The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger (19 page)

By the 1860s there were still rich pickings from gold coaches, and wealthy travellers on the roads. Most bushrangers were probably hardened criminals, too lazy—or too entrenched in the convict system—to want to find work.

All bushrangers—or the successful ones who lived longer than a few months—needed to be superb horsemen. They bred or stole far better
mounts than the police had access to, and they usually knew the country far better than the police did as well.

The bushrangers were also protected by most of the small farmers, sometimes through friendship, sometimes through admiration, sometimes because of hatred of the constables and magistrates, but also often because of fear of reprisals by the bushrangers and their friends.

In the late 1860s a Commission of Enquiry was set up by the New South Wales government to look at why so many people helped the bushrangers.

The Commission found that many of the police were drunkards or criminals. Few people respected them. Far more were afraid of them. It also found that the ‘honorary’ magistrates—the untrained and unpaid wealthy farmers and squatters who judged trials—were biased, and ordinary people had no hope of receiving justice in the courts.

The Commission also said that the small selections weren’t big enough to keep a family on, so small farmers turned to crime and cattle-stealing. If you’d grown up with a family who pinched a few sheep or horses, you were more likely to think turning bushranger was OK.

Most importantly the Commission said that bush kids needed to go to school. If poor kids had an education they had more choices—they could get apprenticeships, become blacksmiths or wheelwrights, clerks, or even teachers.

By 1860 every colony had schools in its bigger towns—but all but very poor parents had to pay tuition fees and only about half the kids did get to
school…and even then many were taken out when the crops had to be harvested or the sheds swept during shearing.

New South Wales was the first state to really get education organised, with a law in 1866 that set up a Council of Education to establish public schools. New South Wales kids now
had
to go to school—even if their parents couldn’t afford the fees.

One by one over the next twenty years the other colonies followed. By the end of the 1870s all Australian kids had to go to primary school.

From now on most kids spent most of their time learning (and playing)—not working in fields or factories. Even in the 1950s, though, kids could leave school early if their families needed them to work to earn money—especially if their father had died—or to help run a farm.

Bushranging slowly died out as children began to have opportunities for education. Trains began to link towns and cities too—and it was much harder for a few men to hold up a trainload of passengers than a carriage with half a dozen people in it.

According to family stories, the horse that William tamed was a big white stallion (white horses are really grey), and so were many of his foals. The horse that pulled the carriage when my grandmother was a child was a big white one, part Arab, and one of that horse’s descendants, so I have assumed that the horse that Ben Hall took from Markdale was white too, although a dark horse would have suited a bushranger more. There are reports of William Marks winning races on a
horse called Conservative, but I don’t know if this was his first horse or not. There is no historical record that he ever owned a horse named Rebel Yell, nor can I find any record of the colour of Ben Hall’s two horses.

When my son was young we used to play ‘white horse’, seeing who could spot one first as we drove back from town. I’ve wondered how many of those horses might be descended from the one my great great grandfather tamed and rode.

In 1858 it was almost impossible to dissolve a marriage—even if you hated each other, or your husband or wife left you for someone else, you stayed married. In 1858 divorce on the grounds of ‘desertion’—one partner leaving the other for good—was just being introduced. Other grounds were added over the next century, but the law that could end a marriage that had just generally broken down was way in the future: it was ushered into law by then Attorney-General Lionel Murphy in 1975.

But back in 1858 there were few records—and no phones or internet or other easy way to check whether someone had been married before. It’s probable that second ‘marriages’, even when one’s first spouse was still alive, were fairly common in the colonies—where you could move somewhere else and change your name, and never meet anyone who knew you. It was even easier if your husband or wife was still back in Europe.

Ann Lamb claimed she married the man she left Markdale for in 1858. She did marry him after William’s death. This is another part of the story I’ve left out.

The despicably cruel method described in this book is based on a description of horse-breaking in the 1840s. It is certainly not the method used in Australia now, and should never be tried.

All through the 1800s—and for some decades in the 1900s as motor vehicles gradually took over—if you wanted to go anywhere you could go by ship, or in the latter years and if you were lucky, travel by train. But mostly you needed a horse—or sometimes a camel, donkey, or bullock dray.

Nearly everyone had a horse. In the 1830s and 40s you could buy a reasonable riding horse for a pound, and a broken-down one for sixpence. A good horse cost about five pounds, an excellent one a hundred pounds—and you could pay many hundreds of pounds for a superb one.

Few of the roads in New South Wales in the 1840s were good enough for a carriage or even a cart, unless it was driven slowly and carefully. Most ‘roads’ were more like tracks—suitable for horses, not wheels, which would break if they bumped over big rocks hidden in the ruts.

By the 1850s superb horses were being bred in New South Wales and sold to the British Army in India. By then horses were being bred for many purposes—showy riding horses for ladies and gentlemen, tough stock horses, big strong horses with courage and endurance for the army, fast and strong horses for racing. The stock horse is still a respected and registered breed in Australia. These
strong, tough horses are capable of the most extraordinary endurance.

