Bushrangers were armedrobbers andoutlaws who resided inthe Australian bush between the 1780s and the early 20th century. The original use of the term dates back to the early years of the British colonisation of Australia, and applied totransported convicts who had escaped into the bush to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under arms" as a way of life, using the bush as their base.
Bushranging thrived during the mid-19th centurygold rushes, with many bushrangers roaming the goldfields and country districts ofNew South Wales andVictoria, and to a lesser extentQueensland. As the outbreak worsened in the mid-1860s, colonial governments outlawed many of the most notorious bushrangers, including theGardiner–Hall gang,Dan Morgan, and theClarke gang. These "Wild Colonial Boys", mostly Australian-born sons of convicts, were roughly analogous to Britishhighwaymen and outlaws of theAmerican Old West, and their crimes included robbing small-town banks, bailing up coach services and raidingstations (pastoral estates). They also engaged in many shootouts with the police.
The number of bushrangers declined in the 1870s due to better policing and improvements in rail transport and communication technology, such astelegraphy. The last major phase of bushranging peaked towards the end of the decade, epitomised by the Kelly gang, led byNed Kelly, Australia's best-known bushranger and outlaw. Although bushrangers appeared sporadically into the early 20th century, most historians regard Kelly's capture and execution in 1880 as effectively representing the end of the bushranging era.
Bushranging's origins in a convict system bred a unique kind of desperado, most frequently with an Irish political background. Native-born bushrangers also expressed nascentAustralian nationalist views and have been described as "the first distinctively Australian characters to gain general recognition."[2] As such, a number of bushrangers becamefolk heroes and symbols of rebellion, admired for their bravery, rough chivalry and colourful personalities. However, in stark contrast to romantic portrayals in the arts and popular culture, bushrangers often led lives that were "nasty, brutish and short", with some earning notoriety for their cruelty and bloodthirst. Australian attitudes toward bushrangers remain complex and ambivalent.
The earliest documented use of the term appears in a February 1805 issue ofThe Sydney Gazette, which reports that a cart had been stopped between Sydney andHawkesbury by three men "whose appearance sanctioned the suspicion of their being bush-rangers".[3]John Bigge described bushranging in 1821 as "absconding in the woods and living upon plunder and the robbery of orchards."Charles Darwin likewise recorded in 1835 that a bushranger was "an open villain who subsists by highway robbery, and will sooner be killed than taken alive".[4]
Over 2,000 bushrangers are estimated to have roamed the Australian countryside, beginning with the convict bolters and drawing to a FAR afterNed Kelly's last stand atGlenrowan.[5]
Bushranging began soon after British settlement with the establishment ofNew South Wales as apenal colony in 1788. The majority of early bushrangers were convicts who had escaped prison, or from the properties of landowners to whom they had been assigned as servants. These bushrangers, also known as "bolters", preferred the hazards of wild, unexplored bushland surroundingSydney to the deprivation and brutality of convict life. The first notable bushranger, African convictJohn Caesar, robbed settlers for food, and had a brief, tempestuous alliance with Aboriginal resistance fighters duringPemulwuy's War. While other bushrangers would go on to fight alongsideIndigenous Australians infrontier conflicts with the colonial authorities, theGovernment tried to bring an end to any such collaboration by rewarding Aboriginal peoples for returning convicts to custody.Aboriginal trackers would play a significant role in the hunt for bushrangers.
ColonelGodfrey Mundy described convict bushrangers as "desperate, hopeless, fearless; rendered so, perhaps, by the tyranny of a gaoler, of an overseer, or of a master to whom he has been assigned."Edward Smith Hall, editor of early Sydney newspaperThe Monitor, agreed that the convict system was a breeding-ground for bushrangers due to its savagery, with starvation and acts of torture being rampant. "Liberty or Death!" was the cry of convict bushrangers, and in large numbers they roamed beyond Sydney, some hoping to reachChina, which was commonly believed to be connected by an overland route. Some bolters seized boats and set sail for foreign lands, but most were hunted down and brought back to Australia. Others attempted to inspire an overhaul of the convict system, or simply sought revenge on their captors. This latter desire found expression in the convict ballad "Jim Jones at Botany Bay", in which Jones, the narrator, plans to join bushrangerJack Donahue and "gun the floggers down".
Donahue was the most notorious of the early New South Wales bushrangers, terrorising settlements outside Sydney from 1827 until he was fatally shot by a trooper in 1830.[3] That same year, west of theBlue Mountains, convictRalph Entwistle sparked a bushranging insurgency known as theBathurst Rebellion. He and his gang raided farms, liberating assigned convicts by force in the process, and within a month, his personal army numbered 80 men. Following gun battles with vigilante posses, mounted policemen and soldiers of the39th and57th Regiment of Foot, he and nine of his men were captured and executed.
