In Part 1, we traced the early chapters of John Gilbert's story — his birth in Canada, his family's voyage to the colonies, and the first troubling signs of the criminal path that would come to define him. Now, in Part 2, we descend further into the heart of the legend.
This instalment delves into the life and times and death of this infamous outlaw. Drawing from historical records, personal accounts, and extensive research, we will explore Gilbert's continued journey as one of the most feared outlaws in Australian history. As we delve into Gilbert's final years of life, we will explore his notoriety, humour, audacity and daring that led him to maintain a life of crime. We will also examine his relationships, his exploits, and the impact of his actions on Australian society and history.
"John Gilbert: Happy Jack" is more than just a biography. It takes us into a tumultuous period in Australian history, seen through the eyes of one of its most notorious characters. It is a tale of adventure, crime, and ultimately, tragedy. So join us as we journey into the life and times of John Gilbert—the bushranger who lived fast and died young.
The two gentlemen had dismounted and were rolling up their cloaks when Hall and Vane suddenly appeared and ordered them to stand. Each surveyor carried twenty-two shillings. The bushrangers took one pound from each but returned the remaining two shillings. They also relieved Machattie of his watch and searched both men for pistols or revolvers.
Hall and Vane detained the surveyors for approximately two and a half hours. Although the men were prisoners, much of the time was occupied by what the newspaper described as continual “chaffing”—an exchange of jokes, taunts and challenges between captors and captives.
Another traveller came along the road during their detention and was also stopped. The bushrangers found only a few shillings upon him and declined to take them.
At one point, Ben Hall demonstrated how a horse could be unshod with the aid of a stirrup iron. By way of illustration, he removed the shoes from both of Machattie’s horse’s forefeet in only a few seconds. The act may have been intended to prevent immediate pursuit as much as to demonstrate bush skill.
The surveyors responded to their confinement with considerable spirit. One proposed running Hall over a distance of two hundred yards, ownership of the horses to depend upon the result. Another suggested settling matters with a fist fight.
Hall and Vane laughed at these proposals. They said they would fetch “the Toad”—their nickname for Michael Burke—because Burke and Battye would be about evenly matched.
With barvardo, the surveyors dared the bushrangers to go to Bathurst and see if they could steal the racehorse Pasha. They then asked where the gang’s other three members were, Hall and Vane replied that they were “close by.” They added that their companions had gone to obtain horses from Mr Smith’s paddock. This suggests that Hall, Vane, Gilbert, O’Meally and Burke were already operating together in the neighbourhood immediately before the Bathurst raid.
Hall and Vane announced that they would have to take the surveyors’ horses and they might come to take Pasha. They promised, however, that if better animals could be obtained, Machattie’s and Battye’s mounts would be left somewhere they could easily be recovered.
A ring worn in Machattie’s scarf caught Hall’s attention. When Machattie explained that it was a gift from his mother and that he valued it for sentimental reasons, Hall declined to take it.
Hall also displayed a revolver which he said had been taken from one of the three policemen surprised at Marsh’s. According to Hall, the constables had offered no resistance.
No further travellers appeared, and the bushrangers eventually released their prisoners. Before they separated, Hall returned Machattie’s watch. The two surveyors were therefore left without their horses and with one pound each taken, but retained Machattie’s watch, sentimental ring and the returned two shillings apiece.
The newspaper described Hall and Vane as muscular men who showed no outward sign of worry or exhaustion. Their demeanours, however, differed markedly. Hall laughed continually and appeared to enjoy the encounter. Vane remained sullen and morose.
The report added that the young Mr Battye involved in this episode was not a son of Captain Edward Battye of the police.
According to John Vane’s later account, O’Meally immediately declared:
“We’ll show the beggars whether we’re game or not! It’s a pity one of you didn’t take on the cove who talked fight. Either of you could have flattened him out.”
Hall dismissed the suggestion:
“Oh, that’s nonsense. We’ve got something better to do than fight bragging schoolboys, and neither of them was much better.”
He was, however, prepared to accept the more serious challenge:
“But I’ll tell you what: if you are all agreeable, we will take up their challenge in earnest and go to Bathurst.”
The proposal quickly developed into a plan. Hall explained that the gang wanted one or two of the revolving rifles then attracting considerable attention. A gunsmith named Pedrotta conducted business in William Street, Bathurst, and was thought likely to stock such weapons.
O’Meally supported the expedition:
“I’m agreeable to make the trip to Bathurst on the next go. The police are all out from the head station, so we could have a free run in and out. The affair will make a big sensation, and we ought to make a good haul from one of the jewellers. If we go at night, the banks will be closed—or we might touch one of them.”
Gilbert and Michael Burke also agreed. For Gilbert, the proposed raid offered an additional attraction. He suggested that they might “lift” Pasha, a well-known racehorse belonging to the Bathurst innkeeper François de Clouet.
The expedition therefore combined several purposes. The gang intended to answer the challenge to enter Bathurst, obtain more powerful firearms from Pedrotta’s shop, plunder a jeweller—or possibly a bank—and carry away Pasha. Gilbert knew de Clouet and his establishment from his earlier life as a jockey, giving the plan a distinctly personal dimension.
It was precisely the kind of challenge calculated to appeal to Johnny Gilbert. He had formerly ridden as a jockey for the hotelkeeper and horse-owner François de Clouet and knew both the establishment and its stables. The gang promised to return the stolen horses and, according to later accounts, determined to answer Machattie’s challenge by entering Bathurst on the following Saturday night. Their object was partly robbery, but equally display: they intended to demonstrate that five wanted men could ride into the headquarters of the Western police, plunder its shops and carry off one of its best-known racehorses.
The timing was deliberate. Saturday evening was market night. The shops remained open, the streets were busy and mounted men attracted little notice. At the same time, much of the available police strength was searching the country between Carcoar, Caloola and the surrounding stations. The gang understood that Bathurst itself had been left comparatively exposed. Charles White’s later history described their intention as less the pursuit of a large haul than the creation of “a scare” and “a big sensation.”
At approximately nine o’clock on Saturday, 3 October 1863, on a "bright, clear and calm evening."Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert, John O’Meally, Michael Burke and John Vane rode quietly into Bathurst. They were fashionably dressed, well mounted and heavily armed. Nothing in their appearance immediately distinguished them from prosperous country visitors arriving for business or amusement.
Vane was posted as a lookout in a lane near one of the likely approaches to the town. Hall, Gilbert, O’Meally and Burke continued towards the commercial centre.
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| Pedrotta’s gun shop |
The pair asked to see the best weapons in the establishment. They wanted revolving rifles or revolvers of the more powerful double-trigger pattern. Pedrotta could offer only ordinary six-shot revolvers. The bushrangers examined them but declared them unsuitable and left without taking anything.
The incident is revealing. They had not simply come to steal whatever happened to be available. They were already well armed and were looking for superior weapons that would give them an advantage over mounted police. Finding none, they moved on.
Their next attempt was at McMinn’s jewellery establishment near the centre of town. The McMinn family was at tea when Hall and Gilbert entered. A young assistant was confronted with revolvers and ordered into an adjoining room.
The bushrangers attempted to open a glass display case containing watches and jewellery, but its fastening could only be reached from behind the counter. Before they could overcome the difficulty, one of the women began screaming.
Hall threatened the household and ordered everyone to remain quiet, but the alarm had already destroyed the advantage of surprise. Hall and Gilbert withdrew backwards with their revolvers levelled, joined O’Meally and Burke outside and mounted.
Their companions had meanwhile obtained oranges from a neighbouring fruit shop. According to one account, the gang snatched up the fruit as they departed—a strangely trivial piece of plunder from an operation intended to terrorise the largest inland town west of the mountains.
Mrs McMinn raised the alarm as soon as the men cleared the shop.
The gang initially rode in the direction of the police barracks. At Howick Street, three men turned away while two continued ahead, apparently failing to notice that the party had divided. One of those who had turned fired a revolver into the air as a signal. The two riders wheeled and rejoined their companions.
Later retellings sometimes identify Hall as the man who fired the recall shot. Still, the earliest reports do not consistently name either the signalman or the two riders who momentarily continued towards the barracks.
The five crossed the square and entered George Street. Once beyond the principal shops, they slowed their horses. By moving calmly rather than galloping headlong, they again resembled ordinary horsemen and avoided drawing immediate attention.
Instead of leaving Bathurst, they proceeded to the Sportsman’s Arms.
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| The Sportsman’s Arms |
Most importantly, the stables housed Pasha—also printed in contemporary accounts as Pacha—the racehorse the gang had supposedly been dared to take.
The bushrangers pulled down or displaced part of the railing leading into the stable yard. Four entered while one remained with the horses. William Bromley, a trainer working near the stables, was covered with revolvers and ordered to stand. An elderly ostler named Mark then approached carrying a lantern and was detained with him.
The gang demanded the stable keys. Mark replied that de Clouet had them.
Gilbert and at least one companion, Ben Hall, entered the hotel. De Clouet was seated in the bar parlour with John Hunter, a compositor who lodged at the house. Gilbert immediately made himself known. His manner was described as cool and familiar, as though he had returned to call upon an old employer rather than to participate in an armed robbery.
Hall demanded de Clouet’s money. The hotelkeeper handed over approximately £1, after which Hall took his watch. Hunter surrendered about £2.
Hall then entered the bedroom occupied by Mrs de Clouet and her children. At first she apparently mistook him for an intoxicated customer and ordered him to leave. Hall displayed his revolvers and demanded the cash box.
Mrs de Clouet, who was holding a child, asked him to take the infant while she fetched it. Hall laughed and indicated the pistols occupying his hands. The box was produced and the notes removed. During the search, a half-sovereign fell beneath the bed. Hall searched the carpet until Mrs de Clouet found the coin for him.
Gilbert, meanwhile, examined the hotel till. Finding only silver, he contemptuously threw it back, saying that the gang dealt in gold. In an extraordinary gesture, he then gave de Clouet a florin—two shillings—to keep as a remembrance of the visit.
He conversed with his former employer about earlier days and appeared in no hurry to leave. At one point Gilbert remarked that, having come so far, they might as well remain for an hour.
Gilbert openly admitted that Pasha was the principal object of the visit. He told de Clouet that the gang had been taunted with lacking the courage to enter Bathurst and carry off the horse.
De Clouet appealed directly to him. Pasha was a valuable racing colt, he argued, unsuitable for the exhausting journeys and rough treatment of bushranging. Taking him would injure the animal and perhaps ruin him.
The surviving versions disagree over precisely why the attempt failed. The detailed Bathurst account states that the stable remained locked because neither de Clouet nor the ostler would produce the keys, and that Gilbert eventually intervened after hearing his former employer’s plea. Charles White’s later history says that de Clouet had received some warning and had moved Pasha into a separate horse box before the gang arrived.
Both versions agree on the essential point: Gilbert came specifically for Pasha, searched for him and left without him.
Outside, the demand for the keys was becoming more threatening. O’Meally became impatient and commented:
Hall drove the ostler into the hotel and threatened him, but the older man continued to insist that he did not possess them.
When the ostler remarked that police had recently passed the premises, one bushranger replied:
“Two of us are enough for four of them any day.”
Despite the boast, they did not remain. After occupying the Sportsman’s Arms for approximately twenty minutes, the gang mounted and rode away. Pasha remained in de Clouet’s stable.
A detailed version of the Sportsman’s Arms episode was later reprinted by the Forbes Advocate, drawing upon the earlier Bathurst accounts.
The police response was confused. Officers initially assumed that the bushrangers would flee immediately towards Carcoar or Caloola. A mounted party—reportedly numbering only about five men—rode out along what proved to be the wrong line.
Trooper Johnson possessed the better horse and began gaining upon the pair. The bushrangers fired two shots towards him, and Johnson returned fire. He appeared likely to overhaul them until his horse suddenly foundered or broke down under the strain. The two men disappeared into the darkness.
The remaining three members of the gang had evidently taken another line during the escape. This may have been a deliberate arrangement designed to divide pursuit, or merely the result of confusion in the dark streets and lanes.
Some later narratives place Gilbert among the two men chased by Johnson, but the earliest published account does not identify the pair securely. It is therefore safest to say that Gilbert became separated from part of the company during the withdrawal, without claiming that his precise route can now be established.
The gang would ultimately moved towards the Caloola country, while much of the police pursuit was directed towards Carcoar. Before disappearing, they fulfilled at least part of their promise to return the horses taken from Machattie and his companion. The animals were reportedly left in Mrs Mutton’s paddock on the Vale Road, and word of their location was conveyed through the Sportsman’s Arms.
The raid had produced remarkably little. Pedrotta’s shop yielded no weapons; the McMinn jewellery case remained unopened; Pasha was not taken; and the money obtained from the Sportsman’s Arms was modest. Yet measured as an act of defiance, it was spectacularly successful. Five wanted bushrangers had ridden into Bathurst on market night, entered shops near the square, robbed a hotel connected with one of their number’s former life and escaped from the headquarters of the Western police.
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Mary Mutton 1800 - 1883. |
The Bathurst exploit was therefore less a profitable robbery than a calculated humiliation. Gilbert failed to obtain the repeating weapons, jewellery and racehorse he sought, but he had answered the challenge. He had returned openly to a town where he had once worked as a jockey, stood talking with his former employer while armed companions searched the house, and then ridden out beneath the noses of the Western police.
During the gang’s flight from Bathurst, Gilbert became separated from his companions. When the others eventually drew together, Michael Burke reported that Gilbert had fallen behind during the police pursuit. Burke believed he had seen him abandon his horse and escape on foot.
Concerned that Gilbert might be wounded or captured, the gang dismounted and searched the moonlit country. They found no trace of him and eventually remounted, continuing towards Bald Hills with little certainty as to his fate.
When they returned to their camp near Evans Plains, however, they received an unexpected surprise. Gilbert was already there—alive, free and apparently little the worse for his ordeal.
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| View to Bathurst the Bald Hills |
O’Meally greeted the explanation with open contempt. He had long regarded Gilbert as too willing to retreat when a fight turned dangerous and accused him of abandoning his horse because he feared the bullets passing around him. According to John Vane’s later account, O’Meally told him:
“You were afraid of the bullets which were flying about. I believe you will be shot yet while running away, for you have no fight in you.”
Gilbert eventually declared that he was prepared to leave the gang and invited anyone who wished to accompany him. No one accepted. Hall, Burke and Vane remained with O’Meally, leaving Gilbert isolated and resentful. He withdrew from the others and spent the remainder of the night apart from the main camp.
The quarrel did not permanently divide the gang, but it exposed a recurring tension between Gilbert and O’Meally. Gilbert valued mobility, deception and escape; O’Meally placed greater emphasis upon standing his ground and exchanging fire. To O’Meally, Gilbert’s retreat confirmed a lack of courage. To Gilbert, remaining mounted on a failing horse beneath police fire would have achieved nothing except capture or death.
The following day brought material confirmation of Gilbert’s story. Police recovered a completely exhausted horse believed to have belonged to the bushrangers. The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser reported on 8 October 1863:
“A horse thoroughly knocked up, supposed to belong to the bushrangers, was brought in by the police last night. It had a saddle with a poncho on it, and a leather buckle to hold a rifle, but was without a bridle.”
The missing bridle suggests that Gilbert may have removed it while escaping or that it came away during the confused passage through the creek. Whatever the precise circumstances, the abandoned horse, saddle, poncho and rifle fastening support the essential outline of the episode: Gilbert had been closely pursued, his mount had failed, and he had escaped on foot.
His return to Evans Plains demonstrated the quality for which he was perhaps most remarkable. Whatever O’Meally thought of his courage under fire, Gilbert possessed an exceptional ability to extricate himself from danger and find his way alone through unfamiliar country. On this occasion, that instinct saved him from the police—but it also deepened a personal hostility within the gang that would surface again.
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| William Robinson & Daughter |
The gang established its headquarters at Robinson’s hotel, taking approximately £3 from the publican. Men were then stationed on the approaches to the township. Every traveller who appeared—whether on horseback, driving a cart or accompanying a dray—was stopped and escorted to the hotel.
The prisoners were told that they might eat, drink and smoke at the bushrangers’ expense, but they were not permitted to leave Canowindra. Beneath the appearance of hospitality lay a carefully controlled detention. Armed sentries guarded the roads, and every person entering the township became one less potential messenger capable of carrying news to the police.
Canowindra had only one resident policeman, Constable Sykes. When he attempted to obtain assistance, the flooded Belubula River prevented him from taking the road towards Cowra, and he tried instead to reach Eugowra. The Hall intercepted him and turned him back.
Hall subsequently rode to the police barracks and ordered Sykes to arm himself fully. The constable was instructed to fix the bayonet to his firearm and place his revolver in his belt. Hall then drove him before his horse towards Robinson’s hotel, transforming the township’s only representative of the law into a public exhibit.
At the hotel the gang took Sykes’s weapons and handcuffs. He was then told to “go in and enjoy himself till he received further orders.” The incident provided the bushrangers with considerable amusement and demonstrated their complete command of the town.
Traffic continued to arrive. Every dray was stopped, until twelve or fourteen teams stood in a line near the hotel. The drivers were detained, fed and supplied with drink. Significantly, the gang made no attempt to disturb the loads carried by the drays. Their purpose was less immediate plunder than preventing information from escaping while their scouts remained abroad.
