THE GALLOPING POET.

Adam Lindsay Gordon Monument. Melbourne.

Two things stand like stone;

Kindness in another’s trouble,

Courage in one’s own.

Adam Lindsay Gordon was more the bush poet and outback horseman than the English gentleman he was meant to be.

Gordon was born in 1833, in the Azores to privileged English parents. He attended all the right schools, but had a reputation for running up debts and leading a reckless life. After been expelled from his last school, his frustrated father decided that Gordon should start over in Australia.

He took to the Australia, like a pig to mud. He broke in horses, rode in steeplechases, was elected to the South Australian parliament and became a published poet. But it is for his riding feats that he is most remembered for. The most famous occurred in 1864, when Gordon made his famed leap on horseback over an old post and rail guard fence onto a narrow ledge overlooking the Blue Lake many metres below and jumped back again onto the roadway.

In the late 1860’s, he decided to move to Melbourne where he continued to publish his poetry and ride in steeplechases. In one day, he won three races. It was here, that he developed a friendship with Thomas Lawless who was a jockey at the time. It was later on that Thomas joined the Victorian Mounted Police.

The men developed a friendly rivalry, each trying to outdo each other with their riding skills. I was once told by an elderly relative, that the duo jumped their horses over a bark hut for a dare. I can’t find any reference to the story and I'm surprised that it would be possible. I’ll have to do some more digging.

Sadly, it didn’t end well for Adam Lindsay Gordon; after his latest book of poems didn’t sell well and afflicted by injuries sustained by several falls off horses, Gordon shot himself in 1870.

He is the only Australian poet to have a bust in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey.    

SYDNEY TOWN

San Francisco. 1850.

‘It was the end of the continent, nobody gave a damn.’ Jack Kerouac.

This blog comes as a footnote to a previous one, A Free Man, in which I talked about my great,great grandfather, Patrick Bell, taking off to San Francisco. Further research indicates that Paddy may have been a member of a criminal gang called the Sydney Ducks.

The Sydney Ducks  were one of the more violent criminal organisations ever set up in America. They had the dubious honour of been California’s first criminal gang.  The majority of them were Irish who had arrived in Australia during the Irish Famine. Many were labourers. Paddy Bell certainly fitted that demographic. A few were ex-convicts who had served their time in Australia.

When news of the gold discovery in California hit Australia, they were on the next boats to San Francisco.  However, the Australians soon found that mining for gold was for idiots and decided that a life of crime was more lucrative.

The gang set up shop in an area of San Francisco that became known as Sydney Town ( renamed The Barbary Coast in the 1860's). Sydney Town soon became a cesspit of saloons, gambling dens and brothels.  Assaults, murders, looting, robberies and arson happened on a daily basis all over the city.

Arson attacks on businesses was the big earner for the Ducks.  While people were distracted trying to put out the fire, the gang was be looting others.  In one major arson attack, the criminals nearly burnt out central San Francisco. The gang always made sure Sydney Town never burnt;  only lighting a fire when they knew the winds wouldn’t blow in that direction.    

In a few months, a hundred people were murdered. The authorities were either incompetent or corrupt; probably both. The gang members were never prosecuted.   

As Herbert Ashbury, says in his book,' The Barbary Coast'; ‘the nearest approach to criminal anarchy that an American city has yet experienced.’

But the good citizens of San Francisco had had enough. A vigilante committee was formed and soon after, the lynching’s and deportations started. It was all over for the Sydney Ducks.

 Their two year reign of terror that had lasted from 1849-1851, was over.  

THE HUNT FOR NED KELLY. PART TWO.

Police party. Thomas Lawless, far left.  Hare in the middle.  Courtesy of Victorian Police Archives.

When you read of the hunt for the Kelly Gang, it appears that the police were going around in crazy circles.  They were up against it from the start.

The policemen lacked any knowledge of the bush and the large numbers of Kelly sympathisers kept the gang updated of police movements. Only later, did Hare decide to use Aboriginal trackers from Queensland.

The seven policemen who were in Hare’s party lived rough.  They were unable to pitch tents or build a campfire, so as to avoid attracting attention. In the bitter cold of the Warby Ranges, a campfire would have been a welcome relief.  They woke up every morning, usually covered in frost. Their food consisted of potted beef, biscuits and sardines.  They lived like this for weeks on end. Morale wasn’t good.

As Superintendant Hare later admitted, ‘Ned Kelly knew all of our movements in the Warby Ranges. He told of all our movements and described the men.’

After his capture, Kelly told the police that he knew even which police officer used to get the horses in the morning. He said it was always Thomas Lawless. If they had wanted to, the gang probably could have wiped out the police party. It would have been easy. 

  

The hunt continued. In one incident, the police rode across a house known to contain a group of Kelly informers. As they approached, the people rushed out of the house calling the names of the Kelly Gang. When the police got closer, the sympathisers realised it was the police and rushed back inside.  

