Artworks about bushrangers

 

Bushrangers attacking Goimbla Station
an oil painting (1894) kept in the National Library of Australia
by Patrick William Marony (1858-1939)

 Bushrangers on the St Kilda Road
 painted by William Strutt in 1887.

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

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

Bailed Up 1895 painting by Australian artist Tom Roberts.
Shows a stage coach being held up by bushrangers in an isolated, forested section of a back road.
Part of the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales

 Troopers after bushrangers by S.T. Gill 1871
watercolour, pencil, ink and gum arabic on cream paper ; 17.6 x 25.8 cm
owned by the State Library of Victoria

Victorian gold rush

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Canvas town in South Melbourne, Victoria in the 1850's

The gold rush in Victoria started in 1851.

A tent city, known as Canvas Town was established at South Melbourne. The area became a slum area home to thousands of migrants from around the world who came in hope of finding their fortune in the goldfields.

On 20 July 1851 Thomas Peters found specks of gold at what is now known as Specimen Gully. This led to a rush to the Forest Creek diggings, claimed as the richest shallow alluvial goldfield in the world.

This discovery was soon followed by larger finds at Ballarat and Bendigo. Later gold was found at Beechworth in 1852, Bright, Omeo, Chiltern and Walhalla.  At its peak two tonnes of gold per week went into the Melbourne Treasury.

The population of Melbourne and Victoria grew swiftly. In 1851 it was 75,000 people and ten years later over 500,000.

The population boom caused social tension due to the lack of available land for small farming.  These on-going tensions culminated in the Kelly Outbreak of 1878 according to John McQuilton in The geographical dimensions of social banditry: The Kelly outbreak, 1878-1880.

See also Fossicking for gold
Australia's population during gold rush years

The Vinegar Hill convict rebellion of 1804.

This is the only known drawing of the Battle of Vinegar Hill. It is intended to be read clockwise from the center. Up the top at the center Father Dixon is asking the rebels to surrender. On the far right a rebel is saying, "Death or Liberty Major". Major George Johnston replies, "You scoundrel. I'll liberate you!" The next captions are Trooper Azlenark and William Johnston. To the left is Quartermaster Laycock slicing Phillip Cunningham with a sword. The 1804 Australian Rebellion and Battle of Vinegar Hill by Cameron Riley. November 2003.

Ned Kelly's trial

"Ned Kelly in the Dock - A Scene from Life" Ned Kelly in the dock during his trial.

Wood engraving published in The Illustrated Australian News.

On the 28th and 29th of October, 1880 at Melbourne Kelly was tried for the murder of Constable Thomas Lonigan at Stringybark Creek. He was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.

The one piece of evidence that may have helped Kelly, the Jerilderie letter, was made inadmissable. "It passionately articulates his pleas of innocence and desire for justice for both his family and the poor Irish selectors of Victoria's north-east." Read more at State Library of Victoria.



The trial of Ned Kelly, wood engraving, published in The Illustrated Australian news, Melbourne, David Syme and Co. November 6, 1880. Source State Library of Victoria, Illustrated newspaper file. Illustrated Australian news.

For more interesting facts about the trial go to Trial of Ned Kelly on Ned on the Net.

The case was considered unusual at the time as Kelly spoke directly to the Judge Justice Redmond Barry which was not heard of.

Kelly's speech at the trial at Kelly Gang and Friends Inc.

You may be interested in:
Demise of the Kelly Gang
Ned Kelly's trial
The infamous Ned

Captain Moonlite

Andrew George Scott (1845 –  1880) aka Captain Moonlite

Scott was not a typical bushranger. He was a well educated Irishman, a preacher, with no convict connections. He allegedly held up the local bank in Ballarat when he was not paid by the chuch for work he had done. He wrote a short note at the bank and signed it Captain Moonlite. Some time later he was found guilty of passing bad cheques and sentenced to prison.  When he left Prison he could not find honest employment so left to find work in Sydney. Tired, cold, wet and nearly starving he and James Nesbitt, who he met in prison, and others, decided to rob farm houses for food and weapons. He was captured by police in in November 1879 near Wagga Wagga, sentenced and hung in Sydney on 20 January 1880.

 

PURCHASE: In Search of Captain Moonlite: Bushranger, conman, warrior, lunatic
By Paul Terry