The early death of the bushranger George Palmer

George Charles Frederick Palmer (c. 1846 – 24 November 1869) was born and brought up  in Queanbeyan, New South Wales. He was named after both his father and grandfather who were both named George Thomas Palmer.  His father was George Thomas PALMER (1809 - 1889) and his mother was Selina Augusta ROWES (1820 - 1902). He was their third son. His grandfather, George Thomas Palmer, (1784-1854) was a landowner and magistrate who acquired extensive lands and stock in Australia including Ginninderra Station. 

Mary Ann Bugg

Mary Ann Bugg (1834 - 1867)

Mary Ann was born on 7th May, 1834 in Stroud, New South Wales, Australia. Her mother was Charlotte Bugg (nee Derby) and her father was James Bugg. 

She married Edmund Baker when she was 14 years old in 1848. 

Mother: On Mary Ann Bugg's birth certificate her mother is named as "An aboriginal woman". Charlotte Derby's son William gave the information that she had had 8 children, the first being Mary Ann. Charlotte was a Kamilaroi woman.

Father: Born James Bugg in Essex, England and died Monkerai, in the Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia. He was convicted of stealing meat and transported to Australia onboard the Sesostris arriving in NSW on 23rd November, 1825. His name was recorded as James Brigg in these records. 

SOURCE:
James Brigg Convict Records
WikiTree
Hill End Family History - May Ann Bugg
RootsWeb.com  - Captain Thunderbolt - Michael Ward & James Bugg Families Australia
Convict Creations - Mary Ann Bugg
Mary Ann Bugg"Captain Thunderbolt's Lady"
Coal River - Mixed-race unions and Indigenous demography in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, 1788-1850

Bushranger - Captain Moonlite

Gaol Photograph of AG Scott alias Captain Moonlight, November 1879
NRS 2138 [3/6043] No. 2170 p.132 

The historical gaol photograph description books at State Records were created to assist gaol staff to keep track of each prisoner’s record. The records cover c.1870-1930 and contain a photograph of each prisoner along with information such: as name, place of birth, year of birth, year and ship of arrival, occupation, religion, education, physical description, where and when they committed an offence, sentence, previous convictions and when the portrait was taken.

One of the more famous photographs in the collection is that of A.G. Scott otherwise known as Captain Moonlight (or sometimes Moonlite) who committed various crimes – bank-robbery, passing false cheques, stealing gold – and led a gang of outlaws until he was eventually caught by police, tried in Sydney in 1879 and subsequently executed in Darlinghurst Gaol in 1880. NSW Gov. Archives Outside

Find out more about Captain Moonlite here. 

Moondyne Joe

Joseph Bolitho Johns (1826 or 1830 - 1900) aka Moondyne Joe.
This is the only known photo of him.

Born in Cornwall, England around 1826 
Died Western Australia 13th August 1900

Why was famous He was Western Australia's best-known bushranger and renown for escaping from prison so many times as he loved freedom. He escaped so many times from Freemantle goal that his cell was wood lined, studded with bolts, and triple bars were placed on the window.

Joseph Bolitho Johns was the third child of blacksmith Thomas Johns and his wife Mary Bolitho. He was one of six children in a poor family and had to work as a copper miner with his brothers after his father died.

On 15 November 1848, Johns and William Cross, were arrested near Chepstow for "... stealing from the house of Richard Price, three loaves of bread, one piece of bacon, several cheeses, and other goods".^[1] He was charged with burglary and stealing, the pair pleaded not guilty. On 23 March they were tried at the Lent Assizes before Sir William Erle. Newspaper reports of the trial suggest that the pair gave an unexpectedly spirited defence, but Johns was abrasive and "contravened the conventions of court procedure". The men were convicted and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude.

