Bushrangers were armed robbers and outlaws who resided in the Australian bush between the 1780s and the early 20th century. The original use of the term dates back to the early years of the British colonisation of Australia, and applied to transported convicts who had escaped into the bush to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under arms" as a way of life, using the bush as their base.
Matthew Brady was an English-born convict who became a bushranger in Van Diemen's Land. He was sometimes known as "Gentleman Brady" due to his good treatment and fine manners when robbing his victims.
The Clarke gang was a group of bushrangers active in the mid-1860s in the southern goldfields of New South Wales, Australia. The membership of the gang fluctuated over time, the two core members being brothers Thomas and John Clarke, from the Braidwood district.
Martin Cash was a notorious Irish-Australian convict bushranger, known for escaping twice from Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land. His 1870 autobiography, The Adventures of Martin Cash, ghostwritten by James Lester Burke, also a former convict, became a best seller in Australia.
Castlemaine is a village in County Kerry, Ireland. It lies on the N70 national secondary road between Killorglin and Tralee.
John Donahue, also spelled Donohoe, and known as Jack Donahue and Bold Jack Donahue, was an Irish-born bushranger in Australia between 1825 and 1830. He became part of the notorious "Wild Colonial Boys".
"Jim Jones at Botany Bay" is a traditional Australian folk ballad dating from the early 19th-century. The narrator, Jim Jones, is found guilty of poaching and sentenced to transportation to the penal colony of New South Wales. En route, his ship is attacked by pirates, but the crew holds them off. When the narrator remarks that he would rather have joined the pirates or indeed drowned at sea than gone to Botany Bay, Jones is reminded by his captors that any mischief will be met with the whip. In the final verse, Jones describes the daily drudgery and degradation of life as a convict in Australia, and dreams of joining the bushrangers and taking revenge on his floggers.
James Alpin Macpherson sometimes spelled "MacPherson" or "McPherson," and otherwise known as The Wild Scotchman, was a Scottish–born Australian bushranger active in Queensland and New South Wales in the 1860s. He was operational throughout the greater Wide Bay area and was eventually apprehended by members of the public outside the town of Gin Gin, Queensland.
Robert Campbell was an early opponent of penal transportation and an Australian politician, Colonial Treasurer of New South Wales. He was also an elected as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council and later, the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.
John Sandes was an Australian poet, journalist and author.
Francis MacNamara, known as Frank the Poet, was an Irish writer and poet who was transported as a convict to the penal colony of New South Wales. While incarcerated, he composed improvised verse that captured convict life and exposed the cruelties of the convict system. MacNamara's poems were initially passed on orally among convicts and later published.
Edward Davis (1816–1841) was an Australia convict turned bushranger. His real name is not certain, but in April 1832 he was convicted under the name George Wilkinson for attempting to steal a wooden till and copper coins to the total value of 7 shillings. Sentenced to seven years transportation, he arrived in Sydney on the Camden in 1833 and was placed in the Hyde Park Barracks. Over the next few years he escaped four times: on 23 December 1833 from the Barracks, on 1 December 1835 from Penrith, on 10 January 1837 from the farmer he had been assigned to, and for a final time on 21 July 1838.
James Thomson was an Australian journalist and newspaper owner.
Hilary Joseph Francis Lofting was an Australian novelist, travel writer, journalist and editor.
James Watson was an Australian politician, Colonial Treasurer of New South Wales 1878 to 1883.
Samuel Henry Bindon was a judge and politician in colonial Victoria, Australia.
Bluecap was an Australian bushranger. Born and raised in New South Wales, he began bushranging in 1867, leading a gang responsible for robberies throughout the Riverina region. He suffered from ophthalmia, and earned his alias on account of a piece of cloth he wore to protect his eyes from sunlight. Captured in November 1867, Bluecap was tried and convicted of armed robbery. He was imprisoned in Parramatta Gaol and released in 1874.
A by-election was held for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly electorate of Gundagai on 21 November 1884 because of the resignation of Bruce Smith, to return to Melbourne to run his father's business, WM Howard Smith and Sons Ltd.
Edward Denny Day was an Irish-Australian police magistrate famous for arresting the perpetrators of the Myall Creek Massacre and capturing the bushranger Edward Davis.
Edward David Williams was a former Australian politician. He was the Independent member for Castlemaine in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1894 to 1904.
