WEBVTT - A bushranger's body in the window - Part 1 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:08.680 So this ended up with a big legislative change twelve 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:13.280 years later in eighteen sixty five that leads to bodies. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:14.360 Being buried at Old Melbourne Jail. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.640 There were anything from thirty four to fifty odd bodies 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:22.040 buried here. And Alfonsine and George are the reason why. 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.400 I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.280 in Black and White a podcast about some of Australia's 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:44.560 forgotten characters. Today's story is about notorious bush ranger George Melville, 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.600 who was part of an audacious robbery of a gold 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:53.120 escort heading from the Goldfields to Melbourne in the eighteen fifties. Incredibly, 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:58.040 after George was executed at Old Melbourne Jail, his wife 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.960 put his body on display in her oyster shop in 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.560 the heart of Melbourne for the public to come and view. 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.120 To tell us the story, we're talking with Damian Beard, 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.920 a tour guide at Penridge Prison Tours, for part one 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.440 of the story today. Make sure you return tomorrow for 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:20.560 part two. And just a warning, this episode contains discussion 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.320 about self harm. If you or anyone you know needs help, 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.360 you can contact a lifeline on one three double one 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.080 one four and you can find more helplines in the 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:34.559 show notes to this episode. Welcome back to the podcast, Damien. 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:36.080 Well, thank you for having me. 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:38.600 Now. I don't know about you, but the weird fact 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.560 that fascinated me about the story of George Melville is 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.080 that after he was executed, his wife put his body 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:49.560 on display in her oyster shop. What was that all about. 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:54.040 It's a little bit complicated to kind of guess we're 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:56.160 going to run across the problem a lot today of 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:57.720 the fact that there are no real. 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:58.840 Sources for this. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.400 This was incredibly controvert at the time what his wife, 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:05.040 Alfonsine did, and I found one newspaper article describing it. 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:07.680 A lot of the court records are gone, a lot 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.840 of that stuff, but what it was about was essentially Alfonsine, 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.800 his wife, was incensed at what happened to her husband 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:18.959 and basically put his body on display in her shop 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.480 to draw attention to the fact of what happened, and 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:25.239 possibly maybe to make a little bit of money as well. 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:25.840 I'm not sure. 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.120 Ah, so people had to pay to see the body. 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:33.440 I don't know. This is what kills me in my mind. 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.280 She takes the body to her shop and then walks 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.880 out because Alfonsine I just love her. From everything I've 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.880 read about her, she seems like absolute girl boss energy. 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.680 In my mind, she takes the body to a shop, 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:46.679 you know, puts it on display because when you sell 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:48.760 a lot of fresh projects back then, you need a 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:50.760 lot of ice to keep it fresh. Guess what else 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:51.639 Ie can keep fresh? 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:52.280 George. 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.160 So she decorates him with ribbons and flowers, puts him 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.639 on display, and in my mind, she walks out into 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:58.080 Burk Street. 0:02:58.080 --> 0:02:59.800 It's like right I was to see a dead body 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:01.840 and then start selling tickets to her shop. 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.320 I do know that one of the reasons why the 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.840 public or the authorities, I should say the public were 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:09.880 very interested. There were lines all the way at Burk 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.560 Street to come in and see this, And the whole 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.000 time Alfonsine was standing behind the counter and her shop 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:19.520 just non stop tire rate about the police and the authorities. So, 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.240 you know, possibly quite incense to what happened to her husband. 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.440 But I do know one of the reasons that it 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.040 became so controversial was because she did make quite a 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.160 bit of money off it, either from people paying tickets 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.160 or getting hungry and getting oysters out from underneath George. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.480 So you have this twofold thing one a woman did 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:40.839 something without the permission of a man in eighteen fifty three, 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.360 how dare she? But also quite possibly that she made 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:45.800 a lot of money And the only people who make 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.800 money off prisoners alive or dead is the prison So 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.040 this ended up with a big legislative change twelve years 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:56.240 later in eighteen sixty five that leads to bodies being 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.440 buried at Old Melbourne Jail. There were anything from thirty 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:03.800 four to fifty odd bodies buried here, and Alfonsine and 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:05.240 George are the reason why. 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.360 So before that you could just take the body and 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:09.360 do whatever you wanted. 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.480 You could apply to have it released to you and 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:14.960 show up at the gate which is on Russell Street. 