Bailed Up: Bushrangers at Darlinghurst Gaol
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Introduction Of the thousands of prisoners who were held in Darlinghurst Gaol during its 73 year history, many of the most notorious inmates came from the gangs of bushrangers who roamed the Australian countryside in the mid nineteenth century. These gangs included those of Captain Moonlite, Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall and Captain Thunderbolt. Some of their members were convicted of robbery under arms, some of murder. Many met violent deaths when they were shot by police, or hanged on the scaffold at Darlinghurst Gaol. Some were eventually released and lived long and fulfilling lives. This brochure gives a brief outline of the crimes of thirty-three of the bushrangers identified as having spent time in Darlinghurst Gaol. Fourteen of them were hanged. After 1871, prisoners were photographed on their entry to and discharge from the gaol. State Records NSW hold many of these invaluable and often moving photographs in the Darlinghurst Gaol photo description books. It is through these records that we can gain an insight into the lives of the bushrangers who were responsible for many of the crimes committed during this brutal period of Australian history. Deborah Beck Historian and Archivist, National Art School
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1841
1841 & 1845
Patrick (Paddy) Curran
William Westwood (Jacky Jacky)
1812-1841 Paddy Curran was the first bushranger held in Darlinghurst Gaol, after it opened in June 1841. He had been a partner of Jacky Jacky, and was charged with murder of a convict overseer (Mr Fuller) and rape, and hanged at Berrima Gaol 21 October 1841. Darlinghurst Gaol governor Henry Keck was the sheriff at the hanging.
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1820-1846 While riding with Paddy Curran, Jacky Jacky raided many homesteads in the Goulburn district in 1839. Known as a gentleman bushranger, he became famous for his numerous escapes. In 1841 he was sent to Darlinghurst Gaol. Caught attempting to escape, he was moved to Cockatoo Island, where he planned another failed escape with 25 fellow prisoners. He was then sent to Port Arthur, escaped and began bushranging in Van Diemen’s Land. Caught again, he was in Darlinghurst Gaol in 1845, but was sent to Norfolk Island where he was eventually hanged for organising a mutiny and killing a policeman in 1846.
1842
1861
Francis MacNamara (Frank the poet)
Fred Ward (Captain Thunderbolt)
1811-1861
1835-1870
After being transported from Ireland in 1832 Francis MacManara, poet and serial absconder was in and out of prison for most of his life. He spent one month in the Woolloomooloo Stockade (later Darlinghurst Gaol) in 1839. In May 1842 he was again sent to Darlinghurst Gaol and received a life sentence for bushranging. From here he was moved to Cockatoo Island and then to Port Arthur in Van Dieman’s Land for life in July 1842. During his lifetime he endured 590 lashes in 12 separate floggings. He wrote ‘A Convict’s Tour to Hell’ in 1839, and is credited with writing the words to the song ‘Moreton Bay’.
Fred Ward was a bushranger and outstanding horseman who rode with two gangs and held up multiple households, pubs, mail coaches. His part aboriginal wife, Mary Ann Bugg, was also in his gang. He was sent to Darlinghurst in 1861 for stealing a horse in Mudgee, and then to Cockatoo Island for 9 years. He staged a daring escape, swimming to Balmain from Cockatoo Island with Fred Britten on the 13th September 1863, and was shot by police in 1870.
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1862
1862-63
Fred Britten
Alexander and Charles Ross
b c1836 Britten had robbed the Bathurst Mail in November 1862, and was caught with stolen banknotes in Sydney. He attempted to escape from a prison van outside Darlinghurst Gaol on the 12th December 1862, without success, and in 1863 he escaped from Cockatoo Island with Fred Ward.
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d.1862 These were the first bushrangers to be executed at Darlinghurst Gaol. They shot and robbed an innkeeper at Caloolah on 22 October 1862. They were hanged for robbery under arms in November 1862.
1863
1863
John Bow
Alexander Fordyce
b.1843
b.1829
John Bow was a member of Frank Gardiner’s gang, which held up the gold escort at Eugowra in 1862. During the trial in February 1863, a petition was signed by 14,000 people for a stay of execution for the three gang members. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour. John Bow served 11 years in Darlinghurst Gaol and was released in 1874.
