Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm to blame a chucko reboarding and I'm fair down
Speaker 1: and the news of Ned Kelly's now identified remains has
Speaker 1: us all excited about bush rangers again, and that's mostly
Speaker 1: because our listeners are so fired up about it. When
Speaker 1: the news of his remains being identified came out, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned in the first part to this podcast, we
Speaker 1: got emails from all over the world in boxes exploded
Speaker 1: with Ned Kelly subject lines. Indeed, so last time. We
Speaker 1: started out by talking about Ned's remains being found and
Speaker 1: the news about that, but we also talked about guys
Speaker 1: who weren't Ned. The earliest bush rangers in Australia who
Speaker 1: laid the foundation for later gangs like the Kelly Gang,
Speaker 1: and these men were mostly convict bultures, which means they
Speaker 1: were transported felons who escaped prison or the settlements and
Speaker 1: turned to a life of time. But in eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: three the British Parliament passed the Penal Servitude Act, which
Speaker 1: ended most transportation sentences, and after that the typical bush
Speaker 1: ranger went from being a foreign born convict to being
Speaker 1: a native born in Australian complete with a thorough knowledge
Speaker 1: of the land, and that's pretty important. But another thing
Speaker 1: that's important is to to figure out the motivation for
Speaker 1: this new generation of bush rangers, since they weren't just
Speaker 1: already convicted criminals. There were really a few things that
Speaker 1: play and the first one was gold. So the discovery
Speaker 1: of gold in Australia, specifically in Victoria and New South Wales,
Speaker 1: was a really big motivator of bush rangers in the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties. It gave them access to great wealth that
Speaker 1: they could convert to cash really pretty easily, and it
Speaker 1: helped that the gold fields were easy to bail up. Essentially,
Speaker 1: they were isolated and the police were often neglecting their duties.
Speaker 1: Many were jumping ship to join the gold rush themselves,
Speaker 1: and because gold had to be shipped across these lonesome,
Speaker 1: long stretches of territory, they were really the perfect target
Speaker 1: for ambushes. But there was another factor at play too
Speaker 1: besides just gold, which seems pretty obvious. Yeah, it was land.
Speaker 1: So while the Aborigines had probably one of the most
Speaker 1: peaceful attitudes towards landholding that you can imagine things changed
Speaker 1: dramatically when the first European settlers arrived, and by the
Speaker 1: time the period were discussing the world around, a real
Speaker 1: beef had developed between the two subgroups of white Australians
Speaker 1: who were rural, and that was the rich squatters on
Speaker 1: one side and poor selectors on the other. So just
Speaker 1: a little background on that. So initially, squatters in Australian
Speaker 1: history were just like squatters anywhere else. They were illegal
Speaker 1: occupiers of land, in this case grazing land outside of
Speaker 1: the legitimate crown settlements. But by the eighteen forties it
Speaker 1: was clear that squatters were developing the country's wool industry
Speaker 1: and becoming a political force of their own. They were
Speaker 1: allowed leases at that point and many grew very, very rich.
Speaker 1: But we end up with an influx of new immigrants
Speaker 1: and miners who were arriving every day, and finally the
Speaker 1: colonies started to pass selection acts so that these newer
Speaker 1: arrivals could buy some land themselves at auction, and they
Speaker 1: were of course competing against the powerful squatters. So it's
Speaker 1: really no surprise that these two groups of people didn't
Speaker 1: much care for each other. They had conflicting interests. So
Speaker 1: our first bush ranger. Though, now that we've established the
Speaker 1: motives for this later generation, we're gonna start with a
Speaker 1: bush ranger who really epitomized the later generation, even though
Speaker 1: he was a compatriot of Frank Gardner, who was the
Speaker 1: last ranger we included on our earlier list. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: name was Brave Ben Hall or just Ben Hall that
Speaker 1: they call him Brave Ben Hall. And he knew the
Speaker 1: countryside really well, he knew horses, and he was Australian born.
Speaker 1: He was born May nine, eighteen thirty seven in New
Speaker 1: South Wales, and he was the son of two ex convicts.
