night, but with no better success.”
During the subsequent hearing, evidence was presented describing Lowry and Sarah as husband and wife:
“The prosecutrix, with her husband, were being escorted down to Bathurst in custody to take their trial at the present Quarter Sessions, on a charge of horse-stealing.”
The charges against James Leonard were eventually heard at Bathurst, where he was found Not Guilty and discharged with an admonishment.
Although charged under the alias Frederick McGregor, newspapers of the day frequently referred to the prisoner as Lowry, suggesting that by this time he was already widely recognised for his involvement in stock theft.
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| Fred McGregor/Lowry. NSW Sheriffs Papers 1857-1862 for Frederick McGregor. |
The arrest demonstrated that Lowry and the Weddin district were no strangers to one another. By the late 1850s, he had established a network for horse-stealing stretching between the Weddin Mountains and the Murrumbidgee–Wagga Wagga districts. Through a series of intermediaries, Lowry operated a simple but profitable system — steal at one end and sell at the other, then repeat the trade in reverse.
His reputation had become so notorious that his exploits drew detailed attention in the Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal of Wednesday, 28 July 1858, which reported his activities and eventual capture with Sarah McGregor under the headline:
CAPTURE OF LOWRY, THE LACHLAN HORSE-STEALER
“For some considerable time the inhabitants of the Lachlan had been kept in a state of continued alarm through the presence of a gang of horse-stealers, who had their headquarters in some of the dells of the Weddin Mountains. Lowry, it would appear, was their travelling agent or man of business, for he had established an overland trade with the Murrumbidgee, where he had a ‘pal’ who was in the habit of disposing of all the Lachlan horses in that district, and furnished Lowry with a mob of Murrumbidgee horses which he could easily dispose of in the Lachlan country. This mutual exchange, no doubt, was rather a profitable speculation for these modern Turpins.”
“Information of their whereabouts reached Mr. Watt, J.P., our Resident Magistrate, who lost no time in reporting the circumstance to the police at Cowra; but from some cause or other it would appear that the police had instructions from headquarters to remain in barracks till further orders were received.”
“Now, we think that when the Lachlan police get reliable information, particularly from the resident magistrate, they ought to act upon it with the greatest promptitude, without awaiting any orders from their commanding officer. However, a second information was given to the troopers at Cowra, who at once came to Mr. Watt’s place and from thence proceeded to the residence of Mr. J. G. Wood, Brundah, where a strong party were organised to go in pursuit of these merchants in horse-flesh. It was arranged that two parties be formed — Mr. Watt and a trooper taking charge of one detachment, and Mr. J. B. Wood and Corporal Higgs of the other.”
“Everything being arranged for the best, both parties set out on their perilous expedition, and after scouring the country for five or six days without any trace of the objects of their pursuit, they were about to give up the chase, when Mr. Wood said he knew a place called ‘The Black Fellows’ Ladder,’ which used to be a favourite stronghold of the notorious Scotchy and Whitton of bushranging notoriety. Mr. Wood was right in his conjecture, for the moment the party came in sight of the Ladder, Lowry broke cover and started off at full speed, but was hotly pursued by the party and repeatedly called upon to surrender. He seemed to disregard such orders, whereupon Mr. D. Mylecharane sent a peremptory message in the shape of a discharge from a revolver, which soon made him strike his colours, and Corporal Higgs lost no time in safely securing him.”
“At the time of his arrest he was in company with a lady of questionable repute, well known for her equestrian feats in the Widdin country; she had charge of the travelling baggage of the male prisoner. Both prisoners reached Cowra this evening about five o’clock en route for Carcoar.”
“[These personages are now safely lodged in Bathurst Gaol. — Ed. B.F.P.] Cowra, July 17th, 1858.”
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| Frederick McGregor, released Darlinghurst, 5th Jan 1862. |
In 1862, Thomas Frederick “Fred” Lowry had served his sentence for horse stealing, endured the brutal confines of Cockatoo Island and Darlinghurst, and once again found himself at liberty. Yet the straight path of honest labour held no attraction for him. The restless young man who had ridden rough stock through the Abercrombie and Weddin ranges returned to familiar haunts — and to old habits. Within months of his release, the colonial authorities once more had cause to remember his name.
Records show that a warrant was issued in 1862 for Lowry’s arrest on yet another charge of horse stealing, this time in the districts of the western Lachlan. Rather than submit to capture, Lowry vanished into the bush — a fugitive by his own choosing. From that point forward, he lived the life of a bushranger.
It was during this same year that the first whispers of Lowry’s name began to circulate in connection with a series of bold armed robberies that unsettled the settled districts of rugged west of New South Wales. On 14 September 1862, the mail contractor William Weston was held up at a place known as the Black Swamp, two miles from Wilson’s Inn on the Cassilis–Mudgee road. The robbers took his horse, mail-bags, and saddlery. During the fray, the crêpe mask of one of the men slipped, revealing a familiar face — Fred Lowry, or so Weston later swore.
A week later, on 20 September 1862, Lowry and two associates — believed to include John Foley, another notorious character of the western districts — struck again. This time the victims were a party of settlers at Wilpingong station, near Reedy Creek north of Rylstone. The bushrangers made off with £29 in notes, a cheque, and two silver hunting watches, leaving behind frightened witnesses and a rising panic that the lawless days of the 1840s had returned.
Lowry’s audacity only grew. On 2 October 1862, a general store on the Fish River belonging to William Todd was raided and robbed of some £50 in cash and goods. The police suspected the same gang, naming Foley and a man “answering the description of Lowry” among the culprits.
By the close of 1862, Lowry’s name had become a byword for bushranging across the colony’s western plains. Newspapers described him as “a daring and reckless outlaw, well mounted and always armed,” a man equally at home in the saddle or in a gunfight. He was frequently seen in the company of John Foley, and the pair were believed to have established camps in the rough country along the Abercrombie and Weddin ranges — country Lowry knew like the back of his hand.
While much of the detail from this period rests upon newspaper reports and rumour, there can be little doubt that 1862 marked the beginning of Lowry’s full career as a bushranger. The old horse-thief and former prisoner had now crossed the line from petty crime to open bushranging.
By year’s end, as his notoriety spread, troopers were in pursuit from the Lachlan to the Murrumbidgee. Yet Lowry always slipped the noose — aided, perhaps, by local sympathisers who admired his boldness, or by those who profited from the sale of his stolen horses. He was fast becoming one of the most hunted men in the colony, and his path would soon intersect once more with the rising figure of Ben Hall, setting the stage for the violent period to come.
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| Thomas and Catherine Vardy. c. 1860's. Courtesy of Crookwell Gazette. |
Furthermore, among the rogues who moved within Lowry’s orbit was Thomas Vardy — spelt “Fardy” upon his Certificate of Freedom (1841) — a man described by contemporaries as one of the wiliest and shadiest characters ever to grace the southern districts. Vardy had arrived in the colony in 1833 aboard the Pamelia (2), a native of Wexford, England, and by the late 1850s had established himself as a publican, holding a licence for the Limerick Races Inn at Cook’s Vale Creek, some twelve miles from Binda.
Vardy’s inn was more than a traveller’s stop — it was a haven for horse thieves, fences, and bushrangers, a place where Lowry would often find shelter in the years that followed. The innkeeper’s reputation for dishonesty was well-known throughout the district; if he was not directly the perpetrator of a theft, he was invariably the receiver and disposer of stolen goods. His name became further blackened in 1860, when he was accused of participating in or facilitating a major robbery at his own establishment — a case that drew considerable attention in the colonial press.
Extensive Robbery of Jewellery, &c., Near Binda — Intelligence was received on Friday evening of an extensive robbery of jewellery and other property at Mr. Thomas Vardy’s, Limerick Races Inn, Cook’s Vale Creek, about twelve miles from Binda, on Sunday morning last. It appears that a travelling jeweller, named Morris Newman, was stopping at Vardy’s, and went to bed about one o’clock on Sunday morning; he had two boxes containing jewellery, &c., beneath his bed. The lock on his bedroom door being broken, he was unable to fasten it. About four o’clock he was aroused by hearing a man in his room; he asked what brought him there, to which the intruder replied, “Where is Mearnes?” and then left. Shortly afterwards, Newman looked beneath his bed and found that his boxes were gone. The property stolen comprised watches, rings, brooches, lockets, guards, precious stones, purses, meerschaum pipes, knives, and other articles, amounting in value to about £180.