He came to be better known as Moondyne Joe.  He goes down in history as Western Australia's best known bushranger known, not for his offences and crimes but, for being the person who had escaped multiple times from prison. Here is his brief history:

• Johns and Williams were transferred to Millbank Prison 
• transferred to Pentonville Prison to serve their mandatory six months of solitary confinement
• transferred to Dartmoor Prison on 21 October 1851
• Johns transferred to the Woolwich prison hulk Justitia, probably for disciplinary reasons
• transferred to the Defence when the Justitia was destroyed by fire 
• transported to the British penal colony of Western Australia prison ship Pyrenees to serve out the remainder of his sentence
• arrived at Fremantle on 1 May 1853
• Granted an immediate ticket-of-leave on arrival in reward for good behaviour
• 1855 granted a conditional pardon
• worked at various tasks near Toodyay, in the Avon Valley, one of the most rugged and inaccessible places in the Darling Range. The Aboriginal name for the area was Moondyne
• arrested on a charge of stealing the local magistrate's horse in 1861
• While awaiting trial he escaped from Toodyay gaol but was recaptured to serve three years' imprisonment
• Released
• sentenced in 1865 to ten years for killing an ox with the intent of stealing the carcass
• Determined not to serve this long sentence and protesting his innocence, he made four attempts to escape from November 1865 to March 1867, three of which were successful. With two companions, he was once at large for two months in the unsettled Darling Range. 
• Recaptured he was placed in irons in solitary confinement in a specially reinforced cell with triple-barred windows at Fremantle gaol. He was only allowed out for exercise on medical advice.
• He escaped again in 1867 through a clever trick and for two years roamed the hill country east of Perth.
• Recaptured while raiding a wine cellar and sentenced to a further term in Fremantle prison. He was released in 1871 and gained his conditional pardon in 1873.

The remainder of John's life consisted of periods of good behaviour punctuated by occasional minor misdemeanors and brief jail terms. In January 1879, he married a widow named Louisa Frances Hearn, née Braddick, and they spent some time prospecting for gold near Southern Cross, in Western Australia. In 1881, while exploring the countryside around Karridale, in the south-west of Western Australia he discovered Moondyne Cave.

In his later years he became known locally, in Kelmscott where he lived after his wife's death, as 'Old Mad Moondyne Joe'. He was declared to be mentally ill and died of senile dementia in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum on 13 August 1900. He was buried, in a paupers grave, in Fremantle Cemetery , his tombstone bearing the Welsh word for freedom - "rhyddid".

 

Illustration of Fremantle prison with image of Moondyne Joe on left by Ian Coates

It was because the authorities found it impossible to keep Moondyne behind prison walls that a cell in Fremantle Gaol was specially prepared for him, and it remains today as it was when he occupied it many years ago.

The walls of the confined space are heavily timbered and appear to have been laboriously carved and patterned, but is the triple-barred window which is of special interest. Moondyne laughed at ordinary locks and bars and prison walls, but when he first saw the cell prepared for him after many escapes, he must have realised that he would never be able to break through the bars which covered the small window space.

He became a romantic figure in the eyes of the public, at the time, and after for his many escapes. 

 

His determined bids for freedom inspired John Boyle O'Reilly, a convict who escaped from Western Australia to the United States, to write in 1887 a novel on convict life in Western Australia featuring a fictitious and highly romantic Moondyne as central character.

The Ballad of Moondyne Joe^[2]

In the Darling Ranges, many years ago,
There lived a daring outlaw, by the name of 'Moondyne Joe'.
He stole the squatter's horses, and a sheep or two or three,
He loved to roam the countryside, and swore he would be free.
The troopers said we’ll catch him, but we know it's all in vain,
Every time we lock him up he breaks right out again.
'Cause in he goes, and out he goes, and off again he’ll go,
There's not a gaol in W.A. can keep in 'Moondyne Joe'.

^[1]"Breconshire Lent Assizes". The Welshman. pp. 1849–03–30.

[2] Fremantle Prison - factsheet

Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2005

  

OTHER SOURCES 

Fremantle prison records, convict register 1853 (State Library of Western Australia)
Australian Dictionary of Biography

Bolitho Family History

A book by Mark Greenwood
 

These books are available to purchase at Amazon through my affiliate account*.

The Legend of Moondyne Joe by Mark Greenwood.
The Ballad of Moondyne Joe by John Kinsella and Niall Lucy.

* I am an Amazon Affiliate which means a very small percentage of the sales of these books go to me, at no extra cost to you.

Fred Lowry the bushranger

 

 Thomas Frederick ‘Fred’ Lowry was born in 1836 near Bathurst.