Convict bushrangers were particularly prevalent in the penal colony ofVan Diemen's Land (now the state ofTasmania), established in 1803.[3] The island's most powerful bushranger, the self-styled "Lieutenant Governor of the Woods",Michael Howe, led a gang of up to one hundred members "in what amounted to a civil war" with the colonial government.[6] His control over large swathes of the island prompted elitesquatters fromHobart andLaunceston to collude with him, and for six months in 1815,Lieutenant-GovernorThomas Davey, fearing a convict uprising, declaredmartial law in an effort to suppress Howe's influence. Most of the gang had either been captured or killed by 1818, the year Howe was clubbed to death by a soldier.[6] Vandemonian bushranging peaked in the 1820s with hundreds of bolters at large, among the most notorious beingMatthew Brady's gang, cannibal serial killersAlexander Pearce andThomas Jeffrey, and tracker-turned-resistance leaderMusquito.Jackey Jackey (alias of William Westwood) was sent from New South Wales to Van Diemen's Land in 1842 after attempting to escapeCockatoo Island. In 1843, he escapedPort Arthur, and took up bushranging in Tasmania's mountains, but was recaptured and sent toNorfolk Island, where, as leader of the 1846Cooking Pot Uprising, he murdered three constables, and was hanged along with sixteen of his men.
The era of convict bushrangers gradually faded with the decline in penal transportations to Australia in the 1840s. It had ceased by the 1850s to all colonies exceptWestern Australia, which accepted convicts between 1850 and 1868. The best-known convict bushranger of the colony was the prolific escapeeMoondyne Joe.
TheAustralian gold rushes of the 1850s and 1860s marked the next distinct phase of bushranging, as the discovery of gold gave bushrangers access to great wealth that was portable and easily converted to cash. Their task was assisted by the isolated location of the goldfields and the decimation of the police force with many troopers abandoning their duties to join the gold rush.[5]
In Victoria, several major gold robberies occurred in 1852–53. Three bushrangers, including George Melville, were hanged in front of a large crowd for their role in the 1853 McIvor Escort Robbery nearCastlemaine.[5] Bushranging numbers also flourished inNew South Wales with the rise of the colonial-born sons of poor ex-convicts who were drawn to a more glamorous life than mining or farming.[5] Much of the activity in the colony was in theLachlan Valley, aroundForbes,Yass andCowra.[5]
TheGardiner–Hall gang, led byFrank Gardiner andBen Hall and countingJohn Dunn,John Gilbert andFred Lowry among its members, was responsible for some of the most daring robberies of the 1860s, including the1862 Escort Rock robbery, Australia's largest ever gold heist. The gang also engaged in many shootouts with the police, resulting in deaths on both sides. Other bushrangers active in New South Wales during this period, such asDan Morgan,[5] and theClarke brothers and their associates, murdered multiple policemen.[7]
As bushranging continued to escalate in the 1860s, theParliament of New South Wales passed a bill, theFelons Apprehension Act 1865, that effectively allowed anyone to shoot outlawed bushrangers on sight.[8] By the time that the Clarke brothers were captured and hanged in 1867, organised gang bushranging in New South Wales had effectively ceased.
