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Jan. 25th, 2009 04:18 pmYou need more bushrangers to vote for. I did a full three minute's research on the web to find you this unsavoury mob.
What I want to know is why we don't have a Wild East the way the US had a Wild West? We had gold. We had outlaws and thieves and a great deal of robbery under arms (we even had a novel called Robbery Under Arms). We had a corrupt constabulary. We had towns living on the edge of something that was probably a frontier, though we didn't call it that. Lots of wildness, in fact.
The Clarke Brothers were very thuggish and mean and roamed from Sydney to the Monaro (note how I call it 'Canberra' when the bushranger is the less-violent and rather charming Jackey Jackey - who was really William Westwood and a forger - and "the Monaro" when referring to the leaders of a brutish gang. Very clever of me, I thought.)
John Vane was part of Ben Hall's gang (Ben Hall has the best song in bushranger folksong history, but John Vane doesn't appear in it, which is why I am giving him space here.) He had a fine sense of humour and an even finer beard (my source for these is here). Obviously with such marvellous assets, the only appropriate death for him was a peaceful one, of old age.
My father (my first father, for the pedantic among you) spent some of his youth in Wangaratta. My cousin played in a band that did a rather silly but immensely popular song about Wangaratta, a significant time later, but it lacked bushrangers, so I won't link you to it. Wang had its own bushranger, though, in the shape of Harry Powers, who was nicknamed the "Gentleman Bushranger." Jackey Jackey kissed ladies courteously and Harry Powers was called the Gentleman Bushranger. One day I'll work it out.
Tasmania's most famous bushranger was Martin Cash. I've seen a picture of him and he looks very smug and middle-class. He wasn't. In fact, he was terribly romantic. He was sent here as a convict because he shot a rival for his true love. That's what he said, anyhow. The record claims it was housebreaking. His life is full of good stories, but if I tell you them all you might vote for him, and I've decided to weight everything in favour of Jackey Jackey (I snuck him into the current novel - until then I would have cheered for Ben Hall).
Canadians might be interested in Johnny Gilbert, whose parents brought him to Victoria as part of the mad rush for gold. Johnny Gilbert's interest in gold was much more pragmatic: he relieved people of it. If Canada wants him repatriated, would Binalong give him up? Binalong is a small town (in NSW), but it's very proud of its most dastardly dead resident. When he died at age 25, he had committed at least 630 hold-ups.
My favourite alias must go to Captain Midnite. He was really Thomas Smith, but also went by the name of George Gibson. The most interesting thing I know about him is the spelling of his name, but considering that most of my bushranger knowledge comes from a project I did in primary school, that's not very helpful. This is not the same Captain Midnite as the character in Randolph Stow's book, being from the other end of the country entirely. This is a great pity, as I now lack an excuse to re-read Stow's book.
Other bushrangers who chose superhero names are:
- Captain Moonlite (Andrew Scott - who was a civil engineer once upon a time - this just goes to show how important it is to choose your career wisely - if he had been a Medieval historian he would never have turned to a life of crime). He was buried in Sydney and then moved to Gundagai. Why Gundagai wanted him so very much is something I cannot determine, but it also has a famous statue (a bit outside the town) of a dog sitting on a tuckerbox.
- Captain Starlight (Frank Pearson) who (as far as I can determine in 3 minutes of research) died when he drank potassium cyanide by mistake.
- Captain Thunderbolt (Frederick Wordsworth Ward) who seems to have a greater number of colourful stories and a greater number of disputed stories than anyone else.
That's enough bushrangers. If I've missed someone you want to vote for, then add him/her/it in the comments.
PS Most bushrangers were men - the bias (just this once) is not mine.
What I want to know is why we don't have a Wild East the way the US had a Wild West? We had gold. We had outlaws and thieves and a great deal of robbery under arms (we even had a novel called Robbery Under Arms). We had a corrupt constabulary. We had towns living on the edge of something that was probably a frontier, though we didn't call it that. Lots of wildness, in fact.
The Clarke Brothers were very thuggish and mean and roamed from Sydney to the Monaro (note how I call it 'Canberra' when the bushranger is the less-violent and rather charming Jackey Jackey - who was really William Westwood and a forger - and "the Monaro" when referring to the leaders of a brutish gang. Very clever of me, I thought.)
John Vane was part of Ben Hall's gang (Ben Hall has the best song in bushranger folksong history, but John Vane doesn't appear in it, which is why I am giving him space here.) He had a fine sense of humour and an even finer beard (my source for these is here). Obviously with such marvellous assets, the only appropriate death for him was a peaceful one, of old age.
My father (my first father, for the pedantic among you) spent some of his youth in Wangaratta. My cousin played in a band that did a rather silly but immensely popular song about Wangaratta, a significant time later, but it lacked bushrangers, so I won't link you to it. Wang had its own bushranger, though, in the shape of Harry Powers, who was nicknamed the "Gentleman Bushranger." Jackey Jackey kissed ladies courteously and Harry Powers was called the Gentleman Bushranger. One day I'll work it out.
Tasmania's most famous bushranger was Martin Cash. I've seen a picture of him and he looks very smug and middle-class. He wasn't. In fact, he was terribly romantic. He was sent here as a convict because he shot a rival for his true love. That's what he said, anyhow. The record claims it was housebreaking. His life is full of good stories, but if I tell you them all you might vote for him, and I've decided to weight everything in favour of Jackey Jackey (I snuck him into the current novel - until then I would have cheered for Ben Hall).
Canadians might be interested in Johnny Gilbert, whose parents brought him to Victoria as part of the mad rush for gold. Johnny Gilbert's interest in gold was much more pragmatic: he relieved people of it. If Canada wants him repatriated, would Binalong give him up? Binalong is a small town (in NSW), but it's very proud of its most dastardly dead resident. When he died at age 25, he had committed at least 630 hold-ups.
My favourite alias must go to Captain Midnite. He was really Thomas Smith, but also went by the name of George Gibson. The most interesting thing I know about him is the spelling of his name, but considering that most of my bushranger knowledge comes from a project I did in primary school, that's not very helpful. This is not the same Captain Midnite as the character in Randolph Stow's book, being from the other end of the country entirely. This is a great pity, as I now lack an excuse to re-read Stow's book.
Other bushrangers who chose superhero names are:
- Captain Moonlite (Andrew Scott - who was a civil engineer once upon a time - this just goes to show how important it is to choose your career wisely - if he had been a Medieval historian he would never have turned to a life of crime). He was buried in Sydney and then moved to Gundagai. Why Gundagai wanted him so very much is something I cannot determine, but it also has a famous statue (a bit outside the town) of a dog sitting on a tuckerbox.
- Captain Starlight (Frank Pearson) who (as far as I can determine in 3 minutes of research) died when he drank potassium cyanide by mistake.
- Captain Thunderbolt (Frederick Wordsworth Ward) who seems to have a greater number of colourful stories and a greater number of disputed stories than anyone else.
That's enough bushrangers. If I've missed someone you want to vote for, then add him/her/it in the comments.
PS Most bushrangers were men - the bias (just this once) is not mine.