 Lowry died on 30th August 1863.

RESOURCES:
History of Australian Bushranging, Volume II by Charles White 

Hill End Family History 

Frank Gardiner Bushranger "THE KING OF THE ROAD" Workday Wednesday

"THE mere mention of the name of Frank Gardiner in  any part of the Western or Southern districts of New South Wales, is sufficient to set any of the residents in  those districts of 30 years' standing talking of the "old bushranging days." For Christie, alias Clarke, alias Gardiner, has been ever looked upon as the father of that bushranging which was followed by so many young men during the decade commencing in 1860."
"Frank Gardiner — I shall call him throughout this story by the name by which he was commonly known in the bush   — commenced his criminal career by "lifting" a horse when     20 years of age. He was born at Boro Creek, near Goulburn,   in 1830, and when quite a young man crossed the border into   Victoria. In October, 1850, he committed the crime of horse-   stealing, and as that exploit was the initial step in his down-   ward course, a short account thereof will not be considered out of place just here.  
At the time that Gardiner crossed the border into Vic-toria that part of the country was infested with prowling bands of well-mounted men, ostensibly in search of employ-   ment ,but really on the look put for horses and cattle that admitted of easy "lifting." It was the custom in those days for the station-holder to extend hospitality to all callers, and  it is said that on some stations the cost of entertaining the callers amounted to over £1000 per annum. It was a fortu-nate thing, indeed, for the colony that the discovery of gold was made, and that the periodical wanderers were drawn off by the excitment to different and widely separated fields.  
In was in June of 1850 that Mr. Lockhart Morton, who had recently entered into possession of Salisbury Plains  Station, on the Loddon, suddenly discovered that all the horses on his station, with the exception of four which were  in a secure paddock, had mysteriously disappeared. Search- ing round the run with one of his stockmen, Mr. Morton at last came upon their tracks, making straight for the Lower Avoca, and he at once arrived at the conclusion that they had been driven off by horse stealers. Returning home he found a message awaiting him from an adjoining station to the effect that three men had been seen by the shepherd three days before driving ofl the horses at a furious pace. Mr. Morton was a man of pluck and energy, and after making a supply of cartridges for his guns and writing to the chief con- stable at Melbourne, asking him to send intelligence of the robbery to Geelong, Portland, and Adelaide, daylight on the Wednesday morning (the horses had been removed on the   previous Sunday) saw him in the saddle fully equipped and determined to run down the robbers. (To be Continued.) 

Written by "Chatterer" C White. 
Printed in the Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal Tuesday 26th January, 1892.

The spelling errors are in the original newspaper article.

RESOURCE: Trove

SEE: more general information on Frank Gardiner

Tombstone Tuesday - John Gilbert's Grave

John Gilbert's lonely grave near Binalong, NSW.

In May 1865, Ben Hall, John Gilbert, and John Dunn were proclaimed outlaws.

The Felons Apprehension Act 1865, allowed known bushrangers to be shot and killed rather than taken to trial.

John Gilbert, aka Happy Jack, Johnny, and Flash, had a 1000 pound reward on his head and had been involved in around 630 hold ups including the death of a police man.

John Gilbert was shot and died instantly on the 13th May, 1865 near Murrumburrah, New South Wales, Australia in a shoot out with police troopers. 

The police involved in the shoot out were Senior Constable Charles Hales of the Binalong police station and constables John Bright, Michael King and Henry Hall. Constable Henry Hall was put in charge of the body. When Gilbert's body was searched money, jewelry, powder flask, guns, and bullets were found.

The guns included a Tranter revolving rifle and a government issue revolver.
Gilbert's body was taken back to the court house of the Binalong Police Station.

An inquest was held on the 14th May 1865 and it was generally agreed that Constable John Bright fired the fatal shot that had killed Gilbert and that he had died instantly.

The verdict of the jury at the inquest was "Justifiable Homicide." The jury also found "that Senior Constable Hales and Constables Bright, King and Hall were deserving of great praise for the gallant and courageous manner in which they acted."

The Government reward for the dead bushranger was divided up: the informer received £500; Hales, £150; Bright, £130; King, £120; and Hall £100.