Markdale was bought by the Ashton family in 1921, and a new house was built. I don’t know what happened to the original house and the stone storeroom my grandmother remembered. The buildings might have been already pulled down, or destroyed. The farm remained well known for its horses. In 1949 the famous garden designer Edna Walling created a stunning new garden there. While both the house and its surrounds are beautiful, neither would resemble the house and garden of this story.

My apologies to Mrs Picker’s descendants. I have no evidence she ever fainted to get attention.

In the 1830s and 40s most bushrangers used pistols that could only fire once, then had to be reloaded with ‘shot’—usually lead—and explosive ‘black powder’.

By the 1850s Colt revolvers that could fire five shots each had been invented. Bushrangers liked to carry two Colt revolvers in their belts—even if they had to steal them. Sometimes instead of pistols they took a four-shot rifle strapped to their backs. They carried their gunpowder and ammunition in their pockets or special pouches.

The word ‘squaw’ in this book is an ugly word from a time of enormous racial prejudice.

It’s hard to imagine these days how much racism there used to be in Australia even in the 1950s—and certainly in the 1850s—against anyone who wasn’t a WASP: white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant. English people were supposed to be best; Welsh and Scottish tolerable; Irish a bit doubtful; other Europeans were ‘wogs’ and the ‘natives’ and Chinese were beyond the pale.

Those who were Catholic—especially Irish Catholics—or Jewish were looked down upon by Protestants. But worst of all was having a darker, more olive, or ‘yellower’ skin than English people. Usually the darker the skin, the greater the prejudice, though that varied. African-American gold-miners were often respected, as were black (originally African) migrants from England—though most families would still not have wanted to be connected to them by marriage.

Maori gold-miners also commanded enormous respect—but again, marriage by one of their number to a ‘white girl’ would have been frowned upon. From the 1850s onward there were savage attacks against Chinese immigrants, mostly lured to Australia by the chance of finding gold.

Anyone who had parents of two differently coloured nationalities was called a ‘half-caste’. The children of British soldiers who had married Indian, Malay or Chinese women often suffered severe discrimination. Many tried to hide their parentage.

Annie Lamb’s skin would have only been slightly browner than her neighbours’, whose skin was
tanned from the sun. It was probably only the combination of her skin colour with her dark hair and eyes, and the shape of her face—just slightly ‘different’—that would mark her as a ‘squaw’ and her children as ‘half-caste’.

The concept of a ‘half-caste’—or a ‘quadroon’, a quarter ‘native’ or ‘coloured’, or ‘octoroon’, having a ‘coloured’ great grandparent—seems extraordinary to us today, when the outstanding appearances of many of the world’s most beautiful models and striking actors are the result of their varied racial heritage. But back then having a mother like Annie Lamb would mean that you could never really be accepted in ‘upper class’ Australian society. Once the family left Markdale even the place they came from was kept a secret. As a child I was told we came from ‘a farm near Goulburn’—never enough detail to actually find Markdale, where possibly someone might remember the source of the family’s very slightly ‘more olive than British’ skin. It was only when I came to live relatively nearby that I learnt exactly where Markdale was.

And the olive skin? One time my grandmother told me that her great grandmother’s skin was so dark because she was Welsh. It was only many years later that I realised that the Welsh, while they may have dark hair, don’t have dark skin—or didn’t in the 1850s. Another time she told me that perhaps her grandmother had Arab blood, because of the Arab horses. An Arab in the family was acceptable, but not someone who might have been Jewish or Native American or a convict.

Whoever Ann Lamb was, she was a beautiful,
charming, and extraordinarily capable woman, and a magnificent cook. This is where I should say: ‘I’m proud to be Ann Lamb’s great great great granddaughter.’

In fact, I don’t know enough about who Ann was to know whether I would have even liked her. The ‘Annie’ in this book is fiction, based on very, very few facts.

Instead I hope that if the real Annie Lamb read this book, she would be content with me.

This is anonymous, I think. The song isn’t accurate (at least one of the shots was through Ben Hall’s back, so he is unlikely to have been asleep) but it gives a good sense of the way he was regarded as a hero after his death.

Come all you Lachlan men and a sorrowful tale I’ll tell

The story of a decent man who through misfortune fell

His name it was Ben Hall, a man of high renown

Who was hunted from his station, and like a dog shot down.

Three years he roamed the roads and he showed the traps some fun

One thousand pounds was on his head, with Gilbert and John Dunn.

Ben parted from his comrades, the outlaws did agree

To give away bushranging and to cross the briny sea.

Ben went to Goobang Creek, and that was his downfall

For riddled like a sieve was the valiant Ben Hall.

‘Twas early in the morning upon the fifth of May

That the seven police surrounded him as fast asleep he lay.

Bill Dargin he was chosen to shoot the outlaw dead

The troopers then fired madly and they filled him full of lead.

They rolled him in his blanket and strapped him to his prad

And they led him through the streets of Forbes, to show the prize they had.

Most of us get a second chance when we do something stupid—though often we don’t recognise that it is a second chance. We think ‘I’ve got away with it once, I’ll do it again.’

Take that second chance. Sometimes you don’t get a third.

Jackie French
is a full-time writer and wombat negotiator. Jackie writes fiction and non-fiction for all ages, and has columns in the print media. Jackie is regarded as one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors. She writes across all genres—from picture books, humour and history to science fiction.

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