Not sure where this guy came from – just started drawing him. Nice hair.

Sam Poo was Australia’s only Chinese bushranger. An emigrant to Australia during the Gold Rush, who took to highway robbery on the road between Gulgong and Mudgee rather than gold mining. A skilled and elusive bushman, he evaded capture from the authorities for several weeks. He often targeted solitary travellers on foot, both Chinese and Whites, and was also accused of the rape of a settler’s wife.

On the 3 February 1865 the Senior Constable John Ward of the New South Wales Police Force cornered Poo in his camp but Poo evaded him and killed him. Two weeks after this Sam Poo was finally tracked down, wounded and taken to hospital. When he recovered nine months later he was taken to Bathurst, where he was tried and hanged on 19 December 1865.

Born 9th May 1837 in Maitland NSW. Ben was on the path to being a successful grazier until his wife Biddy left to live with a flash young stockman named James Taylor. He became despondent and started associating with notorious bushranger James Gardiner. This led to him becoming involved in a series of robberies, many of which were to emphasise that the gang could act with impunity and belittle the police. After they raided the town of Bathurst they moved on to Canowindra and held the town hostage for 3 days in which much alcohol was drunk and the town policeman was convinced to join in the revelry. The Bushrangers recompensed the town for expenses before they left. From 1863 to 1865, Ben Hall and his various associates conducted one of the most prolific periods of bushranging in the colony with over 100 robberies, several villages, dozens of stage coaches and many prize race horses taken. In 1865 Hall separated from his companions for a short time and was ambushed by eight well-armed policemen and shot dead.

A well known Australian cattle thief or cattle ‘duffer’.

In 1870 he devised a plan to steal cattle from a cattle station he worked for. He recruited 2 helpers, built stockyards in a remote area of the station and collected over 1,000 head of cattle. Knowing that he couldn’t sell them in Queensland where the brand would be recognised he drove the cattle to South Australia through the Channel Country and the Strzelecki Desert, The same rout that only 10 years earlier had killed explorers Burke and Wills. They made it and sold the cattle for a small fortune near Maree.

2 years later in 1872 he was apprehended and faced trial for his theft. However, the jury members were so impressed by his achievements that they found him not guilty. In response to the verdict the government shut down the Roma District Criminal Court for two years.

In 1901 Readford set off to explore central Australia but drowned in a flooded creek.

Mary Ann Bugg (The Captains Lady)

Mary Ann Bugg was Captain Thunderbolts lover. She fell pregnant soon after meeting him. Captain Thunderbolt took Mary to her fathers farm for the babies delivery and in doing so broke his ticket-of-leave regulations. This got him sent back to Cockatoo Island from which he later escaped. Mary Ann then joined him on the run as his lover, eyes and ears. Helping to keep him safe from troopers, she was essentially his scout. There is no evidence that she took part in his robberies. Mary Ann dressed as a man and rode astride, not side saddle like other women. She survived Captain Thunderbolts death and died of old age on the 22nd April 1905 at Mudgee.

Bold Jack Donahue (The Wild Colonial Boy)

An orphan, born in Dublin in 1804, Jack was transported to Australia in 1825. He escaped from the prison farm and started bushranging. He was captured and escaped again when he joined with a group of 10 or so men called the Wild Colonial Boys.

On the 1st September 1830, Jack was shot dead by a soldier, John Muckleston, in a shootout between bushrangers and troops in Bringelly, NSW. A commemorative pipe was made depicting Jack’s head complete with bullet holes. This pipe was smoked by people in Sydney.

Donahue was immortalised in the ballad ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’ which authorities tried to ban.

“I’ll fight but not surrender till I die, cried the Wild Colonial Boy.”

Dan Morgan aka Mad Dog Morgan was an Australian Bushranger. After he killed a trooper in July 1864, a price of 1,000 pounds bounty was put on his head. He was shot and killed after holding up the McPherson family at Peechelba Station in Victoria.

Alexander Fitzpatrick, a young police constable and a lecherous man.