Selwyn Times: October 17, 2017

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Tuesday October 17 2017
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Author’s controversial look at
Christchurch author John Rosanowski has written a controversial account of Maungatapu
murders, by New Zealand’s most notorious goldfields gang, in June 1866
Fire rages, homes at risk
TRAP: The Burgess gang (clockwise from top) –
Joseph Sullivan, Thomas Kelly, Philip Levy and
Richard Burgess.
PHOTO: ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY
ON A winter’s afternoon,
Felix Mathieu and his
three companions were
ambushed on a steep hill
track by men pointing
guns and knives at them.
Richard Burgess and
his gang lay in wait at a
trap they had prepared
at a big rock beside the
track about 2km from the
summit.
They forced their victims
up a creek and on to a
hillside where they were
tied up and variously
strangled, stabbed and
shot.
The gang killed the
travellers’ packhorse and
made for Nelson with their
victims’ gold and cash,
where they were barbered
and bathed and spent freely
- and made plans to rob a
bank.
This was the case of the
Maungatapu murders,
by New Zealand’s most
notorious goldfields gang,
in June 1866. The colony
was gripped by the crime
for weeks.
The Burgess gang, all
Londoners, were New
Zealand’s version of
Australian bush ranger
Ned Kelly. All but one of
the foursome had been
transported to Tasmania as
convicts.
Burgess, Thomas Kelly
and Philip Levy were
convicted and hanged in
Nelson. Joseph Sullivan
turned against his gang,
giving evidence against
them, and in return was
not charged. He was
subsequently convicted
of a separate murder
committed one day
earlier but escaped the
noose because of the
authorities’ need to protect
police informers, and the
sentence was commuted to
life imprisonment.
Now author John
Rosanowski controversially
says his research indicates
the Supreme Court jury got
it wrong.
“It seems clear that two
innocent men were executed,”
said Rosanowski,
who has published his
historical novel on the case,
Treachery Road.
“Kelly and Levy arrived
back in Nelson unaware of
the murders. Kelly thought
robbery had taken place.
Even on the gallows, Kelly
said he was being executed
for the murder of people he
hadn’t even seen.
Mathieu was the proprietor
of Cafe de Paris at the
Deep Creek goldfield in
Marlborough’s Wakamarina
Valley, where the output
of gold had fallen.
Levy had visited Deep
Creek and heard of
Mathieu’s plans to go to
the West Coast to set up a
new store, so would have
known the businessman
would be carrying a substantial
amount of money.
Mathieu set out with
storekeepers John
Kempthorne and James
Dudley, and gold miner
James de Pontius. With a
packhorse, they were walking
over the Maungatapu
Track, then a rough route
between Marlborough and
Nelson and now a shingle
road popular with mountainbikers.
The gang, who had been
staying at Canvastown,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Rosanowski
was a schoolteacher
for nearly 20 years
and is well known in
education circles. After
he finished teaching
he became chief
examiner for school
certificate history,
among other roles.
Over that time he
has researched and
written novels such as
Bottled Lightning: The
Story of the Reefton
Electric Light and A
History of the West
Coast of the Southern
Alps. He is primarily a
factual historian, and
tends to write about
the West Coast having
grown up in Reefton.
left ahead of the Mathieu
party. On their way to their
trap at what is now called
Murderers Rock, they
caught up with solo traveller
James Battle, 54, a labourer
and former whaler.
Near the Pelorus River,
they partially strangled
Battle, robbed him of his
3 pounds 17 shillings, and
left him to die in a shallow
grave.
Only gradually did the
Nelson police become
convinced that Mathieu’s
group was missing, after a
friend who had been following
them at a distance
became concerned and
made his own inquiries.
Eventually a massive
search got going and one
by one the gang were arrested
after the first, Philip
Levy, was recognised in the
Wakatu Hotel by a Deep
Creek gold miner.
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