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

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

Melbourne in the 1800's

Detail from the Cyclorama of Early Melbourne by John Hennings

 

In 1892, the Victorian government commissioned John Hennings to paint a cycloramic painting of Melbourne. Hennings was paid 500 guineas (about A$1000) for his work which took five months to complete.

A cyclorama was a pictorial entertainment that was popular in Europe and America from the late 18th century until the arrival of cinema at the end of the 19th century.

Hennings was born in Germany in 1835 and arrived in Australia in 1855.

RESOURCE:  State Library of Victoria

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.

The Australian bush



'Down on his luck'' by Frederick McCubbin. 1889*

The Australian bush is unique. It has evoked themes of struggle and survival through the stories of bushrangers, drovers, swagmen, outback women and aborigines.

The Australian bush is a wooded area, between a shrubland and a forest, generally of dry soil, almost without grass, with woody shrubs and bushes, under eucalyptus trees.

The bush is uniquely Australian and very different to the green landscapes known by many of the first Europeans to arrive in Australia.  Between 1788 and 1868 around 150, 000 convicts arrived in Australia from the United Kingdom.

The Australian climate and geography was generally seen as harsh by those arriving who were not accustomed to the harsh climate. There was low levels of rainfall, poor soils, mountainous land forms and vegetation that were hard to travel.

Human survival in the bush is legendary with stories of Aboriginal trackers and bushrangers, such as Ben Hall and Ned Kelly, who were seen as rebellious outlaws who could live well in the bush.

* The painting shows a swagman, sitting by his campfire, thinking of his misfortune.

Benjamin Hall - the gentleman bushranger

Portrait of Benjamin Hall

commissioned by Edgar Penzig

Benjamin Hall (1837 - 1865)

But with all his crimes, I believe he has never been accused of being bloodthirsty, nor did he directly kill any of the victims he robbed.

It is claimed by his relatives and those who knew him best that he was affectionate and generous.

The Forbes correspondent of the Western Examiner (Orange) May 13, 1865.

See also:

Ben Hall's early life

Death of Ben Hall

Another depiction of Ben Hall

Benjamin Hall - a timeline

A book about Ben Hall

BEN HALL - The Bushranger - paperback by Frank Clune

ROBBERY UNDER ARMS

William Strutt the artist who painted this scene in 1887, Bushrangers on the St Kilda Road, described it as "one of the most daring robberies attempted in Victoria" in 1852.

The St Kilda Road was the scene of frequent hold-ups during the Victorian gold rush by bushrangers. During the gold rush a temporary camp was set up for new arrivals and it was called Canvas Town.  It was in the part of St Kilda Road between Canvas Town and Melbourne that most hold ups occurred. The bushrangers, who conducted the holdups, were thought to be mostly former convicts from Van Diemens Land which is now called Tasmania.

Find out more background to the art work PDF