Boy Bandit - revisited
Jul. 9th, 2011 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithI'm revisiting the story of the "boy bandit" from a month ago.
I won't repeat the story here. It's in the original post, although it's different now. The book I have (Tell 'em I Died Game, by Bill Wannan) took the story from Sea Wolves and Bandits, by Leslie Norman, and he took the story from a book called In Old Days and These by "The Captain" (Thomas Ford) that was published in 1930. It's that story that I've put in the first post.
As I said at the end, it gets interesting but it's not the story itself that is interesting, (although it might be) but the process of trying to work out what the story actually is. So I'll start with the easy part, and that's Tom Rares, who wasn't transported at age 9 for stealing an apple. Rather he got life for pickpocketing. That has him as age 17.
He arrives on the Earl St Vincent in August 1836 (aged 14, 5', brown hair, "hazle" eyes) and doesn't seem to waste time getting down to trouble. If you can read all that, you're doing a better job than me (the easiest way to view it is right click and view image so it's outside of the provided frame).
He finds himself in a chain gang within a few months of arriving. Then some absconding, stealing from his master etc. In 1829, when he's in the employ of William Brumby, he absconds again and hooks up with a notorious pair by the names of Samuel Britton & John Bevan
From the Launceston Advertiser (11 January 1830):
We this morning heard, that Beavan and his two companions, (one a beardless boy) have robbed the Dwelling-house of Mr A. Thomson, on the West Bank of the Tamar, hardly two miles from town. They continued in the house for several hours, tied the men, eleven in number, and who had four stand of arms if they would have used them, plundered the house of every valuable, and loaded two of the men and one horse with plunder, which they compelled them to carry. Mr A. Thomson was in town.
Again in the Launceston Advertiser (25 January 1830):
On Tuesday last, one of Bevan's gang, quite a youth (who had absconded from the service of Mr Brumby, and as we understand, assisted to rob Mr A. Thomson, as recorded a few days back in our paper) was picked up. He had been playing with a double barrelled percussion gun, (supposed to have been stolen from Mr. Dutton) which went off, and shot his hand to pieces--it hung to his arm by a very small cartilage. He was brought to Norfolk Plains Police Office, and his arm amputated by Dr. Paton. Report says, that some of Mr. Thomson's cloaths were found upon him, and also that he expressed a wish to kill all the people in Mt T.'s house when Bevan and his party robbed it.
Nice kid. There's an entry on his conduct records for 14 May 1830: Feloniously entering the Dwellnig house ... Thomson & stealing various articles his property. Committed for Trial.
From the Launceston Advertiser (14 June 1830):
SUPREME COURT Monday June 7th
Thomas Rares was found guilty of a burglary in the dwelling-house of Mr A. Thomson--strongly recommended to mercy by Jury, on account of his youth, suffering and behaviour during the robbery.
There are transcriptions of the Informations etc. relevant to his trial on the Manuscript 3251 project page. Search for "Agnes Thomson"
And was he hanged? Well, he continued racking up charges, at Macquarie Harbour, Port Arthur and beyond in the following years. Although he still got his Ticket in 1843 and a Conditional Pardon the next year. In 1849 he was working as a Herdsman at Oatlands when he married Martha Thompson, aged 24.
So how much of that matches with the original story? About one and a bit sentences. The "bit" is if you count him hooking up with Britton & Bevan rather than "Lawton and Cowden".
The rest of the story? Good question. As I mentioned previously, Cowden & Lawton were part of a group who were running about robbing houses at about the same time as the above events.
From the Hobart Town Courier (26 June 1830):
Sentence of death recorded was passed on--
William Levin, George Woodham, John Shephard, for felony and burglary, and Thomas Rares.
John Morton, William Sainter, Thomas Lawton, William Stewart, and Samuel Cowden, pleaded the ill usage they had received, and the insufficiency of victuals, as the cause that had driven them into the bush.
The other incidents mentioned in the story, I can't find any mention anywhere. There's enough details provided that some of them must have happened to someone, somewhere. But it's hard to efficiently utilise print sources with no idea of names, dates or place; and the usefulness of Trove is limited for events in the north of the state because the only northern newspaper is the Examiner (which starts in 1842). Sometimes the southern papers pick up a story, sometimes they don't. This is why my extracts above don't have links. If you want to "see" the originals, you have to go to the library and do it the slow way.
So that's as far as I think I'll get unless one day I happen across a story of the mail being held up along the Midlands Hwy, or someone who knows something happens across this.