Alexander Fordyce was also a member of Frank Gardiner’s gang, which held up the gold escort at Eugowra. After the trial in February 1863, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour.
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1863
1863
Harry Manns
John (Johnny) Vane
d1863
1842-1906
Manns was part of Frank Gardiner’s gang, and he also shot and robbed William Saville at Potter’s Hill near Mittagong. Manns was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on the 26th March 1863. He was hanged by hangman Bull, who botched the hanging and had to hang him twice.
As a member of Ben Hall’s gang, Johnny Vane bailed up the Cowra to Bathurst mail coach in September 1863. He surrendered aged 21 after being involved in an attack on Henry Keightley’s property near Bathurst. He was sentenced to 15 years hard labour for robbery under arms. Vane served his time at Darlinghurst Gaol and later at Cockatoo Island, and was released on 23 February 1870 on good behaviour aged 28. After his release he worked for a time as a stonemason in Sydney. He worked on the building of St. Mary’s Cathedral and then returned to the Bathurst area.
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1863-64
1863-72
Thomas McCann
Patrick (Patsy) Daley
d1864
1844-1914
Listed as a bushranger by NSW police McCann was convicted of highway robbery and attempted murder in 1863. He was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol for robbery under arms in February 1864.
Daley was a member of Ben Hall’s gang. With Hall, he raided the Pinnacle police station in 1863 and then robbed a store at ‘Big Wombat’ NSW. Sentenced to 15 years for armed robbery and assault, he spent a few months in Darlinghurst Gaol from 1863-64, was sent to Cockatoo Island and released in 1873. He died a wealthy man after marrying and purchasing the Terminus Hotel in Cobar in 1911.
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1864-74
1866
Frank Gardiner
John Dunn
b1831
1846-1866
Frank Gardiner was a national celebrity in 1862, having masterminded the biggest robbery in Australian colonial history. After robbing the Forbes to Sydney gold escort of the equivalent of $4 million, his gang split up, Gardiner disappeared, and most of the money was never recovered. Frank Gardiner was finally arrested in 1864 near Rockhampton posing as storekeeper Frank Christie. He was sentenced to 32 years hard labour and served ten years in Darlinghurst Gaol. One of the conditions of his release in 1874, was that he leave the country. Aged forty-four, he moved to San Francisco and became a respected businessman.
Johnny Dunn was a jockey and expert horseman who became a member of Ben Hall’s gang along with John Gilbert. He was hanged by hangman Elliot at Darlinghurst Gaol on the 19th March 1866 for the murder of Constable Nelson at Collector in January 1866.
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1866
1866
Patrick John Kelly
James Crookwell (or Crooknell)
b 1830 Born in Ireland in 1830, Patrick Kelly was a member of Captain Thunderbolt’s gang. He received a 19 year sentence for robbery under arms and was released from Darlinghurst in 1873 to be exiled to America.
d 1866 On the 14th April, 1866, prisoners under escort from Berrima to Darlinghurst Gaol revolted , and James Crookwell fired a shot which killed Constable Raymond. He was hanged for robbery under arms and murder.
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1867
1868
Thomas and John Clarke
William Monckton
b1841 and 1843 d1867
b 1855
Brothers Tom and John Clarke were captured in April 1867 after an eighteen month rampage which resulted in the deaths of five policemen and many holdups of coaches and storekeepers around the Braidwood/ Cooma area of NSW. They were hanged at Darlinghurst on June 25, 1867.
Monckton was a member of Captain Thunderbolt’s gang when he was 13 years old. He was charged with robbery under arms and sentenced to 6 years, the first year in Darlinghurst and for the remaining five he was to attend a reformatory school. He was released after 1 year, married in 1881 and fathered 11 children. He later wrote a book about his time with Thunderbolt.
