September 14, 2011 • 21 mins
While Ned Kelly may be the most famous bushranger, he's certainly not the only one. Join Deblina and Sarah as they explore the lives of early bush rangers in this podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bling in chalk Rewarding and I'm fair dout.
And over the summer we did a podcast on Ned
Kelly and we talked about this mystery of a skull
(00:21):
that was turned in by It was turned into Australian
authorities by a farmer named Tom Baxer in two thousand nine,
and Baxter wouldn't say how he came to have it,
but he claimed that it was the skull of Ned Kelly,
a notorious bush ranger who was captured, convicted and hanged
back in the eighteen hundreds after getting into a now
famous shootout with the police, which we covered in our
(00:43):
episode Ned Kelly's Last Stand. We also speculated it's a
little shady to not mention how you come across the head.
I don't know that sounds Oh it was suspicious that. Yeah,
there's still more to know. They're especially in light of
recent news. But the skull had been stolen from Melbourne
jail in ninety eight, so there was a chance that
the one backs returned in could have been authentic. But
(01:06):
experts at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine had trouble
I ding it, and so by the time of that
last podcast we did, the story had kind of gone cold.
But then just the other day, September one, another Ned
Kelly story broke and we heard from listeners all over
the world about this. Immediately, we got so many emails,
any know, I feel like I arrived at work and
(01:28):
I my entire inbox was filled with Ned Kelly related emails.
It was really a he was a shining moment for
stuff you missed in history class. Listeners. Clearly everyone was
on alert for Ned Kelly news and I was. I
was touched that everybody thought of us too. So that
news wasn't about the skull, but the rest of ned
Kelly's remains had been identified. His body had been moved
(01:51):
from Melbourne Jail to Pentridge Prison back in nineteen nine
and buried there in a mass grave with thirty three
their prisoners. So after the skull surface, the remains had
been exhumed in two thousand nine, and the v I
f M was able to identify those remains, thanks largely
to a DNA sample that was taken from a Melbourne
(02:13):
school teacher named Lee Oliver, who is the great grandson
of Kelly's sister. So a little modern science coming into
play here. Yeah, and how cool is that? I mean,
he must be like the most famous person in Australia
at the moment. Can you imagine being one of his students.
But anyway, the remains, they're an almost complete skeleton with
a lot of wear and tear, as you might imagine
(02:35):
if you know anything about the need Kelly story, and
it's missing most of the skull. So there's definitely more
to come on the story, and we'll pick up with
that a little more later on. But of course hearing
about this exciting discovery reminded us how fascinated we are
by the stories of bush rangers, who are of course
Australian outlaws or bandits who robbed stage coaches, banks and
(02:56):
small settlements for about one hundred years starting in the
late seventeen hundreds. And in our last podcast we talked
a little bit about bush rangers, and there were a
lot of them, thousands in fact, during the time that
we talked about they even outnumbered the number of Wild
West outlaws in America. Just to give you kind of
an idea for comparison's sake. But we also mentioned that
there are two distinct sub periods of bush ranging, right, Sarah. Yeah,
(03:19):
So there's one from about seventeen eighty nine to the
eighteen fifties, and those bush Rangers were mostly escaped convicts,
and that's the group that for the most part, we're
gonna be talking about today, that first wave of bush Rangers.
But we've got to discuss the convict situation a little
bit too, because, in case some of you don't know,
(03:41):
there was a very strange prisoner deal going on in
Australia during the eighteen hundreds or even the seventeen hundreds.
So just some background information for you here. Australia was
settled by Britain in the late eighteenth century, and most
of the first settlers who came over in seventeen eight
seven were evicted British felons, and some of them had
(04:02):
been stuck on prison ships for years and years because
after the American Revolution that had put a stop to
the practice of dumping criminals in the American colonies to
work as indentured servants. So the first Bushrangers were convict
bolters who were transported villains who escaped prison or the
(04:24):
settlements and turned to crime, turned to bushrangering, and and
like I said, that's the group that we're going to
mostly talk about today. Yes, But then fast forward to
eighteen fifty three when British Parliament passes the Penal Servitude
Act and this ends almost all transportation sentences, and that
really changes things. Many bush rangers after that are native
(04:45):
born or at least free settlers who had broken the law.
So very distinct difference in these bushrangers that we're going
to be talking about today. Consequently, two distinct podcasts, Yes,
which are very excited about because we love this topic.
We really hope that you guys do too, because we're
gonna be talking about it for a couple episodes. Judging
by the volume of emails, I'm pretty sure most of
(05:07):
these folks like bush rangers Australian history. So fingers crossed,
hope you all liked us. Yeah, I mean, if you
like the Kelly story, then you should like something about
these two, because it wasn't just about Ned. It started
way before him, and the man who's actually believed to
be Australia's first bush ranger was one of those transported convicts.