Though no direct charge was sustained against Vardy, suspicion clung to him. His inn became synonymous with shady dealings and soon took on the air of a den for bushrangers and their sympathisers. It was here, amidst the smoky parlours and back rooms of the Limerick Races Inn, that Fred Lowry would later find refuge, planning robberies and recovering from his exploits in the bush.
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| Reputed site of Vardy's Limerick Races Inn, Cook's Vale Creek. Courtesy Crookwell Gazette. |
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| Frederick McGregor alias Fred Lowry and Sarah McGregor Bathurst Gaol July 1858. Sarah McGregor should read Cowell and arrived in NSW via ship 'Waterlilly' in 1845. |
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| Incarcerated as under the alias of Frederick McGregor, however, note Fred Lowry. Gaol entry to Cockatoo Island 1858.   |
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| Lowry's Cockatoo Island to Darlinghurst March 1861 |
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| NSW Police Gazette, 1863. |
Rather than lying low, Foley took to the bush — and before long was riding in company with Lowry. On 2 October 1862, the pair held up the store of William Todd at the Fish River, making off with a substantial haul of £60 in gold and cash. Reports soon surfaced that they had been joined in the robbery by two other men, one of whom was later identified as John Cosgrove.
On 8 October, police tracked the gang through the rugged bush country. A desperate pursuit ensued, during which shots were exchanged. Constable Wright, one of the pursuers, succeeded in subduing Cosgrove after a fierce struggle, striking him with the butt of his revolver. Cosgrove was taken into custody, tried, and later sentenced to five years on the roads, though he would not live to serve his term in full — dying in Goulburn Gaol in 1866. Descriptions of him in official records note a small man, five feet two inches in height, with dark hair, whiskers, and blue eyes.
Lowry and Foley, however, remained at large, and before the year was out struck again. On 24 December 1862, the two men rode up to the store of Stephen Alexander at Mountain Run, near Trunkey Creek, intending to rob it. Their attempt, however, met with unexpected resistance.
Robbers Defeated — Mr. Stephen Alexander, a storekeeper in the Mountain Run locality, called at our office on Monday last and gave us the following information. On Wednesday, the 24th ultimo, two armed men came to his store and inquired at the kitchen door for tobacco. They were directed to go round to the shop. On coming to the store door, one of them returned to the kitchen and presented a revolver in each hand at Mrs. Alexander and her brother. The man who entered the store said he wanted a pound of tobacco, and Mr. Alexander stopped to supply him, when the robber immediately covered him with a revolver and said, “Don’t move.” Mr. Alexander fortunately had a loaded revolver at hand under the counter, which he immediately seized and fired at the robber, who discharged his own weapon in return. Neither shot, however, did any damage, and both men soon after made their escape.
— Bathurst Free Press, 31 December 1862.
Though foiled, the attack demonstrated the increasing boldness and violence of Lowry’s operations. By the following year, the law’s attention had turned not only to the bushrangers themselves but to those who aided and sheltered them.
In September 1863, two brothers, Robert and Henry Hogan, were arrested and charged with harbouring Lowry in the aftermath of the attempted robbery at Alexander’s store. The Hogans were stepsons of Thomas Vardy, Lowry’s close friend and confidant, and were alleged to have provided refuge to the bushranger at Cook’s Vale Creek, where Vardy’s Limerick Races Inn served as a known meeting place for outlaws.
Harbouring a Felon — Robert Hogan and Henry Hogan were arraigned on an information setting forth that, on 24 December last, one Thomas Frederick Lowry, at Trunkey Creek, did shoot at one Stephen Alexander; and that afterwards, on 24 July, the said Robert and Henry Hogan, knowing the said felony to have been committed, did maintain and harbour the said Lowry. Applications were made for the prisoners’ discharge on their own recognisances, it being stated they were freeholders in their own right. Mr. Isaacs opposed the discharge. His Honour, upon reading the depositions, admitted them to bail — £200 each, with a surety of £100, provided by their stepfather, Thomas Vardy.
The case drew significant attention, for it highlighted the network of sympathisers that surrounded Lowry — innkeepers, horse traders, and petty thieves — who ensured he remained one step ahead of the constabulary. His alliances across the Abercrombie, Trunkey, and Weddin districts gave him both protection and intelligence. Yet his notoriety was also growing rapidly, and before long, Lowry’s reckless ambition would drive him into open confrontation with the public — and his eventual downfall.
On New Year’s Day, 1863, Fred Lowry and his companion John Foley made a reckless bid for infamy. The pair descended upon a race meeting at Brisbane Valley, near the head of the Fish River, where more than a hundred settlers and stockmen had gathered for the holiday sports. As the races wound down and the crowd dispersed toward evening, Lowry and Foley — each armed with a revolver in hand — rode boldly into the gathering and ordered the assembled men to stand still and hand over their valuables.
Most obeyed in stunned silence. But one man, a young and spirited local named Foran, refused. When Lowry raised his revolver, Foran defied him, declaring he was not afraid, and rushed at the bushranger. Lowry fired, the ball striking Foran in the chest and passing through one lung. Despite the wound, Foran grappled with his assailant and wrestled him to the ground, holding him fast until others rushed to assist. Foley, seeing his companion subdued, leapt to his horse and escaped, leaving Lowry in the hands of an enraged crowd.
Lowry’s shot had struck Mr. Foran full in the chest, the bullet penetrating one lung, then deflecting toward his spine, where it lodged dangerously close to the vertebrae. Though gravely wounded, Foran showed remarkable courage and endurance.
Onlookers quickly improvised a stretcher, and under the supervision of Dr. Eaton, who had been present at the race meeting, the young man was hurriedly conveyed to Bathurst. There, he was placed under the care of Dr. Machattie, one of the colony’s most respected surgeons. For several days his life hung in the balance, but against expectation — and to the admiration of all who knew him — Foran eventually recovered.
His survival ensured that the charge against Lowry would stand as “shooting with intent to kill,” rather than murder, but it also further cemented Lowry’s reputation as a cold and reckless desperado.
Shooting with Intent to Kill. — Yesterday, Frederick Lowry was brought before the Bench, charged with shooting with intent to kill a young man named Foran.
The prisoner was in the first instance taken before Foran, at McDonald’s Public House, where, in the presence of Dr. Palmer, P.M., and other magistrates, the wounded man’s deposition was taken. Lowry was then removed to the courthouse, where, before a full bench and a great number of spectators, several other witnesses were examined.
From the evidence it appeared that on the 1st instant, a number of persons were congregated upon a racecourse near McGuirk’s, at Brisbane Valley. Toward evening, after the sports were concluded, a man named Allen saw the prisoner, with a revolver in each hand, driving a number of men before him toward the house. The prisoner ordered Allen to go before him, but Allen refused, saying he was not afraid of his revolvers. Lowry then pointed one of the weapons at him and struck him on the cheek; one barrel was discharged, and the ball, missing its mark, struck a horse tied to a fence, wounding it in the hip.
Some person then called out that “Old George” was shot, and Foran, who was in the house at the time, came out and rushed towards the prisoner. Lowry called out for him to stand back, and fired point blank. Foran succeeded in grappling with the bushranger, and a desperate struggle followed until others came to his aid and effectually secured Lowry.
The prisoner made no defence, merely stating that he knew nothing of the affair. Foran remained in a precarious state, the course of the ball having not yet been traced, though it was believed to remain lodged within his body. — Bathurst Free Press, January 1863.
Lowry’s capture caused a sensation throughout the western districts. For years, his name had been whispered in connection with horse stealing and robbery; now he stood openly accused of attempted murder before the colonial courts. He was conveyed under heavy guard to Bathurst Gaol, where he awaited trial.
Despite the violent charge against him, Fred Lowry’s conduct in Bathurst Gaol was reported as exemplary. He appeared contrite, even devoutly religious, attending prayers and showing every outward sign of repentance. Yet beneath this pious exterior, Lowry was plotting one of the most daring prison breaks in colonial history.
On the afternoon of 13 February 1863, Lowry and several fellow prisoners — Woodhart, Mortimer, Saunders, and Pollett (or Pollard) — escaped from Bathurst Gaol in a manner so audacious it stunned the colony. The Goulburn Herald of 17 February 1863 reported the event in detail:
The Escape of the Prisoners from Bathurst Gaol. — The Free Press of the 14th supplies additional particulars of this event, noticed in our telegraphic dispatch of Saturday. It says —
“The prisoners, who were in the exercise yard, became possessed of a pickaxe, which must have been conveyed to them through a drain communicating with the outer yard, by one or more of the road party. The men in the inner yard appear to have congregated in one corner, and while one or two were engaged in removing the bricks from the outer wall by means of the pickaxe, they were sheltered by the others from the gaze of the warder, who was stationed on a platform at the opposite end of the yard.
