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| Death of Thunderbolt, the Bushranger 1870 |
The Newsletter: An Australian Paper for Australian People
Saturday 27 January 1917
- Kelly Gang, The. Constable Fitzpatrick of Benalla, Victoria, whilst armed with a warrant to arrest Daniel Kelly, is overpowered at Kelly's house by the prisoner, his brother Ned, his mother and two men, named Williamson and Skillion. The constable was maltreated and rendered insensible, but allowed to depart on solemnly not to report the occurrence. The three latter were subsequently imprisoned for the crime. The brothers Kelly took to the bush on April 15, 1878, and thus originated the Kelly gang, consisting of Edward Kelly (native of Victoria, aged 27), Daniel Kelly (native of Victoria, aged 18), Stephen Hart (native of Fish River, New South Wales, aged 20), and Joseph Byrnes, aged 21. Ned Kelly had, as far back as 1870, been arrested by the police of the Ovens District, Victoria, on suspicion of having been an accomplice of the bushranger Power. A reward of £100 was offered by the Government of Victoria for the capture of Daniel Kelly for shooting constable Fitzpatrick, April 1878; their next reported crime was the murder at Stringy Bark Creek, Wombat Ranges, near Mansfield, Victoria, of Sergeant Michael Kennedy, and Constables Scanlan and Lonergan, by shooting, October 26, 1878. On October 30 the gang were outlawed, and a reward of £500 offered by the Victorian Government for the capture of each of them, dead or alive. Stuck up Faithful Creek Station, near Euroa, December 9; robbed the Bank of Victoria at Euroa, of £2000, December 10; stuck up the Police Barracks at Jerilderie, New South Wales, and bailed up the police, Saturday evening, near midnight, February 8, 1879; paraded through the township, held possession of it for two days, keeping the police in charge prisoners in the lock up, cutting the telegraph, wires, and generally terrifying the inhabitants, robbing the bank of £2000, and burning some of its valuable documents, February 10, 1879.
- Macgregor, alias the Wild Scotchman, was the moat notorious bushranger in Queensland; he came originally from New South. Wales, and carried on for some time his depredations single-handed. As there was but little gold at that time discovered in the colony, his raids were principally on stations and travellers; was captured once, but managed to effect his escape on his way to Rockhampton gaol; at last was, after a chase of eighty miles, captured by two magistrates, who managed to obtain fresh horses at various stations on the road, whilst Macgregor had but the one; he was safely, conveyed to Brisbane, where he was sentenced to twenty years' hard labour, 1863.
- Melville, Captain. Born at sea. This notorious scoundrel, who gained some sympathy from a few for his being the most daring of Victorian bushrangers, killed by his own hand in the Melbourne gaol at the age of 35, August 12, 1859. He was undergoing his sentence of thirty-two years' hard labour when he headed the first outbreak of convicts at Williamstown, which resulted in the death of a boatman, Owen Owens, whom he accused of having killed with a hammer, and for which he was sentenced to death at Melbourne, November 21, 1856; he was respited, but before the intelligence arrived he had strangled himself.
- Morgan, Daniel, carried the palm over all bushrangers for cool audacity and blood-thirstiness. His murderous exploits at the Round Hill Station were never, equalled in Australia. Five hundred pounds reward was offered by the New South Wales Government for his apprehension, January 5, 1864. In June, 1804, he shot Sergeant M'Ginnity dead, and took his horse and firearms. Verdict of the wilful murder of John McLean returned against him, June 23, 1864, and a reward of £1000 was offered for his arrest by the New South Wales Government, June 20. In the following September, he shot Sergeant Smith, who died a few days afterwards. Reward offered for his apprehension by the Government increased to £1500, March 8, 1805. On April 6, 1865, put in forced a threat often attributed to him, of making a raid upon Victorian territory, and he stuck up the station of Mr. Evans at Whitefield. Several carriers were also bailed up on the road near Wilton. On April 9 following, Morgan reached Mr. M'Pherson's house at the Peechelba Station, about twenty miles from Wangaratta. He immediately bailed up all whom he found on the station. But a servant girl ran to the house of Mr. Rutherford, a partner of Mr M'Pherson's, situated at a distance of 400 yards. A man was despatched to Wangaratta, and the police force arrived, which, combined with Mr. Rutherford's men, made a party of about twenty-eight men. Morgan, meanwhile, unsuspectingly was spending the night in a free and easy manner, Mrs. M'Pherson playing on the piano. In the morning, after reconnoitring in the front of the house, he prepared to start. The force had been carefully posted in ambush all round the place. After having duly breakfasted, Morgan left; Mr. M'Pherson and three others going with him to the paddock to get a mare. On his way he approached within a hundred yards of the ambush of John Quinlan, a labouring man, who jumped from behind a tree and shot the bushranger in the back. He died a few hours afterwards, without confessing anything. Next day an inquest was held on the body, and the jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide.
- Power, Henry, stuck up the mail near Porejsukka, in the Ovens District, May 7, 1869; stuck up the Buckland mail coach within five miles of Beechworth. The Government of Victoria offered £500 for his arrest, August 28, 1869; captured by Superintendents Nicholson and Hare, and Sergeant Montfort, whilst asleep in a hut on the Glenmore Ranges, at the head of the King River, Victoria; there was a revolver by his side and a gun close to his head (he supposed he was betrayed by Edward Kelly, who turned out bushranger in the same locality), June 5, 1870. Found guilty at the Beechworth Assizes on three charges of robbery, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment, on each charge, sentences to be accumulative. He showed bravado in Court, and, on being sentenced, requested the judge to "draw it mild," August 2, 1879.