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.920 Now just inside that gate there was the death house, 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.880 which was where executed prisoners were taken. And men they 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.960 shaved their heads and their beards. Women they tied their 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:26.960 hair back and they took a plaster cast of their 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.880 head to make a death mask. Because of the pseudoscience 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:34.520 of phrenology that believed you could tell everything about a 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.200 person by the shape of their head, they figured if 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.400 all these people are having their lives ended on their 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.919 gallows for crimes, they must have something in common with 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.960 their shape of their heads, right, and guess what they found? 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.880 Absolutely nothing, because it's nonsense. But family could then apply 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:51.840 to have the body released to them. They could come 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.640 and collect the body and take it and have it buried. 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:56.400 In consecrated ground. I believe. 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.760 I don't believe there was anything about it being buried 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:03.000 in unconsecrated ground or anything like that. There's stories about 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.720 how prisoners were meant to be buried in cemeteries so 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:10.320 that they never left the jail even in death. I 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.400 don't believe that's true. I believe it's much more of 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:14.640 a prosaic factor for what's going to happen to the 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:16.719 bodies is someone else going to put it on display 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:17.360 sort of thing. 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:19.880 So now that we've heard about the gruesome end of 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.600 George Melville's life, perhaps we talk about the beginning of 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.280 his life. So he came from Glasgow, is that right. 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.359 And he started work at the age of twelve to 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.680 supplement the family income. But he was actually quite a 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.000 bright kid, and his mother had insisted that he learned 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:35.599 to read and write, and apparently he picked it up 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.600 quite easily. He was caught stealing when he was a 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:42.120 teenager I have not found the exact day, and sentenced 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.560 to fourteen years transportation. In eighteen thirty six, he was 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.760 transported to Australia on the Lady Kenaway and arrived in 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.159 Port Jackson and was quickly sent out to work as 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:56.839 an indentured servant, a farm laborer, basically slavery. He chafed 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:00.320 on the restrictions and at one point he was enterence 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.120 to hard laboring chains on a road gang. Obviously he'd 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.640 sort of tried to abscond or you know, had to 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.239 go at his oversea or something like that, not really sure, 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.440 but while on this road gang he absconded and he 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.120 stowed away on a whaling ship named the Fame. He 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.560 was caught and the captain was like, you know, I 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.200 you wouldn escaped convictor bolter as though were called back then. 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:23.839 He said no, and the captain was like, oh, okay, 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.080 you can work. But then he realized that the ship 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.240 was turning around and heading back to Port Jackson, and 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:32.760 one of the mates said, yeah, the captain's going tow 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.400 you in. Because if masters of ships were found with 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.240 bolters in their crews at the time, they could be 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.680 fined really quite severely. So they're heading back to Port 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.760 Jackson and he's within side of shore. He jumps overboard 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.320 and swims for it, spend some time in the bush, 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.359 but eventually finds himself in Melbourne in eighteen forty seven. 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:54.520 When he's in Melbourne, he worked as a laborer. He 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:56.960 took on clerical jobs because he could read and write, 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.840 which was unusual for someone of his background at the time. 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.760 And apparently it was quite the ladies man quite quite 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:04.960 had a captivating wit. 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:06.719 It's one of the things that I read. 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:09.840 And working at the markets, he met a French woman 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.280 named Alfonsine Barbelet, and she owned her own fruit and 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.600 oyster shopping Berke Street, and it seemed to be genuinely 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.120 really love at first sight. They really did seem to 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.200 really care for each other. This really does come across 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.000 in the documents when you work in my position and 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.960 you sort of see this sort of historical stuff a 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.520 lot of the time. Quite often you tend to view 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.960 these marriages. Often they can be a little bit cynical, 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.000 a bit like you know, let's just do this, or 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.640 you're pregnant, we better do this kind of thing. They 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.880 actually appeared to really really care for each other. She 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.840 came from Caledonia. She was from a French family, and 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:46.720 he actually ended up learning quite a bit of French, 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.600 which got him the nickname Frenchie. But in eighteen fifty 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:51.440 one he headed up to Mount Alexander. 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.560 Okay, so they've headed up to the goldfields. 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.280 Together by himself. I believe she's got a shop. Why 0:07:57.400 --> 0:07:59.600 she can abandon this shop. She's probably making way more 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:00.000 money than it. 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.400 So now this story takes place during the Victorian gold Rush. 