SHOOTOUT

 INSIDE ABERCROMBIE CAVES. Source: blayney-nsw.

ABERCROMBIE CAVES. Source: panoramio.com

By the time the rebels had reached the caves, their numbers had markedly reduced. Most probably saw impending doom but there was a hard core of fourteen still led by Entwistle, ready to fight it out. 

Resting in the Abercrombie Caves, the rebels continued to the top of a waterfall where they decided to camp. It was here that the troopers and the volunteers finally caught up with the rebels.

The gun battle lasted for over an hour. By the end of it, two troopers were dead and Daniel Geary (my great,great, great grandfather) was badly wounded in the right shoulder. The rebels retreated back to the caves, losing their horses in the process.

The troopers continued to follow, searching the dark labyrinth of caves; trying to flush out the rebels. The rebels eluded the troopers, escaping the caves and heading to a hill now known as Bushrangers Hill ( A bushranger is an Australian outlaw).

BUSHRANGERS HILL. Source:snucklepuff.

Unfortunately, this is where they met the soldiers who had marched from Sydney. Although vastly outnumbered, the rebels decided to go down with a fight. In the firefight, another two soldiers and two rebels were wounded. Eventually, the rebels were totally surrounded and arrested. The two wounded rebels died whilst being taken back to Bathurst and another three managed to escape.The remaining ten, including Entwistle were hung on the 2^nd November 1830 in Bathurst at a spot now called Ribbon Gang Lane.

GALLOWS. Source:thinkprogress.org

Source: bushrangers.abercrombiecaves. 

 As for Daniel Geary, he was invalided out of the police and granted a pension for life. As a result of his shoulder wound he was never able to again raise his right arm above his elbow. Call it bureaucratic madness, because he still had to report to a government doctor every year to prove it hadn’t got any better!  More about Daniel Geary in my next blog.  

THE WHITE RIBBON GANG REBELLION

THE "AFFRONTED" GOVERNOR DARLING Source: historyservices.com

Ralph Entwistle was an unlikely lad to be leading a full scale rebellion. He was twenty-five, a bricklayer from Bolton, England and had been sentenced to life for stealing clothes.

The origins of the convict rebellion lay with Ralph and a mate having a “skinny-dip”. Ralph and his mate had been hauling wool on a bullock dray all day. It was hot and the two convicts decided to cool off in a nearby creek. Unfortunately for them, Governor Darling and his entourage were passing by on their way to Bathurst. The two nude convicts were spotted enjoying nature. The Governor was “affronted” and the two convicts were arrested. The punishment was severe. For causing “affrontment” to the Guv, each convict was flogged publicly, receiving fifty lashes each. That would have hurt.

Entwistle seethed for nine months and finally snapped. Ralph persuaded nine other convicts on the property to join him. Escaping one night, the convicts roamed the country for the next few days, stealing guns, horses and food as they went. By the end of two weeks, the gang had now grown to fifty.

 As many of the escaped convicts were Irish, they decided to wear white ribbons in their hats as a visible sign of rebellion. The convicts were imitating the Irish secret society known as the Ribbon Men. They were now calling themselves the White Ribbon Gang.

One morning, the convicts stormed a property of a magistrate seeking vengeance for his harsh treatment of the convicts. The magistrate wasn’t there but the unfortunate overseer was. When he refused to release the convicts on the property, the overseer was shot and killed.

The Ribbon Gang had now swelled to one hundred and thirty escaped convicts. The authorities in Sydney and Bathurst were expecting a full scale convict uprising. The convicts vastly outnumbered the free citizens of the colony. It would be a bloodbath.

ESCAPED CONVICTS. Source: halfacentury.

Two regiments of soldiers were dispatched from Sydney which was days away. Bathurst was closer, and the six local police troopers (Daniel Geary included) were on the spot. The police and the twelve citizen volunteers were soon on the trail of the convicts. The parties finally met at a place called Abercrombie Caves. In my next blog; the final shootout.                 

THE FIGHTING IRISH.

DOING TIME COLONIAL STYLE. Source: flickr.com 

Daniel Geary, son of Michael Geary. A wild, wild colonial boy. Daniel was so at odds with authority that he probably punched the midwife who delivered him. Daniel was born fighting. A true fighting Irishman.

Things were not helped much when he married a Bridget McLucas in the 1820s. She had a very interesting pedigree. Bridget like Daniel was born in the colony and also descended from convicts. The McLucas family were renowned in the colony as a family of thieves. They were also not shy in assaulting the police.  Sometimes I feel I’m descended from Australia’s first criminal family. Hold on, it does get worse.

In an altercation with a Thomas Campbell, Daniel Geary pulled a gun and shot him. Campbell survived but Daniel was sentenced to life for attempted murder. It looked like it was all over for Daniel. Poor Bridget was left behind with three children to raise in a state of dire poverty. Now this is something that the authorities don’t do anymore. Bridget petitioned the Governor (the Guv ran the colony) asking if she could join her husband in prison as she had no means to support herself. The Governor approved. So Bridget and the three kids soon joined Daniel in prison.

