Bushranger

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Bushrangers redirects here. For the cricket team, see Victorian Bushrangers

Bushrangers were outlaws who used the Australian "bush" as a refuge to hide from the authorities between committing their robberies, roughly analogous to the British-American "highwayman". Their targets often included small-town banks or coach services.

The first bushrangers were escaped convicts fleeing from the early Australian penal colonies. Fleeing convicts would find they had almost no knowledge as to how to support themselves in the harsh Australian wilderness. As a result, most turned to stealing supplies from remote settlements and travellers and on-selling stolen goods to other free settlers.

Their heyday was the Victorian gold rush years of the 1850s and 1860s, but the increasing push of settlement and improvements in transport (railways) and communications technology (telegraphy) made it increasingly difficult for bushrangers to evade capture.

The bushrangers' place in Australian history and iconography is quite interesting, as they are held in some esteem in some quarters, due to the harshness, pro-squatter outlook and anti-Catholicism of the colonial authorities whom they embarrassed and the romanticism of the lawlessness they represented. By far the most well-known bushranger, Ned Kelly, exemplifies this.

Notable bushrangers

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Mary Ann Bugg (1834 - 1867)
Martin Cash (c. 1808 - 1877)
John Caesar (1764 - 1796)
Bold Jack Donohue (c. 1806 - 1830) whose real name was John Donohue
John Dunn (1846 - 1866)
John Fuller also known as Dan Morgan (c. 1830 - 1865)
Frank Gardiner (c. 1829 - c. 1904)
John Gilbert (1842 - 1865)
Ben Hall (1837 - 1865)
Joseph Bolitho Johns known as Moondyne Joe (c. 1828 -1900)
Ned Kelly (c. 1854 - 1880)
Jack the Rammer real name probably Billy Roberts (operating 1834)
Frederick Ward known as Captain Thunderbolt (1833-1870)
William Westwood known as Jackey Jackey (1821 - 1846)
Henry Johnson known as Harry Power (1819 - 1891)

Part of the series on Crime in Australia
Regional crime:	Timeline \| Melbourne \| Northern Territory \| Western Australia \| Sydney
Australian law:	Courts \| Criminal law \| Law enforcement
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Australian prisons:	\| \| \| \| \| \| \|
International:

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