Bushrangers!

Image right: System of bailing mail in NSW, 1863 by Samuel Thomas Gill. Courtesy State Library of NSW

As main roads developed during the early days of colonial settlement, lawlessness increased, especially amongst escaped convicts who preyed on travellers. The Homebush district was known to be ‘particularly infested with Knights of the Road,’[1]  who frequented Parramatta Road, hiding in bushland, especially around the site of today's Sydney Markets. 

‘… people sending goods to the city had them conveyed under escort, which left at a different hour daily in order to confuse the bushrangers.’[2] 

Australia’s first bushranger, John Black Caesar was killed at Liberty Plains (Strathfield) in 1796 after wounding Aboriginal warrior, Pemulwuy. Governor Hunter offered a reward of five gallons of spirits for Caesar’s capture.[3]  

D’arcy Wentworth’s coachman was bailed up by bushrangers near the Half-Way House on Parramatta Road in 1827 but made a lucky escape.[4]  Home Bush Farm itself was robbed in 1829 when £50 worth of property was stolen.[5]  During July that year Arthur Halloran was attacked one evening near Home Bush causing his horse to bolt and throwing him to the ground. He was rescued by travellers in a passing cart.[6] 

Percy Lindsay's sketch of the Half-Way House, Homebush. The Bulletin Vol.60 No.3111, 27 September 1939

Liverpool Road was sometimes even worse. In 1814 the newspapers reported a number of incidents. 

During May: 

‘Between 9 and 10 last night the cart of Mr Wm Roberts drawn by three oxen, was stopped by several footpads on the Liverpool Road, and plundered of a quantity of provisions, a bed, and other property; in effecting which the villains treated the driver with much cruelty, and afterwards broke the shafts of the cart, cut the harness, and turned the bullocks loose into the woods.’ [7]

While in August 1814:

‘Yesterday se’nnight a cart, driven by a servant of John Harris Esq. of Ultimo, with provisions for his stockmen at the South Creek was stopped near Moore’s Bridge, on the Liverpool Road, by a ruffian armed with a musket and pistol, and robbed not only of the provisions in his charge, but of the mare that drew the cart also, which has not since been heard of.'[8] 

New South Wales School Magazine of Literature for Our Boys and Girls Vol.38 No.9, 2 November 1953

The colonial newspapers avidly reported on the very real dangers to travellers who were, by now, beginning to band together for greater safety in numbers.

‘The depredations that have lately been committed on the Roads has induced the Settlers in a great many instances to travel with their carts in parties; by adhering to which system we shall doubtless hear of fewer robberies. The week before last information was received in Sydney of at least 8 or 9, mostly perpetrated in lonely parts of the George’s River and Liverpool Roads by a single footpad, armed with a musket, his face covered with a silk handkerchief, and very insolent and brutal in his manner of accosting and endeavouring to intimidate all whom he attacked.’ [9]

During May 1832 William Lackey of Parramatta and two companions narrowly escaped injury when they were held up one night at Home Bush by seven or eight armed ruffians on Parramatta Road. Lackey wrote indignantly to The Sydney Monitor after a ball from one of their guns whizzed past his ear.[10] 

Courtesy State Library of NSW

Judge Stephen and his family were accosted by a lone ruffian with a pistol on Liverpool Road near his ‘country residence’ of Clareville during September 1833. Having no money with them, they were permitted to pass by. [11]

In 1840 Louisa Meredith of Home Bush wrote that:

‘gangs of bushrangers infested the Parramatta Road … committed many robberies on persons travelling past … rendered our drives far less pleasant … although a double-barrelled gun usually accompanied us.’

Louisa Anne Meredith in Tasmania. Courtesy State Library and Archives of Tasmania

According to legend, Archbishop Polding was also bailed up by two armed men in c.1849 on Parramatta Road. The bushrangers listened politely while he gave them a lecture and then proceeded to relieve him of his valuables, bidding him a ‘good day’ and riding off.[12][13]  

Archbishop Polding. Courtesy National Library of Australia

When Mary Ann Hill (nee Pye) died in 1925, just short of her 103rd birthday, newspapers paid tribute to her long life noting that she had been twice held up by bushrangers at Homebush as a child.

‘The fact that Mrs Hill was held up by bushrangers in a locality which is now a closely-settled suburb shows what great changes occurred during her lifetime.’ [14]

Today it is difficult to imagine the vast expanses of bush along both Parramatta and Liverpool Roads that provided hide-outs for desperate bushrangers preying on unwary travellers.

Stay tuned for more transport stories in the Ironbark Gallery’s exhibition Next Stop, Strathfield: Travel Through History from 15 October.

Local Studies Advisor

References

[1] Everyones Vol.1 No.41, 15 December 1920 https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-542944854/view?sectionId=nla.obj-559191443&searchTerm=bushrangers+homebush&partId=nla.obj-543003105#page/n15/mode/1up

[2]  ibid

[3] Chris Cunneen and Mollie Gillen, 'Caesar, John Black (c. 1763–1796)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/caesar-john-black-12829/text23095, published first in hardcopy 2005

[4] The Australian 18 July 1827 p.3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37074333

[5] The Sydney Monitor 5 January 1829 p.5 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/31761266

[6] The Australian 31 July 1829 p.3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36865851

[7] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser 14 May 1814 p.2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/628911

[8] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser 13 August 1814 p.2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/628962

[9] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser 17 September 1814 p.2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/628983

[10] The Sydney Monitor 12 May 1832 p.3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/32077594

[11] Launceston Advertiser (TAS) 12 September 1833 p.3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/84773787

[12] Everyones Vol.1 No.41, 15 December 1920 https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-542944854/view?sectionId=nla.obj-559191443&searchTerm=bushrangers+homebush&partId=nla.obj-543003105#page/n15/mode/1up

[13] Daily Mirror 27 February 1950 p.10 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/273645719

[14] Daily Telegraph 26 August 1925 p.8 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245247916