Best Australian Yarns
Page 24
William Walker spent a year at Sarah Island and was then sent to Port Arthur where he died of tuberculosis in May 1834. Amazingly, his official convict record noted that he was ‘a very good man’.
The forty-four people left at Recherche Bay finally made a miraculous return to Hobart after many trials and tribulations, which included a Welsh convict building a coracle to cross the dangerous straits to seek help, and a gruelling cross country expedition by some of the group across rivers and through hostile territory where they were attacked by Aborigines. But that’s another story!
JH
THE CYPRUS BRIG
FRANK McNAMARA (FRANK THE POET)
Come all you sons of Freedom, a chorus join with me,
I’ll sing a song of heroes and glorious liberty.
Of lads condemned from England upon Van Diemen’s Shore,
Their Country, friends and parents, to never see them more.
Starved and flogged and punished, deprived of all redress,
The Bush our only refuge, with death to end distress.
Hundreds of us all shot down, for daring to be free,
Numbers caught and banished to life-long slavery.
But Swallow, Watt and Davis, were in our noble band,
Determined at the first chance to quit Van Diemen’s Land.
In heavy chains and guarded, on the Cyprus Brig conveyed,
The topsails being hoisted, the anchor being weighed.
The wind it blew Sou’Westerly and on we went straightway,
And found ourselves all wind-bound, in gloomy Recherche Bay.
’Twas August eighteen twenty-nine, with thirty one on board,
Lieutenant Carew left the Brig, and soon we passed the word.
While some lads turned faint-hearted and begged to go ashore,
Eighteen boys rushed daring, and took the Brig and store.
We brought the sailors from below, and rowed them to the land
Likewise the wife and children of Carew in command.
The Morn broke bright, the Wind was fair; we headed out to sea
With one more cheer for those on shore and glorious liberty.
For our elected captain, Bill Swallow was the man,
Who laid a course out neatly to take us to Japan.
Then sound your golden trumpets; play on your tuneful notes,
The Cyprus Brig is sailing, how proudly now she floats.
May fortune help the Noble lads, and keep them ever free
From Gags, and Cats, and Chains, and Traps, and Cruel Tyranny.
THE 99TH REGIMENT ARE REVOLTING!
Not long after his miserable performance in the Maori wars (see How O'Leary Broke the Drought), Colonel Henry Despard returned to Sydney where he was to provoke the infamous mutiny of the 99th Regiment.
The mutiny by the 99th Regiment in 1846 was ostensibly caused by the abolition of the daily grog allowance—on the order of Colonel Despard. It lasted for approximately four weeks and ended when the rebels learnt that 400 troops from Hobart were onboard the ship Tasmania standing off Sydney Heads.
The mutiny was a protest against Colonel Despard’s decision to discontinue the daily allowance of grog normally supplied to troops on foreign service. But, in fact, it was also a protest against his over officious style of leadership and his attempts to separate the troops from the townspeople.
Evidently Despard was of the opinion that the troops might have to be used against the unruly part-convict population, and he was dead against them being seen to be a part of the general community. He was of the opinion that the ‘foreign service’ grog ration encouraged the troops to be far too like the people they were there to control.
Despard also gave an order that prohibited citizens from walking on any part of the grass-covered area in front of the barracks when listening to the band play. This had been the town’s chief entertainment for many years but Despard thought it unmilitary and likely to lead to dangerous fraternising.
The old military quarters in Sydney were known as the George’s Square Barracks. They covered an area including Wynyard Square on the western side of George Street and eastern side of Clarence Street, from Barrack Street to Margaret Street. The entrance gate was on the western side of George Street at the junction of York and Barrack Streets.
The 99th were so annoyed when the wowserish Despard stopped their grog ration that they ‘forgot their obligations to their Queen and country, by refusing to obey the lawful commands of their Officers, or to perform any further duty’.
