Attack on the Araluen Gold Escort, Monday 13 March 1865
This account is largely taken from Ben Hall, Stories of the Hard Road by Peter Bradley. Yellow Box Books, Sydney 2013.
From 1862, members of the Hall gang were suspected of 110 robberies, five murders and six woundings as well as many gun fights with the police.
By late February 1865, the Hall gang had come to realise their days in NSW were numbered. They would have to escape the country, but to do this they needed one last robbery. It had to be a big one.
The gang was made up of Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert and John Dunn. A fourth man was needed. Tommy Clarke was obviously suspected by the local police to be the fourth man, but this was incorrect. The fourth man, although initially briefly seen by the travellers1 coming down from Major’s Creek, kept his face hidden under a dirty white mask, covered with a red scarf. He stood apart from the gang and conversed very little.
The gang had equipped themselves with a tomahawk and sledgehammer to break open the strongbox, and had packhorses to carry the gold away.
They were hoping to open fire at the escorting police who would then flee. But they hadn’t considered that the escorting police would be widely separated, by about 100 yards. The two escorting police in front of the wagon were Constables John Kelly and Daniel Byrne. The two constables behind the wagon were Senior Constable Stapleton and Constable MacEllicott.2 J.H. Blatchford, the gold buyer, was driving the wagon. The spot where the travellers coming down from Major’s Creek were accosted and held prisoner, was about 0.25 mile down the mountain.3 This meant they could not fire on both groups of police at once, and it also meant the group of police behind the wagon would be almost out of range and could seek cover in the bush.
As the wagon drew level with the bushrangers, they opened fire. Constable Kelly fell from his horse with a bullet in his shoulder. He took cover at the side of the road and fired back. Byrne, hid behind the wagon and also fired back. He received a wound in his foot but continued firing. The two troopers behind the wagon dismounted and crept up the bush, flanking and unseen by the bushrangers. Now a party of 50 people from Major’s Creek appeared around a bend in the road – many of these were armed. The bushrangers were unable to get to the wagon, and soon realised they were in a very vulnerable position. They retreated to their horses and escaped.
The next day the gang robbed Boyd’s store at Tarago and Daniel Ryan was suspected to be the fourth, unidentified, member of the gang. He was later arrested and brought before the police magistrate on Friday, 7 July 1865, charged with robbing the store of Mr W. Boyd at Tarago on Tuesday 14 March 1865. He had been brought before the Braidwood bench on this charge the previous Friday, 30 June 1865, and though several witnesses swore to him, he brought forward witnesses to prove an alibi and the bench dismissed the case. Mr Boyd and his son and his daughter all thought Daniel looked very like the fourth man but would not swear to it. This investigation ended with Mr Scarvell for the defence asking for time to bring witnesses to prove an alibi.4
Finally in September 1865
The Attorney-General has declined to put an information on the file against Daniel Ryan committed by the Goulburn bench on a charge of robbing with arms the store of Mr. Boyd, at Tarago. The reader will very probably recollect that the evidence as to identity was very loose, and insufficient to secure a verdict for the crown.5
Richard Kennedy6 states Hall’s gang spent the weekend before the attempted Gold Escort robbery drinking and dancing in a hotel in Araluen. Possibly they met unidentified man at this time.
Judy Lawson
1The travellers were, William Nairn, Christopher Payne, and Patrick Griffin. (Patrick’s sister was married to Tommy Clarke’s uncle and would have been able to identify Tommy. Goulburn Herald & Chronicle, 10 May 1865. (https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/rendition/nla.newsarticle100827800.txt)
2Goulburn Herald & Chronicle, 18 March 1865
3Ibid
4Goulburn Herald & Chronicle, 8 July 1865
5Goulburn Herald & Chronicle, 23 Sept. 1865
6Richard Kennedy, Braidwood Dispatch and Mining Journal, Reprinted, 17 July 1942