1826: Matthew Brady, gentleman bushranger
Add comment May 4th, 2009 Headsman
On this date in 1826, “gentleman bushranger” Matthew was hanged in the Hobart jail for one Australia’s most colorful outlaw careers.
Shipped from England on penal transportation, Matthew Brady was repeatedly flogged for escape attempts before he successfully busted out of Macquarie Harbour prison in 1824.
He made for the bush and began an 18-month spell as an outlaw, self-consciously constructing the persona of the gentleman outlaw — polite to his victims, never violent towards women, that sort of thing.
Among Brady’s best-known exploits: after the colonial governor George Arthur posted a reward for his capture, Brady posted a public counter-offer:
It has caused Matthew Brady much concern that such a person known as Sir George Arthur is at large.
Twenty gallons of rum will be given to any person that can deliver his person to me.
The authorities hunted him doggedly, and he was at last captured by settler John Batman, later famous for his founding role in the history of Melbourne.
The love letters and gifts that filled his cell attested his place in the folklore, but his fate was never in question. Ever the gentleman, Brady’s main protest was sharing his scaffold with (among several other bushrangers) the murderous cannibal Mark Jefferies.
Also On This Date
Possibly Related Executions
- 1838: Seven perpetrators of the Myall Creek Massacre
- 1803: George Foster, and thence to the reanimator
- 1840: Francois Benjamin Courvoisier, for the murder of Lord Russell
Entry Filed under: 19th Century, Australia, Capital Punishment, Common Criminals, Crime, Death Penalty, England, Execution, Famous, Hanged, History, Mass Executions, Murder, Notable Participants, Outlaws
Tags: 1820s, 1826, bushrangers, cannibals, george arthur, hobart, john batman, macquarie harbour, mark jefferies, matthew brady, may 4, melbourne, penal transportation, tasmania
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