Martin Cash - his later life

Martin Cash (1808-1877)

Martin Cash is known for escaping twice from Port Arthur gaol, in Van Diemen's Land.
On the 14th May,1854, on Norfolk Island, Martin Cash married Mary Bennett (1824 - 1891), a convict from County Clare, aged 34.
Later that year, after years of imprisonment on Norfolk Island, Martin Cash was given a ticket-of-leave and released back into society. He travelled back to Tasmania where between 1854 and 1856, he was an overseer in the Royal Hobart Botanical Gardens. He was also gazetted as a constable for the Cascades Agricultural Settlement. He received a conditional pardon in May 1856 and went to New Zealand for four years where he ran several brothels.

He later farmed at Glenorchy on land he had purchased. He died there a free man on 27th August 1877 in Hobart, Tasmania. He is one of the only bushrangers to die of old age and not by the gallows.

His Death Certificate states"that the deceased died from Natural Causes namely fatty degeneration of the heart combined with inflammation of the stomach and intestines brought on by acute intemperance"
 He was buried in Cornelian Bay Cemetery, in Hobart, in the Roman Catholic section, after a service, on the 30th August 1877. His widow Mary Cash was later buried there in 1891.

MORE ON MARTIN CASH:

• Australian Dictionary of Biography Martin Cash: The Bushranger of Van Diemen's Land in 1843-4: A Personal Narrative of His Exploits in the Bush and His Experiences at Port Arthur and Norfolk Island. Author Martin Cash.
• DECONSTRUCTING AND RECONSTRUCTING THE MARTIN CASH/JAMES LESTER BURKE NARRATIVE/MANUSCRIPT OF 1870 PDF by Duane Helmer Emberg
• Way Back Machine

REFERENCES:
Roots Web Cash/Bennett marriage registration
Australia Death Index, 1787-1985

Trove Launceston Examiner 1st September 1877
Sydney Morning Herald 2009 Hobart - Places to See.
Trove The Mercury 17 July 1891 Death of Mary Cash aged 72