By Tuesday morning approximately forty people were being held in Canowindra. Among the arrivals were Messrs Hibberson, Twaddell and Kirkpatrick, who drove up to Robinson’s at about ten o’clock.
Hall received them with studied politeness. He apologised for the inconvenience but explained that they could not be allowed to continue their journey. They must leave their vehicle and remain in the township for a time.
As Kirkpatrick stepped down, O’Meally noticed that he was carrying a revolver. Presenting his own weapon at Kirkpatrick’s head, O’Meally compelled him to surrender it. He explained that the gang did not particularly require the firearm, but as it might be used against them, it was safer to place it “out of harm’s way.” He promised to leave it at Mr Loudon’s residence at Grubbenbong, which the gang intended to visit again.
A first-class dinner was ordered for the three travellers, with the bushrangers paying the account. Later in the afternoon the men represented to Hall that the Belubula was rising rapidly. If they were not permitted to leave, they might be stranded for several days. Hall accepted the argument and allowed them to resume their journey at about four o’clock.
Inside Robinson’s hotel, the occupation assumed the character of what one newspaper called a “robbers’ jubilee.” Gilbert purchased bundles of cigars and scattered them loosely upon a table for anyone who wished to smoke. A large supply of sweetmeats was similarly provided. The prisoners were permitted to order refreshments, apparently without restriction, and the gang settled the bills.
Hall and his companions remained cautious about what they consumed. They drank bottled ale and porter but insisted that every bottle be uncorked in their presence. The precaution suggests that, despite their outward confidence, they feared being drugged or poisoned.
Target shooting became one of their principal amusements. During the firing a carbine was accidentally dropped and discharged, sending its contents dangerously close to O’Meally’s legs. The incident appears to have caused alarm but no injury.
Some Canowindra residents asked permission to visit their homes. The gang granted them one-hour passes, in several cases signing the documents as though exercising lawful authority over the township. When two pass-holders remained away beyond the allotted time, Hall mounted his horse and went after them. He encountered the men returning and contented himself with reprimanding them for exceeding their leave.
Throughout the occupation the bushrangers spoke freely about their previous exploits. They expressed contempt for the police and their officers, claiming that whenever a police party approached, all the gang needed to do was mount and ride away. Their confidence was not entirely theatrical: the gang maintained scouts beyond the town, controlled the roads and prevented any unauthorised departure.
This was also the reason they gave for detaining so many people. Their scouts had not yet returned, and nobody would be released until the gang knew what was happening in the surrounding country. The public festivities therefore served a practical purpose. By assembling travellers, teamsters and residents at Robinson’s, the bushrangers had effectively silenced the district’s communication system.
Once the scouts had reported and the gang was ready to move, the prisoners were released. The bushrangers left Canowindra after occupying the township for roughly three days without robbing the assembled drays or seriously injuring anyone.
The same newspaper report alleged that the gang then went to Thomas Grant’s property on the Belubula and burned it in retaliation for information he had previously supplied to the police. They claimed to have watched Grant directing the troopers and pointing out their tracks. Because this detail rests principally upon newspaper intelligence, it is safest to describe the burning as a contemporary report rather than an independently established fact.
News of the occupation reportedly reached the Inspector-General of Police on Thursday but was initially dismissed as a canard. The story seemed almost too audacious to be believed: a gang of wanted men had occupied an entire township, disarmed its policeman, detained approximately forty people and departed at its convenience.
The convivial features of the episode later helped create the legend of Hall’s gang as generous hosts. They bought meals and drinks, supplied cigars and sweets, respected the draymen’s property and permitted limited visits home. Yet Canowindra was not enjoying a voluntary celebration. Its residents and travellers were prisoners, its policeman had been publicly humiliated, and every act of generosity occurred beneath the authority of loaded firearms.
A distinction should also be made between this three-day occupation and the gang’s earlier Canowindra visit in September 1863. The famous night of piano playing and dancing at Robinson’s belonged to the first raid. The October occupation was longer, more organised and strategically directed towards controlling the roads until the gang’s scouts returned.
The campaign reached its violent climax on Saturday evening, 24 October, when Gilbert, Hall, O’Meally, Vane and Burke rode to Henry Keightley’s Dunn’s Plains homestead near Rockley.
Keightley, an assistant gold commissioner, was about thirty yards from the house when the five riders approached. At first he mistook them for disguised police. When they ordered him to bail up, he ran for the house while the gang fired several shots after him.
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| Henry Keightley |
Burke crept along the wall and attempted to fire around the corner. Keightley waited until he exposed himself and discharged the loaded barrel into Burke’s abdomen. Mortally wounded, Burke staggered away, declaring:
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| Dunn’s Plains homestead |
Vane wanted Keightley killed in revenge for Burke’s death. Hall prevented an immediate execution, and the gang instead demanded £500. Caroline Keightley and Dr Pechey were permitted to ride to Bathurst, with the warning that Keightley would be shot if the police were alerted.
They reached Bathurst at about four o’clock on Sunday morning. Caroline’s father, Henry Rotton, obtained £500 in marked notes from the Commercial Bank. Rotton and Pechey carried the ransom back to Dunn’s Plains, where it was handed to the gang and Keightley was released. Henry Rotton’s biographical record confirms his role in raising the ransom.
While waiting for the ransom, the gang arranged for Burke’s body to be taken back towards his family’s property near Mount Macquarie. Two men from a neighbouring station were engaged to place the body in a spring cart and convey it away. The bushrangers paid them approximately £2 each for the task.
The journey was interrupted two days later when Cowra police encountered the cart. They took possession of the body and conveyed it to Carcoar, where a post-mortem examination and inquest were held.
Burke was subsequently buried near his family home. Found upon him was a small red bag containing an ambrotype portrait of an unidentified young girl—a private relic that contrasted sharply with the violent circumstances of his death.
The attack transformed the gang. Burke’s death had an immediate effect upon John Vane. The two had been companions since childhood, and Vane later wrote:
“Now that blood had been spilt, I felt I had had enough of the game.”
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| Caroline Keightley |
It also brought an extraordinary government response. On 26 October the reward was increased to £1,000 each for Gilbert, Hall, O’Meally and Vane—£4,000 in total, with additional rewards for their accomplices. A contemporary telegram described the attack as an “affray with Gilbert’s gang” and recorded the £500 ransom. Lyttelton Times, 19 November 1863.
By the end of October, Gilbert had moved far beyond the role of Gardiner’s youthful horseman. He had become one of the most recognisable members of a mobile company capable of:
defeating and disarming mounted police;
punishing informers;
occupying stations for hours;
riding into Bathurst on market night;
controlling Canowindra for three days;
and attacking the fortified home of a government officer.
The eight-week campaign also exposed the limits of the gang’s methods. Bathurst produced little booty and nearly trapped them. The prolonge Canowindra occupations advertised their movements. At Dunn’s Plains, armed resistance was believed to have killed Burke and turned an intended robbery into a siege, abduction and ransom.
Gilbert survived October, but the five-man company did not. Burke was dead, He was approximately twenty years old. Vane was preparing to leave, and within another month O’Meally would be killed at Goimbla. The audacity of September and October 1863 represented the gang at its greatest numerical strength—and the beginning of its disintegration.
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| John Vane c.1900 |
Gilbert, Hall, and O’Meally nevertheless continued. In early November they appeared again at Canowindra, arriving at Robinson’s hotel around half past one in the morning. This time the party was smaller. They said Vane had left them and that they felt safer with fewer men. Hall entered with two revolvers, while Gilbert and O’Meally stood by. They drank, took port wine and Old Tom gin, offered a £5 note that Robinson could not change, and warned him not to mention the visit because they wanted to “clear out” quietly. The tone was different from the earlier Canowindra occupation. The swagger remained, but the gang was now more guarded.
Soon afterwards, near Eugowra, Gilbert, Hall, and O’Meally narrowly escaped police pursuit. Draymen recognised Gilbert and greeted him by name, and Gilbert ordered breakfast and horse feed. Seven troopers approached, and Gilbert gave the alarm: “To saddle!” Hall’s horse became bogged, and Gilbert and O’Meally drew up beside him, each with revolvers in hand, ready to cover him. The police came within about twenty yards and fired, but missed. Hall freed his horse, and the three escaped. The episode shows Gilbert’s loyalty under pressure: he did not abandon Hall when Hall’s horse failed.
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| David Henry Campbell |
Campbell’s resistance made him a marked man. Threats had reportedly reached him, and he kept loaded firearms within the homestead. The attack of 19 November was therefore not simply a search for money. Contemporary reporting regarded it as an act of vengeance against a landholder who had openly challenged the gang.
Shortly before nine o’clock that Thursday evening, Campbell was seated in the dining room his wife Amelia was putting their children to bed when he heard footsteps beneath the front verandah. Suspecting danger, he seized one of two loaded double-barrelled guns kept near the fireplace and moved towards the adjoining bedroom.
A bushranger appeared at the doorway and fired at him. Campbell returned the shot, causing the man to retreat around the corner of the house and rejoin his companions near the front entrance.
The attackers were Gilbert, Hall and O’Meally.
William recovered sufficiently to crawl or run towards the oat field behind the buildings. From there he observed the firing before making his way on foot to Eugowra to raise the alarm.
Inside the homestead, Amelia Campbell played a decisive role. Assisting her husband she retrieved a second gun and ammunition from the dining room and carried them to her husband while shots were striking the building around her.
She then left by the rear and crossed approximately one hundred yards of open ground to a hut occupied by four station hands. She appealed to the men to help defend the house, but they refused to become involved. Their refusal may have arisen from fear, sympathy with the bushrangers or concern about later retaliation.
Amelia returned to the homestead without their assistance. She continued supplying Campbell with firearms and ammunition and observing the movements of the attackers.
The evidence does not allow every shot to be assigned confidently to a particular bushranger. Gilbert, Hall and O’Meally spread around the homestead, fired upon the doors and windows and attempted to prevent the occupants from moving between the buildings.
Unable to force an entrance, they set fire to a hay-filled barn or shed and the adjoining stables. The flames illuminated the homestead and surrounding yards while destroying Campbell’s fodder, equipment and valuable horses. Campbell called upon the bushrangers to release the animals, but they refused. At least one prized racehorse perished in the fire.
The burning buildings served two purposes. They inflicted deliberate punishment upon Campbell and provided enough light for the bushrangers to observe anyone leaving the house. The same light, however, made the attackers visible.
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| The Death of John O'Meally. By Patrick William Marony 1858-1939 |
The man was O’Meally. Campbell fired, striking him in the neck. O’Meally fell or staggered into the crop beyond the fence. Hall and Gilbert returned several shots while retreating. One later account suggests they briefly attempted to assist their wounded companion, but the injury was fatal. They ultimately abandoned him and disappeared into the darkness.
Before finally leaving the station, the two survivors were reportedly heard near one of the huts, cursing the Campbells and threatening revenge. A female servant later told Amelia that one man regretted not having shot “the woman,” while the other ordered him to be quiet and attend to their escape.
The shooting continued intermittently until approximately eleven o’clock. Campbell waited for about half an hour after the last shots before cautiously examining the yard.
Hall and Gilbert had escaped without obtaining money or property. Their attack had instead cost them another companion and destroyed the illusion that the gang could intimidate every household into submission.
Goimbla was the second fatal reverse suffered by Gilbert’s company in less than a month. At Dunn’s Plains, Burke had died while attacking Keightley’s house. At Goimbla, O’Meally was killed while the gang burned Campbell’s property.
Gilbert’s conduct in escaping should not necessarily be interpreted as cowardice or abandonment. O’Meally had received a catastrophic wound, the buildings were ablaze, William Campbell had escaped to summon assistance and the bushrangers could not know when police or armed neighbours would arrive. Remaining at the station would have risked the deaths or capture of all three.
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| Amelia Campbell |
The authorities hoped Goimbla would finally break the gang. Newspaper reports predicted that Gilbert and Hall, deprived of their closest companions and confronted by determined settlers, could not remain at large much longer.
The expectation proved premature, but the change was real. Gilbert and Hall temporarily disappeared from public view and no longer conducted the sustained series of large-scale raids seen in September and October.
The National Museum of Australia records her conduct as central to the successful defence of Goimbla. The community later presented her with an engraved silver coffee urn and other testimonials recognising her courage.
The expectation proved premature, but the change was real. Gilbert and Hall temporarily disappeared from public view and no longer conducted the sustained series of large-scale raids seen in September and October.
December is one of the least documented periods in Gilbert’s career. No major armed robbery during that month can be securely attributed to him from the available contemporary evidence.
Newspapers continued reporting rumours:
Gilbert and Hall had separated;
Gilbert had crossed towards Victoria;
the pair were hiding in the Weddin or Nangar ranges;
one or both were wounded or ill;
they were recruiting a new gang;
or they had abandoned bushranging altogether.
These claims were generally unsupported. In a district where unknown horsemen were routinely identified as famous bushrangers, Gilbert’s name was attached to robberies on slight evidence. The absence of confirmed activity is more significant than the rumours.
The most likely explanation is that Hall and Gilbert deliberately lay quiet following Goimbla. Police pressure was intense, the £1,000 rewards made movement dangerous, and the two men had lost three companions within a month. They needed shelter, information, horses and time to reconsider their position.
Gilbert possibly visited Victoria in early 1864, not necessarily during December 1863. The precise date of his departure is not established, so it would be unsafe to place him in Victoria throughout December.
There is also a chronological problem in later gang histories. James Mount and James Dunleavy joined Hall in early 1864. November and December did not produce the abundance of robberies seen during the previous two months. Instead, they completed the destruction of Gilbert’s first great gang.
The sequence was severe:
24 October: Micky Burke was killed at Dunn’s Plains.
4 November: Gilbert, Hall and O’Meally briefly revisited Canowindra.
18–19 November: John Vane surrendered through Father McCarthy.
19 November: O’Meally was shot dead at Goimbla.
December: Hall and Gilbert largely disappeared from confirmed public view.
By the close of 1863, Gilbert had survived every disaster that had overtaken his companions. His cheerful and theatrical confidence had not deserted him permanently, but the circumstances of his career had changed. He was no longer one of five heavily armed men able to take possession of towns and stations. He and Hall had become fugitives operating in a narrower and increasingly suspicious world.
The lull was temporary. Gilbert would reappear in 1864, renew his partnership with Hall and eventually join with the younger and more violent John Dunn.
The death of John O’Meally at Goimbla on 19 November 1863 broke apart what remained of the gang that had dominated the western districts. Michael Burke had died at Dunn’s Plains less than a month earlier, and John Vane had withdrawn and was preparing to surrender. By December, only Ben Hall and Johnny Gilbert remained together.
Their last substantial and reliably documented hold-up before their separation occurred near Burrowa at the beginning of December 1863.
On Tuesday morning, 1 December, Hall and Gilbert appeared at the premises of James Coffey, approximately three miles from Burrowa. Coffey worked as a blacksmith and also kept a small store beside the road. The bushrangers arrived at about ten o’clock, ordered breakfast and began stopping everyone who passed.
Travellers were challenged and directed into Coffey’s place until the number detained reportedly reached about forty men, women and children. Several were shearers working in the district. Rather than conducting a rapid robbery, Hall and Gilbert occupied the premises for several hours, questioning travellers, drinking and distributing Coffey’s liquor among the prisoners.
A young man named Campbell refused their command to stop and galloped away. Hall mounted and pursued him but failed to overtake him. One account claimed Hall fired after Campbell, although the earliest report merely records the unsuccessful chase.
Gilbert took particular charge of a travelling pawnbroker or hawker, Aaron Steenbhorn. He drove the frightened man away from the house and into the bush. Steenbhorn apparently believed he was about to be tied to a tree and abandoned, and begged to be permitted to kiss his wife before being taken away. Gilbert jokingly told him that the farewell could wait until his return.
Gilbert searched Steenbhorn and took a £1 note. Another pound was reportedly taken from one of the shearers. Coffey subsequently claimed that the bushrangers had taken £30 from him, although later legal proceedings raised questions about the exact relationship between Coffey and the gang.
The bushrangers were particularly interested in when the shearers would receive their wages. They took one of Campbell’s men with them and questioned him about the coming payday. After learning that the men were to be paid on the following day, Hall and Gilbert released him within a short distance of Coffey’s house.
Their conduct inside was characteristically theatrical. At one stage they removed their revolvers, placed them upon a table and walked about apparently unarmed. Gilbert, whose lower face was partly covered by a comforter, joked freely with the prisoners. Hall wore no disguise and appeared markedly different in temperament: the correspondent described him as “sullen and reserved.”
Their horses were noticeably jaded, suggesting sustained travel or police pressure. The next day Hall and Gilbert were said to have chased Mr Poplin’s son, who was riding an exceptionally good horse. The young man escaped. On Thursday morning the two bushrangers were seen between Burrowa and Bendenine, where they emerged from the bush to examine a traveller but allowed him to pass. Hall was then riding a notably fine horse, prompting speculation that the pair had obtained a remount after leaving Coffey’s.
The fullest contemporary version was published by the Yass Courier and widely reprinted, including in New Zealand’s Lyttelton Times, 5 January 1864.
The hold-up acquired a more complicated significance when Steenbhorn attempted to use several £5 notes obtained during a recent transaction with Mrs Coffey. The notes were identified as part of the ransom paid for Henry Keightley’s release after the fatal attack at Dunn’s Plains.