Captain Thunderbolt (alias of Frederick Ward) robbed inns and mail-coaches across northern New South Wales for six and a half years, one of the longest careers of any bushranger.[3] He sometimes operated alone; at other times, he led gangs, and was accompanied by his Aboriginal 'wife',Mary Ann Bugg, who is credited with helping extend his career.[3]
The increasing push of settlement, increased police efficiency, improvements inrail transport and communications technology, such astelegraphy, made it more difficult for bushrangers to evade capture. In 1870, Captain Thunderbolt was fatally shot by a policeman, and with his death, the New South Wales bushranging epidemic that began in the early 1860s came to an end.[9]
The scholarly, but eccentricCaptain Moonlite (alias of Andrew George Scott) worked as an Anglicanlay reader before turning to bushranging. Imprisoned inBallarat for an armed bank robbery on the Victorian goldfields, he escaped, but was soon recaptured and received a ten-year sentence inHM Prison Pentridge. Within a year of his release in 1879, he and his gang held up the town ofWantabadgery in theRiverina. Two of the gang (including Moonlite's "soulmate" and alleged lover, James Nesbitt) and one trooper were killed when the police attacked. Scott was found guilty of murder and hanged along with one of his accomplices on 20 January 1880.[10]
Among the last bushrangers was the Kelly gang in Victoria, led byNed Kelly, Australia's most famous bushranger. After murdering three policemen in a shootout in 1878, the gang was outlawed, and after raiding towns and robbing banks into 1879, earned the distinction of having the largest reward ever placed on the heads of bushrangers. In 1880, after failing to derail and ambush a police train, the gang, clad inbulletproof armour they had devised, engaged in a shootout with the police. Ned Kelly, the only gang member to survive, was hanged at theMelbourne Gaol on 11 November 1880.[11]
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Bushranging was largely considered a bygone era by the 1890s. There were however a few major cases from this point on, including the Governor gang—a trio consisting of Aboriginal fencing contractorJimmy Governor, his brother Joe Governor, and associate Jack Underwood. In July 1900 they perpetrated the Breelong Massacre, killing four members of the Mawbey family and a schoolteacher.[12] The Governor brothers proceeded to engage in a crime spree across northern New South Wales, murdering an additional four people and triggering one of the largestmanhunts in Australian history.[12] After three months, Jimmy was arrested by a group of armed locals inBobin, and his brother Joe was fatally shot nearSingleton a few days later.[13] Jack Underwood (who had been caught shortly after the Breelong Massacre) was hanged inDubbo Gaol on 14 January 1901, and Jimmy Governor was hanged inDarlinghurst Gaol on 18 January 1901.[13]
The Kenniff brothers,Patrick and James, were notorious stock thieves who operated in western Queensland. In March 1902, they murdered constables George Doyle and Albert Dahlke, who were sent to apprehend them. Three months later, the brothers were captured on 23 June at now-named Arrest Creek. Both brothers were convicted of murder, with Patrick sentenced to hang, and James initially sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
The final phase of bushranging was sustained by the so-called "boy bushrangers"—youths who sought to commit crimes, mostly armed robberies, modelled on the exploits of their bushranging "heroes". The majority were captured alive; a few died in shootouts with the police.[14]
While women bushrangers were not as widely known as men, there are a number of women bushrangers that were reported on in the newspapers. These include:
Mrs Winter, a bushranger in early nineteenth-century New South Wales, was briefly associated withJohn Tennant.
Sarah Webb, arrested with her husband William for bushranging in 1826.[15][16][17]
Mary Williams, a known Tasmanian bushranger. There is a passing mention of her in a court case article from 1833.[14]
Mary Ann Bugg (7 May 1834 – 22 April 1905) was aWorimi bushranger in mid nineteenth century New South Wales who wasCaptain Thunderbolt's partner.
Bet Neen, a notorious female bushranger in New South Wales, associated with a man named Hunt.[7][8][9][11]
Kitty Morgan, touted as "one of the most notorious and wicked females that ever lived", was active in the mid nineteenth century around Victoria. She was accused of affairs, murder, robbery and bushranging and was shot and killed by a shepherd as she entered his hut in disguise.[18]
Jessie Hickman (néeHunt; 6 September 1890 – 1936) was an Australian bushranger. She had multiple aliases but is often referred to asThe Lady Bushranger. In the 1920s she established herself as leader of a gang of cattle thieves in the area that is nowWollemi National Park.
In Australia, bushrangers often attract public sympathy (cf. the concept ofsocial bandits). InAustralian history andiconography bushrangers are held in some esteem in some quarters due to the harshness andanti-Catholicism of the colonial authorities whom they embarrassed, and the romanticism of the lawlessness they represented. Some bushrangers, most notablyNed Kelly in hisJerilderie letter, and in his final raid onGlenrowan, explicitly represented themselves as political rebels. Attitudes to Kelly, by far the most well-known bushranger, exemplify the ambivalent views of Australians regarding bushranging.
The impact of bushrangers upon the areas in which they roamed is evidenced in the names of many geographical features in Australia, includingBrady's Lookout,Moondyne Cave, the township ofCodrington,Mount Tennent,Thunderbolts Way andWard's Mistake. The districts ofNorth East Victoria are unofficially known as Kelly Country.[15]
Some bushrangers made a mark onAustralian literature. While running from soldiers in 1818, Michael Howe dropped a knapsack containing a self-made book of kangaroo skin and written in kangaroo blood. In it was adream diary and plans for a settlement he intended to found in the bush.[16] Sometime bushranger Francis MacNamara, also known asFrank the Poet, wrote some of the best-known poems of the convict era. Several convict bushrangers also wrote autobiographies, including Jackey Jackey,Martin Cash andOwen Suffolk.
Jack Donahue was the first bushranger to have inspiredbush ballads, including "Bold Jack Donahue" and "The Wild Colonial Boy".[19] Ben Hall and his gang were the subject of several bush ballads, including "Streets of Forbes".