Speaker 1: His father actually met his mother when she was at
Speaker 1: the female convict factory. And I like starting with him too,
Speaker 1: because he is really truly the second generation here, the
Speaker 1: son of convicts, how perfect exactly. And he grew up
Speaker 1: working with horses and cattle while his father ran a
Speaker 1: successful farm and worked as an overseer. And then the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about him though, was even though he was
Speaker 1: the child of two convicts, he seemed initially on track
Speaker 1: for this kind of hard working agricultural life, the same
Speaker 1: life that his parents were leading at the time basically,
Speaker 1: or that they were at least cultivating right. He took
Speaker 1: on a lease on land in Sandy Creek, and he
Speaker 1: married his neighbor Bridget Walsh on Leap Day in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty six in a Catholic ceremony. But then, just like
Speaker 1: a Western movie, poor treatment in the hands of the
Speaker 1: law is what made him abandoned this peaceful life, or
Speaker 1: at least that's what we think. Evidence about this part
Speaker 1: of his life is a little bit sketchy. But there
Speaker 1: are two wrongful arrests and the first occurs April eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty two on the orders of Sir Frederick Pottinger, and
Speaker 1: the charges were armed robbery and being an accomplished too
Speaker 1: none other than bush ranger Frank Gardner, not a guy
Speaker 1: who you want to be associated with if you're on
Speaker 1: the right side of the law. So then Hal spent
Speaker 1: several weeks in jail, but there was really no evidence
Speaker 1: and he was let go. Then comes another arrest, this
Speaker 1: time for a gold robbery, and again there was no evidence.
Speaker 1: It didn't even go to trial. And uh, he comes
Speaker 1: back home and finds that his house has been burned
Speaker 1: down and perhaps potting Tur did it. His stock is
Speaker 1: dead from thirst, and because of legal expenses, he has
Speaker 1: to give up his lease, so he's suddenly a ruined man.
Speaker 1: And to make matters worse, at some point in the
Speaker 1: middle of all this trouble, his wife left with their
Speaker 1: infant son, maybe for a former policeman, So twenty two
Speaker 1: year old Hall at this point teams up with Frank
Speaker 1: Gardner for real and starts robbing the countryside. Their exploits
Speaker 1: were really in your face type tactics. They'd steal race horses.
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty three, they bailed up the entire town
Speaker 1: of Canundra, putting everybody up in a local hotel and
Speaker 1: treating them to a three day feast and bender. The
Speaker 1: party was only cut short because they got word that
Speaker 1: the river was rising and they'd be trapped if they'd
Speaker 1: stay longer. And one thing to note too about Ben Hall,
Speaker 1: even though they were really well armed and really well organized,
Speaker 1: Hall would stop members of his own gang from committing
Speaker 1: acts of violent revenge or cruelty. If he could. He'd
Speaker 1: prefer a ransom over death, even though by eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: four a gang member had shot a sergeant and by
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five another member shot a constable. It's easy
Speaker 1: to see how violence would pretty quickly become the norm
Speaker 1: for for these bush Rangers. But the exploits of the
Speaker 1: gang and the ineptitude of the police force eventually caught
Speaker 1: higher ups attention, as as you would expect them to.
Speaker 1: His old enemy, Hall's old enemy, Frederick Pottinger was even
Speaker 1: recalled to Sydney in eighteen sixty five for neglecting his duty.
Speaker 1: He had been out riding in some races and he
Speaker 1: didn't notice that Hall's gang was also right there. You
Speaker 1: think you'd recognize him, Yeah, you'd think so. Maybe he
Speaker 1: was like wearing a different differed or something a disguise
Speaker 1: for him. I don't know. But that same year things
Speaker 1: change a little bit. The government put out a new law,
Speaker 1: the Felon's Apprehension Act. So, in addition to the Gold
Speaker 1: and the Land disputes we discussed, this is really the
Speaker 1: third piece of the puzzle for understanding later generations of
Speaker 1: bush Rangers. Under the new rules, individuals could be proclaimed
Speaker 1: as outlaws and then shot without warning. So this was
Speaker 1: basically martial law, and anyone harboring a felon could be
Speaker 1: considered a felon as well. Pretty bad news for the
Speaker 1: bush Rangers with Robin Hood type reputation because, as we've
Speaker 1: discussed in the Ned Kelly episode and in our earlier
Speaker 1: Bush Rangers episode, these people really were indulged by townspeople sometimes,
Speaker 1: I mean, depending on on how good or bad they were.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to imagine some of it was fear.
Speaker 1: You don't want to insult the bush Ranger. But these
Speaker 1: three day venders, the three Day Feast, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Townspeople like them to a certain extent. So with this
Speaker 1: new law in a one thousand pound reward on his head,
Speaker 1: Hall decided that he was going to call it quits.
Speaker 1: But he was betrayed by a friend and troopers showed
Speaker 1: up at his hiding place. May five, shot him in
Speaker 1: the back, then shot him thirty more times, and that
Speaker 1: was pretty much the end of the notorious Hall Gang.
