Australian bushrangers

Ned Kelly was a legendary Australian outlaw who robbed the British-owned banks, killed 3 policemen and became a folk hero for working class Irish settlers. He is best known for wearing homemade armor during his final shootout at Glenrowan.
Although Ned is the most famous Bushranger he was not the first. Escaped convicts with colorful names like Mad Dog Morgan, Jack the Rammer, Moondyne Joe, Captain Thunderbolt, Bold Jack Donahue, Captain Moonlight and Captain Starlight made a living as highwaymen as early as the 1790s. Who can tell me more about these Australian gunfighters?

Edited by Nick1986 - 24-Mar-2011 at 21:06

Jeffries the Monster certainly lived up to his name. He was a Scottish sailor from Edinburgh who worked as a hangman until he had to flee into the bush for torturing a prisoner. He killed five people for no reason, raped a woman and dashed out the brains of her baby.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GdANAAAAQAAJ&dq=bushrangers&pg=PA90#v=onepage&q&f=false

Michael Howe, said (in 1855) to be the worst of the bushrangers, was born in Pontefract in 1787 and deported from England in 1811 for highway robbery. He escaped in 1812 and joined a gang of 28 bushrangers whom he betrayed to the government. He lived the rest of his life on the run, tracked by his vengeful lover and haunted by fear of capture. He kept a diary in a book made of kangaroo skin and written with kangaroo blood
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8PERAAAAYAAJ&dq=bushranger&pg=PA236#v=onepage&q&f=false

That's right. Less than a decade after Ned's hanging he was already being depicted in the press as a folk-hero similar to Jesse James. An earlier example of a criminal who became a superhero was Spring-Heeled Jack, a fire-breathing London sex-offender and one of the inspirations for Batman

Indeed. The first Australian outlaws started out over 40 years before the Americans conquered the West

Australia even has its own cowboys. Mad Dog Morgan (made famous in a Dennis Hopper film) worked as a stockman before becoming a gold-miner. He soon turned to bushwhacking and horse-theft as this was a quicker way of getting rich. He was an alcoholic known for his violent temper who killed two policemen before being tracked down and shot while robbing the Macpherson family at Peechelba station in 1865. Banjo Paterson, writer of Waltzing Matilda, befriended Christina Macpherson who was a baby at the time of the robbery

Great stuff! I wonder how they made home-made armor. Of course it is simple as it said the armor was home-made, but I was amazed to the fact that it was done at home. Great! Thanks for sharing!

Australian archaeologists believe they have finally found Ned's remains at a former Melbourne prison. The skeleton had a bullet hole in the leg and a high level of wear concurrent with living in the bush

Captain Thunderbolt the "Gentleman Bushranger" was jailed for stealing a horse in 1856 but escaped from prison in 1863. He continued his robberies until he was killed in 1870. His crimes, several of which carried the death sentence, included 30 mail robberies, 80 horses, 16 stores, 16 residences, 6 travellers, a tollgate, arson, and five shootings, although he never killed anyone

Bold Jack Donahue, the "Wild Colonial Boy" was one of Australia's first Irish nationalists. Transported from Dublin in 1825, he soon escaped and led a gang who stripped wealthy victims of their clothes. The landowners' servants provided the gang with information on their employers and sheltered them from the authorities. A bounty of £200 was placed on Donahue's head, resulting in his death in a shootout with soldiers in 1830