A hole was made in the wall, from eighteen inches to two feet square, through which the prisoners made their escape. The alarm was first given by Mr. H. Blunden, who was crossing the square and observed a gap in the gaol wall. He saw two men get through, but, thinking the bricklayers were at work, took little notice until one of the men passed him, saying, ‘Don’t say anything about it, old fellow.’ His suspicions were then aroused, and he ran to the gate of the gaol to give the alarm.
In the meantime, before he could return to the hole, three other prisoners had made good their escape. The report spread quickly through the town. Mr. Joseph West, jun., J.P., hearing it, saw one of the men running, mounted the first horse he found, and soon headed the fugitive, who was captured near Mr. John Dargin’s residence in William Street. A second prisoner was quickly taken in Piper Street, while mounted police scoured the surrounding countryside. By two o’clock, a third prisoner had been captured about seven miles from Bathurst, between White Rock and Macquarie Plains.”
The list of escapees was as follows:
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Lowry, awaiting trial for shooting Foran at Brisbane Valley with intent to murder.
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Woodhart, convicted at the last Quarter Sessions for horse stealing (five years on the roads).
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Mortimer, sentenced to three years for forgery.
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Saunders, committed on a charge of horse stealing.
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Pollett or Pollard, committed from Sofala on three separate charges of larceny.
By the following day, three of the five fugitives had been recaptured, but Lowry and Woodhart remained at large.
The incident sent shockwaves through Bathurst. The newspapers of the time condemned the gaol’s lax security, while townsfolk marvelled at Lowry’s cool-headed escape. Once again, he had slipped through the fingers of justice — and now, free in the open bush, the reformed prisoner cast off all pretence of repentance.
Within weeks, Lowry was back to his old trade, and before long, he would join forces with Ben Hall and the Gardiner circle of bushrangers, marking the beginning of the most notorious phase of his criminal career.
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| John Foley c. 1873 |
Following his dramatic escape from Bathurst Gaol, the newspapers were soon alive with speculation about Fred Lowry’s fate. Weeks passed with no confirmed sighting, and some believed the once-notorious bushranger had at last turned from his old ways.
The Freeman’s Journal of 1863 gave voice to this hopeful view, recording that Lowry — described as “of gaol-breaking notoriety” — had shown deep penitence before his flight:
“Lowrie, of gaol-breaking notoriety, has not been heard of since; and it is confidently believed that his future career will be different from his past. He, too, like Ross, became a convert in the gaol under Father D’Arcy’s care; and a day or two previous to his escape he was baptized and received into the Church. From the moment of his conversion he was most penitent, and expressed unfeigned regret for his past career, which he attributed to the notorious Gardiner. The fact that he is so long at large without committing crime causes many to hope that he will carry out his strong resolutions against wrongdoing.”
It was a touching sentiment — but, as colonial observers often remarked, a criminal is never penitent until he is caught. For all his newfound faith, Lowry’s nature soon reasserted itself. The quiet talk of reformation gave way to reports of fresh outrages in the western districts.
Before long, the fugitive was seen once more in his old haunts about the Weddin Mountains, moving under cover of the dense scrub and narrow gullies he knew so well. His reappearance was confirmed when, not long after his escape, a traveller was bailed up and robbed on the Marengo Road:
Sticking-Up on the Marengo Road. — On Tuesday, a man was stuck up and robbed of 12s 6d on the Marengo Road by a bushranger dressed in a poncho, supposed, by his height (about 6 ft 2 in), to be Frederick Lowry, who escaped from Bathurst Gaol on the 15th of last month, for whose apprehension the Government has offered a reward of £100.
Lowry’s brief flirtation with faith was at an end. The fugitive who had knelt for baptism in Father D’Arcy’s chapel now took to the bush once more, armed and dangerous, his conscience as fugitive as his body. Within weeks, he would be sighted in company with Ben Hall — the beginning of the gang, whose violent exploits would soon echo across the colony.
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| NSW Police Gazette, March 1863. |
Following his escape from Bathurst Gaol and brief wanderings through the western districts, Fred Lowry soon found himself once again drawn toward the Lachlan district, the old stamping ground of his youth and his former associates.
En route, Lowry, lacking even a firearm, demonstrated both his desperation and audacity by robbing the public-house of Mr. Cornelius Hewitt at Grabben Gullen, armed only with a knife. The robbery was successful — Lowry securing at last a revolver, though in his haste he abandoned his swag. When examined, the bundle was found to contain only a few personal items and, curiously, a Catholic prayer book — a poignant relic of the “converted” bushranger’s short-lived repentance. (See Right.)
Before long, Lowry re-established contact with the most feared bushrangers of the time — Ben Hall, John Gilbert, and John O’Meally — whose depredations across the Lachlan, Weddin, and Burrangong districts had by now become a standing menace to the colony. To these men, Lowry was no stranger; he had known them in earlier years, and his reappearance was welcomed. Thus began his final, fatal association — one that would bind his name inseparably to the Hall–Gilbert gang, and to the bloodshed that followed in their wake.
After his bold escape from Bathurst in February 1863, Fred Lowry wasted little time before re-emerging in the orbit of the Hall–Gilbert gang. By mid-1863, the gang’s depredations had extended well beyond the Lachlan and Weddin ranges into the Cootamundra / Cootamundry district, and Lowry rode among them.
One of the more concrete records of their activity in that region appears in the New South Wales Police Gazette, 27 May 1863, which notes:
“At 6 a.m. on the 16th instant, Mr. Barnes’ store, at Cootamundry, was forcibly entered by two armed men … a large quantity of blankets to the value of £90 was taken.”
Though the Gazette names only John O’Meally and John Gilbert, local histories and bushranger lore uniformly place Fred Lowry in that party, riding with Hall’s gang during the southern run. Hall’s own operations in the Cootamundra region are well attested: police correspondence from April 1863 reports his whereabouts between Murrumburrah, Jugiong, and Cootamundra, raiding stores and holding up travellers.
Lowry’s presence in that corridor was advantageous. The Cootamundra–Lambing Flat route lay between goldfields and rural holdings, offering plentiful opportunities for theft, stagecoach ambush, and supply raids. The gang used this stretch to straddle both the southern districts and their more established bases further north.
Within weeks of the Barnes store raid, further reports associated Hall’s gang with robberies in the Cootamundry area and nearby roads. For example, the “Ben Hall” research site preserves mention of Hurley’s station store at Cootamundry being among the targets, along with nearby roadside hold-ups. While these reports don’t always name Lowry explicitly, his continued presence in Hall’s inner circle makes it likely he rode in many of those southern raids.
Beyond direct robberies, the gang used the region as a supply line and staging ground. Pack horses, stolen goods, and gang movements often passed through that corridor. The local settlers and storekeepers lived in fear of nightly raids, and police patrols were stretched thin trying to cover a wide territory.
In sum, while the historical record is cautious about assigning each robbery to Lowry, we can confidently place him in the Cootamundra corridor by mid-1863, operating under Hall’s leadership, participating in store raids such as Barnes’s, and striking fear along the roads between Lambing Flat and Cootamundra.
Lowry quickly proved himself an active and dangerous recruit. The gang embarked on a series of armed robberies, culminating in one of the most cold-blooded murders of the bushranging era — that of a miner named McBride, near Burrangong.
According to contemporary accounts, the crime shocked even a colony grown accustomed to violence. The Sydney Morning Herald and Bathurst Free Press reported that in a gunfight between McBride and the bushrangers, Lowry was believed to have fired the fatal shot, the bullet striking McBride in the chest and killing him almost instantly.
The news ignited fury among the mining community, as recorded in a private letter from Young, dated June 24th:
“An intense feeling prevails here respecting the murder of M’Bride, by Gilbert and Lowry. He was a miner, and the miners are organising a party to take the bush after the ruffians. I am afraid, if they catch them, they will stand a poor chance of being tried by a jury. A petition to Parliament is being prepared, bringing the present police system under their notice. The miners have been advised to ask Government for arms and rations, so as to give any effort to capture them an orderly and constitutional appearance, as any body going out without some such authority partakes too much of the character of a vigilance committee. If Mr. Cowper is wise he will grant what is asked of him.”
