At about ten o’clock on Friday night, 25 September, all five men descended upon John Loudon’s Grubbenbong station, approximately fifteen miles from Carcoar.
The gang had reportedly received information that police were concealed at the house. They entered with revolvers presented and brought the household onto the verandah. Loudon and the male employees were handcuffed, while Mrs Loudon and the other women were provided with chairs.
Every room was searched for policemen, weapons, money and valuables. Finding no police, the bushrangers turned the raid into an extended occupation. They ordered supper, and ham and eggs were prepared. Vane later played the piano while his companions ate and conversed with the prisoners.
The gang remained for about four hours before departing during the early morning. Although the visit was comparatively restrained, the handcuffing of the men and methodical search made clear that its apparently convivial features existed under armed compulsion.
Late on Saturday morning, 26 September, the gang reached William Rothery’s Cliefden station on Limestone Creek. The household was bailed up, and the bushrangers helped themselves to dinner, champagne and brandy.
Hall and Gilbert rode into the paddock and drove the station horses into the yard. Three suitable animals were selected, together with saddles and bridles. Far from concealing their intentions, the gang reportedly told Rothery that it was proceeding to Canowindra.
They entered the township at approximately six o’clock that evening. Canowindra had only one resident policeman, Constable Sykes. He was disarmed and taken to Robinson’s public house.
O’Meally and Burke remained at the hotel while Hall, Gilbert and Vane searched the two principal stores, belonging to Pierce and Hilliar. They obtained men’s clothing and about £3 in cash before returning to Robinson’s.
The publican and his wife were absent in Bathurst, leaving Robinson’s sister and the Misses Flanagan in charge. After tea, Gilbert asked one of the young women to play the piano. A dance developed and continued until daylight. Residents and travellers were brought to the hotel, ostensibly as guests but in reality as prisoners who could not leave without permission.
The incident helped create the enduring story of Hall’s gang as generous hosts. Yet the gathering depended upon loaded revolvers, an imprisoned policeman and the forced detention of the townspeople.
The following morning Hall, Vane and Burke rode to Bangaroo looking for horses. When they returned, Gilbert informed them that police were camped across the flooded Belubula River, waiting for the water to subside. Four members of the gang crossed the dangerous stream, leaving Burke to follow when the flood fell. They then disappeared into rough country before the police could close upon them.
On Saturday evening, 3 October, Gilbert’s gang attempted its boldest urban operation. Bathurst was the largest settlement west of the Blue Mountains and the headquarters of the Western police establishment. Saturday was market night, and the shops around the square remained open.
Vane was posted as lookout near the telegraph office while Hall, Gilbert, O’Meally and Burke entered William Street. They first called at Pedrotta’s gunsmith shop in search of revolving rifles. Finding none available, Hall and Gilbert proceeded to McMinn’s jewellery and watchmaking premises.
They entered with firearms presented while O’Meally and Burke remained in the street. The plan immediately began to collapse. McMinn’s daughter screamed, attracting the attention of people outside. As the alarm spread, Hall and Gilbert abandoned the shop without obtaining worthwhile booty.
The riders mounted and galloped through William Street. At the Howick Street intersection Hall turned, but several of his companions continued towards the police barracks, apparently uncertain of the route. Hall discharged his revolver into the air to attract their attention and turn them back.
After Vane rejoined them, the gang crossed into George Street. Instead of leaving Bathurst immediately, Gilbert attempted to obtain a coveted racehorse named Pasha from John de Clouet, proprietor of the Sportsman’s Arms.
Gilbert, Vane and O’Meally entered the hotel yard but found the stable locked. They bailed up De Clouet and his wife, taking approximately £10 and two watches. Gilbert failed to obtain Pasha.
Police were soon seen galloping along George Street. The gang remounted and fled under fire. Despite the alarm and the proximity of the barracks, all five escaped.
The material return was trivial, but the psychological effect was enormous. Five wanted men had entered the Western police headquarters on market night, attempted to rob a jeweller, occupied a hotel yard and ridden out through the streets.
Three days later the gang returned to the outskirts of Bathurst, attacking a succession of properties along the Vale Road.
Their first call was at the store of the widow Mary Mutton, approximately half a mile from town. The men demanded money but were told there was none. During the search Gilbert entered a bedroom carrying a candle and accidentally set fire to the bed curtains.
Vane recalled that he rushed in and extinguished the flames, burning his hands. Mrs Mutton dressed the injuries with Holloway’s ointment while reproaching the men for their course of life. A later family tradition credited Gilbert himself with putting out the fire and suffering the burns. Both versions agree that the fire was unintended and that the gang assisted in extinguishing it.
They next visited Walker’s public house, obtaining a small amount in notes and silver and an old horse-pistol. At McDiarmid’s store they packed groceries and other merchandise into pillowcases. A mile farther on they entered Henry Butler’s Hen and Chickens Hotel but again found little money.
These robberies were principally supply raids. Their proximity to Bathurst showed that the gang remained confident that superior horses and knowledge of the surrounding country could defeat pursuit.
On Monday morning, 12 October, Hall, Gilbert and O’Meally returned to Canowindra. The exact presence of Vane and Burke during every stage is less certain, but contemporary accounts usually treated the operation as the work of the broader gang.
For three days the bushrangers controlled the township. Armed sentries watched the approaches, and anyone entering Canowindra was intercepted and taken to Robinson’s hotel. Draymen, travellers, storekeepers and residents were gathered together until the hotel became a crowded detention centre.