Michael Howe inspired the earliest play set in Tasmania,Michael Howe, The Terror of Van Diemen's Land, which premiered atThe Old Vic in London in 1821. Other early plays about bushrangers includeDavid Burn'sThe Bushrangers (1829),William Leman Rede'sFaith and Falsehood; or, The Fate of the Bushranger (1830),William Thomas Moncrieff'sVan Diemen's Land: An Operatic Drama (1831),The Bushrangers; or, Norwood Vale (1834) byHenry Melville, andThe Bushrangers; or, The Tregedy of Donohoe (1835) byCharles Harpur.
In the late 19th century,E. W. Hornung andHume Nisbet created popular bushranger novels within the conventions of the European "noble bandit" tradition. First serialised inThe Sydney Mail in 1882–83,Rolf Boldrewood's bushranging novelRobbery Under Arms is considered a classic of Australian colonial literature. It also cited as an important influence on the American writerOwen Wister's 1902 novelThe Virginian, widely regarded as the firstWestern.[17]
Bushrangers were a favoured subject of colonial artists such asS. T. Gill,Frank P. Mahony andWilliam Strutt.Tom Roberts, one of the leading figures of theHeidelberg School (also known asAustralian Impressionism), depicted bushrangers in some of his history paintings, includingIn a corner on the Macintyre (1894) andBailed Up (1895), both set inInverell, the area where Captain Thunderbolt was once active.
Although not the first Australian film with a bushranging theme,The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906)—the world's firstfeature-lengthnarrative film—is regarded as having set the template for the genre. On the back of the film's success, its producers releasedone of two 1907 film adaptations of Boldrewood'sRobbery Under Arms (the other beingCharles MacMahon'sversion). Entering the first "golden age" of Australian cinema (1910–12), directorJohn Gavin released two fictionalised accounts of real-life bushrangers:Moonlite (1910) andThunderbolt (1910). The genre's popularity with audiences led to a spike of production unprecedented in world cinema.[20]Dan Morgan (1911) is notable for portraying its title character as an insane villain rather than a figure of romance. Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner, Captain Starlight, and numerous other bushrangers also received cinematic treatments at this time.
Alarmed by what they saw as the glorification of outlawry, state governmentsimposed a ban on bushranger films in 1912, effectively removing "the entire folklore relating to bushrangers ... from the most popular form of cultural expression."[21] It is seen as a major reason for the collapse of a booming Australian film industry.[18] One of the few Australian films to escape the ban before it was lifted in the 1940s is the1920 adaptation ofRobbery Under Arms.[20] Also during this lull appeared American takes on the bushranger genre, includingThe Bushranger (1928),Stingaree (1934) andCaptain Fury (1939).
Ned Kelly (1970) starredMick Jagger in the title role.Dennis Hopper portrayed Dan Morgan inMad Dog Morgan (1976). More recent bushranger films includeNed Kelly (2003), starringHeath Ledger,The Proposition (2005), written byNick Cave,The Outlaw Michael Howe (2013), andThe Legend of Ben Hall (2016).
| Name | Lived | Area of activity | Fate | Portrait |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Angel (alias of Thomas Hobson) | c. 1858–1885 | Northern New South Wales | Shot by police | |
| The Barber (alias of George Clarke) | 1806–1835 | Liverpool Plains in New South Wales | Hanged | |
| Bluecap (alias of Robert Cotterell) | c. 1835–? | New South Wales | Imprisoned, cause of death unknown |  |
| Matthew Brady | 1799–1826 | Van Diemen's Land | Hanged |  |
| Edward Broughton | 1803–1831 | Van Diemen's Land | Hanged | |
| Mary Ann Bugg | 1834–1905 | Northern New South Wales | Died of old age | |
| Richard Burgess | 1829–1866 | New South Wales Victoria | Hanged | |
| Michael Burke | 1843–1863 | New South Wales | Shot |  |
| Joe Byrne | 1857–1880 | North East Victoria | Shot by police |  |
| John Caesar | 1764–1796 | Sydney area | Shot | |
| Johnny Campbell | c. 1846–1880 | South East Queensland | Hanged |  |