That Sarah just talked about. His name was John Caesar,
(05:29):
but he was better known as Black Caesar, and he
was of African descent and was probably born in either
the West Indies or in Madagascar. It's kind of uncertain. Yeah,
we're going to pick up with him about seventeen eighty
six when he was living as a servant in England
and in March of that year he was charged with
stealing twelve pounds from a dwelling house and was sentenced
(05:50):
to transportation for seven years. So he arrived in Australia
in January of seventeen eighty eight and he set about
working as a laborer in the college. Because it wasn't
just like you were transported to Australia and then you
could remake your life. It was hard work waiting on
the other side exactly. And from what we know of
Black Caesar, he was no criminal mastermind. He was actually
(06:13):
thought of, I think is kind of a hard worker.
But he was definitely something that you wouldn't want to
mess with. He was very tall, some sources say maybe
as much as seven feet where although that maybe an exaggeration,
we're not sure, but he was very muscular and he
was known to be a fierce fighter. He was also
known and this is interesting for his big appetite. All
sources seemed to mention that what gets him in trouble
(06:33):
here because in the colony there was often a shortage
of food and all of the convicts were on really
strict rations, and it was said that Caesar could often
polish off two days worth of rations in one day.
And yeah, but like I said, this gets him into
trouble eventually. Yeah, I mean, it could be part of
the reason that led him into what comes later. Some
(06:55):
sources suggest that at least because I mean we joke
about it a little bit. It's a funny thing to
bring up about somebody in the historical sources. Yeah, that
he was a hungry guy, but with as we said,
the shortage of food, it could have been a serious situation. Actually,
there's another later bush ranger called Matt Gambit. He came
around in around eighteen twenty two, and we're not going
to talk about him in depth, but he was known
(07:16):
as the cannibal bush ranger because when he went off
with his gang and there weren't enough settlers to steal
from and they ran out of food, he would actually
eat his gang members, oh gosh. And yet he continued
to be able to recruit them. No, I don't think
he was after that. I think he kind of ate
up his entire gang, put an end to his bush
(07:38):
rangering getting back to Black Caesar. That was just sort
of an aside um. But he got caught stealing again
in seventeen eighty nine, which earned him a life sentence,
this time of transportation. But of course he didn't just
sit around and accept that fate. In seventeen ninety he
escaped to the countryside outside of Sydney with a stolen musket,
and this was just the first in a series of
(07:59):
escapes that Caesar would pull off over the next few
years from about seventeen ninety to seventeen ninety six. While
he was on the lamb, he would survive by stealing
from the settlement and from government garden. Still had food
on his mind, definitely, But it was after his final
escape in seventeen nine that his bush ranging activities really commenced.
At that point, he led a gang of absconders and
(08:20):
vagabonds in the Port Jackson area and they'd raid settlers
and rob lone travelers. Yeah, and It's funny we've talked
about criminals like this before. Everything seems to be blamed
on But it was said that Caesar was blamed for
pretty much every crime that was committed around that time.
The seven foot top potentially striking man just seemed to
(08:40):
be a person who captured the public's imagination even then. Yeah, So,
as you want to imagine, the governor wanted him caught,
and so he offered five gallons of rum for his capture,
and Caesar was shot dead consequently by a man named
John Wimbo at Liberty Planes in seventeen ninety six. Just
a little side note on rum too, It must have
been a pretty big motivator at the time for at
(09:03):
much like food these criminals. Yeah, twenty gallons of roum
was offered as a reward for the capture of another
bush ranger named Matthew Brady in the eighteen ten So yeah,
we're gonna talk maybe in the next episode about the
legal options of capturing these bush rangers. But I like
that rum was a prime motivator in the early years
(09:25):
at least, so our next bush Ranger pushes us into
the nineteenth century. His name is buld Jack Donna who
and sometimes he's known as the Wild Colonial Boy. More
on that later, but he was born in Dublin, John Donna,
who probably around eighteen oh six. But by April three
(09:47):
he had already run afoul of the law in his
home country for something described as intent to commit a felony,
and for that he was sentenced to transportation for life,
which of course meant going to Australia. And as we
mentioned in Black Caesar section there, it didn't mean just
a free ticket to Australia. It meant a lot of
(10:08):
hard work. And Donna who was first assigned to work
for a man named John Pagan, and then work on
a road gang and then finally for a guy named
Major West who was a surgeon. Consequently, he started running
into some fellow convicts. Yeah, so they started hanging out together,
and they began robbing wagons traveling west of Sydney. And
(10:30):
when he and two of his buddies, men named Smith
and Kilroy or maybe Gilroy, got caught. Finally in eighty eight,
they were found guilty of two counts of robbery each
and sentenced to die two times each, two death sentences
just to be sure. So Kilroy and Smith met their
ends at the noose, but Donna who somehow escaped between
the courthouse and the jail, and he didn't sulk off
(10:53):
into hiding. After that though, he rounded up a gang
of English and Irish convicts and just expanded his range.
