Bushranger

William Strutt's Bushrangers on the St Kilda Road, painted in 1887, depicts what Strutt described as "one of the most daring robberies attempted in Victoria" in 1852.^[1] The road was the scene of frequent hold-ups during the Victorian gold rush by bushrangers, mostly former convicts from Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land), which collectively became known as the St Kilda Road robberies.

Bushrangers, or bush rangers, originally referred to runaway convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who had the survival skills necessary to use the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. The term "bushranger" then evolved to refer to those who abandoned social rights and privileges to take up "robbery under arms" as a way of life, using the bush as their base.^[2] These bushrangers were roughly analogous to British "highwaymen" and outlaws of the American Old West, and their crimes often included robbing small-town banks or coach services.

History

More than 2000 bushrangers are believed to have roamed the Australian countryside, beginning with the convict bolters and drawing to a close after Ned Kelly's last stand at Glenrowan.^[3]

1850s: gold rush era

The bushrangers' heyday was the Gold Rush years of the 1850s and 1860s as the discovery of gold gave bushrangers access to great wealth that was portable and easily converted to cash. Their task was assisted by the isolated location of the goldfields and a police force decimated by troopers abandoning their duties to join the gold rush.^[3]

George Melville was hanged in front of a large crowd for robbing the McIvor gold escort near Castlemaine in 1853.^[3]

1860s to 1870s

Bushranging numbers flourished in New South Wales with the rise of the colonial-born sons of poor, often ex-convict squatters who were drawn to a more glamorous life than mining or farming.^[3]

Much of the activity in this era was in the Lachlan Valley, around Forbes, Yass and Cowra.^[3]

Frank Gardiner, John Gilbert and Ben Hall led the most notorious gangs of the period. Other active bushrangers included Dan Morgan, based in the Murray River, and Captain Thunderbolt.^[3] Thunderbolt was the most successful Australian bushranger, if bushranging longevity is the benchmark, as he bushranged across northern New South Wales for six-and-a-half years until shot near Uralla in 1870.^[4] With his death, the New South Wales bushranging epidemic of the 1860s officially ended.^[5]

1880s to 1900s

The increasing push of settlement, increased police efficiency, improvements in rail transport and communications technology, such as telegraphy, made it increasingly difficult for bushrangers to evade capture.

Among the last bushrangers was the Kelly Gang led by Ned Kelly, who were captured at Glenrowan in 1880, two years after they were outlawed.

In 1900 the indigenous Governor Brothers terrorised much of northern New South Wales.^[3]

Public perception

In Australia, bushrangers often attract public sympathy (cf. the concept of social bandits). 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 ambivalent views of Australians regarding bushranging. Victoria's state cricket team adopted 'Bushrangers' as their team nickname in honour of those such as the Kelly Gang, who lived in the Victorian bush.

In popular culture

Actor playing Ned Kelly in The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), the world's first feature film

• In the same way that outlaws feature in many films of the American Western genre, bushrangers regularly feature in Australian literature, film, music and television.
• Jack Donahue was the first bushranger to have inspired bush ballads.^[6]
• The first major play written, published and produced in Australian was The Bushrangers by Henry Melville.
• Robbery Under Arms, by Thomas Alexander Browne (writing as Rolf Boldrewood), was published in serial form in the The Sydney Mail from 1882 to 1883.^[7] It is an early account of the lives of fictional bushrangers and has been adapted for several films and a television series.^[8] It is also cited as an important influence on the American writer Owen Wister's 1902 novel The Virginian, widely regarded as the first Western.^[9]
• Between 1904 and 1914, many Australian movies were made about bushrangers. A government ban on films about bushrangers, imposed in 1912, is seen as a major reason for the collapse of a booming Australian film industry.^[10]
• The bushranger Ned Kelly was the subject of the world's first feature-length film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, released in 1906.^[11] In the 1970 film, Ned Kelly, he was portrayed – to limited popular acclaim – by the singer Mick Jagger. Kelly has been the subject of many more movies, television series, written fiction and music.
• Dan "Mad Dog" Morgan was the subject of a feature film, Mad Dog Morgan (1976), starring Dennis Hopper.^[12]
• Ben Hall and his gang were the subject of several Australian folk songs, including "Streets of Forbes".
• Bailed Up (1895, 1927), a painting by Tom Roberts, depicts bushrangers holding up a coach near Inverell, the area where Captain Thunderbolt was once active.
• Wild Boys, the 2011 TV series, features a gang of bushrangers.
• "The Outlaw Michael Howe," the 2013 ABC TV miniseries, recounts the story of "Michael Howe", an early bushranger active in Tasmania.

Notable bushrangers

See also

• Brigandage

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bushrangers.

• Bushrangers trail at Picture Australia
• Bushrangers at Australianhistory website
• Bushrangers on the National Museum of Australia website