Mrs Coffey had purchased a spring cart from Steenbhorn for £33. After paying him, she became anxious to recover the notes, offering first to cancel the sale and then to pay interest if he returned or lent back the money. Her concern aroused suspicion that she had learned the notes were traceable.
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| Ben Hall c. 1862 |
After the Coffey affair, the joint trail of Hall and Gilbert disappeared. There is no securely documented series of Gilbert robberies during the remainder of December 1863.
For several months the newspapers could offer little more than conjecture. The silence was noticed almost immediately. A Cowra correspondent, quoted in the Yass Courier on 2 January 1864, observed that conditions had become quieter “since Gilbert and Hall left this district.” Their departure had allowed some recovery in local trade. While the gang remained nearby, travellers had avoided the tracks of the Lachlan as far as Cowra and taking lengthy detours, found safer stores, inns and other businesses happy with passing traffic. However, for some months Hall was not seen in Gilbert's company.
Hall appears to have returned towards his familiar country around the Wheogo and the Pinnacle. Reports placed him near relatives and old associates. Gilbert’s destination was considerably less certain. The two men were no longer seen together, but the reason for their separation was unknown. It is possible that the deaths of Burke and O’Meally brought starkly home their own mortality, forcing a split.
Rumour abouded that the pair had quarreled but there is no firm evidence of any disagreement. Bushrangers regularly separated to avoid attracting attention, obtain provisions or visit different networks of sympathisers.
However, the first credible indication that Gilbert was still in the district came on the evening of 18 January 1864.
According to a private letter from Burrowa, Gilbert entered a store situated only a short distance from the police station. He purchased tobacco, Crimean shirts and several other articles—and paid for them. There was no reported threat, display of firearms or attempt at robbery. These items may have been for a long ride out of the Lachlan.
The incident was published in the Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser on 9 February:
It was a small event, but an important one. It places Gilbert near Burrowa on 18 January and suggests that he was then travelling without Hall. His willingness to enter a store near the police station also demonstrates the strength of his local intelligence. He evidently believed he could make the purchase and depart before anyone raised an effective alarm.
Because neither Hall nor Gilbert was committing the conspicuous robberies associated with the former gang, rumour substituted for observation.
On 20 January the Courier reported that Hall and Gilbert had supposedly joined Daniel Morgan and two other men, thereby forming another powerful gang. The newspaper immediately questioned the story, saying that criminal circles believed Gilbert would “scorn the notion” of associating with Morgan.
The alleged partnership had no foundation. Morgan remained active principally in the Riverina, while Hall and Gilbert operated through the Lachlan, Burrowa and Young districts. No reliable witness ever placed Morgan in their company. The report reveals more about colonial anxiety than it does about the bushrangers’ actual movements.
By the beginning of February, Gilbert’s continued absence produced darker rumours. The Marengo correspondent of the Yass Courier recorded several contradictory versions:
Gilbert had travelled north into the “new country.”
Hall had shot Gilbert dead during the dispute.
Gilbert had accidentally shot himself while “skylarking” with a settler’s daughters.
He had lingered for ten or twelve hours, refused medical assistance and been secretly buried.
The accidental-death story claimed that one of Gilbert’s numerous revolvers discharged and sent a ball into his abdomen. Knowing the wound was fatal, he supposedly declared that there was no use calling a doctor. The correspondent did not endorse the tale but acknowledged that many local people believed some version of it.
The rumours were accompanied by the assertion that Hall and Gilbert were, in thieves’ language, “pals no longer.” This much was substantially correct: Hall had begun operating without him. The supposed death, however, was false.
A later report from Marengo, dated 22 March 1864, supplied what may have been the foundation of the death stories. After making inquiries among people believed to know Gilbert’s movements, the correspondent concluded that he had suffered a pistol wound but was alive, recovering and preparing to travel north.
The precise circumstances of the wound were never satisfactorily established. It may have been accidental, as local rumour maintained, or the entire injury story may have served to conceal his movements. What is important is that people close to Gilbert appear to have encouraged contradictory accounts—dead, buried, wounded, retired or gone north—each of which diverted police attention.
Later biographical accounts state that Gilbert went to Victoria early in 1864. Such a journey was plausible. His father and other members of the Gilbert family lived in Victoria, particularly around Taradale, Kilmore and the Coliban district. Gilbert had travelled south after the Eugowra robbery in 1862 and knew routes by which he could cross the Murray without attracting attention.
Gilbert’s own statement does not provide dates, and it may contain his usual bravado. Nevertheless, it supports the early reports that he had travelled north. A reasonable reconstruction is that he remained around Burrowa or Marengo through at least 18 January, subsequently moved north—possibly after recovering from illness or injury—and spent part of the following months in Queensland. A Victorian visit remains possible, but it is not documented with comparable contemporary testimony.
Through January 1864, Gilbert’s documented record is therefore much shorter than later retellings sometimes suggest:
However, Gilbert had not retired, but for several months he ceased to live publicly as a highwayman. Hall continued without him and began drawing new men into his orbit. When Gilbert eventually returned to Hall’s side, his appearance was treated by the newspapers not merely as another sighting but as the re-emergence of a man whom many had come to believe was dead.
Furthermore, a fuller admission came during a mass hold-up late in 1864. Hall, Gilbert and Dunn detained numerous travellers for several hours, giving their prisoners ample opportunity to observe their appearance and listen to their conversation. One captive, described by the correspondent as an intelligent young man, paid particular attention to everything the bushrangers said and did.
The witness noticed that Gilbert’s appearance had changed markedly. He no longer possessed the fresh, clear complexion by which some people had formerly recognised him. His face was deeply browned by exposure, and the skin was peeling in several places.
This is the strongest contemporary evidence for Gilbert’s Queensland journey. It was not police speculation or a later family tradition; it was a statement reportedly made by Gilbert himself and repeated by a man held captive long enough to observe him closely. His observations were published in the Yass Courier and reprinted in the Sydney Empire on 20 December 1864.
During that pursuit his horse began to fail. For an outlaw travelling through unfamiliar country, a knocked-up horse could be fatal. Gilbert could no longer rely upon speed, so he dismounted, faced the two pursuing police officers and challenged them to approach.
According to his version, the officers stopped at a distance. The parties exchanged words—“jawed a bit,” as the report expressed it—before the police withdrew. Doubtful?
The story was unmistakably Gilbert’s: bold, mocking and constructed to present him as the superior man. He cast himself as the solitary outlaw whose willingness to fight overcame two armed police officers. It cannot be independently verified, and Gilbert may have embellished the encounter for the benefit of his captive audience. Nevertheless, its practical details are credible. A failing horse would have forced him to choose between surrender, flight on foot and an armed stand. The pursuing officers, uncertain whether other bushrangers were concealed nearby, may have been unwilling to close upon a man known to carry several revolvers.
Gilbert said nothing about the other two pursuits. Nor did the report identify the Queensland police districts concerned, the dates of the encounters or the name under which he travelled.
Gilbert’s route and destination remain unknown.
One possibility is that he travelled north through Dubbo and the country beyond the Castlereagh and Barwon rivers, following inland stock routes into southern Queensland. Such routes were used by cattlemen, horse-dealers, carriers and fugitives and would have allowed an experienced stockman to travel without appearing wholly out of place.
Queensland also offered connections with the older Gardiner network. Frank Gardiner had escaped there after the Eugowra robbery and established himself at Apis Creek, near Rockhampton, under an assumed identity. Gardiner was arrested in March 1864, during the period in which Gilbert was absent from New South Wales.
There is, however, no evidence that Gilbert visited Gardiner or assisted him. Gardiner’s location was meant to be secret, and contemporary reports suggested that he and Gilbert had parted on unfriendly terms after Eugowra. The coincidence of the two men being in Queensland during early 1864 is intriguing but does not establish contact.
Gilbert may instead have travelled only into the southern portion of the colony, remaining around stations where itinerant stockmen could find work, food and information. His excellent horsemanship and earlier experience with cattle would have provided a credible disguise. Away from the Lachlan, his face was less familiar, and Queensland newspapers and police did not possess the rapid photographic identification systems of a later age.
The alteration in his complexion supports a lengthy period of exposed travel. When he spoke of the journey in December, his face was heavily sunburned and peeling. This suggests weeks or months spent riding in warmer northern country rather than a brief visit across the colonial border. He claaime that he was knocked up starving and his horse on its last legs.
Nevertheless, Gilbert’s own reported admission specifically named Queensland. Unless the captive or newspaper correspondent misunderstood him, Queensland must form part of any reliable account of his 1864 absence. What cannot safely be asserted is that he spent the whole interval there.
The most defensible chronology is:
* Gilbert remained with Hall until early December 1863.
* He was still near Burrowa on 18 January 1864.
* He subsequently withdrew from active bushranging and travelled north.
* He spent an unidentified period in Queensland, where he claimed police pursued him three times.
* By June 1864 he had returned to New South Wales and reunited with Hall.
* When questioned about his absence at Mutbilly, he said that he had been “lying by.”
* In December 1864 he openly acknowledged that he had “not long returned from Queensland.”
By the time Gilbert discussed Queensland, the old partnership had been remade in a more dangerous form. Hall and Gilbert had recruited the youthful John Dunn, and the three were conducting sustained operations along the southern roads.
The witness who recorded Gilbert’s admission described him and Dunn as cheerful and composed, their waistcoats hung with gold watch chains like prosperous young stockmen. Hall appeared more serious and anxious. All three carried six large revolvers in their belts and repeatedly declared that they would never surrender but would fight to the last.
Gilbert also used the occasion to justify his recent killing of Sergeant Edmund Parry near Jugiong. He claimed that Parry had pretended to surrender and then fired when Gilbert approached to receive his weapons. The statement was self-serving, but its inclusion shows the character of the conversation. Gilbert was not merely entertaining his captives with stories of distant Queensland. He was constructing his own history: the outlaw who had out-stared Queensland police, returned to the roads, defeated his enemies and would never be taken alive.
His journey north had therefore been an interlude rather than an escape from bushranging. It gave him time to disappear while the immediate consequences of Goimbla subsided, but it did not alter the course of his life. By June 1864 he was back beside Hall, and within weeks his name was attached to the death of a policeman. The Queensland sun remained visible upon his face, but the temporary separation had ended.
It came at Bang Bang, near Koorawatha, on the road to the Burrangong races.
The uncertainty ended at Bang Bang, near Koorawatha, on the road between Cowra and the Burrangong goldfields. The contemporary report appeared beneath the emphatic heading:
Ben Hall's Gang at Bang Bang - the reappearance of John Gilbert: The account came from an extraordinary edition of the Burrangong Star, dated 28 May 1864, and was subsequently reprinted in newspapers across the colonies. As it describes the encounter as occurring on “Wednesday afternoon,” its implied date is Thursday, 26 May, contemporary dating favours 25 May.
Last night, about 10 o'clock, two travellers arrived at the .Gap Hotel (Mr. Chew's), and stated that they had been, stuck-up by Ben Hall and two other men near Koorowatha (Bang Bang). Hall took from them 1/. Hall then said to his men "Come on, lads, quick! or we'll be too late to nail 'Union Jack".(a racer that had passed a short time before under escort).' So off they all galloped.
On Wednesday afternoon, about three o’clock two men, one named Myers, in the employ of Mr. Courtis, confectioner, of Burrowa street, were returning from Cowra races with a horse and cart, containing the remainder of the pastry they took there for sale, when, having arrived at a part of the road between one and two miles on this side of Bang Bang, they were stuck up by Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert, and a tall elderly man, and robbed of £6, being the proceeds of the confectionery sent by their employer for sale at the races. After eating some of the pastry, Ben Hall remarked “that it was devilish dry stuff, and they would go and get a nobbler to wash it down.”
However, the bushrangers’ interest in Bang Bang was probably not accidental. The Burrangong races were approaching, and some of the finest horses in the western districts were being moved towards the meeting. Such animals were valuable not merely as trophies. Superior blood horses gave bushrangers an enormous practical advantage over mounted police, whose heavier and frequently inferior animals often failed during long pursuits.
Senior Mounted Constables Scott and Macnamara had left Bathurst on the preceding Tuesday. They reached Carcoar that night, travelled through Canowindra the following day and arrived at Cowra on Thursday. Receiving no further orders from their headquarters, they decided to accompany several valuable racehorses for part of the journey from Cowra towards Burrangong.
The horses included Alec Wilson’s Dick Turpin and Jemmy Martin, Mr Skillicorn’s Duke of Athol, and Harry Croft’s Hollyhock and Bergamot. The newspaper described all five as first-class animals.
On Friday morning the party left Cowra. During the afternoon they halted at the Bang Bang Hotel, where the racehorses were placed in the stable or yard and the constables allowed their own mounts to feed. The police horses were therefore unbridled when the bushrangers appeared.
Shortly after five o’clock, Mr Ayliffe, who was associated with one or two of the racehorses, sat with several men beneath the hotel verandah. Three splendidly mounted horsemen came down towards the premises. Each carried several revolvers together with a carbine or rifle.
They were Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert and an older accomplice known in the first reports only as “the old man.” The newspaper suggested that the third man might be a ticket-of-leave holder known as “Long White.” Later histories generally identified him as James Gordon, James Mount or “Old Man” Gordon, but the contemporary identification was uncertain.
The three rode directly upon the hotel and covered the men beneath the verandah with their firearms. They ordered everyone to throw up their hands. Resistance appeared impossible, and the command was obeyed.
Hall, who was recognised by several of those present, remained near the hotel. He gathered the household, patrons, and others about the premises into one group and guarded them. The number detained was given as approximately twenty.
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| Bang Bang Stables |
The bushrangers had evidently expected to find valuable racehorses, but they had not anticipated finding two armed police officers beside them.
Gilbert and his companion remained mounted at the gateway. One presented a carbine and the other a revolver.
“Leave them horses!” one of them called.
The constables did not immediately respond, perhaps because they were dressed in plain clothes and hoped that the intruders had not recognised them as police. The demand was repeated more forcefully:
“I say once more—leave them horses!”
Scott and Macnamara reached towards the revolvers carried in their belts. Gilbert immediately warned them:
“Take your hands out of that, you wretches, or I’ll blow your brains out!”
Without waiting for compliance, he fired three shots.
None struck its target. Scott and Macnamara drew their revolvers and returned fire.
The sudden resistance changed the entire affair. What had begun as another effortless seizure of horses became a close-range gunfight. The constables possessed only revolvers, while the bushrangers carried long arms as well as multiple pistols. Yet Scott and Macnamara did not withdraw. After receiving approximately seven shots at a distance of about thirty yards, they began advancing towards the gateway.
Hall and the older man slowly withdrew as the constables came forward. Gilbert remained near the fence and maintained a crossfire, attempting to hold the police back while his companions gained distance.
This action is important in assessing Gilbert’s return. Far from “turning tail” at the first resistance, as John Vane sometimes accused him of doing, Gilbert initially remained exposed and covered the retreat. Only when Scott and Macnamara reached the fence did he abandon his position and join the older bushranger.
Macnamara remained at the gateway, keeping Gilbert and the older man away from the yard and the valuable horses. Scott turned his attention to Hall, who was retreating along the road.
Hall fired repeatedly from the saddle, lowering his revolver to his thigh after each shot before raising it again. Scott pursued him and attempted to steady his own aim by resting his revolver across his left arm.
One of Scott’s shots passed extraordinarily close. Hall’s hat was knocked from his head—or jerked violently by the ball while retained by its string. Hall immediately put his hand to his head and shouted an oath. Contemporary observers believed for a moment that he had been wounded.
Hall nevertheless continued until he was beyond effective revolver range. Scott then abandoned the pursuit and returned towards the hotel.
Gilbert and the older bushranger had not yet completely departed. They remained hovering at a distance, possibly hoping that the police might expose themselves or that another opportunity to reach the racehorses would arise.
When Scott returned, the older man dismounted behind a fence approximately 350 yards away. With remarkable deliberation, he raised his carbine, aimed at the constable and shouted:
“Take that, you wretch!”
The shot struck the ground near Scott and ricocheted into the public house. During the exchange one of the bushrangers fired at the persons standing at the door of the inn, and a bullet passed through the dress of a female who had incautiously exposed herself.
The bushrangers then withdrew farther, fired one final shot and rode away. Hall called out that they would return directly. The threat was taken seriously. Scott and Macnamara expected the gang to reload beyond the hotel and renew the attack.
The occupants barricaded the hotel doors. The only additional firearm available within the house was an old double-barrelled gun, which they loaded with slugs. A messenger was sent towards Cowra to request assistance. The stable and house bear the marks of several of the balls that went through to the bar of the hotel, and on the slabs of the stable.
The defenders remained on watch throughout the evening. Midnight arrived before Sir Frederick Pottinger appeared with four troopers. By then the bushrangers had abandoned any intention of returning.
Two of Pottinger’s men were sent back the following morning. Shortly after daylight, Scott and Macnamara resumed their journey with the racehorses and reached Young safely at about five o’clock that evening. Pottinger searched the surrounding bush but found no trace of the gang.
Inspector Singleton also dispatched a party towards Bang Bang. Authorities feared Hall and Gilbert might attempt to seize racehorses. At the same time, they were being exercised at Burrangong, additional police were stationed at the racecourse for the remainder of the meeting.
The newspaper remarked bitterly that conditions had reached the point where first-class horses could not be moved even a short distance between townships without an armed escort.
Witnesses described the bushrangers as exceptionally well mounted, armed and dressed.