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1868-1875
1868-1874
William Brookman
John Williams
1851-1928
b.1846
Aged 17 in 1868, Brookman held up a store on a station called Mossgiel with partner Jerry ‘Duce’(John Williams). They were arrested and charged at Deniliquin Court with wounding with intent to murder Constable MacNamara. Brookman was sentenced to death but this was reduced to 15 years in gaol. While in Darlinghurst he worked in the mat-making workshop along with Frank Gardiner. He was granted a pardon in 1875 and became an alderman on the Wyalong Municipal Council and a member of the hospital committee.
Born in Goulburn in 1846, John Williams (alias Jerry ‘Duce’) had been part of a bushranging gang led by Robert Cotterall called the ‘Blue Cap Gang’. He robbed the store at Mossgiel in 1868 with William Brookman and both were sentenced to death for wounding with intent to kill. The sentence was reduced to 15 years and he served 6 years in Darlinghurst.
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1869-84
1869-72
Frank Pearson (Captain Starlight)
John Massey Thompson
1837-1899 Frank Pearson ranged the bush in northern NSW, bailed up travellers and eventually shot policeman McCabe in a shootout. His death sentence for this crime was commuted to life and he served 15 years in Darlinghurst. During this time he learnt to draw and paint watercolours and a book of his work is held by the Sisters of Charity. He was a friend of long serving prisoner and artist Henry Louis Bertrand. A newspaper reported in 1873 that Pearson and Bertrand were responsible for making the stained glass windows in the Darlinghurst gaol chapel.
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b c1847 Thompson was a member of Captain Thunderbolt’s first gang, which operated in the north western plains of NSW in 1865. He spent a few months in Darlinghurst Gaol in 1869 and 1872.
1871-72
1879-80
Thomas Kelly
Andrew George Scott (Captain Moonlite)
b c1849 Convicted of highway robbery and sent to Parramatta Gaol, Thomas Kelly used his stone breaker’s hammer to strike his overseer William McLaren. He was charged with murder on 2 January 1871 and hanged at Darlinghurst Goal 2 January 1872. He managed to violently kick hangman Bull in the stomach before being hanged.
1843-1880 With a gang of five young and recently recruited men, Captain Moonlite held up the Wantabadgery sheep station near Wagga Wagga in 1879. Moonlite conducted a prolonged mock trial of his hostages during the night, and by the next day, had over 35 men being guarded in the dining room. On the Sunday during a gun battle between Moonlite’s gang and the police from Wagga, Constable Bowen was shot in the neck, and later died of his wound. His death turned the outlaws’ crimes into a capital offence, and Scott was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on the 20th January, 1880.
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1879-1880
1879-1880
Thomas Rogan
Graham Bennett
1858-1880
b1859
Part of Moonlite’s gang, Rogan was 21 when he was sentenced to death as an accomplice in the death of Bowen. Rogan and Scott were hanged together on the gallows in E wing of Darlinghurst Gaol in 1880. A grim description of the hanging of Scott and Rogan was written by Jules Francois Archibald (editor) in the first edition of the ‘Bulletin’ ever to be published, on the 31st January 1880. Death masks were taken of Rogan and Scott and they can be seen in the Justice and Police Museum, Sydney.
Bennett was also captured as a member of Moonlite’s gang, but his death sentence was commuted to life on the roads. He was sent to Berrima Gaol in 1880. Friends and family believed that he had only joined the gang a few days before the crime, and had no idea of their intentions. After a petition was raised by his family he was released in 1885.
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1879
1887
Thomas Williams
James Bell (Jemmy the Whisperer)
1860-1885 Another member of Moonlite’s gang, William’s death sentence was commuted to life on the roads in 1880. His real name was Frank Johns. After he was moved from Darlinghurst to Parramatta Gaol to begin his life sentence, Williams stabbed another prisoner with a kitchen knife, and attacked a warder. He was sentenced to death a second time, and this time was hanged in Darlinghurst Gaol in 1885.
b1844 Singer Jemmy the Whisperer was a member of Captain Thunderbolt’s bushranging gang. Late in 1865, Ward formed his second gang with Patrick Kelly and James Bell. They robbed as far south as Quirindi, Currabubula and Carroll. At Carroll they had a shoot-out with the police in December 1865 where a trooper was shot in the arm. The gang split up early in January 1866. Bell was admitted to Darlinghurst Gaol for horse stealing in September 1887.