The New South Wales Police Report published in the Sydney Morning Herald 16th July, 1870 stated:
May, 1865.—John Gilbert, robbery under arms ; shot dead

by police under senior-constable Heales.

John Gilbert (1842 - 1865) was buried in a paddock at the back of the Binalong Police Station.



RESOURCES:
Felons Apprehension Act 1865 PDF
Australian Cemeteries Index
"NEW SOUTH WALES POLICE.". The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954)
Senior Constable Charles Hales's Police Report Dated 15th May 1865
The Yass Courier of 17th May 1865.
New South Wales, Australia, Registers of Coroners' Inquests, 1821-1937 for John Gilbert        

Owen Suffolk Free Pardon granted

A Free Pardon was granted to the bushranger Owen Suffolk in return for his commitment to return to England and never return to the colony of Australia.

Transcription of original document

By his excellency The Honourable Sir John Henry Thomas

Manners Sutton, Knight Commander of the Most Honourable

Order of the Bath, Govenor and Commander-In-Chief in and over

the Colony of Victoria &c, &c, &c.

'Whereas Owen Suffolk alias Charles Vernon was in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and fifty eight tried and convicted in the Colony of Victoria of Horse Stealing and received two cumulative Sentences of Five and Seven Years respectively Hard Labor on the Roads of the said Colony. And whereas on the fourth day of July now last past a Ticket of Leave was granted unto the said Owen Suffolk alias Charles Vernon And Whereas it has been deemed expedient by me to pardon the said Owen Suffolk alias Charles Vernon. Allow Therefore in pursuance of the power and authority in one vested, I the Governor aforesaid do hereby grant to the said Owen Suffolk alias Charles Vernon a Free Pardon for the Crime of which he has been so convicted in the said Colony of Victoria.'

29 Aug 1866, Melbourne, Victoria.

Departed from Australia: 17 Sep 1866

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OWEN SUFFOLK

RESOURCES:
National Museum of Australia: original document

Australia’s largest gold robbery

Stage coach hold-up, Eugowra Rocks, oil on canvas, 137.5 x 183 cm

by Patrick William Morony (1858-1939) painted in 1894.

It was at Eugowra, on the 15th June, 1862 that Frank Gardiner, and his gang of bushrangers, robbed the Ford & Co. coach on its way from Forbes to Bathurst in New South Wales. It was Australia’s largest gold robbery - 14 thousand pounds worth of gold and banknotes.
The rock, in the painting, above, where the bushrangers waited to ambush the coach is now called Escort Rock after the fact that the coach was a gold escort meaning it escorted or carried gold from one place to another.
Gardiner's gang included Ben Hall, John Gilbert, Henry Manns, Alex Fordyce, John Bow, John O'Meally, and Dan Charters.
"...the greatest achievement of Gardiner's gang, the Lachlan escort robbery; at Engowra Rocks, about forty-five miles distant from the town of Orange. Here the escort coach, carrying a sergeant and two troopers, was impeded by two bullock teams, without drivers, drawn across, the road. The driver made a circuit round them to pass, and when the coach neared a clump of rocks four men rose from their shelter. They were attired in red shirts, their faces were blackened, and they were armed with rifles. They dis charged their rifles in a volley at the coach. A bullet pierced the driver's hat, and another perforated his coat skirt. The constables in the coach were not hit. Then four other bandits stood up, and fired a second volley, whereupon the horses bolted, and the coach was upset. The gang rushed upon it and fired again. The sergeant was wounded in three places, and Trooper Horan in two. Trooper Haviland was uninjured, and he fled into the bush with the driver. The robbers carried away the escort boxes, two rifles, and the coach horses. Haviland and the driver ran to Clement's Station, and re turned with a party of men, who found only the scattered contents of the mail bags. These they gathered up, and, after obtaining fresh horses, proceeded on the road to Orange with the wounded police. They also discovered the bullock drivers, who had been bailed up by the gang,  ordered to draw their teams across the  road, and hide themselves in the bush, with, their faces on the ground. The coach arrived at Orangeat six o'clock   on the following evening. Shortly after it left the post office, a bullet struck Constable Haviland in the head, and killed him instantly. Doubtless it came from the rifle of one of the gang, who must have been lingering on watch in the   neighbourhood unseen. The robbers'  booty was heavy ; the escort boxes con tained 5509 oz. of gold, representing £22,000 in value, and £7490 in Oriental Bank notes. The gang consisted of Gardiner, Ben Hall, Gilbert, O'Mally, John   Bow, Alexander Fordyce, Henry Manns, and Daniel Charteris. They divided the booty into eight shares. Gardiner, For dyce, and Charteris put their gold on one of the coach horses, and proceeded towards the Weddin Mountains. The others took their shares separately, and went on other tracks. On ths following day Sir Frederick Pottinger, who was district superinten dent of police, set forth in pursuit of the bandits with eleven troopers, twenty   armed volunteers, and two black track ers. They followed the trail of Gardiner  and his two companions, whose pack horse became exhausted at the foot of the Weddin Range. While they were engaged in removing the gold they caught sight of their pursuers approaching, and fled into the hills, leaving behind 1239 oz. of gold, which fell into the hands of the police. Some time after Charter is turned informer. Manns, Fordyce, and Bow were arrested; Manns was hanged, and the other two were sentenced to life imprisonment. Gardiner disappeared. Hall, Gilbert, and O'Meally went on their way of blood and plunder for three years longer in defiance of the police.