Hall rode a fine chestnut with one white foot. His companions rode a black and a bay. Each man reportedly carried three revolvers in addition to a carbine or rifle.
Gilbert’s appearance was considered unmistakable. He was young, fashionably dressed and possessed the “foppish” manner already associated with him. He wore a black sac coat, black hat and breeches. His identification was consequently treated with much greater confidence than the identification of the older man.
The newspaper praised Scott and Macnamara for their courage. They had been surprised while their horses were unbridled, confronted by three men carrying superior weapons and subjected to fire at approximately thirty yards. Nevertheless, they advanced, protected the racehorses and drove the gang away.
Between twenty-five and thirty shots were attributed to the bushrangers. Scott and Macnamara fired only nine, conserving their limited ammunition for closer targets. Despite the intensity of the exchange, nobody was wounded.
The bushrangers took neither the racehorses nor ordinary plunder. The report concluded that “not a shilling” was taken from any person detained at the hotel. Hall’s company had been completely frustrated by the unexpected presence and determination of the two constables.
Bang Bang was important because it provided the first strong public evidence that Johnny Gilbert had returned to active bushranging beside Hall. The newspaper did not present his presence as speculation. Its heading announced his “re-appearance,” while witnesses considered his youthful face, clothing and manner too familiar to mistake.
That does not settle every question concerning his earlier disappearance. Gilbert later claimed that he had spent time in Queensland and had been pursued there three times by police. Other accounts placed him in Victoria, recovering from illness or lying concealed among friends in New South Wales. Bang Bang establishes only that, by late May 1864, he was again in the southern districts and had resumed his partnership with Hall.
Nor did the reunion immediately restore a stable gang. Reports soon became confused about whether Gilbert remained with Hall or had again separated. A young horse-thief named Daniel Ryan was occasionally mistaken for him, while James Gordon/James Mount, John Dunleavy and other temporary companions appeared beside Hall during the succeeding months.
Nevertheless, at Bang Bang the old partnership was unmistakably visible. Gilbert returned not quietly but with three revolvers at his belt, a long firearm in hand and his sights fixed upon some of the finest horses travelling to Burrangong. His first public appearance after months of rumour failed, but it demonstrated that he was alive, mounted and once again prepared to exchange shots with the police.
John Gilbert’s reappearance beside Ben Hall at Bang Bang in late May 1864 was dramatic. Still, it did not lead immediately to a continuous series of robberies that can be securely attributed to him. During June and July the newspapers repeatedly used expressions such as “Hall’s gang,” “Hall and two mates,” or “Hall, Gilbert and their gang,” often without witnesses positively identifying every participant. The distinction matters because Hall was then employing several temporary companions, particularly James Mount—also known as Gordon or “the Old Man”—and James Dunleavy.
At about five o’clock on the evening of 27 May 1864, Hall, Gilbert and an older companion entered the grounds of the Bang Bang inn near Koorawatha. The encounter publicly confirmed Gilbert’s return. Now he was seen and recognised in an armed confrontation conducted in front of numerous witnesses. The contemporary report described him as youthful and almost dandified in appearance, wearing a black sack coat, dark hat and breeches—Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Chronicle, 4 June 1864.
What followed, however, is less certain.
Within days of Bang Bang, Hall and two companions stopped Roberts’s coach at Emu Flat, about six miles beyond Binalong on the Yass road. The robbery occurred on Saturday, 28 May, and was reported during the first days of June.
The passengers were A—Cohen of Yass and Michael Curran, a mail driver returning from the Young races. George Miller drove the coach. Curran concealed his watch and chain but was discovered attempting to hide twenty-one £1 notes. Hall took the money, a nugget pin and a valuable rug, giving Curran his poncho in exchange. He afterwards returned £2 and the pin.
Cohen surrendered two notes but pointed out that his blank cheque and silver were useless to the robbers. He invited Hall to search him, although Hall apparently declined. Miller lost a meerschaum pipe but received an ordinary black one in exchange; his silver Geneva watch was examined and contemptuously returned.
The coach was detained for several hours while passing travellers, and a team bound for Lambing Flat were also stopped. Cases on the dray were broken open and selected goods removed. Hall complained of the police conduct at Bang Bang and threatened to shoot police officers in future. Later that evening shots were exchanged with the escort accompanying the Binalong–Yass mail.
Despite its proximity to Bang Bang, the report specifically said the younger of Hall’s two companions was “not thought to be Gilbert.” The older man was described as very tall and believed to be a ticket-of-leave holder. He was probably James Mount or Gordon. It is therefore unsafe to place Gilbert at Emu Flat merely because he had been with Hall the previous day. Sydney Morning Herald, 3 June 1864.
This is the first indication that Gilbert and Hall were not continuously together. Their partnership remained active, but each could separate from the other, seek shelter independently and ride with temporary recruits.
On 13 June, Hall and companions robbed the residence of D. C. Clement near Billabong, taking firearms and other property. The incident subsequently appeared in the official return of offences associated with Hall and Gilbert, but the individual participants were not named in the surviving summary.
The wording of that official return is important. Its heading described offences committed by “Hall and Gilbert, in company with others,” yet the Billabong robbery appeared under the separate subheading “Hall and Others.” It consequently proves an offence by Hall’s company, not Gilbert’s personal presence.
The taking of firearms suggests the gang was replenishing the weapons and supplies expended or abandoned during its recent movements. After the prolonged shooting at Bang Bang and the continuing threat of police pursuit, firearms, ammunition and sound horses were more immediately useful than indiscriminate plunder.
On Tuesday, 21 June—reported in some later summaries as 22 or 27 June—Hall and two armed companions quietly entered John Pierce’s store at Canowindra. Unlike the gang’s spectacular occupation of the township in 1863, the men entered without attracting general notice and found Pierce alone.
They demanded his money. Pierce surrendered approximately £10, together with boots, waistcoats and other goods. Believing that he was concealing a larger sum, the bushrangers searched the premises and turned their attention to his ledgers. Portions of the account books were burned in an effort to frighten him into revealing where his money was hidden.
When that produced no result, they took Pierce approximately six miles into the bush and bound his hands behind a tree. Bayonets were reportedly fixed, and he was told that he must obtain £300 from his brother at Carcoar or be killed where he stood. Pierce continued to insist that the money could not be procured. Eventually the bushrangers accepted that further intimidation was useless and released him.
The robbery was accompanied by further destruction. Reports said the gang went to a neighbouring property—variously printed as Rothery’s or Rothsay’s—took horses and burned a substantial haystack, supposedly as a warning to persons suspected of supplying information to the police. Contemporary accounts described the attack as a mixture of robbery, attempted ransom and retaliation—Empire, 1 July 1864; contemporary report reprinted in Bell’s Life, 2 July 1864.
Gilbert is often included in modern accounts of this incident, but later court proceedings point elsewhere. James Mount, alias Gordon, was subsequently charged with participating in the robbery with Hall and another man and was sentenced to twenty-five years. That makes Mount one of the two companions. The third man was not conclusively established in the reports presently available.
Gilbert’s participation therefore remains possible, but it should not be stated as settled fact. A careful narrative would say:
Hall and two companions—one subsequently identified as James Mount, and the other sometimes assumed to have been Gilbert—robbed Pierce’s store and attempted to extort a ransom from him.
Following the Canowindra raid, mounted police moved through the Belubula and Lachlan country, but reports supplied little dependable information about Gilbert. His name retained such power that almost every group of three mounted men was liable to be described as “Hall, Gilbert and another.”
This created a circular problem. Newspapers assumed that Gilbert was with Hall because Hall had been seen; later writers then treated those newspaper assumptions as positive sightings of Gilbert. In reality, the descriptions often fit Mount better: an older, conspicuously tall man who temporarily operated as Hall’s second companion.
Gilbert may have been lying quietly in the Weddin country, visiting friends around Marengo or moving independently between the Lachlan and Burrangong districts. There is no reliable contemporary evidence that he had again left the colony. His appearance at Bang Bang establishes that he was back in New South Wales, but the evidence does not trace his movements continuously afterwards.
The official police return next attributed an offence to Hall’s party on 13 July. Hall and his companions robbed J. Grant’s station on the Belubula River and took a horse.
Unfortunately, the official return contains no further particulars: it does not record what other property was taken, whether the inhabitants were confined, what conversation passed, or who accompanied Hall. Once again, the offence was placed under “Hall and Others,” not under the section identifying Gilbert personally.
The official list, prepared after the deaths of Hall and Gilbert, records:
“July 13.—Robbed Mr. J. Grant’s station, at Belubula River, and stole a horse.”
“July 24: Horses stolen from Clieften Station of Mr Rothery, twenty tons of hay burnt.”
This is presently the strongest documentary statement concerning the incident. Police return reprinted as “Offences of Hall and Gilbert,” The Colonist, 11 July 1865.
Gilbert may have been present, but no surviving detailed witness account positively places him there.
After the Belubula robbery, Hall’s movements again became obscure. No major offence during the remainder of July can be assigned to Gilbert with confidence. Reports circulated of suspicious horse riders, stolen horses and bush telegraphs carrying information between the Lachlan settlements, but Gilbert was not positively identified in a substantial robbery. Hall was riding exclusively with Dunleavy and Mount.
However, this comparative silence does not necessarily mean inactivity. Bushrangers needed periods in which to rest horses, obtain ammunition, visit sympathetic households, arrange remounts and watch police movements. Gilbert also had reason to proceed cautiously after his unmistakable recognition at Bang Bang. He had returned to the colony’s attention in the most public manner possible and could no longer benefit from rumours that he was dead or absent.
The official police compilation is revealing. Between the Bang Bang confrontation and August, it lists three offences by “Hall and Others”:
13 June: Clement’s house near Billabong robbed of firearms and other property.
21–22 June: Pierce’s store at Canowindra robbed and portions of the account books burned.
13 July: Grant’s station on the Belubula robbed and a horse stolen.
It does not list a separate, unequivocally identified Gilbert offence during June or July 1864—official police return.
By the close of July, Gilbert had demonstrably resumed his connection with Hall but had not yet returned to the almost continuous public prominence he would attain later in the year. Bang Bang proved he was back. What followed was a looser phase in which Hall rode with shifting companions and Gilbert’s whereabouts were intermittently concealed.
This was not necessarily a formal separation. Hall’s gang was never a fixed military body. Its membership expanded and contracted according to opportunity, personal confidence, the availability of horses and the degree of police pressure. Gilbert could be Hall’s principal associate without being present at every offence count and another companion whose identity was not always established. Gilbert remained committed under Hall’s name.
The safest conclusion is therefore that June and July 1864 were transitional months. Gilbert had re-entered Hall’s orbit, exchanged fire with police and restored his reputation as an active outlaw. Yet much of the subsequent work at Billabong, Canowindra and the Belubula appears to have been carried out by Hall with James Mewhere within the gang’s wider network. Still, the contemporary record does not place him securely at each robbery.
By August, police attention again tightened around the Weddin country. Hall’s company stole horses and equipment at Wheogo and exchanged shots with pursuing constables. During September and October, Gilbert’s presence beside Hall would again become much clearer, culminating in the renewed mail robberies and the formation of the later Hall–Gilbert–Dunn combination.
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| AI Generated image |
Note: The image on the right is an AI generated likeness of John Dunn based on his description gazetted in the NSW Police Gazette 1864.
Like many native-born youths of the district, he learned to ride almost as soon as he could work. He was employed at different times tending or working stock and acquired a reputation as a horse-breaker and jockey. A former employer, William Marshall, later remembered employing Dunn to shepherd cattle on the Burrangong Flat before he took to the roads.
Dunn’s riding ability became the central feature of almost every early description of him. The Yass correspondent of the Goulburn Argus called him one of the best riders in New South Wales. An acquaintance jokingly claimed that, if Dunn and his horse were placed upon the roof of a house in Cooma Street, Yass, he could ride across the roofs to the far end of the town.
The exaggeration nevertheless captures his local reputation. At the Yass annual races Dunn rode the Binalong horse Ringleader successfully. Country racing gave him more than a public reputation: it taught him which horses possessed speed and endurance, where valuable animals were kept and how they might be moved between districts without attracting immediate suspicion.
The colonial press later regretted that so gifted a horseman had not directed his abilities towards “something more ennobling.” That judgement was written after he became notorious, but it identifies the quality that made him immediately useful to Hall and Gilbert. Their survival depended upon obtaining, judging and exchanging superior horses.
The decisive influence upon Dunn before he joined Hall was his friendship with Daniel Ryan, another Murrumburrah-area youth already associated with horse stealing.
The sequence reconstructed by the contemporary Yass correspondent began after one of the Murrumburrah race meetings. A racehorse connected with Dunn’s companion, a young man named Kennedy, had been taken or had disappeared. Kennedy maintained that another youth with a reputation for horse stealing was responsible and learned through the Government Gazette that the animal had been impounded at Erlington.
Kennedy and Dunn rode into Yass late one evening seeking directions to the pound. Their appearance immediately attracted police attention. They wore what the correspondent called bushranging dress: high Napoleon boots and ponchos fashioned from blankets and ornamented with bars or stars. Kennedy explained the business concerning the horse, obtained the necessary directions and departed with Dunn.
After recovering the animal, they rode back towards Murrumburrah. At Gunning, however, Dunn separated from Kennedy and made for Pudman Creek. There he joined Daniel Ryan.
Ryan’s family already had a reputation among the authorities. His brother was described in the press as one of the district’s most accomplished horse thieves. Dunn’s association with Ryan therefore placed him within a network in which stolen horses, secluded huts and warnings about police movements were readily available.
Dunn and Ryan soon passed from suspicious horse dealings into armed robbery. They stopped and robbed drays near Pudman Creek and were subsequently arrested and taken to Burrowa.
The precise evidence produced at their preliminary hearing has not survived in the readily available newspaper summary, but the offence was treated as robbery under arms. Both young men were committed to stand trial at the Yass General Sessions.
Despite the seriousness of the charge, the Burrowa magistrates admitted them to bail. The decision was bitterly criticised after Dunn absconded. The correspondent considered it extraordinary that men committed for an armed roadside robbery should have been released when they possessed the horses, local connections and bush knowledge necessary to disappear.
Dunn was now in a dangerous position. Until then his record appears to have consisted principally of horse stealing, questionable associations and the Pudman robbery. Had he appeared for trial, he might have been convicted and imprisoned, but his life would not necessarily have been ruined beyond recovery. His decision to abscond converted him into a fugitive and placed him directly upon the road to Hall.
When the Yass General Sessions opened, Ryan answered to his bail, but Dunn did not.
Because the principal defendants were not both present, the Crown Prosecutor agreed to postpone Ryan’s trial and accept fresh bail from him. He then asked Judge Meymott to entreat Dunn’s recognisances and issue a bench warrant for his arrest. The application was granted.
The Yass correspondent believed Dunn was actually in or close to Yass while this occurred. According to his information, Dunn learned that the warrant had been issued, mounted his horse and rode out to join Ben Hall and Hall’s current companion, Dunleavy, who were then operating only a short distance from the town.
This is the closest contemporary evidence to an account of Dunn’s actual “joining.” It was not described as a ceremonial recruitment or a chance meeting with the complete Hall–Gilbert gang. Dunn apparently went deliberately to Hall because the warrant had made his continued life among the settled population precarious.
The distinction matters. Gilbert was reportedly not with Hall at that exact moment. Dunn initially joined Hall and Dunleavy; Gilbert returned shortly afterwards. The familiar trio of Hall, Gilbert and Dunn was therefore created by convergence rather than by a single recruitment meeting. However Dunleavy disillusioned with bushranging surrendered much to Halls anger to Father McCarthy who in November 1863 escorted Vane to authorities.
The correspondent’s claim about Dunn’s movements was based upon local information rather than sworn testimony. It should consequently be expressed as the most persuasive contemporary account, not as an independently proved fact. The bench warrant, Dunn’s disappearance and his almost immediate appearance beside Hall strongly support it.
Hall’s company was undergoing another change in membership. John O’Meally and Micky Burke were dead, John Vane had surrendered, and several of Hall’s subsequent associates had been arrested or driven away. James Mount and Dunleavy had temporarily filled the vacancies, but both were soon removed from the field.
Dunn offered Hall precisely what was needed:
* He knew the country between Murrumburrah, Burrowa, Binalong, Gunning and Yass.
* He understood the locations and qualities of valuable station and racing horses.
* He had friends and relatives across the district.
* He was already wanted for an armed offence and therefore had little incentive to approach the police.
* Above all, he was an exceptionally confident rider.
There is no reliable evidence that Hall or Gilbert recruited him because they admired an established record of violence. In October 1864 Dunn was not yet the hardened figure represented in later legend. He was seventeen years old, approaching his eighteenth birthday, and had only recently crossed from horse theft into armed robbery.
His horsemanship and local connections, rather than proven ferocity, were probably his initial qualifications.
The earliest well-supported identification of Dunn acting with both Hall and Gilbert occurred on Monday, 24 October 1864.
Frederick Chisholm of Grogan and A. A. Jones of Wagga Wagga were travelling by buggy towards Goulburn. Near Mutbilly or on the Breadalbane Plains, approximately fifteen to twenty miles from Goulburn, three armed horsemen stopped them.
Chisholm recognised Ben Hall and Johnny Gilbert. The third was identified as Dunn, described in the newspaper report as the young man committed for trial at the Yass sessions who had failed to appear.