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1896
1900-1
Jack Bradshaw
Jimmy Governor
1846-1937
1875-1901
Bradshaw was a carnival showman and professional foot runner, who robbed banks and attempted many hold-ups with former boxer ‘Lovely’ Riley in the Coolah and Quirindi area in the 1880s. He was released in 1901, and wrote his memoirs. Highway Robbery under Arms Without Shedding Blood, and Twenty Years of Prison Life in the Gaols of New South Wales Jack Bradshaw, 1920-1930.
Governor was an aboriginal outlaw, who murdered four of his employers. After a period of racial persecution and social rejection for marrying a white girl, Jimmy Governor and his brother Joe then went on a fourteen-week, 2000-mile rampage, terrorizing a wide area of north-central New South Wales. They killed another four people. Jimmy Governor was finally caught on 27 October 1900, his brother Joe was shot dead on 31 October. Jimmy was found guilty of the murders of Helen Kertz, and three members of the Mawbey family at Breelong, NSW. He was hanged by Robert Howard at Darlinghurst Gaol on the 18th January 1901.
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1913 Elizabeth Jessie Hickman (Jessie McInytre) 1890-1936 Jessie Hickman (nee Hunt) was the only female bushranger held in Darlinghurst Gaol. She had worked as a roughrider in Martini’s Buckjumping Show from the age of eight, and had a son in 1913, who she gave to a friend to raise. Five months later Hickman was arrested for horse stealing in August 1913. She was sent to Darlinghurst Gaol, where she spent 2 months, and then another 7 months at the State Reformatory at Long Bay. After another stint in Long Bay, she married Ben Hickman in 1920. In 1924 she rode with a gang which specialised in horse and cattle duffing in the Rylstone area of NSW.
Photo Credits p2: The hanging of Andrew George Scott and Thomas Rogan at Darlinghurst Gaol 1880. The Bulletin 31.6.1880 Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW [TN 86] p4. William Westwood death mask. 1846 Sourced from Prior, Wannan and Nunn, A Pictorial History of Bushrangers, Hamlyn, Melbourne 1966 p5. Fred Ward (Captain Thunderbolt). c1870 Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths website. p7. John Bow 1874. State Records NSW p7. Alexander Fordyce 1873. State Records NSW p8. John Vane 1880. State Records NSW p9. Patrick Daley 1872. State Records NSW p10. Frank Gardiner. c1860 Mitchell Library, State Library NSW [MIN 293] p 10. John Dunn c1862. Sourced from the History of Australian Bushranging Vol 2 by Charles White. Accessed via Project Gutenberg p 11. Patrick John Kelly 1873 State Records NSW p 12. Thomas and John Clarke 1867. Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales [DL Pd 788]. p 12. William Monckton 1905. Photo from his book ‘Three Years with Thunderbolt’, accessed via Project Gutenberg. p 13. William Brookman 1874. State Records NSW p 13. John Williams 1874. State Records NSW p 14. Frank Pearson (Captain Starlight) 1873. State Records NSW p 14. John Massey Thompson. c1874. Photo sourced from Edgar Penzig’s ‘Bushrangers: Heroes or Villains, Trantor Enterprizes, Katoomba 1988 p 15. Andrew George Scott (Captain Moolite) 1879 State Records NSW p 16. Thomas Rogan. 1879 State Records NSW p 16. Graham Bennett 1879. State Records NSW p 17. Thomas Williams 1879. State Records NSW p 17. James Bell ( Jemmy the Whisperer) c1887 State Records NSW p 18. Jack Bradshaw c1930. Photo sourced from his book ‘Twenty Years of Prison Life in the Gaols of New South Wales’ Workers Trustees, Sydney c 1930 p 18. Jimmy Governor 1900. State Records NSW p 19. Jessie Hickman ( McIntyre) 1913. State Records NSW Research by Deborah Beck, Historian and Archivist, National Art School 2014
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nas.edu.au enquiries @ nas.edu.au Forbes Street Darlinghurst Sydney NSW 2010 Australia t [61 2] 9339 8744 CRICOS 03197B ISBN: 978-0-646-93041-1