Despard reported to General Sir Maurice O’Connell, overall commander of troops in the Australian colonies, and he went to the barracks and threatened to arm the convicts at Cockatoo Island and march them against the mutineers.
The 99th then took up their arms and returned to Barrack Square, compelling the General and his officers to leave the barracks.
The General forwarded a dispatch to Colonel Bloomfield of the 11th Regiment in Hobart directing him to proceed to Sydney without delay, with as many men as could be spared, to disarm the mutineers of the 99th Regiment.
The barque Tasmania was chartered and 400 men and officers embarked for Sydney. Three days later they were in sight of Sydney Heads, but an offshore gale kept the vessel from entering the Heads for seven days.
The 99th Regiment somehow found out that a vessel full of troops was outside the Heads and offered to return to duty.
The 11th Regiment arrived in Sydney on 8 January 1846 and marched four deep, with fixed bayonets, along George Street with the band playing ‘Paddy Will You Now’ till they halted at the barracks’ main gate.
They entered the Barrack Square to a most hearty welcome and cheers from the 99th Regiment and their women and children, together with as many citizens as could fit into the barrack grounds.
Thus ended the mutiny of the 99th Regiment.
The 11th Regiment gave a sumptuous dinner to the citizens of Sydney and their wives and children with entertainment consisting of old English sports, games and other amusements.
The grog ration was restored to the 99th Regiment and Sydney’s citizens were again allowed to walk on the grass in front of Barrack Square, and listen to the band play on Thursday afternoons.
JH
THE THREE COOLANGATAS
In our brief European history of 225 years, with a small and scattered population, our coastal sea lanes have been home to over 5000 ships operated by over 300 Australian-based shipping companies. Australia relied on coastal trade from the earliest days of the colonies until the 1960s. There were no interstate roads to speak of until the twentieth century, air travel was only a novelty until World War II and the rail gauges were all different.
The town of Coolangatta is named after a ship wrecked off the point way back in 1846. The wreck was an attraction for visitors for forty years, but then was buried in sand until 1974 when cyclonic seas washed away the sand and the wreck floated ashore. It was a cyclone that helped to wreck the ship 130 years earlier—in fact, it was the first low-pressure system ever recorded by official weather-watchers on the east coast.
The topsail schooner Coolangatta was named after its owners’ property at Shoalhaven in southern New South Wales, which in turn was named after a nearby mountain. Coolangatta, in the local Aboriginal dialect, means ‘splendid view’.
The ship’s main task was to collect red cedar from the Tweed estuary on what is now the north coast of New South Wales. The logs were dragged overland from Terranora Inlet and rafted from the beach to cargo vessels like the Coolangatta, which took them to Brisbane or other settlements along the coast. On the Coolangatta, in addition to the crew, were two prisoners—one of them in irons—who were being taken south from Brisbane (which was part of New South Wales until 1859).
The captain and some of the crew were ashore getting water, when a gale sprung up while the ship was at anchor being loaded with timber. She was driven ashore a short distance northward of the River Tweed. The prisoners were released from the
below-decks lockup when the ship foundered and Captain Steele and the crew unloaded her and walked overland to Amity Point, a distance of 112 kilometres, where they very luckily fell in with the steamer Tamar, from Moreton Bay, bound for Sydney.
The south coast NSW Coolangatta is a resort and winery today and you stay in the original convict-built buildings which were erected for the first white man to settle on the south coast, Alexander Berry.
Of course, you can find plenty of places to stay in the ‘other’ Coolangatta; it’s a holiday destination just over the New South Wales border, on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
JH
THE COLONY THAT NEVER WAS
The story of the remarkable Captain Barney appears elsewhere in this collection (page 159). Born in 1792, he arrived in Sydney in 1835 with a detachment of Royal Engineers and set about ‘fixing up Sydney’. His dream was to straighten out the streets of the town.
Among his many achievements were the building of the ‘semi-circular quay’ at Sydney Cove, Victoria Barracks and Fort Denison.