Not long after the fatal encounter at Burrangong, reports emerged of John Gilbert boasting in a hotel near Young, brandishing McBride’s revolver as a trophy of bushranging bravado. According to contemporary accounts, Gilbert was overheard telling onlookers that the firearm had been taken in fair fight and that McBride’s appearance had misled him into thinking he was a policeman.
Local newspapers noted that McBride had often styled himself “in the manner of a trooper out of uniform” — with a revolver at his belt, Bedford cord trousers, and polished riding boots. Gilbert’s defense, offered freely in public, was that he had believed McBride to be a law officer in disguise and acted accordingly
A day or two after the shooting, John Gilbert was reportedly “carousing” at a hotel a few miles from Young and was boldly showing a ‘handsome revolver’ he had taken from McBride. It was explained that McBride, from whom the revolver was taken, ‘always adopted the style and costume of a trooper out of uniform … and so Gilbert had mistaken him for a policeman.
This incident deepened the chilling audacity of Lowry’s new alliance with Hall and Gilbert. Not only had Lowry likely pulled the lethal trigger, but Gilbert’s open presentation of McBride’s revolver — coupled with the claim of mistaken identity — was a provocative statement, intended to muddy the waters of guilt and shift blame.
Public outrage reached such a pitch that talk of a vigilante force swept through the Burrangong diggings. Government officials, fearing a second Eureka-style uprising, hastily reinforced the police detachments at Lambing Flat and Weddin.
Lowry’s descent from penitent prisoner to ruthless killer was now complete. The man once baptised under Father D’Arcy’s care had rejoined the underworld with renewed ferocity — and within months, his name would headline the colony’s most infamous mail-coach robbery.
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Thomas Frederick Lowry AI enhanced. |
However, the murder of McBride at Burrangong brought renewed pressure from the authorities and local vigilance groups. Realising that the district was becoming too perilous to remain in, Lowry “shot through” from the Burrangong area, riding swiftly back toward his old haunts in the Abercrombie and Carcoar region — a landscape of rugged gullies and thick timber well known to him from his earlier criminal career.
It was during this flight southward that Lowry again made himself notorious. Near Carcoar, he and several companions stuck up a group of travellers, among them a police trooper, Sergeant Charles Higgs, who happened to be stationed at Carcoar. According to later reports, the bushrangers made it known that Higgs had long been the particular object of their vengeance.
Lowry told the assembled men that they “wanted him” — meaning Sergeant Higgs — and that had he appeared that day, they were fully prepared to administer fifty lashes, having brought with them the necessary ropes and straps. The reason for this vendetta was personal: it was Sergeant Higgs who, some six years earlier, had arrested and presented Lowry for horse stealing, a charge that led to his conviction and imprisonment.
The episode was described in vivid terms by the colonial press:
“Lowry stated that they wanted him, and expected that he would return that day; if so, they would give him fifty lashes, which they were prepared to do, as they showed that they had the appliances with them, namely rope, &c. It appears that Higgs presented Lowry for horse stealing, some six years since… I nearly omitted to mention that within five minutes of the scoundrels leaving the place, Sergeant Higgs was on the very ground where the ten had been bailed up, and was congratulated by the ‘council of ten’ that he had not made his appearance sooner. No doubt if he had, he would have found it much easier to walk home than to have ridden.”
The encounter reveals both Lowry’s personal vindictiveness and the brazen spirit with which he now roamed the countryside. When word of the outrage reached town, the police magistrate acted with prompt energy; but Sergeant Higgs himself, upon learning of the near miss, mounted a fresh horse and rode out in pursuit, remaining in the saddle through the night.
Whether out of cunning or sheer good fortune, Lowry once again evaded capture. His escape from the Carcoar pursuit would soon carry him northwards, where he resumed his bushranging in earnest — leading directly to the notorious Mudgee Mail Coach robbery that cemented his place in colonial outlaw legend.
Mudgee Mail Coach Robbery
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| Henry Kater, Australian Joint Stock Bank. M.L.A. 1889 c. 1875 |
On the cold winter morning of Monday, 13th July 1863, Fred Lowry and John Foley executed one of the most audacious bushranging robberies in New South Wales history — the hold-up of the Mudgee Mail Coach near Bowenfels, on the western slopes of the Blue Mountains.
The coach had left Mudgee the previous night at ten o’clock, carrying the mails for Sydney and a single passenger, Mr. Henry Kater, Manager of the Mudgee branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank. Kater bore a most valuable charge — £5,700 in old bank notes, carefully wrapped in paper, then canvas, then oilcloth, tied securely to his carpetbag and stowed in the front boot of the coach.
At dawn the following day, the coach laboured up a steep incline known locally as “The Big Hill”, some sixteen miles from Bowenfels. With the team straining against the harness, the driver called to his passengers — Kater and Mrs. Smith, the wife of an innkeeper who had joined the coach earlier that morning — to walk and ease the load. As they trudged up the slope, two mounted men appeared descending from the opposite rise. Their movements were casual, but purposeful.
As the riders drew level, one seized the horses’ reins, while the other — tall, confident, and well-spoken — levelled a revolver at Kater’s head.
Kater instinctively reached for his own weapon concealed in his coat, but the bushranger snapped, “Hold up your arms or I’ll shoot you dead!” Realising resistance was hopeless, Kater obeyed as the coach was ordered off the road into the scrub.
There, under the gum shadows, the smaller of the two robbers rifled through Kater’s pockets, relieving him of his revolver, gold watch and chain, pin, and pocket-book. Kater later described both men as cleanly dressed and well-spoken, wearing black coats and gold chains, more resembling settlers or squatters than common bush thieves. Neither wore disguise.
One horse bore a brand that appeared to read T.E. or T.F. — a tantalising clue later noted by police. The bushrangers, seemingly in high spirits, mocked their victim as they worked. “We’ll strip you of everything,” one laughed, “for daring to feel for your pistol. Thought you’d come Robert Lowe over us, did you?”
When the outlaws discovered the mailbags and bank parcels, Kater warned them the notes were old, obsolete, and en route to Sydney to be destroyed. One of the men grinned and replied, “Never mind — we can make a bonfire of them.”
Before leaving, the taller bushranger lifted his coat to reveal seven revolvers fastened across his belt, then tucked Kater’s weapon beside them. “Now I have eight,” he said with satisfaction.
Despite their bravado, the pair adhered to the rough bushranger’s code — they refused to rob Mrs. Smith, who carried between one and two hundred pounds, saying curtly, “We never molest women.”
Having secured their haul, the bushrangers ordered the coachman and passengers to unharness the horses and destroy the reins, before driving the animals deep into the scrub to prevent pursuit. Then, mounting up, the pair galloped away through the stringybark ranges, disappearing towards the west.
Mr. Kater and Mrs. Smith made their way on foot to Hartley, where Kater gave immediate notice to Inspector Norton, who, within the hour, was in the saddle with four mounted troopers in hot pursuit. On her journey to town, Mrs. Smith again encountered the bushrangers — this time accompanied by a third man, believed to be one of Lowry’s old confederates. They asked which way Kater had gone before riding off once more into the wilderness.
The news of the robbery spread through the colony like wildfire. The Sydney Morning Herald carried a full account on 15 July 1863, its columns filled with the particulars of the outrage and the serial numbers of the stolen notes, for which payment was immediately stopped by all banks.
ROBBERY OF THE MUDGEE MAIL.- A Serious and extensive robbery was committed on Monday morning last, involving the loss of upwards £5000 bank notes. It appears that the above mail left Mudgee on Sunday night at ten o'clock, having only one passenger, Mr. Kater, the accountant of the Mudgee branch of the Joint Stock Bank. This gentleman had in charge the notes above mentioned. These were carefully tied in a bundle, first in paper, then in canvas, and outside in oilcloth, attached by string to his carpet bag; the whole being stowed away in the front boot of the coach. Mrs. Smith, wife of an innkeeper on the road, got into the conveyance on the Monday morning. About half-past eleven o'clock, as usual, the two passengers were walking up the steep hill, generally known as the Big Hill, distant sixteen miles from Bowenfels. Two men on horseback were observed to be coming down the hill, and stopped when opposite the mail. One of them stopped the horses, the other approached Mr. Kater, without dismounting, and presented a revolver at his head. Mr. Kater having a revolver within his coat pocket immediately commenced unbuttoning, the robber seeing this told him to hold up his arms or he would shoot him dead. The bushrangers then commanded the coachman to lead the horses into the bush, where any person passing on the road would not observe what was going on. The smaller man of the two (the other still holding the pistol as before described) rifled the pockets of Mr. Kater, taking his revolver, gold watch, chain, pin, pocket-book, &c.