CONVICTS. Source: smh.com.au

However, that didn’t stop Daniel Geary escaping. He escaped several times. Maybe Daniel wanted to get away from the missus and the screaming kids. But he was recaptured and labelled a “notorious character”. But the Geary family had connections because in 1824 Daniel had been released and was working for a John McArthur, son of James McArthur, the colony’s richest man and the founder of the wool industry (Australia is the world’s leading producer of wool). 

Again there is another change of fortune. One right out of left field. Geary became a police officer constable and was posted to Bathurst (an inland town from Sydney). He’s swapped sides? The reason for the change of sides is that a convict would have their sentence markedly reduced if they became a police officer ( too many convicts, not enough lawmen) . Constable Geary would be soon putting his life on the line. In 1830, fifty convicts rebelled and were roaming the district killing and burning. They had to be stopped.

Strangely, it was a rebellion that started when the subsequent leader of the rebellion was caught bathing nude in a creek. All will be revealed in my next blog. 

THE IRISH REBELLION

REENACTMENT. The Daily Telegraph. 2011.

THE VINEGAR HILL UPRISING. National Library of Australia.

By 1804, the young settlement of Sydney was ready for rebellion. There were one thousand Irish convicts in the colony, eight hundred of whom were political prisoners. They had been transported to Australia in the aftermath of the 1798 Irish rebellion in which thirty thousand people died. They had had enough.

The Irish were regarded as sub-human and disloyal by the English and received harsher treatment. The poor Irish could be flogged for just speaking their native language. The Irish had also had enough of the oppressive heat and flies.

FLOGGING. Mitchell Library. New South Wales.

All hell broke loose when one thousand Irish convicts stormed a settlement called Castle Hill just outside Sydney and burnt it to the ground. Weapons were seized from a government store. The Irish convicts were marching on Sydney. The plan was to kill the English soldiers, steal ships and sail happily into the sunset. So they thought.

Four hundred of the rebels were met by only sixty English soldiers at a place called Vinegar Hill. It didn’t look good for the English. Before fighting started a truce was called between the rebel leaders and the English commanding officer. During the truce the leaders were seized and taken to the rear, surprising the rebels. The soldiers quickly opened fire and the rebels fled. Fifteen rebels were killed during the uprising and nine were later hung. Australia’s largest insurrection was over.

Where was Michael Geary in all this? He was Irish. You’d assume he’d be on the Irish side. Michael Geary instead joined an irregular contingent of men loyal to the crown. They helped guard Sydney and later hunted down the Irish stragglers.

For proving his loyalty,Michael Geary was rewarded with a grant of land and allowed to draw cattle and beer from the government store on credit. What ! He betrayed his countrymen for beer? Michael Geary died, aged fifty-eight in 1820 not long after having his wheat crop ruined by flood.  

In my next blog: from villain to hero. The life of Michael's son, Daniel.   

THE WILD BUNCH

ESTHER GEARY. 1880's. Source: Personal Collection.

Wanted. Hard-working woman with initiative, required to live in isolated conditions. Local inhabitants could be hostile. Must be able to use firearms.

If John Clark had been advertising for another wife, Esther Geary would have fitted all of those key selection criteria. Esther who would become John Clark’s second wife was well known to the Clark's. She had been working for them as help for Jane Clark. In 1880, John and Esther married in her hometown of Gundaroo, New South Wales. He was forty-six and she was thirty-one. John Clark was marrying into one of the more “colourful” families in Australia.

Her great grandfather, Michael Geary (my great,great, great, great grandfather), had “immigrated” to Australia after stealing a watch in Cork, Ireland in 1793. The sentence was seven years. The ship was one of the first ships to bring Irish convicts to Australia. Most of the convicts, both male and female, were your usual motley crew of thieves but there was a Republican lawyer  named Laurence Davoren ( Davoren was fighting for liberty from England. In a rare gesture of goodwill, he was allowed to bring his wife and children) and three highwaywomen, I repeat women, who would rob travellers dressed as men.

IRISH CONVICTS. Source: lineages.co.uk.

You’d imagine the convicts been starved and flogged but they were well-fed and treated reasonably. There was beef to eat every day and there was oatmeal for breakfast. Of course, there was an ulterior motive behind the good diet; the authorities wanted healthy convicts to be able to do the hard work when they got to the other end. The voyages to Australia took four or five months and when the ship arrived in Sydney there had been only one death. In 1793, Australia’s European settlement was only five years old.

Several of the convicts escaped into the bush soon after arrival and two were speared to death by the Aborigines. Michael Geary was more a lover than an escapee. Soon after arrival he started a de facto relationship with an Eleanor McCarty alias Donovan. De facto relationships were then known as concubines and weren’t uncommon. Eleanor had also received a seven year sentence for stealing. Her journey had been a little more eventful as one of the convicts on the ship had been executed for planning a mutiny. 

