Bushranger

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For other uses, see Bushranger (disambiguation).

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.

[edit] Notable bushrangers

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

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	1841–1912		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

Crime in Australia
Regional crime:	Timeline \| Melbourne \| Northern Territory \| Western Australia \| Sydney
Australian law:	Courts \| Criminal law \| Law enforcement
Australian people:	Bushrangers \| Convicts \| Criminals \| Murderers \| Prisoners
Australian prisons:	ACT \| NSW \| NT \| QLD \| SA \| TAS \| VIC \| WA
International:	Crime by country