So he kind of doubled his efforts there across the countryside.
So Donna who is a real ballad type of guy,
a robin Hood type bush ranger who people like to romanticize. Later,
he would distribute stolen items to the poor. He would
(11:13):
let some people go, and to go along with this,
he had an appropriately robin Hood like Rakish style, which
also made him sort of popular. Made settlers like him.
He'd wear a black hat, he'd wear this fine blue
coat lined in silk and lace up boots. So he
really must have cut quite a figure out among all
(11:33):
of these rough and tumble looking men. Yeah, I don't know, though,
he sounds more button cute than Rakish to me. Posters
announcing the twenty pound reward on his head described him
as twenty two years old, five ft four, with freckles,
flaxen hair, blue eyes, and a scar under the left nostril. Yeah,
he sounds like you might mistake him for a teenager,
(11:56):
but well, you know, he's coming at a disadvantage right
after Black Caesar. Probably that's true. And he does have
the scar, which is kind of scary. He does have
the scar. Finally, though, on September first thirty, a group
of soldiers employees found the gang hiding in scrub near Campbellstown,
and Donnaho was said to have urged them on with
(12:18):
some real fighting words, but he was soon struck down
by a guy named Trooper Muggleston. We'll just let that
let that name slide um. He lived on though, even
even after death quite obviously. Yeah. So first, unlike many
of our later Bush Rangers, who's surviving images are usually
heavily bearded post mortem photographs, Donna who had a rather
(12:42):
elegant death drawing done by Sir Thomas Mitchell, who added
some Byron lines at the end to complete the effect.
They were no matter I have bared my brow fair
and death's face before and now. He also has something
maybe a little more appropriate than Roman poetry, though. He
was likely the inspiration for a very famous outlaw anthem,
(13:05):
The Wild Colonial Boy, which was popular in Australia until
it was banned. Finally, as being fuditious, and it stayed
popular after that. That probably only helped its reputation. The
song is about a fictitious bush ranger who goes by
different names in different versions of the song. It is,
after all a ballad. Sometimes it's Jim Douelan, sometimes Jack Dubbins,
(13:27):
sometimes John Dowling, but it always sticks to those j
D initials, just like Jack Donahoe. So the next bush
ranger on our list wasn't a convict, but he was
born abroad in Scotland. His name was originally Francis or
Frank Christie, and he moved to Sydney with his parents
in eighteen thirty four when he was about four years old.
(13:48):
He started his life of crime fairly young and got
caught stealing horses in eighteen fifty when he was around
twenty years old. He was sentenced to five years of
hard labor for this, but he escaped to New South
Wales after only serving about six months, and he went
right back to stealing horses. So in eighteen fifty four
he was caught again and convicted again under the name
(14:08):
Francis Clark this time, and this time he was sentenced
to seven years, but he was given a ticket of leaves,
so basically released in eighteen fifty nine. He didn't play
by the rules after that, though, he broke parole and
went south where he opened a butchery as Frank Gardner,
which is how most people know him today, and Landing
Flat and he was probably trading and stolen meat there,
(14:28):
so not even that was on the up and up
sounds so grass to me. I'm sure it's like legitimate
but stolen meat for sale, you know, buy it here
at my store. I don't know. Anyway, a warrant was
issued for Gardener's arrest, and rather than faith yet another
trial and possibly more jail time, Frank took to the
(14:49):
bush and there he teamed up with a couple other outlaws,
when named Ben Hall we're going to talk about him
in the next episode, and another guy named John Gilbert,
and he became own and feared for his highway robberies
in particular along the trade routes of New South Wales,
and the police couldn't catch his gang because they just
moved so quickly, and they used a kind of bush
(15:11):
telegraph system to help them get along. Yeah, Frank was
actually called King of the Road around this time. For
his highway robber reputation. But on June fifteenth, eighteen sixty two,
Frank's gang pulled off their biggest robbery yet and it's
actually what said to be the biggest bush ranger robbery ever.
And this crime was when they bailed up or held
(15:32):
up that's what that that's what bailed up means. They
held up the Lachland gold Escort and made off with
fourteen thousand pounds worth of gold in cash, which is
worth about one and a quarter million U S. Dollars today.