Governor Gipps retained Barney in the position of colonial engineer until May 1844 when he returned to England. In 1846, he again arrived in Sydney, having been commissioned by the Secretary of State for the colonies, William Gladstone, to be superintendent of the new convict colony of North Australia.
Barney sailed north and chose Port Curtis as the centre for the new settlement. On 8 January 1847, the Lord Auckland sailed for Port Curtis with eighty-eight persons including Barney and his family, seven other officials and a detachment of one officer and twenty-two men of the 99th Regiment. By late February, more stores and fifty more troops, and some more civilians, had arrived.
It was mid-summer. It rained heavily. The temperature in the tents reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit day after day. The colonists were tormented by mosquitoes. The Aborigines were hostile.
Barney was a good engineer but he was a poor and indecisive leader. The Sydney Morning Herald denounced the convict settlement, saying ‘hordes of marauding and blood-thirsty reprobates’ would pour southward if it went ahead.
A party was sent overland with more stores but was caught in floods, ate the stores and returned to Sydney.
In July 1846, Earl Grey had succeeded Gladstone as Secretary of State and he wrote to tell Governor FitzRoy that Britain had decided to abandon the settlement at Port Curtis. Barney and his colony were recalled. The failed venture had cost the British government £15,402.
Barney was appointed Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands and, in 1855, he was appointed Surveyor-General to succeed Major Mitchell.
He never did straighten out the streets of Sydney and the place where he failed to establish a new colony was later named after the man who sent him to do it, and had become British Prime Minister, William Gladstone.
JH
HANGED IN UNIFORM
Michael Flanagan, a native of Ireland and a member of that country’s constabulary, migrated to Australia in 1859 where he joined the Victorian Police Force two years later. Stationed in Victoria’s Western District, he was charged with drunkenness, losing his horse, telling lies and being found at the racetrack without permission while on duty. When transferred to Hamilton, Station Sergeant Thomas Hull kept reporting Flanagan, who was finally dismissed from the force for persistent drunkenness.
Flanagan blamed his colleagues for the loss of his job. Naturally, Sergeant Hull had to inspect Flanagan’s equipment and to issue a receipt for its return.
At about half past two in the afternoon of Friday 20 November 1868, Sergeant Hull came upon Flanagan arguing with Constable Martin Conway outside the police barracks at Hamilton.
Flanagan was arguing about being thrown out of the force and claimed Hull and Conway were to blame.
Hull spoke to Flanagan for a short time and told him that his pistol was dirty and had to be cleaned before being returned. The disgruntled constable stormed off to his quarters, then returned almost immediately with his service revolver. He raised the weapon and shot Sergeant Hull twice. Conway, who had been standing nearby, grappled with Flanagan and was able to subdue him with the assistance of another constable. Hull died half an hour later and Flanagan was charged with his murder.
He was convicted the following March, sentenced to death, and was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on the morning of 31 March 1869. Having been granted special permission to do so, Flanagan strode boldly onto the gallows at the Melbourne Gaol and was duly executed, wearing his old mounted police constable’s uniform.
JH
BOOMERANG PAYBACK
It was 1868, ten years before an official Australian cricket team toured Britain, and fourteen years before the Ashes series began, when a team of Aborigines from Victoria’s Western District went to England on tour, led by Charles Lawrence, a former Surrey professional cricketer, who was their manager and coach.
They played forty-seven matches against some of the best sides in Britain. They won fourteen, lost fourteen and drew nineteen. They played against W.G. Grace, who commented on their ‘conspicuous skill at the game’. They were great fielders and very fast. There were no boundaries in those days, and one player named Twopenny ‘made a drive for nine (no overthrows)’, while helping the team to a 154-run victory.
The team had been assembled in 1866 from players who had played on stations in the western district. They played in Melbourne and Sydney before finally heading off to Britain after financial backing had been found. Evidently the tour was a financial success; 20,000 turned out to see them play at Lords.