Michael was freed in 1801. Eleanor and Michael settled in  Pitts Row ( now Pitt Street, the main street of Sydney) . More about Michael Geary in my next blog.   

EARLY SYDNEY.

            

TROUBLE WITH THE MOTHER INLAW

1910. JOHN CLARK WITH TWO GRANDDAUGHTERS. LORNESLEIGH STATION. Source: Personal Collection.

All family history seemed to begin with my great grandfather, John Henry Clark.  Of course, you are going to give him a big credit.  He was the man that made the family fortune. (The disappearing fortune? There’s another blog in that).

 I’ve always been surprised that my surname isn’t Clark rather than Bell such is the impact of this man. Yet he remains a little bit of a mystery.

The family tales are that he was born in Australia. His father died when he was a child and he was sent to an uncle. The uncle was a tyrant and John ran away to make his own way in life at the age of thirteen. Never learning to read or write, he soon developed a canny nose for business and became a gifted horseman. At one stage he operated a stage coach company on the Victorian goldfields. Then in the 1860's, he decided to take wife and child put them on a bullock dray and head to greener pastures in northern Australia, all the way from the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. Well, some of it is true. Some isn’t.

Then I read some old newspapers and convict records from the 1850's. Isn’t the internet a great resource? The real John Henry Clark was born in Perthshire, Scotland in the 1820's. His family appeared to be farmers and weavers. Nothing more is heard of him until the 1840's, when he is tried in Glasgow for stealing. A sentence of five years transportation to Australia was the result.  

BALL AND CHAIN. Source: heritagegenealogy.com

The convict system was becoming unpopular in Australia and would end soon. As a result, John didn't do it hard like many earlier convicts. He got assigned to work on a cattle property in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. I guess, this was all useful experience for a man who would later be running a vast cattle empire. He did his time, became an inn operator then a butcher at a place called Murrurundi, New South Wales. He was probably a stage coach driver but never an owner.

In the early 1860's he met and married Jane Farrell, the daughter of the local policeman and the hospital matron. John was moving up the social ladder.  But strangely John, Jane and a baby daughter were heading north to the newly opened lands of north Queensland in 1861; a dangerous journey of nearly two thousand miles that would take months to complete. Not travelling on a train or on a ship but by means of a bullock wagon. Very uncomfortable.

 What I discovered was that the move wasn’t necessarily motivated by a thirst for fortune. It was also motivated by his mother in-law.  John Clark was in trouble again. Again.

Matron Farrell had gone to the police saying that her son in-law had been stealing cattle (one of Australia's oldest occupations). The police were closing in fast. To avoid arrest John grabbed his young family, hitched up the bullock wagon one night and legged it out of town .

The things a man will do to get away from his mother in-law.

AUSTRALIAN ARISTOCRACY

JOHN CLARK.1880. Source: Personal Collection.


I’ve mentioned my great grandfather, John Clark, in previous blogs. I’m going to write about his life over several blogs; an amazing life that ran for ninety-four years. He was an aristocrat of the Australian variety—which is a bit different to the English and European variety.

I have a confession to make—John Clark was a convict, a jail bird. He didn’t kill anyone or do anything particularly evil. He would have been hung for that or any of the other two hundred offences in the nineteenth century that carried the death penalty. It’s mind boggling that people were transported to Australia for seven years just for stealing a handkerchief. Most poor unfortunates committed crimes because of poverty. John Clark was a humble thief who got caught. Confessing this to you is probably going to set prim and proper Aunt Maud rolling in her grave.

Australians call convicts aristocracy because they founded this nation. Where once you never dared admit you were an ex-convict or descended from one, now we say it with pride. It’s no longer an insult. So there, English rugby and cricket fans!

CONVICT SHIP. Source: les-nuits-masquees.blogspot.

CONVICTS. 1860's. Source: blogs.smithsonian.

Australia can thank America for our convicts. Until independence, the British Isles sent their convicts to America. But from 1788 right up until the 1860's, convicts were transported to Australia. Most were male, but there were also female and even child convicts. While some were rebels and trade unionists, London’s East End poor, the rural poor and Irish made up the majority. Technological change was a bad thing for unskilled workers in those days too.

Being a convict could be tolerable if you decided to just get on with it and do your time. At the end of your seven years you got one hundred acres of land that you could call your own. (If you want to learn more, look up Wikipedia).

Not only was John Clark a convict, but his wife, Esther Geary, my great-grandmother, was descended from convicts. The Gearys were a wild, wild bunch. From attempted murderer to policeman, that was my great-great-great grandfather, Daniel Geary. 

More about him next time. So, you see I’m a true Australian aristocrat. You can stop spinning now Aunty Maud. You’ll only make yourself dizzy!

To be continued.