The gang took £3 from Chisholm. Jones had no money. Chisholm expressed surprise at seeing Gilbert, Gilbert replied that he had been “lying by” and had now returned to the road.
These robberies mark the beginning of the partnership recognisable as Hall’s final gang. A contemporary summary records:
Once identified with Hall and Gilbert, Dunn did not remain a subordinate horse-holder. Within days he was participating fully in the gang’s operations.
The three robbed travellers and coaches along the southern road, by the middle of November they had effectively occupied sections of the principal southern road.
Dunn’s riding ability was repeatedly apparent. He served as scout, chased travellers, gathered prisoners and sought replacement horses. Later observers still detected something youthful in him. He was described as mild-looking, with a soft and pleasing voice. That appearance sat uneasily beside his conduct.
Dunn’s emergence as a bushranger is sometimes reduced to the claim that Hall and Gilbert recruited a brilliant young jockey. The evidence presents a more complicated progression.
His horsemanship brought him into the racing and horse-dealing world from which many bushranging connections developed. Friendship with Daniel Ryan drew him towards horse theft and armed robbery, and the warrant drove—or allowed—him to make the final choice of seeking Hall’s protection.
Late in October—usually dated 24 October—Hall, Gilbert and Dunn entered the Gunning district. They had reportedly passed the previous night near Lodge’s place at Breadalbane, sleeping at or near a shepherd’s hut before moving onto the main road.
At about half-past eight the following morning they stopped Frederick Chisholm and A. G. Jones of Wagga. The gang took approximately £3 from Chisholm. Jones carried no money, and his watch was inspected but dismissed as too cheap to be worth taking.
Chisholm was travelling to the assizes to give evidence against a man named Doyle. Hall rebuked him for the journey, saying that he had come a long way to “lag”—or give evidence against—a man.
Chisholm was more interested in Gilbert. He had heard the report that the bushranger had drowned in the Barwon and expressed surprise at finding him alive. Gilbert replied that he had been “lying by for a time, but was now coming out again.”
That declaration marks his unmistakable reappearance. His absence had not been retirement, flight or death. It had been a period of concealment.
Hall told Chisholm that they intended to stop the Yass mail. The travellers were released only after promising not to give information until they reached Goulburn.
At approximately nine o’clock the gang entered Bean’s inn at Frankfield, within a few miles of Gunning, and detained everyone present. Mrs Bean was relieved of between £2 and £3 in silver.
Tom Bean attempted to escape and warn the Gunning police. Gilbert saw him, pursued him and headed him off. He threatened to hang Bean for trying to raise the alarm, although the threat was not carried out.
Among those detained was a young Mr Wildash, a nephew of Mr Hassall. The gang questioned him about his uncle’s property: was Hassall worth robbing, and did he possess any good horses? Wildash answered both questions negatively. The bushrangers nevertheless compelled him to accompany them as far as the Fish River crossing before allowing him to return.
The down mail arrived at about eleven o’clock. Gilbert, Hall and Dunn ordered it to stop and brought its passengers into the growing collection of prisoners. Four Germans were among the travellers. One possessed a gun and was sharply warned by Gilbert not to touch it.
The robbery proved disappointing. Although the passengers reportedly concealed nearly £70 between them, the gang discovered only about £9. There were few mailbags, and these yielded little. One report said the only negotiable money found in the correspondence was half of a £5 note.
A German passenger was ordered to gather up the opened letters and return them to a mailbag. The coach was detained for approximately an hour and a half.
The driver tried to conceal his watch, but Gilbert noticed the movement and assured him that the gang intended to take nothing from him. Gilbert then asked for a pipe. The driver supplied a piece of fig tobacco and a knife; Gilbert filled his pipe and returned both the remaining tobacco and the knife.
Hall surveyed the meagre proceeds and complained that the robbery would not pay the gang’s travelling expenses. The raid was presented partly as a demonstration that they were not confined to their customary Lachlan refuges. According to the Goulburn Argus, Hall said they had made the journey to disprove a correspondent’s claim that they dared not venture far from their own country.
After releasing the coach, the gang compelled young Bean to guide them towards Baltinglass, the property of Robert Grosvenor. Grosvenor was stopped and held under guard about a mile down the river.
The robbery there was concerned largely with horses and equipment. The bushrangers encountered a young man named Allan and took his horse, saddle and bridle. They also exchanged one of their worn saddles for Grosvenor’s better one, leaving their inferior equipment behind.
Bean lost his boots, but the transaction was given the appearance of a compulsory purchase: the gang paid him twenty-five shillings. Such payment did not make the seizure voluntary. Still, it fitted the pose repeatedly adopted by Hall and Gilbert—that they were borrowing or purchasing what armed intimidation enabled them to take.
The gang remained near Gunning that night. On Tuesday they were reported around Dalton and Jerrawa, where they learned that police had been several hours ahead of them. By Tuesday night they were near Bango and apparently turning back towards their familiar country. Captain Zouch arrived at Gunning with two mounted men, but the newspaper caustically reported that he “looked about him and went home again.”
On or about 27 October, the bushrangers appeared at Bagan Bagan, near Murrumburrah, where they robbed Mr Macansh’s—or McCaush’s—store. Jewellery and other portable property were taken. An official chronology also records the robbery of a Chinese traveller of money and a gold watch during the same movement, a dray carrying a party of Chinese travellers. The newspaper employed the period’s customary collective and derogatory language, giving none of the victims individual names. The men were searched and relieved of whatever money the gang could find. The account carefully added that they were not physically ill-used.
The gang then stopped a dray carrying a party of Chinese travellers. The newspaper employed the period’s customary collective and derogatory language, giving none of the victims individual names. The men were searched and relieved of whatever money the gang could find. The account carefully added that they were not physically ill-used.
This qualification should not disguise the reality of the encounter. Armed men surrounded the travellers, searched, robbed and prevented them from continuing their journey. Their vulnerability was increased by the racial prejudice of the period: newspapers generally treated attacks upon Chinese miners, gardeners and travellers as minor incidents unless someone was seriously wounded or killed.
Hall and Gilbert did not immediately release them. Instead, the Chinese travellers were detained beside the road while the gang waited for a greater prize—the approaching mail from Gundagai.
When the Gundagai mail came into sight, the driver was ordered to stop, and its occupants were added to those already detained. The mailbags were removed and opened while the Chinese travellers and other prisoners remained under guard.
This was one of several attacks upon the southern mails during the period, and it should not be confused with the fatal encounter near Jugiong on 16 November. The late-October or early-November robbery ended without bloodshed. The gang searched the correspondence for banknotes, cheques and other valuables, then released the mail and those detained.
An official return places a related mail robbery on 29 October, when Hall’s gang stopped the Albury–Yass mail, robbed a store at Jugiong and stole two horses. It is possible that newspaper accounts combined several closely connected incidents along the same road. What is certain is that Gilbert, Hall and Dunn were repeatedly moving between Murrumburrah, Jugiong, Yass and Goulburn, using the mails both as a source of money and as a public demonstration that the police could not protect the colony’s principal highway—officially.
Their spoils were often disappointing. Much of the correspondence contained nothing negotiable, cheques could be stopped, and travellers had become increasingly adept at hiding watches and money before the coach entered dangerous country. By now the Money Order regime was operating, allowing funds to be sent electronically, offering safety and assurance. Yet each robbery delayed physical communications, embarrassed the authorities and allowed the gang to gather intelligence from letters and prisoners.
During the first half of November, the gang’s attention shifted towards Goulburn. An official summary credits them with an extraordinary sequence:
* 8 November: Rossiville robbed.
* 9 November: the Sydney mail stopped about six miles from Goulburn.
* 11 November: the Yass–Goulburn mail robbed.
This concentration of robberies demonstrated the gang’s mobility. They had left their customary Lachlan country and were operating on the heavily travelled roads around one of the colony’s largest inland centres.
At about eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, 8 November, Hall and Gilbert rode into Rossiville, approximately three and a half miles from Goulburn. The property belonged to Francis Robert Louis Rossi, commonly styled Captain Rossi, the son of the colony’s former Principal Superintendent of Police.
John Dunn was not named as entering the house. If he accompanied them, he may have remained outside with the horses; the contemporary report positively identified only Hall and Gilbert.
Mr and Mrs Rossi were away from home, accompanying the Bishop of Goulburn on a tour through the south-western part of the diocese. Their absence left the house in the care of servants.
Hall and Gilbert entered and ordered supper to be prepared. While the servants attended to the meal, the bushrangers began searching the house. They found the keys and made a close examination of rooms, drawers, boxes and cupboards.
The search was thorough but largely unsuccessful. Anticipating possible robbery during the family’s absence, the Rossi household had apparently removed its plate, jewellery and more valuable property into Goulburn for safekeeping. Hall and Gilbert found only a few trinkets which they considered worth carrying away.
Gilbert’s attention turned to Rossi’s wardrobe. He selected a pair of new Bedford-cord breeches or trousers and a pair of Napoleon boots. Having put them on, he displayed himself before those present and asked whether the clothes did not suit him admirably.
The moment was characteristic of Gilbert. Even while committing an armed burglary, he remained concerned with appearance and performance. Clothes, jewellery and fine horses formed part of the “flash” identity he cultivated. The stolen garments were not merely practical necessities but articles in which he could parade his success.
Hall and Gilbert remained at Rossiville until about ten o’clock. Before departing, they went to the stables and took three horses: two carriage horses recently sold to Augustus Morris, M.P., but not yet removed from the property, and Rossi’s grey Arab. They also carried away a rifle, two saddles and several smaller articles.
Because the servants could not be certain that the bushrangers had truly gone, some time passed before they dared raise the alarm. At about eleven o’clock Mr Jordan, the overseer living nearby, was informed. Police and troopers came out from Goulburn’s Old Township and reached Rossiville later that night. They began searching at daylight but failed to find the robbers.
The raid had an obvious symbolic quality. Rossiville was closely associated with a family whose name had been prominent in colonial policing. Hall and Gilbert had entered it within sight of Goulburn, ordered the servants to feed them, searched the residence and ridden away on its best horses.
The following morning the gang was again active on the Sydney road. The official return records the robbery of the Sydney mail approximately six miles from Goulburn on 9 November. Two days later, on 11 November, the Yass–Goulburn mail was also stopped.
These repeated attacks suggest deliberate persistence rather than accidental encounters. Hall and Gilbert were demonstrating that they could remain close to Goulburn despite the concentration of police in the district. Fresh horses taken from Rossiville gave them the speed to move between the Sydney and Yass roads before patrols could determine which direction they had taken.
Dunn’s precise role in these individual robberies is less consistently reported. He had joined Hall and Gilbert by late October. He was unquestionably with them during the subsequent Jugiong operations, but the Rossiville witnesses saw only Hall and Gilbert inside the house.
The Chinese dray, the repeated mail robberies and the raid upon Rossiville belong to the same widening campaign, but not to one uninterrupted day. Between late October and mid-November 1864, Hall, Gilbert and Dunn ranged from Bagan Bagan and Murrumburrah through Jugiong and Yass to the immediate outskirts of Goulburn.
Gilbert was central to the campaign. At Rossiville he displayed the theatrical vanity familiar from earlier robberies, dressing himself in Rossi’s new trousers and boots. On the roads he helped hold entire collections of travellers under guard. At Black Springs, less than ten days after the Rossiville raid, that same confidence culminated in his decision to charge Sergeant Parry.
The incidents marked Gilbert’s complete return to public bushranging. He had finished “lying by.” With Dunn now beside him, the joking and display increasingly gave way to a readiness to meet the police with lethal force.
On Tuesday, 15 November 1864, Ben Hall, John Gilbert and John Dunn stopped the Gundagai–Yass mail at Deep Creek, about five miles on the Yass side of Jugiong. Shortly before five o’clock, as the coach climbed a hill, James Sheahan, the Jugiong mail contractor, and Mr Bradbury of Queanbeyan alighted to walk. Sheahan was pointing out where an earlier robbery had occurred when three mounted men appeared over the rise.
Hall rode in the centre, with Gilbert and Dunn on either flank. They spread across the road, presented their revolvers and ordered the travellers to bail up. Sheahan folded his arms and answered, “All right,” while Bradbury raised his hands. Hall took charge of Sheahan, Dunn searched Bradbury, and Gilbert stopped the coach.
The travellers were conducted to a roadside gathering that Hall called their “little township.” The occupants of twelve teams, several horsemen and other travellers had already been detained there. Hall accepted Sheahan’s assurance that he carried no money and did not search him, remarking that he was not a “bad sort.” Bradbury’s cheque for £1 was returned to him as travelling money.
The bushrangers opened six mailbags and sat on the ground sorting the correspondence. Bradbury observed that they worked faster than the Sydney postal officials. Sheahan gathered discarded cheques and three bank drafts, which he later delivered to the Yass post office. During the detention, a teamster produced port wine in a quart pot. Gilbert paid half a crown to a man who had held his horse and encouraged Sheahan to reward the man watching the coach horses.
After about an hour, the coach was released. It reached Yass only thirty minutes behind schedule, and Sub-Inspector Brennan rode out with two troopers soon after the news arrived. The gang had disappeared, but remained in the district. The following day they would again intercept the mail, this time with fatal consequences. The first robbery was described in the Sydney Morning Herald of 22 November 1864.
Early on Wednesday, 16 November, Hall, Gilbert and Dunn established themselves at Black Springs, approximately four miles south of Jugiong. Throughout the morning they stopped passing teamsters, horsemen and other travellers. By the time the mail approached, between forty and sixty people had reportedly been detained overlooking the road, together with twelve teams and two carts. Among the captives were members of the Hayes family, a son of Owen Ryan and a sizeable party of Chinese travellers.
Before the coach arrived, Constable James McLaughlin of Gundagai approached while leading a packhorse. Gilbert rode out and ordered him to surrender. McLaughlin answered with his revolver. Gilbert returned fire and drew away, while Hall and Dunn joined the engagement.
McLaughlin discharged all six chambers as he attempted to reach cover where he could reload. According to contemporary accounts, the bushrangers fired between nine and twelve shots at him. Hall’s horse stumbled during the exchange, and Dunn later acknowledged that one of the constable’s shots had come close. Once McLaughlin’s revolver was empty, however, he was intercepted and forced to surrender. The gang disarmed him, took approximately £7 10s and placed him among the other prisoners.
At about ten minutes before three, the Gundagai–Yass mail came into view. Police Magistrate Mr Rose travelled inside the coach, while Constable Roche of Yass sat on the box with a carbine, a revolver and two pistols. Sub-Inspector O’Neill and Sergeant Edmund Parry followed on horseback.
Rose apparently recognised the danger and waved a handkerchief for the mounted escort to close upon the vehicle. At first, the sight of police caused the bushrangers to draw back. Gilbert then saw that only two mounted officers were following the coach and urged his companions to attack. The three wheeled their horses and charged 'but seeing there were only two policemen they drew their revolvers, and rode back to meet them, screaming like madmen', with Hall and Dunn engaging O’Neill while Gilbert confronted Parry.
Roche left the coach with his firearms and ran towards the shelter of Pring’s paddock. The timing and circumstances of his withdrawal would later be disputed, but he provided no effective support during the decisive exchange.
Gilbert and Parry fought from horseback, exchanging revolver shots while the other men engaged nearby. Gilbert repeatedly called upon the sergeant to surrender. Parry refused and continued firing.
“Gilbert called upon him to surrender. Parry said he would die first, when Gilbert shot him dead.”
The two fired shot for shot. Parry was first wounded in the head, but refused to surrender. Having fired every shot in his revolver, he was in the act of unslinging his carbine when Gilbert fired again. The ball entered his back on the left side, passed through his body, and the brave fellow fell from his horse a corpse.
The accounts differ over the precise sequence of his wounds. The earliest report stated that he was shot through the left shoulder and fell dead. A later, more detailed reconstruction described an initial wound to the back of his head, after which he continued resisting, emptied his revolver and attempted to bring his carbine into action. Gilbert then fired again, striking him through the body. O’Neill subsequently understood that Parry had received two mortal wounds.
Despite these differences, the reports agree on the essential circumstances: Parry resisted Gilbert’s demands to surrender and was shot dead during their exchange. He was thirty-two years old.
Gilbert reportedly turned the body over and described Parry as a “game fellow,” expressing regret at having killed him. Later versions enlarged upon these remarks, presenting Gilbert as reluctant to shoot a brave opponent. Such words, where reported, were nevertheless his own response to a death caused during an attack that he and his companions had initiated.
Meanwhile, O’Neill had fired his carbine at Hall. After discharging it, he reportedly threw the weapon at him, striking him heavily on the side of the head, before drawing his revolver and turning upon Dunn. During the mounted struggle, O’Neill’s horse collided with, or was forced against, a tree, nearly unseating him. Hall and Dunn fired repeatedly. Bullets struck or passed through his clothing, but he escaped without a disabling wound.
When his ammunition was exhausted, O’Neill saw that Parry had fallen. With Hall and Dunn still armed and Gilbert now free to join them, he surrendered. The bushrangers took his chain and a ring but spared his watch after he explained that it had belonged to his father. They also seized his horse, judging it suitable for use as a pack animal.
With Parry dead, O’Neill and McLaughlin disarmed, and Roche absent from the road, the gang returned to the coach. Hall ordered the mailbags thrown down. They were cut open and searched while the assembled travellers remained under guard. Rose lost his watch and chain, and other passengers were searched. Women appear not to have been personally searched, although their belongings remained exposed to the robbery.