And after this Frank took off with his mistress Kate
and they opened a little store and shanty in Queensland
and as Mr and Mrs Christie, so he had kind
(15:53):
of a business streak to him and they lived there
until the New South Wales Police finally tracked him down
in February eighteen sixty four. So Frank was sentenced to
thirty two years hard labor, which was considered a pretty
harsh sentence at this time. Fortunately, though, he had a
good attorney, William Daley, who petitioned the governor to use
his prerogative of mercy, and the governor really did release
(16:16):
Frank in eighteen seventy four under the condition that he
leaved the country. There was some controversy over this decision,
but ultimately Frank Gardner left Australia in July eighteen seventy four,
and by the beginning of eighteen seventy five he was
in San Francisco. I mean, just the perfect place for
for this guy. He opened a saloon there. It was
(16:37):
called the Twilight Saloon on the waterfront, and by all accounts,
he avoided trouble for the rest of his life. He
really did have a business streak, like you mentioned, even
though he was pretty open about his past, He'd liked
to tell tales about his time as an outlaw, which
I would imagine that would make you a successful saloon owner.
People loved here stories. I feel like it's almost a
(16:59):
requirement to have a good storytelling streak, if not at
least good stories to tell. But Frank was also just
a really rare case among bush Rangers, and that he
lived to a ripe old age, and he's since been
called the father of bush ranging. So Frank seems like
the perfect guy to leave off on, at least for
this first part of our bush Rangers series. And I
(17:19):
feel like he's kind of a good transition between those
convict vultures we talked about and then the later Bush
Rangers generation second generation. Yeah, so while we're going to
leave that generation behind, we do have one more piece
of information about that mystery Ned Kelly head. And this
came out just the other day, September seven, and again
it's from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. So well,
(17:43):
they did identify the body. They also recently said that
that mystery head might be that of a notorious serial
killer named Frederick Deeming. So Deeming was born in England.
He was a thief, a serial big, a myth and
he set out on this wandering sort of life. And
(18:03):
he was also a murderer. He was supposed to have
buried his first wife and four children beneath the floor
of their rented home and then murdered a second wife
in Melbourne. So what a weird connection here, a very
strange twist to the story. And I think it's interesting
that it's the head of another criminal, but someone who
(18:23):
has just a very different connotation to them than Ned Kelly.
You know, you say Ned Kelly and he's kind of
a folk hero and this guy was definitely the opposite.
And I encourage you guys to look up this story
and read a little bit more about Frederick Deeming because
he had a very controversial trial and and like you mentioned,
it was partly because there was nothing redeeming about him.
(18:44):
He was not a folk hero. He was a serial
killer and the public did not like him. And I
think it's an interesting story for people outside of Australia too,
because he was kind of all over the place. He
lived in England before and I think that's where he
murdered his original family. He has some Cafrica, South America,
all kinds of places. Um, but I mean, of all
of all the people's heads that could be a random
(19:06):
serial killer, go figure. So Um. Now that we've wrapped
up ned Kelly's side of the bush Rangers story, we
are free to continue next time with the later generation
of bush Rangers, the one you are more contemporary with him. Yeah,
and speaking of reputations of bush Rangers, we don't want
to loose sight of the fact that these are criminals too.
I know we kind of talk about them in a
(19:27):
fun way, but I think some of that will come
out in the next episode as well. We have some
shady characters, some cruel men in the next coach. But
while we are on the topic of Australia, we also
wanted to do a little Listener mail that was a
special presence edition of Listener Meal. So we have a
(19:49):
postcard here from Howard and he says, Dear de Blaine
and Sarah, I really enjoy the podcast and to say thanks,
I having closed some Whippy Jet earrings. Whippy Jet has
a history can action because it was made famous by
Queen Victoria when in the morning. The stone has been
used for jewelry since the Bronze Age, and the term
jet black is from the stone. So very interesting and
(20:10):
very nice gift. Thank you so much for those totally
unnecessary but very much appreciated. Yeah, we're touched, so thank you.
They're lovely earrings and I like the history connection. And um,
I guess this one can go out to you since
Gar in Sydney, So I hope you liked Bush Strangers. Yeah,
and I didn't read the full postcard, but he did
(20:32):
mention that we should wear them whenever we talk about
Queen Victoria, which will have to be a lot since
you end up mentioning your hold all the time. Just
keep from ready to put on whenever we're doing an
episode on her. Yes, and you don't have to send
us a gift to get on listener mail or to
have your podcast ideas heard or anything like that. We
read all our mail no matter who sends it, no
(20:55):
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(21:18):
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Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bling in chalk Rewarding and I'm fair dout.