During this process he had ample opportunity of noticing the men. He says they were not common looking men, but pretty well dressed, in black coats, having the appearance of settlers, or squatters. They wore gold chains, were not disguised, and the horses were not first rate. One of the latter had a brand like T. E. or T. F. They conversed freely, telling Kater they would strip him of all he had, because he dared to feel for his pistol, and wished to come "Robert Lowe" over them. Having taken from him all his personalities, excepting his clothes, they took the mail bags and the bank parcels from the coach. Mr. Kater told them the notes would be useless, as they were old, and were being taken to Sydney to be destroyed. One of them said, " Never mind, we can make a bonfire of them. "If Kater saw Inspector Norton, he was to ask him if his spurs were getting rusty, and whether he intended to catch them.
When taking the revolver, one of the rascals lifted up his coat and exhibited seven revolvers putting the other in his belt, he said, "Now I have eight." Mrs. Smith, the female passenger, had between one and two hundred pounds upon her, but they said they never molested women. Having secured their booty, the scoundrels made the coachman and Mr. Kater take out the horses, destroy the harness, and then they drove them into the bush. The bushrangers then rode off in an opposite direction. Mr. Kater made his way to Hartley. and gave information to Inspector Norton, who immediately, with four mounted police, rode off in pursuit. It appears that Mrs. Smith, on the road to Hartley, met the bushrangers again, and this time they were accompanied by a third man. They enquired the way Kater had taken. The bank notes are those of the various banks in the city, and some of the other colonies. The particular numbers appear in an advertisement in another column, and it is to be noticed that the payment of all these notes is stopped.
The sheer scale of the crime — £5,700 in stolen currency — shocked colonial society. Never before had a mail robbery of such magnitude been committed in New South Wales. Rewards were swiftly offered, and Lowry’s name was again whispered across the settlements of the west.
From that moment, Fred Lowry became the most wanted man in the colony. His partnership with Foley had reached its zenith — and his fate, already shadowed by violence, was fast approaching its bloody end.
According to Charles White, in his History of Australian Bushranging, Vol. II (p. 140), an intriguing incident followed the Mudgee Mail robbery. Mrs. Smith, the innkeeper’s wife who had been spared during the hold-up, later declared that although her savings had been taken, she was astonished upon meeting the bushrangers again to have her money returned. The act, attributed by Larry Cummins, one of Lowry’s later confederates, to Lowry himself, suggested a peculiar and inconsistent moral streak — a rough chivalry that occasionally flashed through the outlaw’s darker nature.
When called as a witness, Mrs. Smith subsequently failed to identify either Lowry or Foley, a circumstance which helped both men elude immediate capture. Yet by mid-August 1863, Lowry’s luck had all but run its course.
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| Sub-Inspector James Stephenson. c 1863. |
Late in August, Senior Sergeant Stephenson, stationed at Goulburn, received word that Lowry was lying low at Vardy’s. Wasting no time, Stephenson mustered a small party — Trooper Herbert and Detectives Camphin and Saunderson — and set out at once for the notorious hotel.
It was the early morning of Saturday, 29th August 1863, when the party arrived. The men approached quietly, dismounting some distance from the inn. Camphin took position at the front entrance, while one constable moved to the rear. Stephenson, accompanied by Detective Saunderson, advanced cautiously to the door.
Inside, the innkeeper Vardy appeared, bleary-eyed and anxious. Stephenson demanded to know if there were any strangers lodging on the premises. Vardy hesitated, then admitted that there were, indicating the room where Lowry and another accomplice Larry Cummins lay asleep. The sergeant stepped forward and called upon them to surrender. Receiving no reply, he forced at the door — whereupon a shot rang out, fired from within.
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The wounded bushranger dropped both weapons and fell heavily against the doorway. Stephenson seized him as he struggled, still trying to reach for another pistol, but the sergeant held him fast until Trooper Herbert rushed to assist. Lowry was then dragged into the yard, handcuffed, and laid upon the ground, bleeding profusely.
Stephenson and Saunderson re-entered the room, where they found Larry Cummins cowering beneath the bed. Unlike his companion, Cummins offered no resistance and surrendered at once.
The following deposition by Senior Sergeant Stephenson was taken shortly after the encounter and entered into the record of the subsequent inquest:
“On the morning of the 29th instant, having received information that Frederick Lowry and Lawrence Cummins were at the house of Thomas Vardy, I proceeded with Trooper Herbert and Detectives Camphin and Saunderson to the premises known as the Limerick Races Hotel. On arrival, I placed my men in position, and demanded of the landlord if any strangers were within. He replied that there were, and indicated the room wherein they lay. I called upon the inmates to surrender, but receiving no answer, I forced the door, when a shot was fired from inside. Immediately thereafter, the door was thrown open, and a man whom I recognized as Frederick Lowry appeared, armed with two pistols, which he discharged in my direction. I returned fire, and after two or three shots, the man staggered and fell. I then seized him and secured the prisoner. On searching the room, I found another man, Lawrence Cummins, concealed beneath the bed. He gave himself up without resistance.”
Lowry’s wound was mortal. He lingered for a short time in great agony, but when questioned, refused to name his accomplices or make any statement beyond the now-famous last words:
“Tell ’em I died game.”
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| Detective William Camphin. |
When Lowry was examined, it was found that he was bleeding internally. Though mortally wounded, he rallied long enough to speak with Detective William Camphin, one of the troopers escorting him. He asked Camphin to pray for him, and to inform his brother-in-law, a man named Elliot, that he had “died game.” Lowry died at six o’clock in the morning on 30 August 1863, aged twenty-seven. In his pockets were found £164 of the stolen Mudgee Mail money.
With that, Frederick Lowry, the tall, dark-haired bushranger once described as “a handsome and gentlemanly scoundrel”, expired on the timber floor of nearby Woodhouseleigh Station while being transported to Bathurst — the last echo of a life spent between swagger and sin, charm and violence.
Detective Camphin later gave the following deposition concerning Lowry’s final hours:
“I am employed in the Goulburn district; I have seen the body; it is that of the person arrested by Senior Sergeant Stephenson; I accompanied deceased to Goulburn, and was with him a few minutes before he died; he asked for a priest; I said have you anything to say; he said that he had a good deal, which he would say to the priest; I said that there was no possibility of getting one till we reached Goulburn; he then asked if I would do him a favor; I said that if it did not interfere with my duty I would; he then told me that he had a brother-in-law named Elliott in the employ of a person named Cummins living on the Lachlan, and he wished me to let him know that he had died game; he said that he had always said that he would not be taken alive but would fight for it; he said that the reason why he fought so was that he knew he should be hung if taken, that he didn't like to die a coward; I said I was very near you when you broke out of Bathurst jail; he asked my name; I told him; I was at Bathurst when the prisoners broke out of jail, and I saw two men, one of whom was Mortimer and the other said to be Lowry, running away; I got my horse, went in pursuit, and captured Mortimer; I asked and deceased answered some questions with respect to the course he had taken on the occasion of his making his escape; he asked me to stay with him, but I had to attend to the other prisoners; as he wanted prayers read to him I asked the other prisoners if they would read to him; they all said they could not read; I asked what prayers he would have; he said he was a Roman Catholic; we then all knelt down and I read the Catholic prayers; in my conversation with him I always called him Lowry; he always answered to it; I was present when he told Dr. Waugh that his name was Lowry; I read the Catholic litany for departing souls, and deceased sometimes repeated the responses; in height and appearance deceased resembled the man I saw running away on the occasion of my capturing Mortimer, but I did not see that man's face; I have no doubt that the deceased was Lowry.”
Thus ended the life of Thomas Frederick Lowry, bushranger, fugitive, and outlaw. His final words—“Tell ’em I died game”—became part of the rough creed of the bushranging fraternity, encapsulating the defiant spirit that marked so many of those who chose to live, and die, outside the law
Authors Note: Lowry's sister Elizebeth at the time of his death resided in Forbes where her husband Frederick Elliott was a merchant and died in 1906 with an estate valued at £ 5000. Elizabeths death date is unrecorded possibly 1924 at Grenfell. Together they produced nine children.
At the inquest into Lowry’s death, it was stated that as he lay dying, he gave his name as Thomas Frederick Lowry. Yet the question of his true identity soon became the subject of speculation and confusion.
