Gangland Robbers (35 page)

p. 1

Some died but others survived:
It was not only outlaws who survived by living with Indigenous people. In 1868 John King, the only surviving member of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, was looked after by Aboriginals.

p. 2

‘Bold' Jack himself was said to be fitted:
Robert Hughes,
The Fatal Shore
.

p. 2

This made, the question was seriously:
‘The Dunn's Plains Tragedy',
Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal
, 2 July 1892.

p. 2

This was an attitude they took care to nourish:
Eric Hobsbawm,
Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries
.

p. 2

He and his men met with initial success:
Pottinger was killed when he accidentally shot himself. On 9 April 1865 the coat he was wearing caught in the door of the coach in which he was travelling and discharged his pistol.

p. 4

However, as some compensation:
Bathurst Times
, 31 July 1863.

p. 4

Percy de Jersey Grut:
Grut died in Toorak in April 1926.

p. 6

He hid out for some time:
John D Fitzgerald, ‘The Morinish Murder' in
Studies in Australian Crime
;
Empire
(Sydney), 21 May, 11 June 1868;
Queenslander
, 13 June 1868;
Morning Bulletin
(Rockhampton), 25 November 1869.

p. 7

In Western Australia, which did not have its gold rush:
Old Timer, ‘Bank Escorts and Robberies',
Geraldton Guardian
, 19 June 1926.

p. 7

Some of these guards were members:
‘Notable Gold Robberies of the Past',
Daily News
(Perth), 1 December 1934.

p. 8

It was thought that miners:
Kalgoorlie Western Argus
, 28 January 1897.

p. 10

He was said to have been attached to two of his men:
Paul Terry,
In Search of Captain Moonlite
; Graham Willett,
Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne
; ‘A True Narrative of the Life and Career of Alexander Charles Scott',
Independent
, (Footscray) 20 December 1890; Garry Wotherspoon, ‘Moonlight and … Romance? The Death-Cell Letters of Captain Moonlite and some of Their Implications',
Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society
, Vol. 78, 1992; Richard Watts, ‘Gay Bushrangers',
DNA
, May 2003; JM Forde newspaper cuttings (State Library of New South Wales).

pp. 10–11

Like the Romans with the Sabines:
Thomas Wells,
Michael Howe, the Last and Worst of the Bushrangers
.

p. 11

The robbers were masked but Allen claimed:
Murrurrundi Times
, 6 June 1880;
Darling Downs Gazette and General Advertiser
, Toowoomba, 15 June 1880;
Scone Advertiser
, 28 October 1921.

p. 13

He received Holy Communion frequently:
Jack Bradshaw,
The True History of the Australian Bushrangers
and
20 Years Experience of Prison Life in the Gaols of New South Wales
.

p. 13

Suffering from cancer, he died in October 1940.
Bob Good,
Ketching the Kenniffs: The Origins and Exploits of the Kenniff Brothers—Patrick and James
.

p. 15

If Hickman can be counted as a bushranger:
Courtney Collins,
The Burial
; Pat Studdy-Clift,
The Lady Bushranger
.

p. 17

Neither relatives nor friends claimed their bodies:
The official New South Wales hangman from 1873 to 1903, Robert ‘Nosey Bob' Howard, so known because he had been kicked in the face by a horse, took his job seriously, and appeared on the scaffold sober and dressed in a frock coat and white necktie. He had, however, already botched the execution of 17-year-old Joe Martin, hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol in January 1887 for the rape of Mary Hicks. Howard had miscalculated the length of rope required and Martin struggled on the gallows for seventeen minutes. Overall, however, Howard did better than many of his contemporaries.

p. 17

Millidge, who started his criminal career stealing pigeons:
Kent, sometimes referred to as Dyson, had been lagged to Western Australia
for the great Cornhill robbery in London, when £12 000 worth of jewellery was stolen, and taken to France. He had also received two years' imprisonment for the 1882 Tartakover robbery, when £1000 worth of jewellery was stolen in Melbourne. He later became a hawker, but when his licence was revoked, returned to his earlier career as a jewel thief.

p. 17

Another tutor was Billy Barnes:
Barnes was hanged on 15 May 1885 for the murder of Slack, found with his throat cut and a razor in his right hand. At first the death was thought to be suicide, but after Barnes, in prison for other offences, began boasting of the killing, Slack's body was exhumed. Professor Allen of Melbourne University showed that, while the cut had been made by a right-handed man, Slack was left handed.

p. 18

Demonstrating that no good deed goes unpunished:
In September 1889 Hughes was set upon by Patrick McGinty and John Hamer in a lane off Little LaTrobe Street, and given a severe kicking. For their sins, they received one and two years respectively. Hughes never recovered from his injuries and died in December. Since this was within a year of the assault, the Crown could try them again, this time for murder. The jury clearly thought this was unsporting on the part of the authorities because they acquitted the pair inside fifteen minutes.

p. 18

George Raingill, also known as Shaw:
During the afternoon of Sunday 12 October 1902 a neighbour complained to off-duty St Kilda police officer Richard Johnson that his 8-year-old daughter had been molested. Johnson went on a bicycle to investigate, and when he approached a man he believed to be the molester, because he had previously molested a child, the man shot him. Johnson pedalled on but collapsed and died in Brighton Road. When two other officers cornered Shaw in Rosamond Street, he stabbed, and then shot, himself. For some time, his identity was unknown and Shaw's body was placed in a formalin bath before the deputy governor of Darlinghurst Gaol finally identified it. There was still some doubt about the dead man's identity, though, because both his feet were deformed, with the second toe turning over the big one in claw-like fashion. Shaw's prison records from both New South Wales and Victoria and descriptions of Shaw included nothing of this deformity. Shaw was also thought to have shot and killed Constable Denis Guilfoyle in Sydney the previous July. Guilfoyle had tried to arrest Shaw and his offsider, George Skidmore, who were passing counterfeit coins in Shepherd Street, Redfern. A Constable Maher was also shot but survived. Skidmore was never arrested and it was thought Shaw may have killed him.

