Jackey Jackey, the Gentleman Bushranger; His Dispute with Paddy Curran; Some Legends About Him; Jackey Jackey Always Well-dressed and Mounted; His Capture at Bungendore; His Escape at Bargo Brush; Jackey Jackey Visits Sydney; His Capture by Miss Gray; Paddy Curran's Fight with the Police; Recaptured and Hung; John Wright Threatens to Make a Clean Sweep.
William Westwood, better known as Jackey Jackey, was the darling of the old hands. He was only an errand boy in England, and was transported for some small peccadillo when he was sixteen years of age. He landed in Sydney in 1837, and was assigned to Mr. Phillip Gidley King, at Gidley, in the Goulburn district. He stayed at the station for nearly three years, and then, in company with a notorious scoundrel named Paddy Curran, stuck up and robbed his employer's house. The partnership between Jackey Jackey and Curran, however, did not last very long. Curran disgusted Jackey Jackey by his brutality to women. In one of their mutual enterprises Curran criminally assaulted a woman, the wife of the farmer whose place they had stuck up. Jackey Jackey was furious. He declared that even if a man was a bushranger he might be a gentleman, and added that he would never see a woman insulted. He threatened to shoot Curran unless he left at once, and stripped him of his horse, arms and ammunition. This story furnishes the key-note to Jackey Jackey's character. To the old hands he was always the gentleman bushranger. The stories told by them about the Jewboy and other bushrangers, and even about Mathew Brady, were generally coarse and sometimes brutal, but Jackey Jackey was always polite and well-behaved. More legends have collected round the name of Jackey Jackey than round that of any other of the bushrangers, and many of them are obviously variants of the stories told of the historical highwaymen of England. For instance, Jackey Jackey is said to have bailed up the carriage of the Commissary. When he discovered that the Commissary's wife was inside he dismounted, opened the door and, sweeping the ground with his cabbage tree hat, as he bowed low before her, he invited her to favour him with a step on the green. He rode incredible distances in incredibly short periods of time. He is represented as bailing up a man near Goulburn and telling him to note the time by his watch and then racing away and bailing up another man at Braidwood or some other place a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles away in a few hours and asking that person to note the time. Many of the popular stories told about him are so evidently apocryphal that little notice can be taken of them. But one thing is certain and that is that he was always well mounted. He scorned to steal an inferior horse and would travel miles to secure a racer. He stole racehorses from Mr. Murray, Mr. Julian, and many other gentlemen in the districts over which he ranged.
Although he appears to have been of humble origin he is credited with having been highly educated. This point was especially insisted upon by his eulogists among the old hands. By them he was always represented as being "able to hold his own," in conversation, with "the best of 'em." I remember one old fellow telling me that when Jackey Jackey met Governor Gipps (of which meeting, however, I can find no record) the governor and the bushranger had a long conversation and parted mutually pleased with each other. "You and me," said the old chap, "couldn't have understood what they said though it was all English; but, they talked grammar." What his precise meaning was I had no idea, but I have always thought that he intended to suggest that their conversation was all carried on in what he might have called "dictionary words;" that is, words not used by the uneducated. But everything said of Jackey Jackey redounds to his credit from the old hand point of view. He was emphatically "a good man." The meaning attached to words is purely conventional, and is therefore liable to vary with the conventionalities. The point of view of the convict being entirely different to that of the law-abiding citizen, the terms "good" and "bad" changed places in their vocabulary. Thus the clergy, the magistrates, the free men, were generally "bad men," while those who resisted authority, who fought against law and order, were "good men." Even the cannibal Pierce was a good man from their point of view, however strongly they might condemn his methods. But Jackey Jackey, although he continued the fight to the bitter end, and ended his life on the gallows when he was only twenty-six, never did anything mean or brutal or unworthy of a gentleman bushranger, until he was almost goaded to madness by the cruel discipline of Norfolk Island.