Speaker 1: The last two members of his gang were also shot
Speaker 1: or executed within the next few months, but he did
Speaker 1: get some valid immortality though, courtesy of Hall's brother in
Speaker 1: law and I'm gonna force the rhymes here to make
Speaker 1: this work dark, and he was chosen to shoot the
Speaker 1: outlaw dead. The troopers then fired madly, filled him full
Speaker 1: of lead. They rolled him in a blanket and strapped
Speaker 1: him to his proud and led him through the streets
Speaker 1: of Forbes to show the prize they had had. But
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna make it work. So that was
Speaker 1: the end of Ben Hall. But we have another Bushranger
Speaker 1: who's not such a cheery sounding fellow, and he's not
Speaker 1: quite as likable. So first we should say that the
Speaker 1: notoriety of Ben Hall's gang and the ineptitude of the
Speaker 1: police are often credited as the reason behind the Fellon's
Speaker 1: Apprehension Act of eighteen sixty five, but not all of
Speaker 1: the bush Rangers of the eighteen sixties were these Robin
Speaker 1: Hood type characters hosting three day parties. One in particular,
Speaker 1: Mad Dan Morgan, was known for meaningless murders, cruelty and violence.
Speaker 1: Mad Dan, as he was called, was born John Fuller
Speaker 1: in New South Wales in eighteen thirty and he was
Speaker 1: the illegitimate child of Mary Owen and George Fuller, and
Speaker 1: unlike Ben Hall Dan Morgan, he didn't start out on
Speaker 1: the straight and narrow. Pretty much as early as his teens,
Speaker 1: he was suspected of stealing stock, but his actual arrest
Speaker 1: record began in eighteen fifty four, when he was sentenced
Speaker 1: to twelve years of hard labor for a highway robbery
Speaker 1: in Victoria. He always and he was innocent of this
Speaker 1: original crime though, that's the interest is what made him
Speaker 1: a bitter man. So after six years he was released
Speaker 1: on a ticket of leave for good behavior and didn't
Speaker 1: report back. He was on the lamb and from that
Speaker 1: point became known as Down the River Jack. And he
Speaker 1: started work as a horse breaker in a station hand
Speaker 1: so maybe kind of getting into legitimate work, except that
Speaker 1: he got into bush rangering pretty fast when he stole
Speaker 1: the prize horse of the family he worked for, and
Speaker 1: one member of that family, Evan Evans, along with another squatter,
Speaker 1: tracked Jack back to his camp and badly hurt him,
Speaker 1: but he did manage to escape, and from then on
Speaker 1: he changed his name yet again and became known as
Speaker 1: Daniel Morgan Billy the Native. And this is when he
Speaker 1: really gets into serious bush rangering. He was tied to
Speaker 1: the bailing up of a police magistrate into robberies across
Speaker 1: northeast Victoria. He even gets a two pound reward put
Speaker 1: on his head, did her alive, and by the next year,
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty four, he drove up the price on
Speaker 1: his head considerably by shooting the overseer John McLean, and
Speaker 1: just a few days later a police sergeant too, So
Speaker 1: now there's a one thousand pound reward on his head.
Speaker 1: And by September another sergeant was killed and Morgan claimed
Speaker 1: responsibility for that too, So he just kept just kept snowballing.
Speaker 1: Morgan was quite different from some of the other rangers
Speaker 1: we've discussed. He usually worked alone, for example, or if
Speaker 1: he had accomplices, they'd changed from job to jobs, so
Speaker 1: he didn't have one crew or gang that he worked
Speaker 1: with the entire time. He'd sometimes be remarkably cruel too.
Speaker 1: He would force groups of Chinese workers to sing and
Speaker 1: dance before shooting one in the arm. He also forced
Speaker 1: the wife of a homesteader against a fire until her
Speaker 1: skirt caught fire, and after bailing up coaches, he'd stampede
Speaker 1: the horses and once tied squatter isaac Vincent to a
Speaker 1: fence and then set fire to a nearby shed. So
Speaker 1: not a very nice guy, very bad, but he really
Speaker 1: really hated squatters, and it's good that we gave that explanation,
Speaker 1: so you know what squatters are, and you're not just like,
Speaker 1: what do you have against squatters, illegal landholders, but he
Speaker 1: hated those who had bad reputations as employers especially, and
Speaker 1: during raids he'd pull these stunts that kind of sound
Speaker 1: like Robin Hood but kind of bad to like Robin
Speaker 1: Hood with a dark twist. In one case, he made
Speaker 1: one squatter right more than four pounds worth of checks
Speaker 1: to his employees while he was bailing him up, and
Speaker 1: during another he made the employer give food and drink
Speaker 1: to all of his employees. And his temper was really
Speaker 1: unpredictable to it could shift on a dime, turning from courtly.