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:05.680 Can you set the scene a little for us? What 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:07.880 do we need to know about that era before we 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:09.960 plunge right into Melville story. 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:10.760 Yes. 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.320 So in eighteen fifty one, a man named James Esmond, 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.000 he's walking through the bush outside plunes out near Balarat, 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.040 trips over bloody big rock, turns around to shake his 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.920 fist and swear at it, and notices the sun shining 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:26.680 through the trees is making the big rock sparkle. And 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:31.440 he's found gold. And the gold rush begins. Now we 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.440 go from about seventy seven thousand white settlers in eighteen 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.400 fifty to over half a million in the space of 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.560 eight to ten years. And as these people come here, 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.000 there is absolutely nothing for them. There are no jobs, 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.640 in no houses, no provision for this at a time 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.400 where being unhoused or unemployed was could technically have you 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.720 charged with vagrancy or idleness and put in jail. Up 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.480 at the Goldfields, at one point nearly forty people a 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:01.840 month sting to death. They were turning to crime to 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.600 stay alive. The roads from the goldfields are super dangerous 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.439 because lots of people have come here and realized that 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.560 digging up gold's really really hard work, and do you know, 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:12.400 it's a lot easier you let someone else do the 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:14.520 hard work, and then when they're bringing the gold back 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.400 you rob them. None of that helped by the fact 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:19.800 that over ninety five percent of the police force deserted 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:20.640 their posts to. 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:21.720 Go become gold miners. 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.880 They were meant to be forty policemen on gidy on 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.679 Year's Day eighteen fifty two, two showed up for work. Wow, 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:31.520 out of thirty eight, all up at Sovereign Hill. So 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.240 the government is looking at this huge crime wave and 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:36.760 they're like, we need to do something about this. You know, 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.720 let's tackle the causes of this with social housing and 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:40.880 free I'm just kidding. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.080 They're like, we need more jails for poor people. 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.040 So they cut the masks off a bunch of ships, 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.000 they paint them yellow, they fill them full of prisoners. 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.840 They keep cramming people into the stockade up at Penridge 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.240 and they start expanding the site of the old Melbourne 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:56.880 Jar or the same you're back then, the new Melbourne Jail, 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.440 and this is where George ends up ending here life 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:00.880 as well. 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.040 Now, one job I hadn't heard much about is these 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.920 gold escorts, and this is pretty relevant to this story. 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:09.840 So can you explain what they were? 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:14.000 Yeah, so when you find gold, you can't well, you 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:15.840 can go and trade it in at the pub and 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.080 things like that, and people quite frequently did. 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:19.880 But what you really want to do is convert it 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:20.640 to currency. 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.680 And the best exchange rate for this currency was from 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.360 the government at the Treasury. The exchange rates up to 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.199 the gold fields, where you don't have to go through 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:33.800 all the hassle of transporting it to Melbourne, they're obviously 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.680 not as favorable to the gold miners. So what gold 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:38.200 miners want to do is they want to go and 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:40.640 they want to sell it directly to the government where 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.520 the exchange rates are much better. However, to do this 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:46.440 you have to get to Melbourne. Remember what I said 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.840 about the roads. Now, the government doesn't want this happening 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.480 law and order, but also they want the gold, so 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.240 pretty quickly on they established these gold escorts, which were 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.160 literally armed escorts that would take the gold once a 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.320 week from the gold fields. What ends up happening is 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.200 as the goldfields expand out from Ballarat and Bendigo, people 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.520 start their own private escorts. A company stumps up the 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.720 money and the cart and the driver. They're provided with 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.760 troopers government personnel to guard it, and then they leave 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.880 from these various other diggings and meet the government escort 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.160 at a place like Bendigo or Ballarat, join up with 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.040 that government escort and then are sent on through to Melbourne. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.600 So there was one such escort, a private one that 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.600 was starting in eighteen fifty three for the Makaiva diggings, 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:35.480 which is east of what's now today Heathcott, and this 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.120 one ended up encountering a few men who had a 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:38.720 bit of a plan. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.520 Ah, So tell us about some of these. 