And over the summer we did a podcast on Ned
Kelly and we talked about this mystery of a skull
(00:21):
that was turned in by It was turned into Australian
authorities by a farmer named Tom Baxer in two thousand nine,
and Baxter wouldn't say how he came to have it,
but he claimed that it was the skull of Ned Kelly,
a notorious bush ranger who was captured, convicted and hanged
back in the eighteen hundreds after getting into a now
famous shootout with the police, which we covered in our
(00:43):
episode Ned Kelly's Last Stand. We also speculated it's a
little shady to not mention how you come across the head.
I don't know that sounds Oh it was suspicious that. Yeah,
there's still more to know. They're especially in light of
recent news. But the skull had been stolen from Melbourne
jail in ninety eight, so there was a chance that
the one backs returned in could have been authentic. But
(01:06):
experts at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine had trouble
I ding it, and so by the time of that
last podcast we did, the story had kind of gone cold.
But then just the other day, September one, another Ned
Kelly story broke and we heard from listeners all over
the world about this. Immediately, we got so many emails,
any know, I feel like I arrived at work and
(01:28):
I my entire inbox was filled with Ned Kelly related emails.
It was really a he was a shining moment for
stuff you missed in history class. Listeners. Clearly everyone was
on alert for Ned Kelly news and I was. I
was touched that everybody thought of us too. So that
news wasn't about the skull, but the rest of ned
Kelly's remains had been identified. His body had been moved
(01:51):
from Melbourne Jail to Pentridge Prison back in nineteen nine
and buried there in a mass grave with thirty three
their prisoners. So after the skull surface, the remains had
been exhumed in two thousand nine, and the v I
f M was able to identify those remains, thanks largely
to a DNA sample that was taken from a Melbourne
(02:13):
school teacher named Lee Oliver, who is the great grandson
of Kelly's sister. So a little modern science coming into
play here. Yeah, and how cool is that? I mean,
he must be like the most famous person in Australia
at the moment. Can you imagine being one of his students.
But anyway, the remains, they're an almost complete skeleton with
a lot of wear and tear, as you might imagine
(02:35):
if you know anything about the need Kelly story, and
it's missing most of the skull. So there's definitely more
to come on the story, and we'll pick up with
that a little more later on. But of course hearing
about this exciting discovery reminded us how fascinated we are
by the stories of bush rangers, who are of course
Australian outlaws or bandits who robbed stage coaches, banks and
(02:56):
small settlements for about one hundred years starting in the
late seventeen hundreds. And in our last podcast we talked
a little bit about bush rangers, and there were a
lot of them, thousands in fact, during the time that
we talked about they even outnumbered the number of Wild
West outlaws in America. Just to give you kind of
an idea for comparison's sake. But we also mentioned that
there are two distinct sub periods of bush ranging, right, Sarah. Yeah,
(03:19):
So there's one from about seventeen eighty nine to the
eighteen fifties, and those bush Rangers were mostly escaped convicts,
and that's the group that for the most part, we're
gonna be talking about today, that first wave of bush Rangers.
But we've got to discuss the convict situation a little
bit too, because, in case some of you don't know,
(03:41):
there was a very strange prisoner deal going on in
Australia during the eighteen hundreds or even the seventeen hundreds.
So just some background information for you here. Australia was
settled by Britain in the late eighteenth century, and most
of the first settlers who came over in seventeen eight
seven were evicted British felons, and some of them had
(04:02):
been stuck on prison ships for years and years because
after the American Revolution that had put a stop to
the practice of dumping criminals in the American colonies to
work as indentured servants. So the first Bushrangers were convict
bolters who were transported villains who escaped prison or the
(04:24):
settlements and turned to crime, turned to bushrangering, and and
like I said, that's the group that we're going to
mostly talk about today. Yes, But then fast forward to
eighteen fifty three when British Parliament passes the Penal Servitude
Act and this ends almost all transportation sentences, and that
really changes things. Many bush rangers after that are native
(04:45):
born or at least free settlers who had broken the law.
So very distinct difference in these bushrangers that we're going
to be talking about today. Consequently, two distinct podcasts, Yes,
which are very excited about because we love this topic.
We really hope that you guys do too, because we're
gonna be talking about it for a couple episodes. Judging
by the volume of emails, I'm pretty sure most of
(05:07):
these folks like bush rangers Australian history. So fingers crossed,
hope you all liked us. Yeah, I mean, if you
like the Kelly story, then you should like something about
these two, because it wasn't just about Ned. It started
way before him, and the man who's actually believed to
be Australia's first bush ranger was one of those transported convicts.