The bushrangers boasted that they would stop the following day’s mail and challenged the authorities to send more police. Gilbert also taunted McLaughlin, asking how he would feel if pursued by a man such as himself. Coming after Parry’s death, the remark carried a threat quite different from the banter exchanged with captives the previous afternoon.
Hall, Gilbert and Dunn eventually collected their horses and left. The scattered correspondence was gathered for forwarding towards Sydney, and Parry’s body was placed on a dray and taken into Jugiong.
Brennan and two troopers met the coach several miles from the township and rode to the scene. They attempted to follow the gang’s tracks, but approaching darkness prevented an effective pursuit. They returned to Yass on Thursday morning. Further police parties were sent out, including men who had only recently returned from another unsuccessful search.
At the inquiry conducted by Rose at Jugiong, the jury found that Edmund Parry had died from a gunshot wound deliberately inflicted by John Gilbert, with Ben Hall and John Dunn present, aiding and abetting him. The finding distinguished Gilbert’s conduct from that of his companions while holding all three responsible for the killing.
Parry’s remains were taken to Gundagai on Thursday. According to the contemporary telegram, his funeral took place on Friday, 18 November. Businesses suspended operations, and a large part of the town attended. He had joined the New South Wales police on 5 May 1862, become a full constable that July, and subsequently served as a detective before promotion to second-class sergeant in 1864.
Roche’s withdrawal produced a separate controversy. One account stated that Rose had discouraged him from firing from the crowded coach because of the danger to its occupants. Roche maintained that he retreated only after Parry had fallen and O’Neill appeared overwhelmed. O’Neill, however, believed that Roche’s assistance might have saved Parry and enabled the police to shoot Gilbert.
These conflicting accounts leave room for uncertainty about Roche’s first opportunity to act. They do not alter the fact that he withdrew with several firearms without materially assisting the mounted escort. He was subsequently charged with deserting his post and fined £5; reports also indicate that his police career ended over the affair.
For Gilbert, Black Springs added a charge of murder to his existing notoriety for armed robbery, horse stealing and attacks upon police. The killing strengthened demands for more vigorous action against the gang. It was not Gilbert's first participation in a shooting causing death when in company with Lowry in July 1863 they shot dead a miner named McBride.
Poor M'Bride still stood up, moving round the tree, marking his tracks with his life's blood, till, firing his last shot through Lowry's hat, he fell, exhausted and dying. Gilbert then dismounted, rifled the dying man's pockets, and, taking his revolver, the two rode off laughing. Having gone about one hundred yards, they met some other persons and told them to give up their money quietly or they would serve them as they had the "brave" lying against the tree, whom they had just "settled."
However, five months later, Parry’s murder was among the offences cited in the formal summons requiring Gilbert, Hall and Dunn to surrender, a preliminary step towards outlawry proceedings under the Felons Apprehension Act.
In the immediate aftermath, however, the three remained together and continued operating across the southern districts. They took fresh horses, supplies and money, moving between properties and watching the roads for police. The encounter at Black Springs had cost a sergeant his life and exposed the gang to renewed pursuit, but it had not brought their robberies to an end.
On 19 November, three days after Parry’s death, the gang was credited with taking three horses from Bolero station. Fresh mounts were essential. Their horses had been ridden hard during the successive mail robberies and the encounter at Black Springs, and the increased police response made speed more important than ever.
During the remainder of November reports of the gang’s whereabouts became confused. Police parties searched the roads between Jugiong, Gundagai, Yass, Young and Goulburn, while rumours placed the bushrangers in several districts at once. Some sightings were almost certainly false. What remained clear was that Gilbert had not left the gang and that the three men continued to move between the southern road and the Burrangong goldfield country.
The public reaction to Parry’s death was intense. Newspapers contrasted the sergeant’s refusal to surrender with Gilbert’s decision to shoot him. Constable Roche, who had left the coach during the encounter, was prosecuted for deserting his post and fined £5 at Yass on 29 November. Gilbert, Hall and Dunn consequently understood that the authorities could no longer treat their activities as another sequence of property offences. Their apprehension had become a matter of colonial urgency.
By early December the three bushrangers were operating again around Young and the smaller gold workings outside the town. On 10 December they were reported to have taken property from Mr McLaughlin of Young.
A more detailed contemporary account describes the gang occupying a road between the Fourteen and Sixteen Mile Rushes. Their apparent purpose was to intercept storekeepers and gold buyers returning from the outlying diggings with their collections.
At about ten o’clock in the morning, George and James Taylor, sons of Frederick Taylor, were riding between the two rushes when a horseman suddenly descended the side of a steep range and ordered them to stand.
The rider was John Dunn. Although armed, he told the young men not to be frightened and directed them up the hill. Beyond its crest they found approximately twenty people already detained under the supervision of Hall and Gilbert.
The position had been chosen carefully. The crest allowed the bushrangers to watch the road while keeping their prisoners concealed from approaching travellers. Anyone passing below could be intercepted before seeing the number already held.
The detention continued for several hours. Gilbert and Dunn alternately rode down from the hill, stopped travellers and brought them back to the gathering. At times they went out together, leaving Hall to guard the captives.
The gang’s behaviour combined hospitality with coercion. At about eleven o’clock Dunn complained of hunger. Hall directed a carrier named Henry to produce six or seven dozen eggs from his cart so that everyone might eat. One prisoner was sent for water, another made a fire, and the eggs were boiled and rolled out for the assembled company. Gilbert produced bread and divided it among those willing to accept it.
The meal later contributed to the popular image of Hall’s gang as generous highwaymen who fed their prisoners. The reality was less romantic. The food belonged to one of the people detained, and the meal took place beneath the authority of loaded revolvers. The captives ate because the gang had converted an isolated roadside position into a temporary prison.
As the day passed, Gilbert and Dunn continued bringing in travellers. By approximately three o’clock the number detained had risen to around forty. One witness remained with the gang for six hours and closely observed the three men.
Gilbert and Dunn appeared remarkably cheerful. They joked, talked freely and seemed to enjoy the excitement of repeatedly descending the hill and returning with new prisoners. Their waistcoats were decorated with several gold watch chains, likely taken during earlier robberies. To the witness, they resembled prosperous, ostentatiously dressed young stockmen rather than fugitives wanted for murder.
Hall presented a marked contrast. He appeared serious and anxious. While Gilbert and Dunn displayed their jewellery and treated the detention as an adventure, Hall seemed conscious of the danger surrounding them.
Gilbert’s physical appearance also showed the effects of life in the open. His complexion had become deeply browned, and the skin was reportedly peeling in places from exposure to the sun. His former fresh expression had disappeared. Depending upon which of the two younger men the observer meant, Gilbert may have been the one whose hair hung nearly to his shoulders; Dunn wore his in shorter curls.
All three were heavily armed. The witness believed each carried as many as six large revolvers in his belt. The number may have been exaggerated by the conspicuous arrangement of their weapons, but the observation confirms that they were prepared for a sustained engagement rather than a simple display of one or two pistols.
During the detention, the three men reportedly declared that they would never surrender and intended to fight to the last. For Gilbert, now wanted for Parry’s murder, the statement was more than ordinary bravado. Surrender meant a probable conviction and execution.
Gilbert’s cheerful behaviour after Jugiong should not be mistaken for an absence of strain. It was consistent with the public character he cultivated throughout his career. Where Hall became watchful and withdrawn, Gilbert often answered danger with display—fine clothing, gold chains, jokes, horseplay and ostentatious confidence.
His conduct may also have been deliberately reassuring. Forty prisoners were easier to control if the detention appeared orderly and almost convivial. Bread, boiled eggs and conversation helped prevent panic or collective resistance. Gilbert’s good humour was therefore both temperamental and useful.
Yet the assertion that the gang would never be taken alive revealed what lay beneath the performance. Gilbert knew that every police encounter might now become a fight to the death.
After operating around the Young diggings, Hall, Gilbert and Dunn moved towards the Goulburn district. Their ability to cross the country despite numerous patrols depended upon a continuous supply of horses and intelligence.
The gang’s movements placed them near the principal southern road, the colony’s main line of communication between Sydney, Goulburn, Yass, Gundagai and the settlements farther south. Mail coaches carried correspondence, money and valuables, while the surrounding traffic supplied numerous individual victims.
By the middle of December reports placed the three men around Laggan, Crookwell and the approaches to Goulburn. Their next large operation occurred on 19 December between Towrang and Shelley’s Flats.
On Monday, 19 December 1864, Hall, Gilbert and Dunn took possession of a section of the Great Southern Road south of Goulburn. They stopped the Goulburn mail and detained travellers, teams and vehicles near the hills overlooking the road towards Shelley’s Flats.
The method resembled their recent operation near Young. Travellers were taken from the road and gathered where approaching traffic could not immediately see them. The gang could then send one or two riders forward while another guarded the growing number of prisoners.
For a time the road belonged to them. The up-coach was stopped, searched and eventually permitted to continue towards Goulburn. Its passengers warned those travelling in the opposite direction that Hall’s gang was waiting ahead.
Among those travelling from Goulburn towards Sydney was William John Macleay, the parliamentary representative for the Murrumbidgee. Macleay had recently returned from Wagga Wagga and already knew that Hall, Gilbert and Dunn were operating on the road.
He nevertheless continued his journey in a buggy driven by a boy. Unlike most of the gang’s victims, Macleay was well armed. He carried a Tranter revolver and a Tranter revolving rifle capable of firing several shots before reloading.
At Towrang and at other points towards Shelley’s Flats, travellers warned him that the bushrangers were immediately ahead. When he met the released coach, its passengers pointed towards the hill where the gang had detained teams and numerous people.
They urged Macleay to turn back. Some suggested that, if he insisted upon proceeding, he should at least send his firearms back to Goulburn rather than risk losing them to the gang. One man, however well armed, appeared to have little chance against three experienced bushrangers.
Macleay refused both suggestions.
Macleay continued forward with the revolving rifle ready. Hall, Gilbert and Dunn could see that the approaching buggy had not halted or turned away despite the warnings carried down the road.
The exact words exchanged are less securely reported than the central outcome. The gang recognised that Macleay was prepared to resist and that his weapon materially altered the odds. An ordinary single-shot carbine could be rushed after its first discharge; a Tranter revolving rifle could maintain rapid fire against several mounted attackers.
To reach the buggy, Gilbert and his companions would have been required to expose themselves across relatively open ground. The contemporary report records: “Mr. Macleay fired one shot at them, apparently without effect.” Police arrived shortly afterwards and pursued the gang, but failed to overtake it. Macleay missed his first shot, but he could fire repeatedly before they closed the distance. The gang withdrew rather than force the confrontation.
The episode did not amount to Macleay single-handedly capturing or decisively defeating the bushrangers. Hall, Gilbert and Dunn remained free and retained the option of leaving whenever an intended robbery became too dangerous. Nevertheless, their retirement ended the immediate blockade and demonstrated that their authority depended heavily upon victims surrendering at the first command.
Charles White later gave the affair a strongly heroic tone, but the main elements are consistent: Macleay knowingly advanced upon a gang holding the road, carried a Tranter revolving rifle and caused the bushrangers to abandon the encounter. The episode is related in White’s History of Australian Bushranging, Volume II.
By the evening of 19 December, Gilbert’s position was markedly different from that which he had occupied before Jugiong.
He remained outwardly confident. Around Young he had joked with prisoners, shared bread, displayed his gold chains and repeatedly ridden out to bring in more captives. Yet he was now a fugitive from a murder charge, travelling with enough weapons for a prolonged gunfight and openly declaring that he would never surrender.
The retreat before Macleay’s rifle also showed the practical limit beneath the gang’s boastfulness. Gilbert was daring, but he was not indifferent to tactical disadvantage. He would attack isolated constables, mail escorts and unprepared travellers, but he did not waste his life upon an opponent who was waiting with a repeating rifle and a clear field of fire.
The period from late November to 19 December therefore reveals two sides of Gilbert. Among unarmed prisoners he remained the animated “Happy Jack,” conspicuously dressed and apparently carefree and demonstrating humour. Faced by determined resistance, he calculated the risk quickly and withdrew. Both qualities—audacity and a strong instinct for self-preservation—had kept him free. After the death of Sergeant Parry, however, the room available for withdrawal was rapidly narrowing.
With the Crookwell and Wheeo district the temporary field of battle with the police the three bushrangers on Boxing Day, 26 December 1864, arrived at Binda. There the publican John Hall was holding a holiday ball at the Flag Hotel. About a hundred people had assembled when Ben Hall, John Gilbert and John Dunn entered and took control of the gathering. Binda’s police were away in Goulburn, having escorted prisoners there, leaving the village without its usual protection.
The bushrangers first visited Edward Morriss’ Flagstaff Store. Morriss, a former policeman, later testified that Ellen Monks and Christina McKinnon were buying crinolines from his wife when the armed men appeared. Hall searched for money, then ordered Morriss and his wife to accompany them to the ball. Mrs Morriss was told to change her dress; their neighbour, Joseph Hadfield, was also brought along. Hall subsequently told Morriss that he had been taken because it was considered dangerous to leave him outside.
At the hotel, the doors were locked and the bushrangers retained the keys. According to Morriss, Hall announced: “Gentlemen and ladies, I won’t hurt anyone here—fiddler, proceed.” Dancing resumed. Witnesses described Hall kissing Christina McKinnon and Gilbert kissing Ellen Monks. Not everyone participated willingly: Mary Morriss testified that she initially refused to dance with Dunn, but he insisted that she must.
Between two and three in the morning, Morriss attempted to organise a rush upon the bushrangers, offering to tackle Hall himself. The plan failed before it could be carried out. Gilbert approached with his revolvers presented, and Morriss escaped through a window. Shots followed him as he ran towards the bushrangers’ horses. Unable to secure the mounts and make off with them, he fled. The early newspaper account could not establish whether someone had betrayed his proposal.
Hall now threatened to burn Morriss’s premises. Mary Morriss begged him to spare their home, but, according to her evidence, he threatened to shoot her or anyone else who followed outside, except the two women accompanying the gang. She appealed separately to Gilbert to save her clothes. He promised to do so.
Morriss had concealed himself in scrub between the hotel and his store. From there, he later said, he watched the gang approach with the three women, Margaret Monks having joined the party. Hall and Gilbert entered the building while Dunn remained mounted outside. Morriss heard boxes being broken open, saw candlelight through the openings and smelt burning kerosene. As the building caught fire, he withdrew farther into cover, afraid that the flames would reveal his hiding place.
By morning, the store, its stock, promissory notes and account books had been destroyed. The earliest report put the debts recorded in the lost books at about £500. Morriss rode to Goulburn to report the outrage and asked to rejoin the police to pursue the men who had ruined him. The report described a man who had considered himself worth £1,000 reduced to little more than the clothes he wore.
The women’s alleged involvement subsequently reached the courts. Morriss accused Christina McKinnon and Ellen Monks of encouraging the burning; he attributed to Margaret a plea to save his wife’s clothing. In February 1865, Margaret was discharged, while Christina and Ellen were committed for trial. Those proceedings recorded the prosecution’s allegations and the decision to send the case forward—not a finding that the two women were guilty.
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| Constable Samuel Nelson |
Towards six o’clock, the gang took possession of Kimberley’s Inn. Hall and Gilbert searched inside while Dunn kept watch outside. Among their captives was one of Nelson’s sons, who had been forced to accompany the bushrangers into the township and was now compelled to hold their horses. His father, meanwhile, received word of the robbery and hurried home to arm himself.
Elizabeth Nelson later described her husband’s departure. He put on his belt, took his loaded carbine with its bayonet attached, and told her, “Now, I am just going to do my best.” He then went towards the inn. It was the last time she saw him alive.
As Nelson approached the fence near Kimberley’s, Dunn emerged from cover, called on him to stand, and fired almost immediately. Nelson staggered into the road. Dunn fired again, and the constable fell, his carbine dropping from his hands. He had been struck in the chest by a shotgun discharge and also wounded in the face. His eldest son, Frederick, approaching from another direction, witnessed the shooting from nearby. Dunn then challenged Frederick and fired at him as he ran away, but missed.
The bushrangers robbed the fallen policeman before leaving. Gilbert took Nelson’s gun-belt, and the gang also carried away his carbine and personal belongings. Dunn had fired the fatal shots; Gilbert’s involvement lay in the armed robbery and the plundering of Nelson’s body, rather than in firing upon him.
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| Nelson's body laid here. |
Dunn would eventually stand trial for Nelson’s murder. Following his capture and conviction, he was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol in March 1866.
By early February, the gang was again reported near Goulburn. On Thursday morning, probably 2 February, Hall, Gilbert and Dunn called at the house of a settler named Osborne on the Wollondilly, about eight miles from town. The report establishes their presence there, although the available account gives little detail about the visit.
On the evening of Friday, 3 February, they appeared at Paddy’s River, also known as Murrumba. There they robbed Jeffery’s Inn and Mrs Murray’s store, then gathered residents at the public house. Some of those detained were required to provide music while the bushrangers drank and danced. The gathering continued into the night, with the armed men controlling proceedings. They did not depart until the early hours of Saturday morning.
The robberies continued that morning. At Hanging Rock, the gang held up the tollgate and watched a police party pass below their position. They then went to Kelly’s Black Horse Inn, about eight miles from Berrima, and robbed it. Their announced intention to raid Berrima prompted preparations in the town to resist them. For the moment, however, the bushrangers remained outside it.