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.960 Men, Yes, so some of them I have more information 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.840 on than others, particularly the Francis brothers. John Francis under 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.160 the name of John Fern He is sentenced aged nineteen 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.240 for theft. Here now he's already done time in England 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.360 in jails with his brother George for poaching, and once 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.440 they got out they'd work together and what they would 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:05.200 do is George would bump into a target in the 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.400 street and well distracted, John would pick their pockets. John 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.280 was caught doing this, apprehended by a constable and in 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.480 December eighteen forty three he was sentenced to ten years 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.080 transportation to Van Demon's Land. He arrived in Van Demen's 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.760 Land on the Maria Solmes on the thirtieth of July 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:27.760 eighteen forty four. He was quite good conduct prisoner and 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.400 released on the thirtieth of January eighteen forty six, given 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:36.000 a pass to head out and work. Eighteen forty six, 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:38.200 now under the name William Fern, he was working as 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.640 a laborer and associating with other what the newspapers called 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.760 low types, and in May eighteen forty seven he's involved 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.559 in a robbery of silverware from a man named Charles McLaughlin. 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:50.520 He was the managing director of the bank of Van 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.000 Demon's Land. They stole a bunch of items, a bunch 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:55.520 of silverware, candlesticks and. 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:55.960 Things like that. 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:57.960 They were quite unhappy to find out that it was 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.400 actually plated silver, not solid silver, but they stole them 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:03.920 all and stashed them in a brothel in Hobart. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:05.640 They're all caught quickly. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.600 John turned evidence against his compatriots and he was given 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.480 three months on a road gang and forbidden from residing 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.679 in Hobart. At the end of his sentence, he was 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.679 joined in Hobert by his brother George. George was a 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.720 year younger, five inches shorter, and allegedly had a much 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:27.040 much shorter temper. A few months after George's conviction, back 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:30.479 in England, he was caught stealing beeswax worth ten shillings 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.640 sixpence in Pontefract and was given a seven year sentence 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.880 of transportation. He arrived in Van Diemen's Land on the 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.800 fifth of September eighteen forty four on the ship Barossa 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:44.800 with three hundred and twenty one other convicts, and he 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:48.600 was marked as a bad conduct prisoner when arriving. He 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.680 spent a lot of time going absent from work gangs 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.280 without leave, got six months hard laboring chains for stealing 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.720 a blanket, probably committed other infractions. 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:58.360 Haven't been able to find anything. 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.679 Else but both George and John received their tickets of 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.400 leave in eighteen forty eight and eighteen forty nine respectively, 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.160 and as John was barred from living in Hobart, they 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.920 eventually made their walue to Melbourne following the gold rush. 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.520 By eighteen fifty two, both married to women in Melbourne. 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.920 George was married to a woman named Ellen. In Melbourne, 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.440 Ellen introduced George to her friend Agnes and her husband Bill. 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.600 Bill Atkins was a former convict who had served his 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.840 time in New South Wales, and they became friends together 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.280 and they drank quite frequently together along with his brother John, 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.920 and at a pub in autumn eighteen fifty three, William 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:40.000 Atkins introduced John and George to his friend George Melville. 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:43.040 So it's quite a little gang that's forming. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.200 Now, it is absolutely And in fact there was a 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.360 fifth member as well, a man named George Wilson, where 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.320 we don't know a whole lot about him, as allegedly 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.320 an ex convict. Most of these men were. He arrived 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.200 at bendy Go in eighteen fifty two to try his 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.280 hand at gold mining, leaving behind a wife in Melbourne, 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.120 but apparently quite successful. But he was a gambler, so 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:03.760 I didn't hold on too much of what he found. 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.200 But at Bendigo he met another man named Joe Gray 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:13.000 or John Gray, I don't know, because we know absolutely 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:18.000 nothing about this man. He is allegedly the mastermind behind 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:20.560 the whole plot, but we just don't know who he is. 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:21.840 There is one. 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.320 Author who has a belief as to who he is. 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.040 I'll be honest, I'm not sure I believe him, but 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.240 we'll get to that later. But Joe John, I'm going 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:31.960 to call him Joe, the mastermind behind the pole plot. 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.440 He's the one who's seen the gold Escorts and thinks, okay, 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:36.120 there's quite a lot of money going on in that, 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:39.880 and he starts sort of sussing it out, camping out 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:41.960 and watching it, trying to get friendly with the guards 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.360 and figure out what their routine is, that kind of stuff. 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.600 He approaches George Wilson, who brings in all the others, 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.000 essentially Melville, who brings in Atkins and the Francis brothers, 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:55.880 and they allegedly met at the house of John Francis 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.800 in Collingwood which was called Collingwood Flat back then, in 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.320 June eighteen fifty f to plan their robbery. 