That Sarah just talked about. His name was John Caesar,
(05:29):
but he was better known as Black Caesar, and he
was of African descent and was probably born in either
the West Indies or in Madagascar. It's kind of uncertain. Yeah,
we're going to pick up with him about seventeen eighty
six when he was living as a servant in England
and in March of that year he was charged with
stealing twelve pounds from a dwelling house and was sentenced
(05:50):
to transportation for seven years. So he arrived in Australia
in January of seventeen eighty eight and he set about
working as a laborer in the college. Because it wasn't
just like you were transported to Australia and then you
could remake your life. It was hard work waiting on
the other side exactly. And from what we know of
Black Caesar, he was no criminal mastermind. He was actually
(06:13):
thought of, I think is kind of a hard worker.
But he was definitely something that you wouldn't want to
mess with. He was very tall, some sources say maybe
as much as seven feet where although that maybe an exaggeration,
we're not sure, but he was very muscular and he
was known to be a fierce fighter. He was also
known and this is interesting for his big appetite. All
sources seemed to mention that what gets him in trouble
(06:33):
here because in the colony there was often a shortage
of food and all of the convicts were on really
strict rations, and it was said that Caesar could often
polish off two days worth of rations in one day.
And yeah, but like I said, this gets him into
trouble eventually. Yeah, I mean, it could be part of
the reason that led him into what comes later. Some
(06:55):
sources suggest that at least because I mean we joke
about it a little bit. It's a funny thing to
bring up about somebody in the historical sources. Yeah, that
he was a hungry guy, but with as we said,
the shortage of food, it could have been a serious situation. Actually,
there's another later bush ranger called Matt Gambit. He came
around in around eighteen twenty two, and we're not going
to talk about him in depth, but he was known
(07:16):
as the cannibal bush ranger because when he went off
with his gang and there weren't enough settlers to steal
from and they ran out of food, he would actually
eat his gang members, oh gosh. And yet he continued
to be able to recruit them. No, I don't think
he was after that. I think he kind of ate
up his entire gang, put an end to his bush
(07:38):
rangering getting back to Black Caesar. That was just sort
of an aside um. But he got caught stealing again
in seventeen eighty nine, which earned him a life sentence,
this time of transportation. But of course he didn't just
sit around and accept that fate. In seventeen ninety he
escaped to the countryside outside of Sydney with a stolen musket,
and this was just the first in a series of
(07:59):
escapes that Caesar would pull off over the next few
years from about seventeen ninety to seventeen ninety six. While
he was on the lamb, he would survive by stealing
from the settlement and from government garden. Still had food
on his mind, definitely, But it was after his final
escape in seventeen nine that his bush ranging activities really commenced.
At that point, he led a gang of absconders and
(08:20):
vagabonds in the Port Jackson area and they'd raid settlers
and rob lone travelers. Yeah, and It's funny we've talked
about criminals like this before. Everything seems to be blamed
on But it was said that Caesar was blamed for
pretty much every crime that was committed around that time.
The seven foot top potentially striking man just seemed to
(08:40):
be a person who captured the public's imagination even then. Yeah, So,
as you want to imagine, the governor wanted him caught,
and so he offered five gallons of rum for his capture,
and Caesar was shot dead consequently by a man named
John Wimbo at Liberty Planes in seventeen ninety six. Just
a little side note on rum too, It must have
been a pretty big motivator at the time for at
(09:03):
much like food these criminals. Yeah, twenty gallons of roum
was offered as a reward for the capture of another
bush ranger named Matthew Brady in the eighteen ten So yeah,
we're gonna talk maybe in the next episode about the
legal options of capturing these bush rangers. But I like
that rum was a prime motivator in the early years
(09:25):
at least, so our next bush Ranger pushes us into
the nineteenth century. His name is buld Jack Donna who
and sometimes he's known as the Wild Colonial Boy. More
on that later, but he was born in Dublin, John Donna,
who probably around eighteen oh six. But by April three
(09:47):
he had already run afoul of the law in his
home country for something described as intent to commit a felony,
and for that he was sentenced to transportation for life,
which of course meant going to Australia. And as we
mentioned in Black Caesar section there, it didn't mean just
a free ticket to Australia. It meant a lot of
(10:08):
hard work. And Donna who was first assigned to work
for a man named John Pagan, and then work on
a road gang and then finally for a guy named
Major West who was a surgeon. Consequently, he started running
into some fellow convicts. Yeah, so they started hanging out together,
and they began robbing wagons traveling west of Sydney. And
(10:30):
when he and two of his buddies, men named Smith
and Kilroy or maybe Gilroy, got caught. Finally in eighty eight,
they were found guilty of two counts of robbery each
and sentenced to die two times each, two death sentences
just to be sure. So Kilroy and Smith met their
ends at the noose, but Donna who somehow escaped between
the courthouse and the jail, and he didn't sulk off
(10:53):
into hiding. After that though, he rounded up a gang
of English and Irish convicts and just expanded his range.