The team produced one legendary player, a young man called Munarrinim. Known on tour as Johnny Mullagh, he scored 1698 runs and claimed 245 English wickets in 45 games.
The Times was not impressed and called the team ‘the conquered natives of a convict colony’. But there were moments when the ‘conquered natives’ had some revenge against the Poms, and not only on the cricket pitch. At the completion of each game, the team gave an exhibition of ‘native sports’, including boomerang and spear throwing. The results of these exhibitions were, oddly, recorded in the official scorebook. On one occasion, the scorer noted, ‘Mullagh was throwing the boomerang when, the wind taking it among the crowd, it struck and severely injured a gentleman on the head.’
Johnny Mullagh went on to play as a professional for the Melbourne Cricket Club and had another chance to get some ‘pay back’ against the Poms when he represented Victoria in a match against the English in 1879—and top scored in the second innings.
JH
‘BEN HALL PERMITTING’
Ben Hall was born in the Hunter Valley on 9 May 1837. His parents were both convicts. On 15 June 1862, Frank Gardiner led a gang of ten men, including Hall, and robbed the gold escort coach of banknotes and 2700 ounces of gold worth more than £14,000 pounds.
Hall and several others were arrested in July, but police were unable to gain enough evidence to formally charge him. Mounting legal costs and police harassment forced him to sell his farm and he gradually drifted further into a life of crime.
Hall and his gang bailed up Robinson’s Hotel in Canowindra and held all the people of the town captive for three days. The hostages were not mistreated, and were provided with entertainment. The local policeman was subjected to some humiliation by being locked in his own cell. The gang insisted on paying the hotelier and giving the townspeople ‘expenses’.
During an attempted robbery of the gold coach near Araluen by Hall and his gang, John Gilbert killed Sergeant Parry; and then Constable Nelson was killed by John Dunn at Collector.
In early 1865, the authorities determined on radical legislation to bring an end to the careers of Ben Hall, Dunn and Gilbert. The Felons Apprehension Act was pushed through for the specific purpose of declaring Hall and his comrades outlaws. This meant that they could be killed by anyone at any time without warning.
From 1863 to 1865, a hundred robberies are attributed to Hall’s gang, including hold-ups in twenty-one towns and the theft of twenty-three ra
cehorses. Cobb & Co schedules at the time read: ‘Ben Hall permitting’.
At dawn on 5 May 1865, Ben Hall was ambushed by eight policemen and shot in the back as he ran away, eventually being shot thirty times. Ben Hall was buried in Forbes Cemetery and a headstone was erected in the 1920s. His grave is well maintained and attracts many visitors.
In 2007, Peter Bradley, a descendent of Ben Hall’s younger brother Henry, announced he was calling for the inquest into the bushranger’s death to be reopened. Bradley believes that, as the Felon Apprehension Act had not yet come into force when Hall was killed, his execution was illegal.
JH
BRAVE BEN HALL
ANONYMOUS
Listen all Australian sons
A hero has been slain,
Yes, he was butchered in his sleep
Upon the Lachlan Plain.
Pray do not stay your seemly grief,
But let a tear-drop fall;
For manly hearts will always mourn
The fate of Bold Ben Hall.
No brand of Cain e’er stamped his brow,
No widow’s curse did fall;
When tales are read, the squatters dread
The name of Bold Ben Hall.
He never robbed a needy man—
His records best will show—
Staunch and loyal to his mates,
And manly to the foe.
They found his place of ambush,
And cautiously they crept,
And savagely they murdered him
While their victim slept.
No more he’ll mount his gallant steed,
Nor range the mountains high.
The widow’s friend in poverty,
Bold Ben Hall! Good-bye!
A ‘TOUCH OF HOME’
Rabbits in Australia
Many Australians believe that there were no rabbits in Australia until Thomas Austin released twenty-four of them in 1859.