- Peisley, John, a notorious scoundrel, at whose house, in the Western District, it is supposed the Gardiner gang received assistance, encouragement, and support. Peisley was tried and convicted of murder, and executed at Bathurst, April 25, 1862.
- Walmsley, one of Donohoe's gang, was captured, after a slight resistance, and was condemned to death; was, however, pardoned by the Governor, in consequence of disclosures he made as to the receivers of the booty taken by this gang. It was chiefly on his evidence several convictions of receivers took place. January 5, 1831.
- Ward, Frederick, alias Captain Thunderbolt, was a stockman on Barney Downs Station, in the New England district; was a splendid horseman, and a man of cool, determined courage. Whilst serving a sentence, he escaped from Cockatoo Island. For some years he set at defiance the authorities in New England. He once stuck up a German band in the Goonoo Goonoo Gap, and as they pleaded hard for their money, he promised that if he should succeed in robbing the principal winner at the Tenterfield races, for whom he was on the lookout, he would return their money, which promise he faithfully kept, by sending to them, much to their astonishment, to the post-office at Warwick, the £20 he had taken from them. Subsequently, when at the public-house at Uralla, he was surprised by two policemen; instead of mounting his own horse, he jumped on one belonging to a hawker, which turned out a bad one; a chase ensued. One constable's horse ran away with his rider; the other constable, Alexander B. Walker, a brave young fellow, who became a sub-inspector, rode Thunderbolt down to a waterhole, when a desperate duel ensued, resulting in the death of Thunderbolt, May 25, 1870.
- Webber, one of the gang commanded by Donohoe, who was shot by the police, was captured and subsequently condemned and executed, January 16, 1831.
- Weswood, William John, known as Jackey Jackey, was not, as is from his cognomen generally supposed, an aboriginal. He was the son of a farmer in the county of Kent, and was transported to New South Wales in 1837, when he was assigned to Mr. Phillip King, at Gidleigh, 1840; he absconded from his employment, took to the bush, and joined a most determined scoundrel and murderer named Paddy Curran, who was hanged at Borrima in 1841; this man Curran, attempting to ill-treat a married woman, Jackey Jackey defended her and threatened to take Curran's life for the base act and then left him, taking his horse, arms, and ammunition, and thenceforward he carried on his "profession" single-handed. Jackey Jackey had been arrested near Goulburn, and when being escorted from there in June, 1841, he escaped from the Bargo lockup, taking the arms and accouterments of one of the police. A day or two afterwards he stuck up Mr. Francis M'Arthur, and took from his carriage on the Goulburn Plains, a fine horse, and he then proceeded to Gray's Inn, called the "Black Horse" some ten miles from Berrima, when he was set upon by Mr. Gray, Mrs. and Miss Gray (the latter showing extraordinary bravery), and a carpenter named Waters, and captured after being struck on the head with a shingling axe by the latter. The reward for £30 offered for his apprehension was paid to Gray, and the convict Waters received his pardon. Jackey was sentenced to imprisonment for life, and after an attempt to escape from Darlinghurst was sent to Cockatoo Island, Parramatta River, N.S.W., from which place he, with twenty-five other desperadoes, attempted to escape by swimming to the mainland, but were followed by the police in their boat and captured; Jackey was then sent to Tasmania on board the brig "Governor Phillip." The prisoners were, confined in the hold nearly naked and chained to a cable, but on the way they managed to get loose and attempted a mutiny, and it was with the greatest difficulty they were landed at Hobart Town, whence they were sent to Port Arthur; there Jackey Jackey again escaped, but after nine days starvation was captured, one of his comrades, Frank Bailey, being shot. Twelve months afterwards he again succeeded in making his escape to the mainland, but was captured and placed in Hobart Town gaol, and thence forwarded to Norfolk Island, where, on July 20, 1846, nearly all the prisoners under Jackey mutinied. They murdered the overseers and then, to the number of several hundreds, marched in a military form to Government House, under the command of Jackey. On the road, however, they were charged by the soldiers, and at last made prisoners. The principals in this rising were tried, and eighteen of them, including Jackey Jackey, were executed.
- Williams, Thomas, was a convict sent to Tasmania; when his sentence expired he went to Victoria and became a bushranger; was caught and convicted on the three charges of highway robbery, for which he received sentences amounting to 30 years' imprisonment.
- Garrett, Henry, alias Rouse, a liberated Victorian felon, arrived in New Zealand, and at once took to the bush in the Maungatiou Rangs, sticking up twenty-three persons in one day; was captured, and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, 1861.
Old Australian Crime Records
Sources:
- Old Australian Crime Records. Remarkable Crimes and Criminals. (1917, January 27). The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 7.
- Death of Thunderbolt, the Bushranger 1870; Samuel Calvert (1828-1913), engraver; Publisher: Ebenezer and David Syme; Illustrated Australian News for Home Readers; Courtesy State Library of Victoria
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