Lawless approached the house from a different direction, and in doing so, came across an informer who wasn’t in the house. The man called out to Thomas Lawless, calling him Steve initially. The man had mistaken Thomas for Steve Hart, who was a member of the Kelly Gang.  Thomas and Hart apparently had a similar physique.

  

Thomas Lawless was able to get out of the sympathiser that the gang would be coming to the house that night. The police settled in for the night, telling the people  to stay in the house. The sympathisers were warned that if they tried to leave the house they would be shot. The people complied but decided to have a party. The noise created, probably warned the Kelly Gang to stay away. Once again, the bushrangers had evaded capture.

The police continued to go around in circles for sixteen months and the Kelly continued to rob banks until the famous shootout at Glenrowan.  Thomas Lawless was in another search party when Glenrowan occurred, but in the aftermath of publicity, he became known as one of the best horse riders in Australia.  

When British peer, Earl of Clan William, visited Melbourne, Lawless and several other officers did a riding exhibition for him. The Earl was so impressed that he presented Lawless with a gold watch ( sadly, later stolen).

Lawless was shortly afterwards discharged from the police for being drunk on duty and assaulting a superior officer. Well, the officer had called Lawless an Irish Catholic bastard.

 Thomas continued doing riding displays but while preparing for one, he was thrown from the horse and killed. He was only thirty-two. 

  

THE HUNT FOR NED KELLY. PART ONE.

‘Such is life.’- Ned Kelly’s final words before execution.

 Ned Kelly remains a controversial figure in Australia; was he a murderer ( his gang murdered three police officers and an informer) or was he a Robin Hood character?  More books have been written about him than any other Australian and three movies (one starring Mick Jagger, another starring Heath Ledger) have been made about the Kelly Gang.

 I can proudly say that my two Irish great, great uncles, Thomas and Richard Lawless, as members of the Victorian Mounted Police, were involved in the hunt for the Ned Kelly gang. The two brothers were not at the final shootout at Glenrowan but they were in the police parties hunting for the gang.

The two brothers had emigrated to Melbourne in the early 1860’s with their mother and siblings (including my great grandmother)  from Castlecomer, Kilkenny, Ireland. The family had barely survived the Irish Famine and were keen to start a new life in Australia.

  Thomas and Richard, from an early age, were renowned for their riding skills and both joined the Victorian police force where they became horse breakers at Richmond Barracks in Melbourne.

The police hunt through the Wombat Ranges.

After the murder of three police officers at Stringybark Creek by the Kelly Gang in October 1878, Superintendent Francis Augustus Hare assembled a group of police officers to head to the town of Benalla in North East Victoria to capture the Kelly Gang. The Lawless brothers were picked to be part of the contingent, because of their riding skills.

Hare remains a controversial figure also. He was an unpopular character and notorious self- promoter. Augustus Hare would later write an account of his hunt for the Kelly Gang called, The Last of the Bushrangers.  Hare was at the final shootout at Glenrowan and was wounded in the hand.

   

In Benalla, acting on a tip-off by an informer, Hare and three men (including Thomas Lawless) went undercover at the Whorouly race meeting. Whorouly was a small town near Benalla.  The informer had told Hare that the Kelly Gang would be at the meeting. The police officers mingled with the crowd and in the case of Thomas Lawless, set up a table and performed card tricks for the punters.

After performing card tricks for some time, Lawless decided to enter one of the races hoping to get a better view of the racecourse. Lawless rode in the race and won it!  Of course. It was the only exciting event that happened to the police that day. 

 Aided by their many sympathisers, The Kelly Gang did not make an appearance at the racecourse. Apparently, they had watched the races from a hill at the rear of the racecourse.  To be continued….

     

A FREE MAN

A FORTY-NINER PANNING FOR GOLD.

‘I came here a free man, under Hugh Glass.’

Those are the distant words of my great, great grandfather, Patrick Bell who arrived in Melbourne after a tragic sea voyage from Ireland.  

Unlike many people coming to this country at the time, he was not a convict but a free settler. He had arrived here under what was called the assisted migration scheme. All you had to do was work off your passage for seven years for an Australian sponsor. In Patrick’s case, that sponsor was Hugh Glass.

Hugh was an interesting character.  He had arrived from Ireland as a poor immigrant in 1840. By the time Patrick stepped ashore, Hugh was one of the largest landowners and best political manipulators in Australia.  As a monument to his wealth, Hugh built Flemington House in Melbourne in the 1850's for 60,000 pounds (now about ten million dollars).  It boasted its own artificial lake, stocked with white swans imported from Ireland. Sadly, he died later, aged only fifty-five and flat broke.

Patrick had left Ireland with his pregnant wife and one child.  Just days out from arriving in Australia his wife went into labor and had a baby boy. The celebration was short lived. Patrick’s wife died from dysentery soon afterwards.