p. 19

In fact, in December that year:
Old Bailey Papers, t18941119-65;
Gazette des Tribunaux
, 30 November, 1 December 1901; ‘The Last of Montgomery and Williams',
Truth
, 3 June 1894; ‘High Class Crime: Genesis of the Tobacco Gang',
National Advocate
, 16 November 1911.

p. 20

Your conduct has been that of a man:
Ballarat Star
, 1 March 1895.

p. 21

That was a red herring:
Daily Telegraph
, 16 February, 1 June 1894;
Australian Star
, 3 February, 4 April 1894;
Truth
, 8 April 1894;
Sydney Morning Herald
, 1 June 1894;
Justice and Police Museum Handbook
.

p. 21

When it became clear the jury:
Kalgoorlie Miner
, 16 June 1900.

p. 22

Charged with Tapping Tart's Topnot Committed for Trial.'
Truth
, 12 October 1902.

p. 23

Friends took him to Gippsland:
‘Who Tapped Tart?',
Truth
, 12 July 1903; ‘The Hawk's Daring Burglaries in Kalgoorlie',
Daily Mirror
(Perth), 30 May 1936.

p. 24

At the second trial he was no better:
Sydney Morning Herald
, 6 April 1903.

p. 24

Windeyer was not only deeply unpopular:
For an account of the Grand trial, see John D Fitzgerald,
Studies in Australian Crime (Second Series)
, pp. 316
et seq
. Cyril Pearl,
Wild Men of Sydney
; James Morton and Susanna Lobez,
Dangerous to Know
.

p. 26

In any case, no one was ever charged.
Harry Mann, ‘Death comes to the Diamond Merchant',
Mirror
(Perth), 15 December 1951.

p. 28

He later sued P & O and received:
Times
, 7 January 1879.

p. 29

In the event, they received five and two years respectively.
Argus
, 25 June, 24 July 1879.

p. 29

He assured the police that his brother had not drowned.
Portland Guardian
, 4 December 1883.

p. 31

Whether, as some suggest, he was initially besotted:
‘“Friday's” Folly',
Sydney Sportsman
, 20 December 1905.

p. 32

He had shot her and then turned the gun on himself.
‘The American Sensation',
Evening News
(Sydney), 21 December 1905.

p. 32

His friend JJ Wilkinson wrote:
Evening Star
(Boulder), 16 December 1905.

p. 33

Fremantle detective Harry Mann was sent:
Mann was the investigating officer in all the celebrated Western Australian cases of the period, including the murder of Delia Clarke by her de facto John Moore, and those committed by ‘monster incarnate' Martha Rendell. He retired in 1920, to begin a successful career in politics, and died in October 1952. For an account of both cases, see
Daily News
, 10 January 1920;
Western Mail
, 22 March 1902.

p. 35

By now, the hangman, who:
Ion L. Idries,
Forty Fathoms Deep
; ‘A Pearl of Great Price',
Mirror
(Perth), 7 June 1924;
Daily News
(Perth), 9 November, 13, 14, 15 December 1905; Alec Gollan ‘Recollections of Some Notable Criminals',
Daily News
(Perth), 1 July 1933.

p. 35

It was never seen again.
Interview with Mrs Jean Haynes
, J S Battye Library of Western Australian Oral History Programme, 18 March 1977.

p. 37

In the first twenty-five years:
Advertiser
, 4, 5 January 1909.

p. 37

There were also suggestions that the killers:
Advertiser
, 4, 5 January 1909.

p. 37

He was out for more than a year:
Sydney Morning Herald
, 12 March 1909.

p. 39

It seemed unbelievable that a woman:
‘Woman Who Defied Law for Years',
Truth
, 19 October 1930.

p. 40

For Freeman, this was followed:
Sydney Morning Herald
, 11 June 1914; ‘Woman Who Defied Law for Years'
Truth
, 19 October 1930.

p. 40

He had tried to commit suicide:
‘“Shino” Ryan Australia's Master Criminal',
Advertiser
, 18 September 1914.

p. 40–1

At first, McCall had been a prisoner:
‘Innocent but Serving Life?'
Truth
, 8 June 1933; ‘Convict's living death,'
Truth
, 27 January 1935.

p. 41

In July that year there were unfounded rumours:
Sydney Morning Herald
, 8 June 1918;
Argus
, 19 July 1922;
West Australian
, 27 July 1922; ‘How Ernie “Shiner” Ryan Broke the Adelaide Stockade',
Smith's Weekly
, 26 January 1923.

p. 41

In 1928 he was acquitted in Brisbane:
Courier
, 10 October 1928.

p. 42

Instead, he received a twenty-eight month sentence.
Advertiser
, 4 November 1929, 7, 11 February 1930.

p. 42

In October 1932, however, Ryan:
Canberra Times
, 18 October 1932;
Daily News
(Perth), 20 January 1934.

p. 42

‘Nothing but the best will do for the wedding':
Advertiser
, 29 July 1942.

p. 43

He was buried in the Anglican division:
Ron Davidson,
High Jinks at the Hot Pool
.