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:03.360 We'll be back soon. Do you hear what happened the 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.800 day the bush Rangers stage their daring robberies? They stay with. 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:17.200 Us, so tell us how the day of the robbery 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:17.720 went down? 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:18.640 Yeah? Sure. 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.600 Now I will have to credit especially Deb from Old 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.840 Geelong Jail Crime and Justice Museum. Her podcast Locked Up 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.440 in History has a really good episode about this, and 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.080 I just want to thank Deb. I know Deb and 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.000 Rob from Old Gelong Jarl they're lovely people, but Jed, 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.960 I'm cribbing a lot of Deb's research here, So thanks Deb. 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.240 But on the twentieth July eighteen fifty three, the Private 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.240 gold Escort, I have been able to actually find the 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:46.560 name of it, whether it was you know, the so 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:49.000 and so gold Escort or whether it was literally called 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:51.720 Private gold Escort does what it says on the tin, 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.880 But anyway, it leaves the Makaiva Diggings carrying two two 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.960 hundred and twenty three ounces of gold and cash in 0:16:59.040 --> 0:16:59.880 two strong box. 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:02.520 I mean, I'm not very familiar with ouncers, but it 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:04.639 sounds like an extraordinary amount of gold. 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.080 It is, yeah, I mean a lot of it's small 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.080 tiny nuggets, dusts and things like that, but it totals 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.240 about eighty seven hundred pounds in value, which is nearly 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:17.280 three million dollars today. So they're heading for Keinton and 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.119 then Bendy go to join the government escort. At the 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.800 head of the column is Superintendent Robert Warner with Sergeant 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:28.280 George Dowan's and the cart carrying the actual gold is 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:33.439 driven by a driver named James Fooks. Troopers Samuel Benham, 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.600 Davis John Morton, and Davis Beswater. There's a few different 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:39.720 pronunciations of his name. I'm going to go with that one. 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:45.280 They're also escorting it. They're all quite heavily armed. They're armed, 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.280 in fact, with a sword, a carbine, and pistols. Warner 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.120 and Dowan are also carrying revolvers. Only Fooks, the driver 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:58.600 is he's the only one who's unarmed. Now, just outside Maya, Maya, Gray, Melville, Wilkson, Atkins, 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:03.680 Francis Brothers and allegedly others lay in wait. What they've 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.360 done is they've found a spot where there's a sort 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.440 of a bend in the road and off to one 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.320 side there's a bit of a culvert with a drop 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.520 off off to the other side quite a steep incline 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.280 with a lot of bush Now just around the bend 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:18.280 in the road, they've cut a bunch of branches off. 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.320 They've barricaded the road to make it look like a 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:23.600 tree's fallen down, but also provided a bit of a 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:27.159 barricade for a couple of the bushrangers to hide behind. 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.480 They've picked this spot really, particularly because there's no escape, 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.560 hemmed in by a drop off on one side, a 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.560 larger sort of escarpment on the other side, and then 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.720 coming around the corner and seeing this barricade without much 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.880 time to stop and investigate. But Duance, he's riding up front. 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.320 He did see the screen and he called a holt 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.080 to investigate it. There's men hiding behind the screen and 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.280 off to the side, and they suddenly appeared and opened fire. 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:53.919 Now there is a lot. 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:58.760 Of dispute over who shot first. The bushrangers said that 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.439 the guards shot first. The guard said the bush rangers 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:05.679 shot first. One account I read of the article of 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.480 the incident, I'm sorry, said that, you know, one of 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:10.760 the bush rangers misfired. 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:11.359 They're gone. 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.200 The bush rangers later claimed that they had not intended 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.399 to shoot anyone. Of course, they're claiming this in the 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.560 dock when they're on trial for their life, so you 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.639 know what exactly can you trust? But the end result 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.320 is someone shot and there is a gunfight the troopers 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.280 all full. Morton receives a ball in the shoulder, Davis 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.480 is shot in the cheek. Bears Water is shot in 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.439 the leg and fell from his horse, dislocating his arm. 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.920 Fuchs is shot in the knee and received a graze 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.960 on the temple. Dewan's horse received bullet runs which made 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.240 a bolt, but it bolted straight ahead and went crashing 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:53.479 through the barricade. So Diwans has effectively escaped this ambush 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.800 and he brings his horse under control and he heads 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.600 to a government camp three miles away to raise a arm. 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.560 They keep everyone at bay at gunpoint. Now most of 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.840 the troopers are injured on the ground. The only one 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.639 who is not his warner, but they keep him at 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.600 bay at gunpoint while they're taking the strong boxes. And 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.320 then Superintendent one, he sort of just stands around watching 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.400