So Patrick was now a widower with two children in a strange land working for Hugh Glass. He wasn’t alone for long.  He soon met an Irish servant girl named Anastasia Grace, got her pregnant and married her. But Patrick couldn’t settle and when he heard of the gold rush in California in 1848, he deserted his expanding family and headed to California. California here I come.

Patrick had an interesting time in California. One night in a saloon, he was playing cards when he noticed that one of the players was cheating. In true Wild West style, he drew his pistol and shot the man in the leg. Violence and death were common on the goldfield. So common, that one in five miners would die from violence, disease and accidents within six months of arrival.

He didn’t get rich but I guess he didn’t die there. He returned to Melbourne and reunited with his wife and family. It didn’t end well as you would have wanted it to. Once, in a drunken rage, he tried to kill Anastasia. The judge ordered him to stay away from Anastasia permanently.  Not long after that, he died from the effects of alcoholism and was buried in an unmarked grave. Patrick was aged only thirty-eight.

His grave is next to the Elvis Presley Memorial; a fitting place to rest for a man who tried to make the big time in America.        

  

           

POISONED

John Patrick Bell. Cardigan Station. 1915.. 

We’re going back in time to a disturbing incident when my great uncle, my grandfather and another man were poisoned.

It occurred at Cardigan Station, near Charters Towers in 1900. The station was managed by my great uncle, John Patrick Bell. My grandfather, Richard George Bell, was working there at the time. After returning to the station after mustering for a few days, my great uncle went to the cupboard containing bottles of brandy, whisky and port. Yes, the Bells did not drink milk.  John poured a glass of port and brandy for Richard and himself.  After tasting his, John complained that it had a bitter taste. He told my grandfather that he thought it must be off. They decided against drinking anymore.

The next day, a visitor by the name of Graham was visiting and that evening, John got out the bottle of brandy and poured glasses for Graham, himself and my grandfather. Graham drank his first and immediately said that it contained poison. He then fell to the floor and started convulsing.  Fortunately, Graham did not die.

After straining the brandy, my great uncle found crystals at the bottom of the glass. John suspected it was strychnine and informed the police. If you don’t know what strychnine is, it is a deadly poison that is pink in colour and has a bitter taste. If inhaled, absorbed through the eyes or mouth or swallowed, it can cause severe convulsions and death by asphyxia. It is the poison that has been portrayed in literature and movies over the years.

When the police arrived from Charters Towers, they questioned a young employee named Frederick Cole who was only fifteen. Cole confessed under questioning that he had decided to kill my great uncle who had earlier chastised him. Cole said that he had stolen the poison from my grandfather’s locker and put it in the bottles of alcohol. My grandfather used the poison to kill dingoes.

Cole was arrested. My great uncle, grandfather and Graham had no lasting effects from the poison.  It takes more than a glass of poison to kill outback men.

RUNAWAY FOR A DAY

The Escapee.

In keeping with the theme of my latest blogs, I will relate a story about my most adventurous near miss. 

As a kid on a cattle station, I was always on the move or on the run. I think as soon as I could walk I was off down the bush seeking adventure. You could call me a runaway, an infant escapee. Others may have used less flattering descriptions for me.  As you would expect, living in the bush is more hazardous for a kid than one living on a suburban street. For a start there’s no wild pigs, thick bush, deep rivers or snakes in most leafy suburbs.

My parents just had to turn their backs and I was gone. A friend of my parents suggested they tie me to the clothes line if I was outside. My parents used to smack me when I came back but that was no deterrence. Usually I’d disappear for a few hours, usually in the company of two cattle dogs. I remember a female dog called Battler. Those dogs are most probably the reason why I didn’t die. I’m convinced God and those cattle dogs were looking after me.

The day of the Great Escape, I apparently took off in the early morning, heading for the river as usual. Mum was left at the homestead as Dad and the stockmen were out mustering cattle. As you would expect, mum soon went into a blind panic when she couldn't find me. She ran to the river but couldn’t find me. She could see bubbles in the water. She went in but of course I wasn’t there. She ran back to the homestead and tried to use the radio but she couldn’t get it to operate (we didn’t have a phone). She tried to start the car but without success, then she attempted to catch a horse but it bolted. She must have been overwhelmed with fear of what had happened to me. Alone and afraid, she probably had already decided I wasn’t coming home. All she could do was to keep searching, hope and wait.

As for me, I don’t remember much about that day (I was aged only three) except for two events. I can still see clearly in my head, the two cattle dogs attacking a bunch of wild pigs near the riverbank. Whether, I had walked into them and the dogs were defending me, I can’t remember.

The other recollection, is sitting naked (I apparently always took off my clothes when I took off. Thankfully, it’s not a habit I have anymore) and covered in sand in the kitchen of the homestead. Then my mother came into the kitchen, saw me sitting in the chair.  You'd think she would have  grabbed me and smacked my bare behind wouldn't you? Instead, I remember clearly her crying and collapsing on the floor.

I probably kept running away but I never ran away for that long again. Even as a kid, I saw no future in it.