So he kind of doubled his efforts there across the countryside.
So Donna who is a real ballad type of guy,
a robin Hood type bush ranger who people like to romanticize. Later,
he would distribute stolen items to the poor. He would
(11:13):
let some people go, and to go along with this,
he had an appropriately robin Hood like Rakish style, which
also made him sort of popular. Made settlers like him.
He'd wear a black hat, he'd wear this fine blue
coat lined in silk and lace up boots. So he
really must have cut quite a figure out among all
(11:33):
of these rough and tumble looking men. Yeah, I don't know, though,
he sounds more button cute than Rakish to me. Posters
announcing the twenty pound reward on his head described him
as twenty two years old, five ft four, with freckles,
flaxen hair, blue eyes, and a scar under the left nostril. Yeah,
he sounds like you might mistake him for a teenager,
(11:56):
but well, you know, he's coming at a disadvantage right
after Black Caesar. Probably that's true. And he does have
the scar, which is kind of scary. He does have
the scar. Finally, though, on September first thirty, a group
of soldiers employees found the gang hiding in scrub near Campbellstown,
and Donnaho was said to have urged them on with
(12:18):
some real fighting words, but he was soon struck down
by a guy named Trooper Muggleston. We'll just let that
let that name slide um. He lived on though, even
even after death quite obviously. Yeah. So first, unlike many
of our later Bush Rangers, who's surviving images are usually
heavily bearded post mortem photographs, Donna who had a rather
(12:42):
elegant death drawing done by Sir Thomas Mitchell, who added
some Byron lines at the end to complete the effect.
They were no matter I have bared my brow fair
and death's face before and now. He also has something
maybe a little more appropriate than Roman poetry, though. He
was likely the inspiration for a very famous outlaw anthem,
(13:05):
The Wild Colonial Boy, which was popular in Australia until
it was banned. Finally, as being fuditious, and it stayed
popular after that. That probably only helped its reputation. The
song is about a fictitious bush ranger who goes by
different names in different versions of the song. It is,
after all a ballad. Sometimes it's Jim Douelan, sometimes Jack Dubbins,
(13:27):
sometimes John Dowling, but it always sticks to those j
D initials, just like Jack Donahoe. So the next bush
ranger on our list wasn't a convict, but he was
born abroad in Scotland. His name was originally Francis or
Frank Christie, and he moved to Sydney with his parents
in eighteen thirty four when he was about four years old.
(13:48):
He started his life of crime fairly young and got
caught stealing horses in eighteen fifty when he was around
twenty years old. He was sentenced to five years of
hard labor for this, but he escaped to New South
Wales after only serving about six months, and he went
right back to stealing horses. So in eighteen fifty four
he was caught again and convicted again under the name
(14:08):
Francis Clark this time, and this time he was sentenced
to seven years, but he was given a ticket of leaves,
so basically released in eighteen fifty nine. He didn't play
by the rules after that, though, he broke parole and
went south where he opened a butchery as Frank Gardner,
which is how most people know him today, and Landing
Flat and he was probably trading and stolen meat there,
(14:28):
so not even that was on the up and up
sounds so grass to me. I'm sure it's like legitimate
but stolen meat for sale, you know, buy it here
at my store. I don't know. Anyway, a warrant was
issued for Gardener's arrest, and rather than faith yet another
trial and possibly more jail time, Frank took to the
(14:49):
bush and there he teamed up with a couple other outlaws,
when named Ben Hall we're going to talk about him
in the next episode, and another guy named John Gilbert,
and he became own and feared for his highway robberies
in particular along the trade routes of New South Wales,
and the police couldn't catch his gang because they just
moved so quickly, and they used a kind of bush
(15:11):
telegraph system to help them get along. Yeah, Frank was
actually called King of the Road around this time. For
his highway robber reputation. But on June fifteenth, eighteen sixty two,
Frank's gang pulled off their biggest robbery yet and it's
actually what said to be the biggest bush ranger robbery ever.
And this crime was when they bailed up or held
(15:32):
up that's what that that's what bailed up means. They
held up the Lachland gold Escort and made off with
fourteen thousand pounds worth of gold in cash, which is
worth about one and a quarter million U S. Dollars today.