| Captain Melville (alias of Frank McCallum) | c. 1823–1857 | Goldfields region of Victoria | Suicide | |
| Captain Moonlite (alias of Andrew George Scott) | 1842–1880 | Victoria New South Wales | Hanged |  |
| Captain Starlight (alias of Frank Pearson) | 1837–1889 | New South Wales Queensland | Imprisoned, died a free man | |
| Captain Thunderbolt (alias of Frederick Ward) | 1835–1870 | New South Wales | Shot by police | _Australian_bushranger_after_being_shot_in_1870.jpg) |
| Martin Cash | c. 1808–1877 | Van Diemen's Land | Imprisoned, died a free man |  |
| Clarke brothers | 1840/1846–1867 | New South Wales | Hanged |  |
| Patrick Connell | 1835–1866 | New South Wales | Shot by police | |
| Frederick Cranley | c. 1847–1877 | New South Wales | Shot by police | |
| Patrick Daley | 1844–? | New South Wales | Imprisoned, died a free man |  |
| Edward Davis | ?–1841 | Northern New South Wales | Hanged | |
| Jack Donahue | c. 1806–1830 | Sydney area | Shot by police |  |
| John Dunn | 1846–1866 | Western New South Wales | Hanged |  |
| Ralph Entwistle | c. 1805–1830 | New South Wales | Hanged | |
| Joe Flick | c.1865–1889 | Gulf Country of Queensland | Shot by police | |
| John Francis | c. 1825–? | Goldfields region of Victoria | Imprisoned, cause of death unknown | |
| Frank Gardiner | c. 1829–c. 1882 | Western New South Wales | Imprisoned, died a free man |  |
| John Gilbert | 1842–1865 | Western New South Wales | Shot by police | .jpg) |
| Jimmy Governor | 1875–1901 | New South Wales | Hanged |  |
| Ben Hall | 1837–1865 | Western New South Wales | Shot by police |  |
| Steve Hart | 1859–1880 | North East Victoria | Possible suicide |  |
| Michael Howe | 1787–1818 | Van Diemen's Land | Shot by police | |
| Jack the Rammer (alias of William Roberts) | ?–1834 | South Eastern New South Wales | Shot | |
| Thomas Jeffrey | 1791–1826 | Van Diemen's Land | Hanged |  |
| George Jones | c. 1815–1844 | Van Diemen's Land | Hanged | |
| Lawrence Kavenagh | c. 1805–1846 | Van Diemen's Land | Hanged |  |
| Dan Kelly | c. 1861–1880 | North East Victoria | Possible suicide |  |
| Ned Kelly | c. 1854–1880 | North East Victoria | Hanged |  |
| Patrick Kenniff | 1865–1903 | Queensland | Hanged |  |
| John Kerney | c. 1844–1892 | South Australia | Imprisoned, died a free man | |
| Fred Lowry | 1836–1863 | New South Wales | Shot by police |  |
| John Lynch | 1813–1842 | New South Wales | Hanged | |
| James McPherson | 1842–1895 | Queensland | Imprisoned, died a free man |  |
| Major the Outlaw | c. late 1880s - 1908 | Western Australia | Shot by police | |
| Henry Manns | 1839–1863 | New South Wales | Hanged |  |
| Midnight (alias of Thomas Law) | c. 1850–1878 | New South Wales Queensland | Shot by police | |
| Moondyne Joe (alias of Joseph Johns) | c. 1828–1900 | Western Australia | Imprisoned, died a free man |  |
| Dan Morgan | c. 1830–1865 | New South Wales | Shot by police |  |
| Musquito | c. 1780–1825 | Van Diemen's Land | Hanged |  |
| James Nesbitt | 1858–1879 | New South Wales | Shot by police | |
| John O'Meally | 1841–1863 | New South Wales | Shot | |
| George Palmer | c. 1846–1869 | Queensland | Hanged |  |
| Alexander Pearce | 1790–1824 | Van Diemen's Land | Hanged | .jpg) |
| John Peisley | 1834–1862 | New South Wales | Hanged | |
| Sam Poo | ?–1865 | New South Wales | Hanged | |
| Harry Power | 1819–1891 | North East Victoria | Imprisoned, died a free man |  |
| Rocky (alias of John Whelan) | c. 1805–1855 | Van Diemen's Land | Hanged | |
| Charles Rutherford | c. 1846–1869 | New South Wales | Shot | |
| Owen Suffolk | 1829–? | Victoria | Imprisoned, cause of death unknown | |
| James Sutherland | 1865–1883 | Tasmania | Hanged |  |
| Sydney Jim (alias of William Thornton) | 1816–1858 | Tasmania | Shot by police | |
| John Tennant | 1794–1837 | New South Wales | Hanged | |
| John Thompson | c. 1847–? | New South Wales | Imprisoned, cause of death unknown |  |
| John Vane | 1842–1906 | New South Wales | Imprisoned, died a free man |  |
| Wild Toby | c. 1840–1883 | Queensland | Shot by police | |
| William Westwood | 1820–1846 | New South Wales Van Diemen's Land | Hanged |  |