The huge escort robbery was Gardiner's final exploit." TROVE: The Capricornian Newspaper. Rockhampton, Qld. Saturday 14th October 1905.

Read the details of the robbery here.

Linked up at History and Home

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
 

The Bush Rangers by Edward Harrington

Four horseman rode out from the heart of the range,
Four horseman with aspects forbidding and strange.
They were booted and spurred, they were armed to the teeth,
And they frowned as they looked at the valley beneath,
As forward they rode through the rocks and the fern -
Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne.

Edward Harrington (1896 – 1966)
Read the full poem

Ben Hall's Death

"Don't let the traps take me alive."

Ben Hall did most of his bushranging in New South Wales, where he was known as 'Brave Ben Hall'.

Between1863 to 1865, Ben Hall and his gang are thought to have conducted over 100 robberies, including the robberies of 21 towns and many coaches.  Due to the amount of hold ups on their coaches the Cobb and Co. coaches published in their timetable the phrase: "Ben Hall permitting".

By May 1865, Ben Hall planned to leave New South Wales. He was betrayed by a man who had previously given him assistance and the police were prepared to catch him.  The illustration above shows his ambush by eight armed policemen at dawn on 5 May, 1865 at Billabong Creek near Forbes.  Ben Hall did not fire a shot and was shot 30 times and killed. It is said that while he was lying wounded he turned to Billy Dargin and said "Shoot me dead Billy! Don't let the traps take me alive."

More information on Ben Hall:
Timeline of Ben Hall's Life
His early life
Illustration

What did bushrangers eat?

Pioneer settler's home in the Australian bush

What a bushranger ate, when they were in the bush, would depend upon many factors:

• what part of the country they were in
• their own bush survival skills
• if they were actively on the run from the authorities
• if they knew free settlers who would support them

Many bushrangers hunted wild rabbits and native animals such as duck, pigeons and kangaroos and if they were near an ocean or river they would try and catch fish or eels.
When bushrangers were being hunted by police and trackers it would have been difficult to stop and cook food over a fire.
Some bushrangers stole provisions owned by the settlers or travellers or store owners if they were near a town, helping themselves to salted meats, potatoes, onions and flour. Some were supported by free settlers who had been convicts and were sympathetic to the bushrangers hatred of authority.  
Bushrangers may have known about native plants that they could eat such as stinging nettle, prickly pear and tea tree but this is not documented.

The Ballad of Ben Hall's Gang

Come all ye wild colonials And listen to my tale;
A story of bushrangers' deeds I will to you unveil.
'Tis of those gallant heroes, Game fighters one and all;
And we'll sit and sing, Long Live the King,
Dunn,Gilbert, and Ben Hall.

Ben Hall he was a squatter bloke Who owned a thousand head;
A peaceful man he was until Arrested by Sir Fred.
His home burned down, his wife cleared out,
His cattle perished all;
"They'll not take me a second time,'
Says valiant Ben Hall.