And after this Frank took off with his mistress Kate
and they opened a little store and shanty in Queensland
and as Mr and Mrs Christie, so he had kind
(15:53):
of a business streak to him and they lived there
until the New South Wales Police finally tracked him down
in February eighteen sixty four. So Frank was sentenced to
thirty two years hard labor, which was considered a pretty
harsh sentence at this time. Fortunately, though, he had a
good attorney, William Daley, who petitioned the governor to use
his prerogative of mercy, and the governor really did release
(16:16):
Frank in eighteen seventy four under the condition that he
leaved the country. There was some controversy over this decision,
but ultimately Frank Gardner left Australia in July eighteen seventy four,
and by the beginning of eighteen seventy five he was
in San Francisco. I mean, just the perfect place for
for this guy. He opened a saloon there. It was
(16:37):
called the Twilight Saloon on the waterfront, and by all accounts,
he avoided trouble for the rest of his life. He
really did have a business streak, like you mentioned, even
though he was pretty open about his past, He'd liked
to tell tales about his time as an outlaw, which
I would imagine that would make you a successful saloon owner.
People loved here stories. I feel like it's almost a
(16:59):
requirement to have a good storytelling streak, if not at
least good stories to tell. But Frank was also just
a really rare case among bush Rangers, and that he
lived to a ripe old age, and he's since been
called the father of bush ranging. So Frank seems like
the perfect guy to leave off on, at least for
this first part of our bush Rangers series. And I
(17:19):
feel like he's kind of a good transition between those
convict vultures we talked about and then the later Bush
Rangers generation second generation. Yeah, so while we're going to
leave that generation behind, we do have one more piece
of information about that mystery Ned Kelly head. And this
came out just the other day, September seven, and again
it's from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. So well,
(17:43):
they did identify the body. They also recently said that
that mystery head might be that of a notorious serial
killer named Frederick Deeming. So Deeming was born in England.
He was a thief, a serial big, a myth and
he set out on this wandering sort of life. And
(18:03):
he was also a murderer. He was supposed to have
buried his first wife and four children beneath the floor
of their rented home and then murdered a second wife
in Melbourne. So what a weird connection here, a very
strange twist to the story. And I think it's interesting
that it's the head of another criminal, but someone who
(18:23):
has just a very different connotation to them than Ned Kelly.
You know, you say Ned Kelly and he's kind of
a folk hero and this guy was definitely the opposite.
And I encourage you guys to look up this story
and read a little bit more about Frederick Deeming because
he had a very controversial trial and and like you mentioned,
it was partly because there was nothing redeeming about him.
(18:44):
He was not a folk hero. He was a serial
killer and the public did not like him. And I
think it's an interesting story for people outside of Australia too,
because he was kind of all over the place. He
lived in England before and I think that's where he
murdered his original family. He has some Cafrica, South America,
all kinds of places. Um, but I mean, of all
of all the people's heads that could be a random
(19:06):
serial killer, go figure. So Um. Now that we've wrapped
up ned Kelly's side of the bush Rangers story, we
are free to continue next time with the later generation
of bush Rangers, the one you are more contemporary with him. Yeah,
and speaking of reputations of bush Rangers, we don't want
to loose sight of the fact that these are criminals too.
I know we kind of talk about them in a
(19:27):
fun way, but I think some of that will come
out in the next episode as well. We have some
shady characters, some cruel men in the next coach. But
while we are on the topic of Australia, we also
wanted to do a little Listener mail that was a
special presence edition of Listener Meal. So we have a
(19:49):
postcard here from Howard and he says, Dear de Blaine
and Sarah, I really enjoy the podcast and to say thanks,
I having closed some Whippy Jet earrings. Whippy Jet has
a history can action because it was made famous by
Queen Victoria when in the morning. The stone has been
used for jewelry since the Bronze Age, and the term
jet black is from the stone. So very interesting and
(20:10):
very nice gift. Thank you so much for those totally
unnecessary but very much appreciated. Yeah, we're touched, so thank you.
They're lovely earrings and I like the history connection. And um,
I guess this one can go out to you since
Gar in Sydney, So I hope you liked Bush Strangers. Yeah,
and I didn't read the full postcard, but he did
(20:32):
mention that we should wear them whenever we talk about
Queen Victoria, which will have to be a lot since
you end up mentioning your hold all the time. Just
keep from ready to put on whenever we're doing an
episode on her. Yes, and you don't have to send
us a gift to get on listener mail or to
have your podcast ideas heard or anything like that. We
read all our mail no matter who sends it, no
(20:55):
matter what comes along with it. And you can write
us at History podcast at how Stuff Works dot com,
or you can look us up on Facebook or on
Twitter at myston History. Be sure to check out our
new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stop
Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing
possibilities of tomorrow. The House Step Works iPhone app has
(21:18):
a rise. Download it today on iTunes
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