Template:Current Australian COTF Bushrangers were outlaws who used the Australian "bush" as a refuge to hide from the authorities between committing their robberies, roughly analogous to the British-American "highwayman". Their targets often included small-town banks or coach services.
The first bushrangers were escaped convicts fleeing from the early Australian penal colonies. Fleeing convicts would find they had almost no idea how to support themselves in the harsh Australian wilderness. As a result, most turned to stealing supplies from remote settlements and travellers and on-selling stolen goods to other free settlers.
Their heyday was the Gold Rush years of the 1850s and 1860s, but the increasing push of settlement and improvements in transport (railways) and communications technology (telegraphy) made it increasingly difficult for bushrangers to evade capture.
In Australia, bushrangers often attracted public sympathy. In Australian history and iconography bushrangers are held in some esteem in some quarters due to the harshness and anti-Catholicism of the colonial authorities whom they embarrassed, and the romanticism of the lawlessness they represented. Some bushrangers, most notably Ned Kelly in his Jerilderie letter, and in his final raid on Glenrowan, explicitly represented themselves as political rebels. Attitudes to Kelly, by far the most well-known bushranger, exemplify the ambiguous views of Australians regarding bushranging.
Notable bushrangers
Name | Lived | Area of activity | Fate |
---|---|---|---|
Mary Ann Bugg | 1834–1867 | Hunter Valley-Tamworth-New England | Pneumonia |
Joe Byrne, one of the Kelly Gang | 1857 - 1880 | North East Victoria | Shot by police |
Martin Cash | c. 1808–1877 | Tasmania | Prison sentence, released after 13 years |
John Caesar | 1764–1796 | Sydney area | Shot |
John Donohue, known as Bold Jack Donohue | c. 1806–1830 | Sydney area | Shot by police |
John Dunn | 1846–1866 | Western New South Wales | Hanged |
John Francis | c. 1825–? | Victoria Gold Fields (1853) | Released after giving Queen's Evidence |
John Fuller, known as Dan Mad Dog Morgan | c. 1830–1865 | New South Wales | Shot |
Frank Gardiner | c. 1829–c. 1904 | Western New South Wales | Prison sentence, then moved to California |
John Gilbert | 1842–1865 | Western New South Wales | Shot by police |
Ben Hall | 1837–1865 | Western New South Wales | Shot by police |
Steve Hart, one of the Kelly Gang | North East Victoria | Shot by police | |
Joseph Bolitho Johns, known as Moondyne Joe | c. 1828–1900 | Western Australia | Numerous Prison sentences and died a free man |
Henry Johnson, known as Harry Power | 1819–1891 | North East Victoria | Prison sentence, released |
Dan Kelly, brother of Ned | c. 1854-1880 | North East Victoria | Shot by police |
Ned Kelly | c. 1854–1880 | North East Victoria | Hanged |
James Alpin McPherson, known as The Wild Scotchman | 1842-1895 | Gin Gin, Queensland | Died a free man |
George Melville | 1822–1853 | Hanged | |
Musquito | c. 1780–1825 | Tasmania | Hanged |
Johnny O'Meally | 1843–1864 | Western New South Wales | Shot by farmer |
John Paid, known as Wolloo Jack | from Stanwell Park terrorised Sydney area in the 1820s | ||
Frank Pearson, known as Captain Starlight | 1837-1899 | New South wales | Accidental(?) poisoning (while working as a WA public servant) |
Sam Poo | ?–1865 | Coonabarabran, New South Wales | Hanged |
Billy Roberts (probably), known as Jack the Rammer | South Eastern New South Wales (1834) | ||
Codrington Revingstone | South-West Victoria (1850) | ||
Andrew George Scott, known as Captain Moonlite | 1842-1880 | near Gundagai, New South Wales | Hanged |
Owen Suffolk | 1829 - ? | Victoria | Died in prison? |
Frederick Ward, known as Captain Thunderbolt | 1833–1870 | Hunter Valley-Tamworth-New England (1864–1870) | Shot by police |
William Westwood, known as Jackey Jackey | 1820–1846 | Hanged |
External links
- Bushrangers Trail at PictureAustralia