Newsletter No. 10 - Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage ...

‘He fought six rounds with the horse police’--- the shooting of Bold Jack DonahoeIn the current exhibition at the StateLibrary of NSW, celebrating thecentenary of the Mitchell Library,there are a number of items ofinterest to Blue Mountainshistorians among the One Hundredtreasures on display.The original journals of Blaxland,Lawson and Wentworth arefeatured as is a 1930s journal ofbushwalker Myles Dunphy.by John Low, Blue Mountains Historical Society Inc.One item, however, that caught myattention, the relevance of whichmay not at first be evident, was alithograph portrait of the deadbushranger Jack Donahoeattributed to Thomas Mitchell.While Donahoe died at Bringelly,his death has a slight but interestingconnection with Wentworth Falls (orThe Weatherboard).In 1902 the Warren Heraldpublished a series of reminiscencesby Edward Readford whose father,Thomas, had been the licensee ofthe Weatherboard Inn during theyears 1833 to 1837.At the time, the innkeeper’s onlyneighbours were a small troop ofmounted policemen housed in a‘Police Military Barrack’ opposite.Readford makes particular mentionof one of these, a quiet youngScotsman named John Muggleston,who was stationed there “nearly thewhole time my father kept the hotel”and regularly frequented his father’sestablishment.Fate had given Muggleston adegree of notoriety among hisfellows.John Muggleston (also speltMugglestone, Muckelstone,Muccleston, etc.) was born ca. 1804in the Scottish agricultural andA lithograph portrait of the dead Jack Donahoecotton milling town of Neilston in theLevern Valley south of Glasgow.While nothing is known of his familyor early life other than that he hadworked as a groom, by thebeginning of 1827 he had travelledsouth into England and had takenthe king’s shilling, joining the 39 th(Dorsetshire) Regiment at Coventry.His decision to become a soldierwould take him even further fromhis birthplace for, in June 1827, the39 th Regiment embarked as part ofthe convict guard on board the‘Champion’ and arrived in Sydney alittle over four months later.Following a twelve month tour ofduty in Norfolk Island, Mugglestonjoined the mounted police in March1829.The mounted police had beenestablished by Governor Brisbanein 1825 in response to a generalincrease in bushranging activities, astate of affairs that continued toworsen under his successor,Governor Darling.Its principal role was to combat thisand to pursue escaped convictswho contributed mightily to themembership of the bushranginggangs.In these early years the mountedpolice had a strong militarycharacter, its officers and menbeing volunteers seconded from theregiments garrisoned in the colonyand generally returning when thesewere transferred elsewhere.Their uniform also reflected themilitary connection with ‘full dress’resembling the 14 th Light Dragoons,though their ‘bush uniform’ includeda cabbage-tree hat along with thepatrol jacket and trousers.They were armed with a sabre,carbine and horse pistols. By 1830there were about 100 mountedpolicemen in the colony.One of the most troublesomebushrangers operating at the timeMuggleston joined the ‘horse police’was a young Irish convict escapeewho, following a conviction forhighway robbery on the Sydney-Windsor Road, had dramaticallyavoided the hangman and fled intoto the bush.This was the “wild colonial boy, JackDonahoe by name” whosedepredations and continuedevasion of the authorities in theHawkesbury-Nepean and otherdistricts around Sydney werenotorious.In the repressive climate ofDarling’s administration JohnDonahoe (sometimes speltDonohoe) was rapidly becomingsomething of a folk hero among the‘lower orders’ of society.Born in Dublin ca. 1806, details ofDonahoe’s early life and family areas vague as those of his Scottishcontemporary.Continued page 5HERITAGE 4July- August 2010