Such contradictions were not uncommon. Bushrangers frequently adopted aliases or altered ages and origins to obscure their pasts, protect family members, or evade connection to prior crimes. As the Goulburn Herald reported on Wednesday, 2 September 1863, doubts about Lowry’s identity were raised even at the inquest:
“He appears to have been a very tall young man, measuring six feet two inches, and probably weighing thirteen stone, well made, with small hands and feet, white skin, small moustache, and a particularly well-developed chest. Taken altogether he was physically a very fine man. He is described as having been twenty-seven years of age; and although he must have led a life of mingled dissipation and hardship, he did not appear to be any older.
Some doubt was expressed as to the body being that of Lowry, the bushranger; Mr. Horsford, the jailer, who had known Lowry at Cockatoo Island, where he was undergoing a sentence under the name of Frederick McGregor, considered that the hair was much darker than that of the man he had known, and that he was much stouter, and was of opinion that deceased was not Lowry, though he was not able to speak positively. Mr. Fogg, a settler at the Narrawa, and his wife came into town on Monday and saw the body, which they declared was not that of Lowry; but it seemed that they had not seen Lowry for three years; and although called at the inquest, they did not attend.
On the other hand, the Rev. H. H. Gaud, who had seen Lowry some twelve months back, believed that deceased was he, as did also Mr. Moses Baird, who, however, had not seen Lowry for seven or eight years. The evidence taken at the inquest is all in favor of the view of deceased being identical with Lowry; and it is quite certain that he was the man who robbed the Goulburn mail on the 2nd July last, Mr. Futter, Captain Morphy, and the coachman, Michael Curran, having positively identified him, and Captain Morphy's watch having been found in his possession. There is every reason also to believe that he is the man who in conjunction with Foley robbed the Mudgee mail of several thousand pounds worth of bank notes some days after the robbery of the Goulburn mail. Foley and Lowry it may be remembered escaped together from Bathurst jail on the 13th February last.”
Whatever his true origins, the man who died at Goulburn that morning was beyond doubt the bushranger responsible for the recent mail robberies. His final words—“Tell ’em I died game”—became emblematic of the bushranger ethos: defiant, fatalistic, and unrepentant.
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| Woodhouseleigh Station Homestead, Lowry died in building on the far left. |
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| S.M.H. 31st August, 1863. |
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| Thomas Vardy Publican License 1860. |
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| Recognition of those involved in Lowry's death. |
Lowry's accomplice in the Mudgee Mail robbery, John Foley faced court and was sentenced as reported in the 'Goulburn Herald' 9th September 1863:
In 1864 three months after Lowry's death the question of reward to the police was raised in parliament. The Empire newspaper 5th January 1864 printed the following regarding the reward paid to police and its distribution. The gazetted payment was less than that actually paid as the total included the monies outstanding of Bathurst escape and did not include the Joint Stock Bank reward. |
| Photo was taken at Goulburn Hospital 30th August 1863 ‘Tell ‘em I died game’ |
Previous to his conviction, Michael Dunn was recorded as a Chandler Tallow Boy indentured to The Tallow Chandlers, a City of London Livery Company that administered oils, ointments, lubricants, and fat-based preservatives to manage candle making using tallow (animal fats). Moreover, with the arrival of the Gas Light in the mid 1800's followed by the advent of electricity in 1900s Tallow boys switched to producing soap. In applying for a Ticket-of-Leave, Michael Dunn married a native of the colony Margaret Kelly, aged 23, in February 1846 at Yass. Under the law, they were required to apply for a 'Convicts Application to Marry.' It was granted before their nuptials.
John Dunn developed a reputation as a horse-breaker in the local districts and often engaged as a partime jockey, where he had ridden home several well-known bush racers. Dunn's prowess in the saddle had undoubtedly attracted the attention of Hall and Gilbert, whose passion for horse racing brought them into contact with the talented rider as they attended many local meets. Dunn's knowledge of the finest thoroughbreds and where they were stabled no doubt interested the two bushrangers who enticed Dunn to join their ranks. However, even at 5ft 8, Dunn's jockeying ability would not be unusual at country meetings. In some cases, top-flight horse owners rode their own entries regardless of the weight on the horse's back.
In April of 1864 at the Yass races this was recorded of a horse Dunn was known to race for its owner Mr Davoren, 'Ringleader':
Before long, Dunn was riding alongside Hall and Gilbert. However, on hearing the news of his son's descent into full-on crime, Dunn's father, Michael, rode in search of him in the hope of rescuing him from bushranging. Unfortunately, his horse died from overexertion. Consequently, he was compelled to return home and failed in his search. The colt had bolted. Dunn was a mild-looking young native, having a particularly soft pleasing voice.
The 'The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News', November 1864, highlighted the circumstance that led John Dunn to become a member of Ben Hall's gang:
On being interrogated, young Kennedy said he wanted to find out where the Erlington pound was situated, as a racer had been stolen from him after the Murrumburrah races by — (mentioning another youth who has shown strong indications for hose-stealing), and that he had found out from the Government Gazette that it was in the pound. After making sundry inquiries, he obtained the requisite information, and the two hope full's departed on their journey. It appears that the horse was released by Kennedy, and he with Dunn returned towards home. On reaching Gunning, Dunn left his companion, and rode in the direction of Pudman Creek, where he fell in with another youth named Ryan, whose brother has been long the dread of this part of the country as one of the most expert and successful of horse stealers, but whose reign is drawing, or has drawn to a close. Shortly after this they stuck up and robbed some drays on the Pudman, and were subsequently apprehended and taken to Burrowa, where they were committed for trial at the Yass General Sessions. Strange to say, that although the charge was robbery under arms, the sapient justice accepted bail for their appearance to take their trial.
When the sessions came on, Dunn and Ryan were called on their bail. The latter appeared, but as Dunn was absent the Crown Prosecutor applied for a postponement of the trial, consenting to take fresh bail for Ryan, and at the same time applied to the judge to entreat Dunn's recognizances and issue a bench warrant for his apprehension. All this was done. I have very good reason for believing that Dunn was in Yass at the time of the application was made, and that so soon as he heard that a warrant had been issued he mounted his horse and joined Ben Hall and Dunleavy (Gilbert was not with Hall at the time), who were only a short distance from town. See now the consequence of Mr. Burrowa Justice's folly-in granting bail. Ryan knew he would not be put on his trial without Dunn, and therefore surrendered, and I shall be most egregiously mistaken if ever he shows his nose voluntarily before Judge Meymott again.
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| The pending court appearance of John Dunn and Daniel Ryan, it was from this event that Dunn fled justice and joined Ben Hall and John Gilbert. |
However, in June of 1864, Ben Hall, with Mount and Gilbert, in an attempt to procure some fine racehorses being guarded by two troopers at the Bang Bang Hotel Koorawatha, met their match and failed to obtain the horses after a gunfight that came close to ending Hall's life as a shot from a trooper took Hall's hat from his head. The next day Hall called upon an Innkeeper demanding a meal be prepared. In his company was Daniel Ryan. During the conversation, Hall declared that the newspaper's version stated that the range between shots was eighty yards, whereby Hall said closer to fifty and remarked that removing his hat by a bullet "was not so bad". On leaving, Hall and company made for the direction of Lambing Flat. Hall and his two partners Gilbert having returned to the fray, and Mount had entrenched themselves in the Burrowa district. There is no doubt that their use of local hoods such as Ryan and Dunn, amongst others, in telegraphing valuable information and supplies, along with horse racing, was the introduction to Hall and associates. 'The Sydney Morning Herald' Tuesday 7th June 1864:
Daniel Ryan, unlike Dunn, never took the complete step into bushranging and would become a fringe dweller in the escapades of Hall, Gilbert and Dunn. Most notably, the Araluen Gold Robbery attempt in 1865. Ryan's participation is widely believed. However, Thomas Clarke, another hoodlum to take up Ben Hall's reins upon his death, was considered the fourth man present. Ryan would be arrested for his suspected part but was released due to lack of evidence. Although those who held hostages before the raid had a good look at the bushrangers, Thomas Clarke was not implicated by them. Ryan's close association with Dunn casts light on his probable involvement.