Constable Sykes attempted to ride for assistance but was intercepted. His weapons and handcuffs were taken, and he was ordered into the hotel to “enjoy himself.” Later stories claimed that the bushrangers locked him in his own cell, although the earliest accounts more securely establish his disarmament and detention.
The prisoners were told that they could order whatever food, liquor or cigars they wished at the bushrangers’ expense. Dancing, singing, conversation and target shooting occupied the time. Gilbert’s sociable temperament was particularly suited to this form of coercive theatre. One contemporary observer described him as:
“A very jolly fellow, of slight build and thin—always laughing.”
Hall remained the quieter leader, while O’Meally’s appearance and manner caused considerably greater alarm. The difference was one of presentation rather than authority: Gilbert’s humour did not make the townspeople free to leave.
The gang reportedly paid Robinson for the provisions consumed and gave certain captives money for expenses. Very little property was taken from individuals. The true object appears to have been demonstration—proof that the gang could occupy a colonial township for days while the police remained outside its reach. The Australian Dictionary of Biography accordingly characterises Canowindra and Bathurst as acts of deliberate defiance rather than conventional robberies. Australian Dictionary of Biography.
After three days the captives were released and the gang departed. The incident became the foundation of the Canowindra legend, but beneath the dancing and hospitality remained the fact that an armed company had imprisoned an entire community.
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.
Inside were Keightley’s wife Caroline, their child, two female servants and Dr William Pechey. Keightley seized a double-barrelled gun, although only one barrel was loaded, while Pechey obtained a revolver. The two men defended the doorway as the bushrangers fired into the building.
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:
“I’m done for, but I’ll not be taken alive.”
He attempted to shoot himself. The exact sequence of his death remains disputed. Contemporary accounts said Burke fired two shots at his head before collapsing; the inquest evidence led to an allegation that Hall subsequently fired the final shot. What is certain is that Burke died beside the house.
The remaining bushrangers continued firing. Hall threatened to burn the homestead, placing the women and child in mortal danger. Keightley and Pechey eventually surrendered.
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.
The bushrangers paid neighbouring men to convey Burke’s body towards his family home. Police intercepted the cart and took the body to Carcoar for examination.
The attack transformed the gang. Burke’s death broke Vane’s enthusiasm for bushranging and contributed directly to his surrender the following month. 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.
His humour and easy conversation often softened the immediate atmosphere of his robberies, particularly at Canowindra. Contemporary descriptions repeatedly present him as cheerful, slight, well dressed and “always laughing.” Yet this public manner existed beside loaded firearms, threats of death and an increasingly violent company.
The eight-week campaign also exposed the limits of the gang’s methods. Bathurst produced little booty and nearly trapped them. The prolonged Canowindra occupations advertised their movements. At Dunn’s Plains, armed resistance 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, 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.
The gang was already beginning to fracture. Vane surrendered in November under the influence of Father McCarthy, and his later evidence provided much of what was known about the gang’s internal history. Vane said he had fallen in with Gilbert and O’Meally and been drawn into their crimes. His surrender removed one of the younger members of the group and confirmed that the moral and physical pressure of the campaign was telling even before the final disasters.
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.
The decisive blow came at Goimbla on 19 November 1863. Hall, Gilbert, and O’Meally attacked the station of David Henry Campbell, a known opponent of bushrangers. The motive was generally understood as vengeance and plunder. The raiders fired on the house and set fire to a hay-filled shed or barn, using the blaze to illuminate their target. Campbell and his wife Amelia resisted. Amelia fetched arms and ammunition, while Campbell fired by the light of the flames. O’Meally was shot dead. Hall and Gilbert fled, leaving their companion behind.
Goimbla changed Gilbert’s position. Micky Burke was dead, Vane had surrendered, and O’Meally was killed. The large, swaggering gang of September and October was gone. What remained was a smaller and harder combination, with Gilbert and Hall at its centre. In biographical terms, this was the point at which Gilbert ceased being merely one brilliant figure in a crowd of bushrangers and became Hall’s principal surviving fighting companion.
December found Gilbert and Hall still active, but operating in a more strained and dangerous fashion. Near Bowning and Binalong, reports said Gilbert, Hall, and two others held roads for long periods, bailing up dozens of travellers. Henry Morgan and his wife were stopped on the Binalong road; Gilbert appeared in a “sporting” mood, exchanged hats with Morgan, placed Mrs Morgan in a poncho, took money and clothing, and detained them for hours. Other teams were stopped, breakfast was commandeered, and horses were used to spell the bushrangers’ mounts.
The same Bowning reports also show Gilbert’s menace. When the carrier Lake was stopped, Gilbert put a revolver under his chin and threatened him, took money, then tossed back a small coin. This was the dual Gilbert of the newspapers: at one moment comic, gallant, and theatrical; at the next, violent and humiliating. By the end of 1863 he had become one of the colony’s most recognisable bushrangers, not only because of the number of crimes attached to his name, but because each report seemed to add a new role — shooter, rider, robber, dancer, wit, bully, avenger, and survivor.
Thus, from May to December 1863, John Gilbert’s career accelerated with extraordinary speed. He began the period raiding stores around the Burrangong and Young districts, often in company with O’Meally. By July he was attacking a bank at Carcoar. By August he was fighting police escorts on the road. By September and October he was part of the full Hall gang, humiliating troopers, punishing informers, dining in captured homesteads, and turning Canowindra into a captive ballroom. By November, after Keightley, Vane’s surrender, and Goimbla, the gang had been bloodily reduced. By December, Gilbert remained at large with Hall, still bold enough to command the roads, but increasingly one of the last survivors of a collapsing company.
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