Rather than entering Berrima, Hall, Gilbert and Dunn returned towards Paddy’s River. On the night of 4 February, they demanded supper and accommodation at the house of a settler named Campbell, near the junction with Wingello Creek. They remained there overnight while police lodged only about a quarter of a mile away. Despite that proximity, the gang was not intercepted. At daylight on Sunday, 5 February, the three men left in the direction of Goulburn. The pursuit that followed again failed to overtake them.
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Percy, Reginald, Monty and George Faithfull |
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William Davis Penzig |
The bushrangers surrounded him and pointed their revolvers at his head. Although he carried a revolver in his belt, they addressed him by name and threatened to kill him immediately if he lowered his hands towards it. He was disarmed, relieved of his watch and taken to the coach. The robbery succeeded through surprise and the immediate threat of violence, rather than an exchange of shots with Davis.
Davis’s own letter, dated 5 March, provides a useful contemporary account of his predicament. It began, “I have been stuck-up at last”. He explained that the robbers initially took his watch and gun without noticing the rifle, leaving him hopeful that they would overlook it. The letter was subsequently reproduced in the Maitland Mercury on 11 March.
A separate report, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 13 March, recorded that the bushrangers specifically asked whether he possessed a rifle for which he had paid £20. Davis replied that he had one at home, should they care to see it. The newspaper explained that he actually owned two rifles: a breech-loader at home and the revolving rifle accompanying him. That distinction matters: the reference to £20 should not automatically be treated as an independently established purchase price for the stolen Tranter.
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Mr Penzig holding the Tranter revolving rifle which Johnny Gilbert was using when he was shot dead by Constable Bright at Binalong. |
Note: Mr Penzig was a prolific writer of books covering the bushranger era and was largely responsible for sparking the renaissance of our turbulent colonial history in the early '70s. For this, I thank him for his work.
During the stay for the Gundaroo mail the time was passed in general conversation, in the course of which Gilbert volunteered an account of the Mutbilly affair. We give the bushranger's version for what it is worth:
"Gilbert said that on the morning of their surprise at Mutbilly he and Dunn were undressed and asleep in the barn, while Hall slept under the wall of Byrne's hut. Gilbert was the first to hear the police approaching. Dunn was sleeping heavily. Gilbert endeavoured to arouse his bedfellow by saying, "We are surrounded," and at that moment the head and shoulders of a policeman were seen in the doorway, whereupon Gilbert seized his revolver and fired at the intruder. He then, with a kick, aroused Dunn and fired a second shot. These were the only shots fired.
The police never fired once, but immediately retreated from the door, when Gilbert and Dunn deliberately walked out, and, joined by Hall, the three quietly walked away before the face of their opponents. They did not attempt to run, nor did the police and volunteers attempt to pursue them. Gilbert said that, fully expecting to be followed by the police, they resolved not to waste their strength by running, but to turn and fight if chased.
Dunn was, in fact, hardly wide awake when first surprised, and just outside the barn dropped his revolver in stumbling over a log, but discovering his loss he coolly went back, searched for it, and, finding it, returned to his companions. A little farther on, Dunn fell into a creek, where the police might easily have captured him if they had been so disposed.
As for the arms found by the police, these were not what the bushrangers had thrown away in their flight, but what were on their saddles near their horses.
Gold had to be moved. From the diggings at Araluen, the precious metal was carried by escorted cart down the mountain to Braidwood, and from there to Sydney. It was a journey of some sixty miles through rugged, sparsely settled country—country that offered a thousand hiding places for men who knew it well.
By 1865, the colony's most notorious gang of bushrangers was operating in precisely this district. Ben Hall, a former farmer turned highwayman, had assembled around him a band of desperate men: John Gilbert, a veteran of the earlier Gardiner gang; John Dunn, a hot-headed young man of nineteen; and a shifting cast of associates who came and went as circumstance and opportunity dictated. Together they had robbed mail coaches, bailed up entire townships, and conducted a campaign of terror across the western and southern districts that had left the police force humiliated and the public clamouring for action.
Constable William Burns was one of the men sent to do something about it.
The Araluen gold escort left the valley on Monday morning, 13 March 1865, carrying what contemporary estimates placed at 1,900 ounces of gold—a fortune worth perhaps £7,000 at the time. The wagonette belonged to John Blatchford, the principal gold buyer of the district, a man of considerable standing who had made it his business to know the roads, the people, and the risks of the Araluen trade.
The gang had chosen their position well—the same spot where a bungled attempt had been made to rob the same escort two and a half years earlier. Four men waited in the scrub: Ben Hall, John Gilbert, John Dunn, and a fourth whose identity would never be firmly established. Some later accounts named him Daniel Ryan; others suspected Tom Clarke. The police held warrants for several known characters, but no charge was ever laid against any fourth man for that day's work.
The escort leaders passed without incident. Then, without warning, a single shot cracked through the mountain air.
What happened next became police legend.
Constable Burns heard the shot and wheeled his horse about. Galloping back to the main body, he sprang from the saddle, seized a stone from the roadside, and blocked the wheel of the now-stationary wagonette. Taking position behind the near wheel, with the cart between himself and the attackers, he threw a quantity of cartridges on the ground before him and challenged the bushrangers directly.
One contemporary account records his words: that he would "lose his last breath before they should touch that gold."
The man with the masked face—the fourth member of the gang—had shouted to Gilbert to "shoot that b—— on the cart," meaning Blatchford. The order was followed, but the gold remained.
While Burns held his ground alone with the gold, Constables Stapleton and a colleague whose name was not recorded in the earliest dispatches had left their horses and taken a circuitous route up the range, out of sight of the bushrangers. They intended to reach the summit and cross-fire upon the gang's position.
The flanking fire, combined with Burns's stubborn defence, decided the matter. The bushrangers mounted their horses and fled toward Long Flat, passing close to Mr. Slade's slaughtering yard. They had been engaged for perhaps a quarter of an hour. They carried away nothing.
The gold was preserved intact. Constable Kelly was carried to safety, though his wound was grave; some accounts state he died of his injuries a few days later. Blatchford recovered from his leg wound.
In recognition of his extraordinary bravery, Blatchford later presented Constable Burns with a cheque for £50—a considerable sum in 1865, equivalent to perhaps six months' wages for a working man. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Burns:
“With great gallantry, guarded the escort on the road. He was single handed at the time, and covered with his rifle any of the robbers daring to approach the escort from their cover in the bush."
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The wagonette that carried the Araluen gold Courtesy Peter C Smith |
They had chosen the spot carefully—the same place where a bungled attempt had been made on the same escort two and a half years earlier. The mountain road wound through heavy timber, steep and narrow, with the scrub pressing close on the right-hand side. A man could hide a dozen rifles there and never be seen until it was too late.
The intelligence was good. The Araluen gold escort would leave the valley that morning, carrying perhaps 1,900 ounces of the district's finest alluvial gold. The wagonette belonged to John Blatchford, the principal gold buyer, a man of standing who had made it his business to know the roads and the risks. Four police troopers would ride with it—two ahead, two behind. It was the same routine they had followed for years.
The escort came into view as the sun rose over the mountain. The leaders passed without incident—two troopers riding easy, unaware of what waited in the underwood. Then came the wagonette, Blatchford at the reins, the gold somewhere beneath the seat or in the box behind. Two more police at the rear.
Gilbert gave the signal.
A single shot cracked through the mountain air. Constable John Kelly was observed to suddenly raise both arms and fall from his horse, struck in the chest. The ball had found its mark before a word of warning could be uttered.Then the gang opened fire in earnest. Two bullets struck the side of the wagonette; one ricocheted off the wheel's iron tyre and buried itself in Blatchford's leg. The horses, terrified by the fusillade, bolted up the mountain road at a full gallop. THE LYTTELTON TIMES, 11 APRIL 1865
The masked man—the fourth—shouted to Gilbert: "Shoot that —— on the cart!" meaning Blatchford. A second shot was fired. The bullet passed over Blatchford's head as he jumped down, carrying away a small portion of earth from the bank where he had been sitting.
What happened next was not in the plan.
Constable Burns heard the shot and wheeled his horse about. Galloping back to the main body, he sprang from the saddle, seized a stone from the roadside, and blocked the wheel of the now-stationary wagonette. Taking position behind the near wheel, with the cart between himself and the bushrangers, he threw a quantity of cartridges on the ground before him and challenged them directly.One contemporary account records his words: that he would "lose his last breath before they should touch that gold".
The gang fired again. A dozen shots, perhaps more, from behind the trees. But Burns did not fire back—the numerous large trees on the mountain prevented him from taking aim. He simply held his ground, the gold behind him, the cart between himself and the bushrangers.
Blatchford, bleeding but mobile, ran down the mountain to Norman's public-house, secured a horse, and rode to the police camp to raise the alarm. A telegram was dispatched to Braidwood.
And still Burns stood alone with the gold. FROM THE EVENING POST, 24 MARCH 1865
"Constable Burnes, with great gallantry, guarded the escort on the road. He was single handed at the time, and covered with his rifle any of the robbers daring to approach the escort from their cover in the bush."While Burns held his ground, two other policemen—Constables Stapleton and a colleague whose name was not recorded in the earliest dispatches—had left their horses and taken a circuitous route up the range, out of sight of the bushrangers. Their intention was to gain the summit and cross-fire upon the gang's position.
Gilbert turned instantly, spotted his assailant, and according to the account published in the Braidwood Dispatch and reprinted widely, called out: "You're a —— good shot, take that" — and fired in return, striking Stapleton's horse.
The flanking fire, combined with Burns's stubborn defence, decided the matter. The gang mounted their horses and fled in the direction of Long Flat, passing close to Mr. Slade's slaughtering yard. They had been engaged for perhaps a quarter of an hour.
They carried away nothing. FROM THE BRAIDWOOD DISPATCH, MARCH 1865
"Finding it impossible to dislodge Burns from his post, and fearful of the cool determined spirit displayed in defending his charge, the bushrangers retreated up the range, mounted their horses and were making off."The gold was preserved intact. Constable Kelly was carried to safety, though his wound was grave; some accounts state he died of his injuries a few days later. Blatchford recovered from his leg wound.
The gang's abandoned equipment told its own story. A double-barrelled gun taken from a Mr. Davis was recovered, along with a sledgehammer and axe—tools that had been carried up the mountain for the specific purpose of breaking open the strongbox had the robbery succeeded. FROM THE EVENING POST, 24 MARCH 1865
"The robbers left the double-barrel gun taken from Mr. Davis; also, a sledge hammer and axe, with which they intended to break open the chest containing the gold."
They reached Garry's station at Mylora, five miles from Binalong, on Wednesday, 15 March. They had travelled far and fast from Araluen via Gunning, and their horses were knocked up. After a hearty breakfast at Mr. Garry's expense, they camped that afternoon in his paddock and stole two racehorses, leaving two of their "baked" horses in exchange. It was their invariable practice—"borrowing" horses rather than stealing them permanently. Almost all the horses lifted by the bushrangers were eventually returned to their owners, only a little the worse for wear.The next day they took two horses from John Ryan's station, near Murrumburrah, then camped in one of Alexander Mackay's paddocks on Wallendbeen station, and tried to make plans for the future.
The failure at Majors Creek Mountain proved to be one of the gang's last major exploits.
Five days later, on 18 March, the gang fought police near Wallendbeen, at Mackay's station. Constable Keane was wounded, and reports subsequently stated that Gilbert had also received a wound to his wrist or arm. News of the clash appeared in a dispatch from a Binalong correspondent written the following day and subsequently reproduced in the Queanbeyan Age and General Advertiser on 30 March.
On that day five policemen encountered Ben Hall, John Gilbert and John Dunn at Wallendbeen, the station of Mr A. Mackay near Murrumburrah. The newspaper announced the encounter under the heading "Another Policeman and Gilbert Wounded." The brief account stated that Constable Keane, of Murrumburrah, had been wounded in the left arm by a shot fired by Gilbert and Davis' stolen revolving rifle. A more detailed passage attributed his injury to Gilbert's first shot. Keane then dismounted and returned fire at Gilbert, who was standing partly behind a tree. The correspondent reported that Gilbert, too, had been severely wounded.
The extent of Gilbert's injury is less securely established than this description suggests. "Severely" was the reporter's assessment, not a verified medical finding. The available extracts support an account of his reported wounding. The location of the injury was described as a wound to the wrist.
The three bushrangers nevertheless escaped on foot, and the newspaper carried sharp criticism of the police. One informant described the other troopers as "rank cowards." Wallendbeen thus entered the contemporary reporting as both an exchange in which a constable and a bushranger were wounded and another unsuccessful attempt to capture the gang. Keane's injury was specifically recorded, and Gilbert was wounded in the left arm, a bullet having entered it under the elbow. None of the three fugitives was taken.
According to one account, the bushrangers' newly acquired horses had escaped during the night, leaving two of the gang without mounts. Dunn set about obtaining remounts, driving a mob of horses towards Mr Mackay's stockyard, while Hall and Gilbert were resting in a hut. Scarcely had he brought the mob to the yard when five fully equipped troopers appeared.
"The station of Mr A. Mackay, near Murrumburrah. It appears that the bushrangers were in a camp near a sheep station close to the homestead on the previous night, and lost all their horses. Dunn went in search of them, and on his return to the camp with fresh horses belonging to Mr Mackay, he was met by the police. On seeing them he jumped off his horse and fired amongst them. The report of the shot attracting the attention of Hall and Gilbert, who are supposed to have been in the hut, they rushed to Dunn's assistance, firing at the time on the police. One of the shots wounded constable Keane, of Murrumburrah in the left arm. They then ran away on foot."
A running fight ensued, lasting a couple of hours and ending with the bushrangers escaping through the scrub. Sergeant Murphy of Gunning narrowly escaped being shot through the head by Gilbert—a branch was broken immediately above him by a bullet from the revolving rifle as he stooped to pass underneath. When wounded, Gilbert passed the rifle to Hall, who retained it during the remainder of the fight.
The gang's escape was a matter of conjecture, but escape they did. On the following day, the bushrangers appeared at Macansh's property at Bagen Bagen. Hall, Dunn, and the wounded Clarke—went to a store on Mr. Macansh's station. There they took a quantity of property, including blankets and tobacco. While there, Hall opened a desk at the store and discovered about seventy bullets, as well as powder and caps. These had been kept for the purpose of shooting cattle, but Hall at once appropriated them, saying it was a regular godsend. The ammunition was precisely what the gang needed to continue their fight.
There was some silver in the desk. Hall gathered it together, and after some hesitation, remarked that he would not take silver. It was a curious moment of restraint from a man who had robbed so many. But Gilbert, shortly afterwards, went to the desk and carried the silver off—whether with Hall's knowledge or without, the report did not say.
Encountering Mrs. Edmonds, the wife of Mr. Macansh's overseer, the gang enquired where Mr. Edmonds' firearms were. She gave some evasive reply to the effect that he had parted with them long ago. Hall then said he was not a man of many words, and if the arms were not given up in ten minutes, he would set fire to the place. By means of these threats, the villain secured a couple of revolvers and a double-barrelled gun, one barrel of which was rifled. It was a scene repeated at station after station: the bushrangers demanding weapons, threatening destruction, and departing with whatever they could carry.
On the Friday previous, the gang had been at Little Wombat, where they stuck up some Chinamen but found little money amongst them. One of the Chinese was severely wounded by a shot from Dunn, the bullet passing through the thigh. It was a reminder that the gang's violence was not confined to the wealthy or the armed—ordinary people, going about their business, could find themselves caught in the orbit of the bushrangers' desperation.
The bushrangers had repeatedly stated that they were hard up, and that they must provide both money and clothing against the winter. They were said to look wretched, owing to their long exposure to the weather and hard living. Gilbert said they often had to go four and twenty hours fasting, as they were so hunted by the police. They complained that no one carried any money about them, and that even at the stations it was rarely to be found. The image that emerged was not one of glamorous outlaws living on the fat of the land, but of exhausted, hungry men, pursued relentlessly and reduced to seizing whatever they could find.
A person who had been looking on at the encounter at Wallendbeen provided an account that differed in detail from the official reports. According to this informant, Constable Keane, of Murrumburrah, was wounded by Gilbert at the first shot. Keane then dismounted and fired at Gilbert, who stood partly behind a tree, and wounded him severely on the right arm and side. The location of the wound differed from other reports—the right arm rather than the left—but the essential facts remained: both constable and bushranger had been struck, and the gang had escaped.
This informant had no exalted opinion of the rest of the constables. He told the correspondent plainly that they were "rank cowards"—a damning assessment that echoed the criticism appearing in the newspapers. The police had allowed three men, one of them wounded, to walk away from them on foot. Whatever the truth of the matter, the public perception was one of incompetence and faint-heartedness.
These accounts are more useful than later general claims that the gang robbed only the wealthy or avoided intimidating ordinary station employees. Their demands extended to whatever would keep them armed, mounted, and supplied.
Writing from Woolshed on 19 March, Macansh wrote:
"I had a visit this morning from the bushrangers, three in number. They have taken about twenty pounds of tobacco, all the new bridles, cash, and a lot of things too numerous to mention. They threatened to burn the shed down if I did not immediately hand over your two revolvers and double-barrelled gun to them, which they also took along with them. One man, supposed to be Gilbert, was shot in the right arm during yesterday's affray."