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| Michael Dunn, England & Wales Criminal register 1791-1892. |
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| Dunn and Ryan, NSW Police Gazette 1864. |
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| Death of Sergeant Parry. |
However, in the Southern parts of New South Wales, another murderous bushranger was continuing to lead the troopers a merry chase as well. Daniel 'Mad Dog' Morgan. Furthermore, the press were quick to draw a parallel between the two camps, as reported in the case of the shooting death of Sgt Parry. Below is the link regarding the murder of Sergeant Parry as well as shooting with intent to kill Insp O'Neil outside Jugiong on 16th November 1864 as follows;
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| Contemporary drawing rarely published of the death of Sgt Parry, from the 'The Australian News for Home Readers', Sat 24 Dec 1864 titled; STICKING UP OF THE GUNDAGAI MAIL. |
In the fallout of Parry's death, the magistrate Mr Rose brought about the end of Const Roach's career who at the time of the encounter was in the mail coach and prevented by Rose from interfering whereby Roach took to his heels in the act of self-preservation. However, this action led to his dismissal from the police force:
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| Edmund Parry, Police Employment record. |
FURTHER OUTRAGES BY BEN HALL AND HIS GANG
Below is the account of Morriss' court testimony and the case against Christina McKinnon and Ellen Monks as accessories in the burning down of his General Store. See link below.
FEMALE BUSHRANGERS
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| Kimberley's Inn with Nelson monument at right. c. 1900's. |
Before their appearance in the town, the three bushrangers during the 26th January held sway over the road leading to Collector from Goulburn. For the last few days, Hall, Gilbert and Dunn were loitering around Rose's Lagoon, some five miles from Collector. Between the morning and mid-afternoon, everyone travelling along the road (Today's Federal Hwy) was waylaid. As each person was penned they were relieved of any valuables, including various amounts from half-a-crown to £11 12s, two watches were stolen, one horse, saddle and bridle. By two o'clock the gathered group resembled a country sports meeting made up of a collection of men, women, children, carts, drays, horses, and a couple of bullock teams. The robbers broke open cases, took a little clothing, and a double-barrel gun. They drank bottled porter and gave some to the people. As the afternoon wore on, Ben Hall instructed a couple of his prisoners to make tea for the captives. Preparations were well underway with the aroma of burning gum-leaves drifting blue into the afternoon heat, when Dunn, who was on watch saw a trooper, coming from the Goulburn direction and announced: "Here's a blasted trap." "If it's only one," suggested Gilbert, "we'll face him." The three bushrangers stood a moment gazing through the white haze of heat toward the approaching trooper. However, behind the closing trooper came a carriage, and after that, another trooper. The carriage carried Judge Meymott on his way to Yass, via Collector. "There's more of them," commented Hall. However, to avoid trouble, he added, "Let's be off!" promptly mounting, the three bushrangers rode off, galloping across the road and up the hill toward the dense bush as the Judge arrived at where the throng of prisoners milled about. 'Empire' 31st January 1865:
The judge had got only about a hundred yards further when Mr. F. Hoare, of Gundaroo, who was coming to town, was stopped by Gilbert, Hall and Dunn. They searched him and took three half sovereigns which were being sent to this office in payment of an account. Mr. Hoare had a cheque and some silver in his portemonnaie which they look at but returned. They also looked at his watch, but gave it back to him. They told him they intended to visit Collector in tho evening, and therefore should be compelled to detain him.
The bushrangers now took possession of the road, stopping and detaining all who passed. Among them wore three horse-teams and nine bullock-teams. Altogether about thirty persons were stopped. The bushrangers broke open many of the cafes and helped themselves to some articles of clothing, of which they appeared to be in want. Gilbert expressed a great wish to secure a pair of boots; but here he failed. On one of the drays they found a new double-barrelled fowling-piece, belonging to Mr. Ranyard, of Gundaroo; and Gilbert loaded this and took it with him. The bushrangers broke open a case or two of bottled porter and drank some, giving freely to everybody who liked to partake or it.
Among the persons detained was a young man on horseback, named William Macauley. Whether his horse was restive, as he stated to the bushrangers, or whether he meant to escape, as was suspected, we have not heard: but the animal made some movement. Dunn, who was keeping guard at the time, immediately fired from his revolver, and the ball slightly wounded Macauley's horse in the neck. As Macauley made no further movement no additional violence was offered. Among the last persons robbed were Messrs. Kershaw, Pearce and Cook, young men employed as assistants at the stores of Messrs. Davies, Alexander, and Co. They took from Mr. Kershaw a gold watch and £1 in money ; from Mr. Pearce, a silver watch and chain, the horse he was riding (belonging to Mr. John Lawler), and his saddle and bridle; from Mr. Cook they took a half-crown. From a man of Mr. Kimberley's, who was on his way to Goulburn, the bushrangers took £11, which had been entrusted to him to pay an account in Goulburn.
About seven o'clock the bushrangers allowed the persons they had robbed to go their ways, while they themselves proceeded to Collector, where they called at Mr. Kimberley's public-house, which they ransacked, taking three guns, some boots, and other articles. The guns were subsequently recovered, having apparently been dropped by the bushrangers in their haste to get away.
In order to render intelligible what follows, we must now return to the time when the judge passed along the road. Mr. Voss, J.P., was travelling to Wollogorang, and saw the judge's carriage pass by, and also saw the bushrangers stopping some of the travellers. He hastened after the judge, and on overtaking him and communicating with the police, it was arranged that directly they had arrived at Collector, the police should go with Mr. Voss in search of the bushrangers. At Collector there were found to be three constables. One-the lockup keeper, Samuel Nelson-remained behind; the other two, with the judge's escort and Mr. Voss, started in search of the bushrangers, Mr. Voss and two of the policemen going to Wollogorang, while the others went to Rose's Lagoon.
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| Dunn shoots Nelson. Smith's Weekly November 1922. C.H. Hunt. |
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| Reputed couch at Kimberley's Hotel on which Const Nelson's body was laid after his murder by John Dunn. Held at NSW Police Academy
Penzig.
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| Constable Samuel Nelson. |
After the three galloped out of the town it was reported that Ben Hall's fury had not receded with The Kid:
When news reached Goulburn, the Superintendent of police fired off a telegram to the Inspector General McLerie highlighting Nelson's death. There has been much written regarding the shooting, however, in this telegram the superintendent reports that after Nelson fell from the first shot, Dunn walked up and fired point-blank at the dying Nelson;
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| Nelson |
At the Inquest, Elizabeth Nelson, widow of the deceased, deposed:
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| Widow, Elizabeth Nelson and Grandson. c. 1900. Private Source. |
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| Reward Notice 1864. |
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| The Goulburn Chronicle 4th February 1865. |
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| The four Faithful brothers. |
FURTHER BUSHRANGING
HALL, GILBERT, AND DUNN IN THE BRAIDWOOD DISTRICT.
Remaining in the Goulburn district, the bushrangers sought refuge at a harbourers home named Byrnes. The police gained information about the gang's presence and in an attempt to capture the three men set about a raid to effect their seizure. As the police positioned themselves two were sleeping in a barn at Mutbilly and Hall reputedly just outside the hut. Discovered Gilbert fired and Trooper Pye dived for cover as Wiles was wounded in the knee. However, it was thought Ben Hall was shot in the arm as the gang fled on foot. Newspaper report below.
BUSHRANGING
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| William Davis. c. 1863 Gilbert, acquired Davis' Tranter revolving rifle at Geary's Gap. Penzig |
The robbery at Geary's Gap, Gilbert stole his longed for revolving rifle from a Mr. Davis on the 9th March 1865. The newspaper article below;
Monday, 13th March 1865.
HALL'S GANG AT LAKE GEORGE
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| The carving, photo c. 1937 |
Monday, 8th May 1865.
THE BUSHRANGERS AT YAMMA.
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| Morgan Dead. April 1865. |
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| Yamma Station. |
On the 13th May 1865, eight days after the bullet-riddled body of Ben Hall lay dead and buried, John Dunn and John Gilbert were in the process of clearing out of the Lachlan, pushed hard on knocked up horses which they soon replaced. They were next reported near Murrumburrah:
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| Felons Apprehension Act, 1865 |
"I'd loike a few words wud the sargint, If ye please, Mishter King."
"Ah! Well, he'll be in presently. Mean while, make yourself at home, If I can't be of any use to you."
"Well, yo moight be able tor giv me some information."
"I will if I can. What is the trouble, John" "Well, I kem to ask if there's any truth in what Paddy Ryan's been afther tellln' me about me gran'son Johnnie bein' outlaw'd, Misther King."
"Well, I am sorry, for your sake, that it is, old man. We received, the noticess yesterday, and one is posted up outside there."
"How much is put on 'em?"