Speaker 1: That's how you'll often see it described and consider it
Speaker 1: too violent. And that's his name, Mad Dan sometimes mad Dog.
Speaker 1: And it's this element of his personality, that unpredictable temper,
Speaker 1: plus his five ft ten frame, his dark beard, and
Speaker 1: this very hooked bird like no is that made people
Speaker 1: seriously afraid of him, and he worked on that fear.
Speaker 1: He would kill informants without question. I mean, that's probably
Speaker 1: part of why he part of the reason why he
Speaker 1: worked alone and switched up his partners so frequently. But
Speaker 1: he was a scary guy eventually, though his reputation did
Speaker 1: catch up with him. In the early months of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five. Morgan pulled six major robberies before the passing
Speaker 1: of the Felon's Apprehension Act, and the day that it
Speaker 1: did pass, April eighth, eighteen sixty five, he committed his
Speaker 1: last crime. And what timing right exactly. He built up
Speaker 1: a homestead in northeast Victoria. Pretty standard stuff from Morgan, right,
Speaker 1: But what he didn't know was that the co owner
Speaker 1: of the station, a man named George Rutherford, lived really nearby,
Speaker 1: and a nurse at the station, Alice Keenan, managed to
Speaker 1: get word to Rutherford about what was going on, and
Speaker 1: he rounded up a posse of workers, local men, and
Speaker 1: police to wait for Morgan's appearance in the morning. So
Speaker 1: when Morgan emerged in the morning to steal a horse,
Speaker 1: he was shot in the back and he died by
Speaker 1: that after noon. But they didn't just bury him, No
Speaker 1: they didn't. They cut his beard, skin and all off
Speaker 1: of his face and sent his severed head to a
Speaker 1: Melbourne anatomy professor. Yeah, the beard thing is usually described
Speaker 1: as being flayed off his face, which I think is
Speaker 1: so so horrible, what a what a gross souvenir. But
Speaker 1: um kind of a grizzly end for Dan Morgan will
Speaker 1: definitely a grizzly end. But these bush Rangers have obviously
Speaker 1: continued to capture the imagination of Australians and really people
Speaker 1: around the world. And we talked a little bit about
Speaker 1: Ned Kelly movies and spinoffs and things, but fortunately there's
Speaker 1: spinoff regarding other bush Rangers too. It's not all about Ned,
Speaker 1: as I hope we've proved with this podcast series. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just an example of a few of the films that
Speaker 1: are out there about other bush Rangers. There was a
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six film called Mad Dog Morgan starring Dennis Hopper.
Speaker 1: He sounds like a really good mad Dog Morgan definitely.
Speaker 1: Nineteen fifty three there was another movie called Captain Thunderbolt,
Speaker 1: made by Cecil Holmes, and there are several movie adaptations
Speaker 1: of the novel Robbery under Arms by Ralph Boulderwood and
Speaker 1: those feature bush Ranger Captain Starlight, whose real name I
Speaker 1: believe was Harry Redford. And finally there's a movie called
Speaker 1: Ben Hall Notorious bush Ranger, which was made in nineteen eleven,
Speaker 1: and there were also Ben Hall TV shows. There was
Speaker 1: a series I think on Ben Hall in nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: which was a collaboration between the BBC and the Australian
Speaker 1: Broadcasting Corporation. So those are just a few of the
Speaker 1: options that are out there if you want to see
Speaker 1: some other bush Ranger movies, but there are so many,
Speaker 1: and I would invite all our listeners to send us
Speaker 1: some recommendations because everyone was so good about sending us
Speaker 1: ned Kelly movie recommendations. I mean, you know, we heard
Speaker 1: all about the Heath Ledger ned Kelly, the two three
Speaker 1: one which everyone says you shouldn't see because it's so terrible.
Speaker 1: A few people who said you should just see it
Speaker 1: because I mean, I mean, because are yeah. So definitely
Speaker 1: send us your favorites um or your least favorites just
Speaker 1: so we know what to avoid if we want to,
Speaker 1: and any other suggestions for Australia related topics. We've done
Speaker 1: a lot of Australian history recently, so we might take
Speaker 1: a little break, but we're always looking for Australia related
Speaker 1: topics to research. So you can email all those suggestions
Speaker 1: to us at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or if you want to just get to know us
Speaker 1: a little better over social media talk to us about
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