It is asserted that their escape from the police on Saturday last was owing to the service rendered them by revolving rifle, Gilbert taking up his position behind a tree and keeping the police at long range until their ammunition was all exhausted. Be that as it may, it is very evident that there must have been great mismanagement on the part of the police in spending their ammunition in such a manner when they saw that it could take no effect: and also in allowing those three ruffians to walk away from them on foot when they had one of them wounded, and there was every chance to effect their capture, unless they wanted the bushrangers to lay down their arms and surrender themselves at once.
Another letter, also dated Sunday, 19 March, provided further details claimed that Tom Clarke now believed to have participated at Araluen was riding with the gang:
"It appears, by their own account, that they were camping yesterday afternoon at Cullingar. Clarke (the man who has lately joined the gang) was away looking after the horses, which had strayed. Hall, and Gilbert, were lying down, fast asleep, when the troopers rode up and were spotted by Dunn returning with horses opened fire. Shots were exchanged; the bushrangers meanwhile retreating from the five mounted police. Gilbert received a wound in the arm and, to use Hall's words, whilst the troopers were reloading, they managed to hide behind some rocks. The troopers actually passed them by, saying, 'They are as cunning as foxes.'"By mid-March 1865, the gang of Ben Hall, John Gilbert, and John Dunn was a hunted thing. The Araluen escort robbery had ended in failure, and the police net was drawing tighter with each passing day. The three men were exhausted, hungry, and increasingly desperate—conditions that would soon produce some of their most audacious and violent encounters.
On Wednesday, around eleven in the morning, the gang appeared at Milora, the residence of Mr. J. J. Garry. Garry was working in his cultivation paddock when the bushrangers brought him back to his own house, where Hall, Gilbert, and Clarke were waiting. Clarke asked whether Garry could not get hold of old Ploughboy, the racer. Dunn said he wanted Pigeon, and Gilbert wanted Willy-the-Weazel. The two latter horses had fallen into their hands on a previous occasion but had been left in Mr. Smellie's paddock. Garry told them he had no horses in, as the fence was broken down.
They then ordered breakfast, stating that they had eaten nothing since the previous morning. They also volunteered that they had left Araluen on Monday after beating five policemen, and that five more had come upon them, so they had been forced to come away without the gold. Two of the horses they were riding, they said, they had taken out of a paddock at Gunning that morning, and the animals were "baked" through the long journey. After breakfast they left, going through the paddock the same way they had come.
While at Milora on Thursday, Dunn gave his own account of the Araluen escort affair. He ridiculed the cowardice of Constables Stapylton and McEllicott, but praised the pluck of Constable Byrnes, who could not be dislodged from his position while protecting the treasure. Dunn admitted that it was impossible to get at the gold unless by the loss of two of their own lives. When the two constables separated from the rest of the escort, Dunn said that he and Gilbert had faced them, but they turned immediately and galloped down the mountain. He and Gilbert followed on foot, then sighted five troopers riding up the road. Realising these would be too much of a match for them, they turned mounted and galloped up the mountain again.
However, the wounding of John Gilbert at Wallendbeen marked a turning point in the gang's fortunes. From other sources, further particulars of the bushrangers' movements emerged in the days that followed, painting a portrait of men whose luck was rapidly running out.
In the encounter described by the Binalong correspondent, Gilbert had been wounded in the left arm, a bullet having entered it under the elbow. The police managed to secure the bushrangers' saddles—a small but significant victory, for horses and tack were the gang's lifeline in their flight through the colony.
Then on the Saturday night following the fight, Gilbert and his companions separated. It was supposed that the wound he had received necessitated this division, allowing him to seek what rest and shelter he could while his mates drew the police in another direction. He stopped at a place known as the Chinaman's Dam, a lonely spot where he might tend to his injury without fear of discovery. Here Gilbert may have sought medical help as he was noted in discusing the recent events.
While there, Gilbert spoke freely of the gang's misfortunes. They had been very unlucky of late, he said, and one of his mates was wounded in the leg. This was supposed to have been Tom Clarke, the newest recruit to the gang. Gilbert spoke of his own wound in the arm as increasing their troubles, a bitter addition to the litany of hardships they now faced.
He said he would not have cared so much had the policeman met him in a manful manner. But the crawling villain had fired at him from behind a tree—a tactic that clearly rankled the wounded bushranger. The indignity of it seemed to trouble him as much as the pain. He further said he was determined to go to the police barracks and shoot "that fellow" yet, a vow of vengeance that spoke to the bitterness consuming him.
On the Sunday morning, the rest of the gang—Hall, Dunn, and the wounded Clarke—went to a store on Mr. Macansh's station. There they took a quantity of property, including blankets and tobacco. While there, Hall opened a desk at the store and discovered about seventy bullets, as well as powder and caps. These had been kept for the purpose of shooting cattle, but Hall at once appropriated them, saying it was a regular godsend. The ammunition was precisely what the gang needed to continue their fight.
There was some silver in the desk. Hall gathered it together, and after some hesitation, remarked that he would not take silver. It was a curious moment of restraint from a man who had robbed so many. But Gilbert, shortly afterwards, went to the desk and carried the silver off—whether with Hall's knowledge or without, the report did not say.
Encountering Mrs. Edmonds, the wife of Mr. Macansh's overseer, the gang enquired where Mr. Edmonds' firearms were. She gave some evasive reply to the effect that he had parted with them long ago. Hall then said he was not a man of many words, and if the arms were not given up in ten minutes, he would set fire to the place. By means of these threats, the villain secured a couple of revolvers and a double-barrelled gun, one barrel of which was rifled. It was a scene repeated at station after station: the bushrangers demanding weapons, threatening destruction, and departing with whatever they could carry.
On the Friday previous, the gang had been at Little Wombat, where they stuck up some Chinamen but found little money amongst them. One of the Chinese was severely wounded by a shot from Dunn, the bullet passing through the thigh. It was a reminder that the gang's violence was not confined to the wealthy or the armed—ordinary people, going about their business, could find themselves caught in the orbit of the bushrangers' desperation.
The bushrangers had repeatedly stated that they were hard up, and that they must provide both money and clothing against the winter. They were said to look wretched, owing to their long exposure to the weather and hard living. Gilbert said they often had to go four and twenty hours fasting, as they were so hunted by the police. They complained that no one carried any money about them, and that even at the stations it was rarely to be found. The image that emerged was not one of glamorous outlaws living on the fat of the land, but of exhausted, hungry men, pursued relentlessly and reduced to seizing whatever they could find.
A person who had been looking on at the encounter at Wallendbeen provided an account that differed in detail from the official reports. According to this informant, Constable Keane, of Murrumburrah, was wounded by Gilbert at the first shot. Keane then dismounted and fired at Gilbert, who stood partly behind a tree, and wounded him severely on the right arm and side. The location of the wound differed from other reports—the right arm rather than the left—but the essential facts remained: both constable and bushranger had been struck, and the gang had escaped.
This informant had no exalted opinion of the rest of the constables. He told the correspondent plainly that they were "rank cowards"—a damning assessment that echoed the criticism appearing in the newspapers. The police had allowed three men, one of them wounded, to walk away from them on foot. Whatever the truth of the matter, the public perception was one of incompetence and faint-heartedness.
The net was tightening around the gang. Each narrow escape left them more exhausted, more desperate, and more dependent on the goodwill or fear of those they encountered. The winter was coming, and with it the cold, the hunger, and the relentless pursuit of the police. The bushrangers themselves seemed to know that their time was running short. Gilbert's bitter words at the Chinaman's Dam—his vow to shoot the man who had wounded him—suggested a man who had little left but his anger and his determination to survive.
The following telegram, published in the Sydney Morning Herald, 24th March gave particulars of further outrages committed by Hall, Gilbert, and Dunn—a vivid reminder that despite the colony's best efforts, the gang remained at large and dangerous.
From Forbes, the intelligence arrived on Monday at four in the afternoon. On Wednesday night, Hall's gang had been seen near the Pinnacle. On Friday, two of the bushrangers were observed riding some of Mr. Morton's racers on the Billabong road. The same evening, they had supper at Atkin's, Billabong—a meal taken with the casual confidence of men who knew the country too well to fear immediate capture.
Between eleven and twelve o'clock on Saturday night, Gilbert and Dunn entered Mr. Jones' store at the top of Rankin-street, Forbes. They were armed with four revolvers each. The sight of two men bristling with weapons, their faces known across the colony, must have struck terror into the young men working the late shift. Each of the villains, presenting two revolvers at the young men in the store, ordered them to the upper end of the counter. Two other assistants who arrived shortly after were treated in a similar manner.
All the young men were guarded by Dunn while Gilbert rifled the till, which contained between eighty and ninety pounds. Hall and another ruffian were posted outside—a fourth man, whose identity remained uncertain, (Belived to be Clarke) keeping watch while the robbery was carried out with military precision.
The bushrangers did not leave with cash alone. They took a supply of winter clothing, to the extent of about thirty pounds. The winter was coming, and the gang had repeatedly stated that they must provide both money and clothing against the cold months ahead. The raid on Jones' store was not merely a crime of opportunity; it was a calculated act of survival. Ben Hall did not enter the premises, possibly due to his long association with Hoppy Jones, who however, was absent at the time of the robbery.
Last evening, further intelligence arrived. The gang had also taken a horse and two bridles from Mr. Augustus Morris's station. Once again, the pattern repeated itself: horses, tack, clothing, money—whatever was needed to keep the gang mounted, armed, and provisioned for another day.
The Forbes raid demonstrated that the bushrangers remained capable of bold, well-planned operations even as the police net tightened around them. They moved through the district with impunity, dining at one station, robbing a store in the heart of a town, and taking horses from another—all within the space of a few days. The telegram offered no account of any police response, no indication that the gang had been pursued or challenged. They had come and gone as they pleased.
Yet the very audacity of the raid also revealed the gang's desperation. They were no longer content with isolated robberies of mail coaches or remote stations. They were entering towns, confronting multiple witnesses, and taking whatever they could carry. The winter clothing, the bridles, the modest sum from the till—these were not the spoils of triumphant outlaws but the necessities of men who were cold, hungry, and hunted.
Word of the gang's movements continued to reach the newspapers through telegraphic dispatches, each report adding fresh detail to the portrait of men who were simultaneously dangerous, calculating, and increasingly harried. By late April 1865, Ben Hall, John Gilbert, and John Dunn had become figures of almost mythic proportion in the colonial press—their exploits recounted, dissected, and disputed in equal measure. Yet the latest intelligence from the interior revealed something more human, and more desperate, than the headlines suggested.
While Hall, Gilbert and Dunn continued to evade the police, the New South Wales Legislative Assembly moved to introduce extraordinary powers against them and other bushrangers, including “Mad Dog” Morgan. On Thursday, 30 March 1865, the Queanbeyan Age and General Advertiser published the Felons’ Apprehension Bill, which had passed the Assembly the previous Thursday evening. The measure targeted not only the bushrangers themselves but also those who sheltered, supplied or otherwise assisted them.
As the newspaper explained, the bill’s provisions were severe. A person accused on sworn information of a felony punishable by death could be summoned to surrender at a specified time and place to await trial. Failure to appear would open the way to a declaration of outlawry. Once proclaimed, an outlaw found armed, or reasonably suspected of being armed, could be taken alive or dead by any of Her Majesty’s subjects, without their being held accountable for the means or violence used to effect his capture.
Voluntarily harbouring or assisting such offenders would become a felony, punishable by confiscation of goods and lands and imprisonment for up to fifteen years. Justices and police officers would be empowered to demand and enforce entry into premises where there were reasonable grounds to suspect that an accused person or outlaw was being sheltered. They could arrest suspected persons and seize arms and ammunition.
The bill also provided for police to requisition horses, saddles, forage, arms and ammunition when required. Further provisions sought to prevent the fraudulent transfer of property to evade confiscation. These exceptional powers were intended to remain in force for one year only.
The parliamentary debate had been animated. Although the measure passed by a respectable majority, the newspaper acknowledged that its opponents had raised arguments deserving consideration. Nevertheless, it believed the country would broadly approve. In its view, the persistence of bushranging justified a remedy that would otherwise have been difficult to defend.
One objection was that the bill would make every man “a prosecutor, witness, judge, and executioner all at once.” The newspaper rejected this argument on the grounds that the power would apply only to particular offenders who had been publicly named and described, not to everyone suspected of a crime. It assumed that no reasonable person would exercise such authority without being certain of the intended captive’s identity.
The editorial held little expectation that the bushrangers would answer a summons. Once proclaimed outlaws, it observed, they might be “shot down like wild beasts” without first being challenged to surrender. Yet it doubted that the threat of lethal force alone would bring their careers to an end. The provisions against harbourers and abettors were, in its assessment, essential. Deprived of shelter, supplies and assistance, the fugitives would become more vulnerable to capture.
The newspaper also defended the proposed confiscation of property. It acknowledged the objection that innocent wives and children might suffer for a husband’s or father’s conduct, but argued that the prospect of ruining his family would deter a man who might otherwise risk imprisonment to assist a bushranger. The editorial therefore presented the threat to dependants as a deterrent rather than an intended punishment. It also noted that the bill provided protection for people compelled against their will to give shelter or assistance.
That distinction did not, however, excuse continued silence. The newspaper criticised settlers who submitted to the bushrangers’ demands and then withheld information for fear of retaliation. It attributed the gang’s continued freedom partly to this reluctance to act. Under the proposed law, it warned, those who failed to report such encounters could themselves be treated as harbourers. The measure was intended not merely to punish willing accomplices but to compel frightened residents to assist the authorities.
The editorial concluded by invoking Nelson in the words, “England this day expects every man to do his duty.” It urged every colonist, regardless of personal consequences, to help secure the bushrangers’ arrest. Suppressing the gangs, it argued, could no longer be left to the police alone: the wider population had to withdraw its assistance, overcome its fear and provide the information upon which successful pursuit depended. Accordingly Ben Hall, John Gilbert and John Dunn were ordered to surrender themselves at Goulburn Gaol on the 29th April 1865 or face the proclomation of outlaw.
However wetcher aware of the pending outlaw proclomation the three bushrangers on Monday 3rd April, arrived at Mr. W. H. Sutton's station at Borambil, near Condobolin. It was a well-chosen moment. Young Mr. Sutton and the stockmen were out mustering cattle, leaving the homestead largely unguarded. The gang, finding the way clear, went directly to the men's hut, where they took dinner and settled in to read the newspapers.
It was a curious scene: three wanted men, sitting down to a meal in a squatter's hut, reading their own exploits in the press and disputing the details like offended gentlemen. They commented upon the account given of the attempted robbery of the Araluen escort, and denied the truth of portions of the report. Whatever else they were, the bushrangers were clearly attentive to their public image—and sensitive to inaccuracies in the telling of their deeds.
To two men in the employ of a neighbouring squatter, the bushrangers spoke freely enough, though they molested no one at Borambil. They did not rob the station or threaten its occupants. The restraint was notable, and perhaps deliberate—a calculated display of civility designed to win sympathy or at least avoid unnecessary hostility. Yet they did not leave empty-handed. They selected two valuable saddle horses, which they took with them when they left—a reminder that whatever their pretensions to civility, the gang's primary need was for mounts, and they would take them wherever they could be found.
Gilbert, still suffering from the wound received at Wallendbeen, dressed a gunshot wound in one of his arms. The bullet which caused the wound had passed through the flesh near his elbow, and grazed his ribs. It was a painful injury, and the fact that he was tending to it himself, in the midst of the gang's wanderings, spoke to the harshness of their existence. There was no surgeon to attend him, no comfortable bed in which to recover. Only the rough dressing of a wound that might yet prove his undoing—a wound that, by his own account, had been inflicted by a policeman who fired from behind a tree rather than meeting him in a manful manner.
Before appearing at Borambil, the bushrangers had been to a neighbouring station, where they represented themselves as a party of police. By this ruse they gained certain information which they required—a tactic that showed their continuing capacity for deception, even as their physical condition deteriorated. The gang might be wounded and weary, but they were not yet without their wits. If they could no longer rely on speed or strength, they could still rely on cunning.
From Forbes came further intelligence. The bushrangers, Hall and his mate, after their exploits at Gundaree, had proceeded to Lee's station and stolen a horse. Since then they had been driven by the police towards Forbes, and were seen encamped on a plain several miles in the direction of the Billibong. The police, it seemed, were at last making some progress in their pursuit. The gang was being harried, pushed from one refuge to another, denied the rest they so desperately needed.
It was supposed that Forbes had been visited during the last ten days by individuals suspected of being bush telegraphs—sympathisers or informants who kept the gang supplied with intelligence about police movements. The existence of such a network, if true, explained how the bushrangers had so often evaded capture. It suggested a web of complicity stretching through the countryside, ordinary people who, whether from fear or sympathy or simple self-interest, provided the outlaws with the information that kept them one step ahead of the law. But it also suggested that the police were beginning to understand the gang's methods, and were taking steps to counter them.
The reports painted a picture of men who were still capable of audacity—reading newspapers in a squatter's hut, posing as police to gather information, selecting the best horses for their own use—but who were also visibly deteriorating. Gilbert's self-dressed wound, the gang's encampment on a plain, the relentless pressure of the police: all pointed to a band of outlaws whose luck was running out. They had escaped again, but each escape was narrower than the last. The winter was approaching, and with it the cold, the hunger, and the ceaseless pursuit of men who would not rest until the gang was taken—dead or alive.
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