I won't repeat the story here. It's in the original post, although it's different now. The book I have (Tell 'em I Died Game, by Bill Wannan) took the story from Sea Wolves and Bandits, by Leslie Norman, and he took the story from a book called In Old Days and These by "The Captain" (Thomas Ford) that was published in 1930. It's that story that I've put in the first post.
As I said at the end, it gets interesting but it's not the story itself that is interesting, (although it might be) but the process of trying to work out what the story actually is. So I'll start with the easy part, and that's Tom Rares, who wasn't transported at age 9 for stealing an apple. Rather he got life for pickpocketing. That has him as age 17.
He arrives on the Earl St Vincent in August 1836 (aged 14, 5', brown hair, "hazle" eyes) and doesn't seem to waste time getting down to trouble. If you can read all that, you're doing a better job than me (the easiest way to view it is right click and view image so it's outside of the provided frame).
He finds himself in a chain gang within a few months of arriving. Then some absconding, stealing from his master etc. In 1829, when he's in the employ of William Brumby, he absconds again and hooks up with a notorious pair by the names of Samuel Britton & John Bevan
From the Launceston Advertiser (11 January 1830):
We this morning heard, that Beavan and his two companions, (one a beardless boy) have robbed the Dwelling-house of Mr A. Thomson, on the West Bank of the Tamar, hardly two miles from town. They continued in the house for several hours, tied the men, eleven in number, and who had four stand of arms if they would have used them, plundered the house of every valuable, and loaded two of the men and one horse with plunder, which they compelled them to carry. Mr A. Thomson was in town.
Again in the Launceston Advertiser (25 January 1830):
On Tuesday last, one of Bevan's gang, quite a youth (who had absconded from the service of Mr Brumby, and as we understand, assisted to rob Mr A. Thomson, as recorded a few days back in our paper) was picked up. He had been playing with a double barrelled percussion gun, (supposed to have been stolen from Mr. Dutton) which went off, and shot his hand to pieces--it hung to his arm by a very small cartilage. He was brought to Norfolk Plains Police Office, and his arm amputated by Dr. Paton. Report says, that some of Mr. Thomson's cloaths were found upon him, and also that he expressed a wish to kill all the people in Mt T.'s house when Bevan and his party robbed it.
Nice kid. There's an entry on his conduct records for 14 May 1830: Feloniously entering the Dwellnig house ... Thomson & stealing various articles his property. Committed for Trial.
From the Launceston Advertiser (14 June 1830):
SUPREME COURT Monday June 7th
Thomas Rares was found guilty of a burglary in the dwelling-house of Mr A. Thomson--strongly recommended to mercy by Jury, on account of his youth, suffering and behaviour during the robbery.
There are transcriptions of the Informations etc. relevant to his trial on the Manuscript 3251 project page. Search for "Agnes Thomson"
And was he hanged? Well, he continued racking up charges, at Macquarie Harbour, Port Arthur and beyond in the following years. Although he still got his Ticket in 1843 and a Conditional Pardon the next year. In 1849 he was working as a Herdsman at Oatlands when he married Martha Thompson, aged 24.
So how much of that matches with the original story? About one and a bit sentences. The "bit" is if you count him hooking up with Britton & Bevan rather than "Lawton and Cowden".
The rest of the story? Good question. As I mentioned previously, Cowden & Lawton were part of a group who were running about robbing houses at about the same time as the above events.
From the Hobart Town Courier (26 June 1830):
Sentence of death recorded was passed on--
William Levin, George Woodham, John Shephard, for felony and burglary, and Thomas Rares.
John Morton, William Sainter, Thomas Lawton, William Stewart, and Samuel Cowden, pleaded the ill usage they had received, and the insufficiency of victuals, as the cause that had driven them into the bush.
The other incidents mentioned in the story, I can't find any mention anywhere. There's enough details provided that some of them must have happened to someone, somewhere. But it's hard to efficiently utilise print sources with no idea of names, dates or place; and the usefulness of Trove is limited for events in the north of the state because the only northern newspaper is the Examiner (which starts in 1842). Sometimes the southern papers pick up a story, sometimes they don't. This is why my extracts above don't have links. If you want to "see" the originals, you have to go to the library and do it the slow way.
So that's as far as I think I'll get unless one day I happen across a story of the mail being held up along the Midlands Hwy, or someone who knows something happens across this.