Paddy Curran was "out in the bush" several months before Jackey Jackey joined him, and he was not the only bushranger at work in the district. On December 31st, 1839, the station of the Rev. Mr. Cartwright was stuck up and robbed. On the same day a skirmish between the police and seven mounted bushrangers took place near Yass. One of the police horses was killed, and the police were compelled to retreat. On the same day, Mr. Heffernan's house, not far from Goulburn, was stuck up and robbed of £21 in money, a case of duelling pistols, a valuable mare, and other property. Mr. Israel Shepherd also lost a valuable horse, besides some money, and Mr. Charles Campbell was reported to have been shot dead. This is a heavy record for one day, and as the robberies took place so far distant from each other, there must have been at least three separate parties concerned in them. About the same time it was reported that Scotchy and Whitton were plundering the stations on the Lachlan River in all directions, and that Mr. Arthur Rankin had left his station and retired to Sydney in consequence of the insecurity in the country districts. The robberies continued all through the year 1840, and a great part of 1841.
On January 13th of the last-mentioned year a man ran into the township of Bungendore, and said that Jackey Jackey had followed and fired at him. A few minutes' later Jackey Jackey himself, mounted on a splendid mare, which he had stolen from the Messrs. Macarthur, hove in sight on the plains. He was dressed in a fine suit of clothes which he had obtained when he stuck up and robbed the store at Boro a few days before. He stopped to speak to a man near Eccleton's. In the meantime Mr. Powell, the resident magistrate, and his brother, Mr. Frank Powell, promptly mounted and went towards the bushranger, and were joined by Richard Rutledge, who, however, had no arms. As they approached Jackey Jackey wheeled round and fired at them, but failed to hit any one. Mr. Balcombe and the Rev. Mr. McGrath drove up in a gig, and Mr. McGrath jumped down and presented his gun. Jackey Jackey seeing himself surrounded, surrendered. He explained that his mare had come a long journey and was unfit to travel, and that his musket was out of order and would not go off. He was conducted to the inn and placed in a room, two ticket-of-leave men being placed there to guard him. Jackey Jackey sat very quiet for some time. Then he jumped up suddenly, knocked down one of his guards, snatched his musket, jumped through the window, and ran across the plain. Frank Powell, who was close at hand, followed him, and with the assistance of Dr. Wilson's postman, recaptured him. Among other exploits previous to this capture Jackey Jackey had robbed the Queanbeyan, Tarago, and other mails, stuck up Mr. Julian, Mr. Edinburgh, and a number of other people on the roads at various times and places, stolen horses from all the principal owners and breeders in the district, fired at the driver of the Bungendore mail, who escaped, and had robbed the Boro Creek store of clothing, money, provisions, and other articles, on the Tuesday before his capture. For several months Lieutenant Christie and the whole of the mounted police of the district had been trying to capture him, and he had more than once escaped only by the superior fleetness of his horses. As soon as possible after his capture he was handed over to Lieutenant Christie, who conducted him to Goulburn, where he was lodged in the lock-up. The following day he was being taken to Bargo Brush, on the road to Sydney, when he made a desperate attempt to escape on foot, running for a mile before he was recaptured. He was then tied on the horse and the journey was resumed, but at night he broke out of the Bargo lock-up, taking with him the watch-house keeper's arms and ammunition. He soon procured a horse, and on the following day stuck up Mr. Francis Macarthur on the Goulburn Plains. He robbed Mr. Macarthur of his watch, money, and other valuables, and took one of his carriage horses because it was better than the animal he was riding.
In the meantime the other bushrangers in the district had not been idle. In September, 1840, a fight took place between the police and the bushrangers near Wellington. One of the bushrangers was shot dead, and a mounted trooper was wounded in the shoulder. A few days later another encounter occurred, when a constable was shot dead within two miles of the township.
On October 3rd, Mr. Robert Smith's station, Newria, was attacked by four armed bushrangers and plundered of everything worth carrying away. Mr. Aarons had recently arrived from Sydney, with the intention of opening a store in Wellington. The bushrangers threatened to throw him into the fire unless he handed over his money. They got upwards of £400 from him. Mr. McPhillamy rode up at the time, and was invited by one of the bushrangers to dismount and come in. He dismounted, and then, discovering the class of men he had to deal with, quickly jumped on his horse again and started. The bushrangers fired at him, and one of the bullets so severely injured his hand that it had to be amputated. A reward of £200 was offered for the capture of these men.