"One thousand pounds, alive or dead. Five hundred goes to the person who will give information that will lead to the capture of any one of them, and the remainder to the person who shoots or captures either of them."
"By Gor! the Guvermint manes business."
"Yes, the murder of poor Constable Nelson, the father of nine children, was unnecessary and cold-blooded.
"Whist a moment," said John, interrupting me. "Spose any wun gev the information, an' they wasn't captured or kilt, wud they git anything?"
"Not a penny."
"I see! " answered John, somewhat disappointed. "I thought-"
"Why! what did you suppose they would for?"
"Well now, I'll tell you, and"-lowering his voice-''mind it's a saycret 'twixt you and me; but Jannie moight be comin' ter see me some day. He's very fond of the ould woman. Sure the Divvel himself- can't save his neck, and if five hindred pounds is to be med out ov 'im, the sooner the betther, 'fore he shoots some wan else."
It now dawned on me that John had something up his sleeve, so I took up another role.
"Quite right, John! Quite right! I always knew you as a decent, honest man, and I am glad to find you are no sympathiser with your grandson's doings, and see here, old man, If ever you give me any information, it will be safe and sacred, and so will your share of the reward; here's my hand on it."He took my hand and wrung it until I winced, saying, "I belave yer a man ov yer word, Mishter King," then sitting down beside him I again ventured "I suppose you have no idea when they are likely to pay you this visit?"
He grinned, and, shutting his eye, said, "By Gor, they moight come to-night."
"Oh, that he damned," I exclaimed, jumping off my chair.
"But I say they moight," he answered, with significant emphasis.
"Go easy, man sit down till we make a plan."
I again sat down, and he continued.
"Ye see, If it wus to git wind that I towld ye anything, an' they wus to get away, by Gor they'd cum an' shoot me loike a dog. So yez must be careful not to, miss yer game, shoot straight if ye does shoot, or don't shoot at all at all."
"John! You would make a better general than Fosbery," said I, approvingly.
"Well, now, hold yer whisht a minnt thin ye ken have yer say. They'll be at my place fur sartin to-night."
"They wur there lasht noight, and the auld woman is gettln' a good feed fur 'um ready for to-noight, and I've got a keg ov rum in the bag outside.
The above conversation is written as to how John Kelly spoke. Kelly devised a signal for the troopers to have his grandson captured or killed, all this was done on the understanding of anonymity. The two bushrangers now legally declared 'Outlaws' arrived again for the night and early on the morning of Saturday 13th May 1865;
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| Woodcut of Dunn's escape at Binalong. |
When Gilbert, the bushranger, was shot near Binalong, his partner, Dunn made for Bogolong station where he demanded a horse, saddle, and bridle. These were given to him. He showed Mrs. Julian a matchbox, which a bullet had struck, saying: "But for this, I would not be here." Mrs. Julian dressed his wounds, and advised him to surrender to the police, but he would not do so. He said be would join Thunderbolt.
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| Ellen Jullian 1825-1924. Private Source. |
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| Letter to Goulburn Gaol regarding the expected surrender of Hall, Gilbert & Dunn. New South Wales, Australia, Sheriff's Papers, 1829-1879 for John Dunn. |
The reward for Gilbert's capture has been divided as follows:
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| John Dunn, Goal entry book January 1866, note Dunn was educated. |
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| John Dunn, Criminal Courts record trial date 9th January 1866. |
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| John Dunn, Darlinghurst Gaol Entrance book, 3rd February 1866. |
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| NSW Police Gazette, 6th December 1865. |
Dunn survived for another few weeks and was finally captured in January 1866. (see article below) Following his capture Mr. Arthur Willmott, J.P. described to his relatives in England his conversation with John Dunn during his removal to Coonamble goal. Extract Dated; 13th March 1866;
Thursday, 18th January 1866
CAPTURE OF DUNN, THE BUSHRANGER
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/63242347
DUNN, THE BUSHRANGER
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| Dunn's recapture near Dubbo Gaol. |
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| A newspaper portrait of John Dunn. |
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| Illustration of the condemned cell's Darlinghurst Gaol. |
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| McHale Recognition for Dunn Capture. |
DUNN AND HIS MEDICAL ATTENDANT
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| Reward distribution for Dunn capture. |
John Dunn still suffering from gunshot wounds was under police escort from Bathurst to Penrith and then bordered a train for the trip to Sydney. However, before the trip, Dr Busby at Bathurst gaol assisted Dr Palmer extracted a bullet from Dunn's back. Without any aesthetic, the doctor probed; 'The Sydney Morning Herald' Friday 26th January 1866:
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| Newtown Railway Station. c. 1890's Courtesy NLA |
John Dunn was finally incarcerated at Darlinghurst Gaol; he was formally brought before a judge and charged over the death of Constable Nelson. His initial arraignment was noted in the paper were Dunn when asked of his heath and stated he was weak; "Then there is the case of Dunn; he was brought up before the Chief Justice late yesterday afternoon, and the following is a report of what took place on the occasion:—
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| Illustrated Sydney News, Friday 16th February 1866. |
Dunn was returned to Darlinghurst to await his rendezvous with death, and the reward for Dunn's capture was gazetted and divided thus;
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| John's final letter to his father, penned for him by one of the priests. (see text below) |
A letter was written on Dunn's behalf as he awaits execution.
Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney, 2nd March 1866.
My dear Father
I received your very welcome second letter a few days ago - I say welcome although it conveyed to me the death of my sister. I can sincerely condole with you on this bereavement coming too at such a time, but you will remember that I never sway my little sister and therefore it is why I state that any letter form you under my circumstances is welcome.
I have not yet heard what day is fixed for my execution but it cannot be far off as I was told by Father Dwyer last evening that he had an interview with the Prime Minister and that the law is to take its course.
Under the circumstances it will be advisable for you to come down with my brother without delay - Mother knows how gratified I would be to see her before I die, but don't let her come. It is best not. I can bid her goodbye to you for her, and send her a keepsake by you also. So reason with her about it and persuade her to remain at home.
I have no more to say in this letter. As soon as I hear of "the day" I will let you know.
With love to all believe me dear father, your affectionate Son,
John Dunn
EXECUTION OF JOHN DUNN
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60597278?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FE%2Ftitle%2F67%2F1866%2F03%2F20%2Fpage%2F5697796%2Farticle%2F60597278
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| The drop Darlinghurst Gaol. |
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| The Morgue: Following Dunn's execution at Darlinghurst Gaol, his body was held here prior to being claimed by his Godmother, Mrs Pickard. |
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| A Guinea coin = 21 Shillings or $84 today. |
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| John Dunn's Death Certificate |
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| Dunn's father's Ticket-of Leave & Conditional Pardon. |
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| John Coleman headstone, the son of Margaret Monks and Richard Coleman. |
#-Reference notes and source material can be accessed on the EndNote page except where book, author or newspaper title are named. Publications referred to can be found on the Links Page. For any research assistance no charge, contact is on the Home Page under Contact details or Email to benhallbushranger@gmail.com. For an enhanced view of photographs, click right mouse button and select 'open in new tab'.
What a great site !!
ReplyDeletenice
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ReplyDeletewonderful long story of history happens with ben hall's gangs..Excellent intersting. I am searching of ben hall's way his time at majors creek mountain, where my great great grandfather arrived on march 1862, he work the goldgigger around at araluen, He name is Henry Braden he from cavan, ireland.
ReplyDeleteMy great grandparents(Mccarthy) were the first owners of the Jugiong hotel. I have a letter ( family heirloom) apparently authenticated by the Mitchell Library that says that my ancestors harboured John Dunn for a time however I am uncertain of the time frame, also interesting to note that my great grandfather police inspector Eather rode with the assassin Constable Walker who supposedly shot dead Thunderbolt at Kentucky ck.My ancestor gained promotion over Walker and family legend has it that the reason Walker blew his own brains out was because of the angst this caused.
ReplyDeleteHi, Your G Grandparents ran a sly grog (illegal) shop at Jugiong and were well known to police as shrewd and shady characters. As far as John Dunn goes I have no doubt that there may have been an association, as well as with Hall and Gilbert and O'Meally. For more contact me direct thru the email benhallbushranger@gmail.com Mark Matthews
ReplyDeleteMy GG Grandfather was Constable Henry Hall 301 Binalong Henry arrived NSW 1854 joined the NSW Police 1857-1875 Henry wed Ellen Maloney Henry Died 1893 Binalong.
ReplyDelete