John Gilbert was a flash cove, And John O'Meally too;
With Ben and Bourke and Johnny Vane
They all were comrades true.
They rode into Canowindra And gave a public ball.
'Roll up, roll up, and have a spree,'
Says Gilbert and Ben Hall.



Painting of Ben Hall

They took possession of the town, Including the public-houses,
And treated all the cockatoos And shouted for their spouses.
They danced with all the pretty girls And held a carnival.
'We don't hurt them who don't hurt us,'
Says Gilbert and Ben Hall.

They made a raid on Bathurst, The pace was getting hot;
But Johnny Vane surrendered After Micky Burke was shot,
O'Meally at Goimbla Did like a hero fall;
'The game is getting lively,'
Says John Gilbert and Ben Hall.

Then Gilbert took a holiday, Ben Hall got new recruits;
The Old Man and Dunleavy Shared in the plunder's fruits.
Dunleavy he surrendered And they jagged the Old Man tall -
So Johnny Gilbert came again
To help his mate Ben Hall.

John Dunn he was a jockey bloke, A-riding all the winners,
Until he joined Hall's gang to rob The publicans and sinners;
And many a time the Royal Mail Bailed up at John Dunn's call.
A thousand pounds is on their heads -
Dunn, Gilbert, and Ben Hall.

'Next week we'll visit Goulburn And clean the banks out there;
So if you see the troopers, Just tell them to beware;
Some day to Sydney city We mean to pay a call,
And we'll take the whole damn country,'
Says Dunn, Gilbert, and Ben Hall. 

ANONYMOUS

Linked up at I Must Confess

Benjamin Hall, bushranger - a timeline

Wood carving of Benjamin Hall (1837-1865)

• 9 May 1837 Benjamin Hall  was born at Maitland, New South Wales. His father was also named Benjamin Hall and his mother was Elizabeth Somers.  Both of his parents were ex-convicts. Read more about his early life.
• became a stockman. 
• 29 February 1856  married Bridget Walsh.
• 7 August 1859 their son Henry was born.
• July 1856 detained for his share in the Eugowra gold robbery.  
• 1860 leased a run, Sandy Creek, near Wheogo with John Macguire. 
• April 1862 arrested for armed robbery with Frank Gardiner but was acquitted. 
• 15 June 1862 robbed the gold escort coach at Eugowra Rocks with 7 others including Frank Gardiner, John Gilbert and John O'Meally. It was the biggest gold robbery in Australian history.
• 14 March 1863 Hall's home was burnt down. 
• Hall joined  became leader of the gang of bushrangers when Frank Gardiner left for Queensland.
• 12 October 1863 held the entire town of Canowindra for ransom for 3 days.
• October 1863 daring raid on the town of Bathurst.
• 24 October, 1863  raid on Henry Keightley's homestead at Dunn's Plains.
• 1864 conducted robberies on the Sydney-Melbourne Road south of Goulburn
• 15 November 1864  robbed sixty travellers near Jugiong
• May, 1865 Hall and his companions were declared outlaws 
• £1000 on his head
• Hall decides to quit bushranging
• 5 May, 1865 he was ambushed and shot by the police near Goobang Creek in New South Wales
• 7 May 1865 buried at Forbes Cemetery

SOURCES:

Sydney Mail, Newspaper - 30 July, 20 Aug 1864 and 20 May 1865
Australian Stories by the Australian Government
Eugowra Historical Museum and Bushranger Centre

Martin Cash Bushranger - his early life

Martin Cash (1808-1877)

Martin Cash was born in Ireland and became one of Tasmanian’s most notorious bushrangers. He was born at Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland, the son of George and Margaret Cash.

• Gaoled at Wexford, Ireland March 1827 at eighteen for five months
• Transported from Ireland to Botany Bay, New South Wales in 1927 aboard the Marquis of Huntley with 170 other convicts.
• Assigned to Mr George Bowman of Richmond whose property he worked on for 3 years.
• June 1834 issued Certificate of Freedom a NSW government document given at the end of the convict's sentence. This stated that the convict was now restored "to all the rights and privileges of free subjects" and could seek out employment or leave the colony.
• 1837 he arrived in Hobart Town.
• 1840 Trial and sent on vessel Frances Freeling to Van Diemans's Land Hobart. From NSW and Tasmania Convict Musters 1806 to 1849. 
• Caught and gaoled in Port Arthur, Tasmania.
• Escaped from Port Arthur in 1842.
• Led a band of bushrangers which terrorized the whole colony.
• 200 guinea reward (with a free pardon and passage from the colony, if required) was offered to any person giving information that would lead to Cash's capture.
• September, 1843, tried and convicted of murder with sentence of death. At the end of the trial after being called "Guilty" of the murder of Constable Peter Winstanley, Martin Cash said the following: "May it please your honor. I am the man that has stopped murder my- self in the bush ; we never acted cowardly to any one. I hope you will not think or consider that I am a man to do any cow- ardly or deliberate murder. Let me get into ever such close quarters, if I should have to fire I would not try to kill a man, but to cripple him so that I could get away. If I had been a man to do violence, there would have been a deal of murders com- mitted since I have been in the bush. I do not beg for my life ; I do not value it one straw." Launceston Examiner 16th September, 1843.
• Reprieved and sentenced to transportation for life at Norfolk Island
• Sent to Norfolk Island.

complexion very ruddy, head small and round, hair curly and carroty, whiskers red small, forehead low, eyebrows red, eyes blue small, nose small, mouth large, chin small.  Remarks remarkably long feet, a very swift runner. Police Department description of Martin Cash, Hobart, 1st March, 1843, in The Hobart Courier Friday 3 March 1843 when M. Forster, Chief Police Magistrate, was offering rewards for his arrest.

MORE ON MARTIN CASH:

• Martin Cash - his later life
• 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:

Trove Launceston Examiner 1st September 1877
Trove Clarence and Richmond Examiner (NSW), 11 September 1877
Trove Launceston Examiner 16th September, 1843.
All New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia Convict Musters, 1806-1849

Tasmania's Bushrangers

Van Dieman’s Land from Geographicus Rare Antique Maps

A rare and unusual example of John Dower’s 1837 map of Tasmania or Van Dieman’s Land. Depicts the island in considerable detail with good notes on geographical features, especially along the coast. Maps of Tasmania are exceptionally rare and this one is no exception. Prepared by John Dower and published by Orr and Smith in 1837.

White man's history of Tasmania relating to bushrangers

1642: The first reported sighting of Tasmania by a European the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman.

1804: Settlement established by Capt. David Collins in Sullivans Cove on the western side of the Derwent River. It became known as Hobart Town or Hobarton, later shortened to Hobart, after the British Colonial Secretary of the time, Lord Hobart.
Early settlers were mainly convicts sent to develop agriculture and military guards sent to watch over the convicts.
1812: Michael Howe (later a bushranger) among first convicts to arrive directly from England in HMS Indefatigable.
1814: Governor Lachlan Macquarie offers amnesty to bushrangers.
1815: Michael Howe's bushranging gang kills two settlers in New Norfolk.
1815: Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Davey declares martial law against all bushrangers, escaped convicts and military deserters; Governor Lachlan Macquarie later revokes order.
1818: Soldiers and convict kill bushranger Michael Howe on banks of Shannon River.
1821: Establishment of Macquarie Harbour penal settlement at Sarah Island.
1821: Establishment of Maria Island penal settlement.
1823 - 1824: Musquito, Black Jack and other members of the Oyster Bay tribe made raids on the east coast.
1824: Matthew Brady escapes from Sarah Island with 13 others, and begins a crime spree at homesteads and villages throughout Tasmania.
1826: Matthew Brady hanged on 4 May, at the old Hobart gaol. Four other bushrangers were hanged with him, including Thomas Jeffries the cannibal.
1832 - 1833: Britton's gang of four escaped convicts, himself, Beaven, Jefkins and Brown terrorised Tasmania's countryside.
1840: Start of economic depression which continues until 1845.
1840: Bushranger Martin Cash captured in Hobart, his death sentence was commuted and he was later pardoned.
1842: William Westood (Jackey Jackey) escapes from Port Arthur 3 times in one year.

REFERENCES:
the companion to TASMANIAN HISTORY Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies.
Trove 16th August 1873.