Captain Thunderbolt and other characters of distinction

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First off, I gotta wonder why none of the Auzzies have ever talked about this guy. but anyway...

I bumped onto this today and dint know where to post it.

decided to just start a thread about unusual characters from history that are of the less famous variety.

Frederick Ward was born at Wilberforce, New South Wales, in May 1836. His mother was Sarah Ward, daughter of Michael Ward, a convict. Frederick became a groom and horse breaker by the age of 20.

In 1856 Ward became involved in a scheme to sell 75 stolen horses at Windsor and was arrested, leading to a sentence of ten years with hard labour at Cockatoo Island. He was released after four years and given a ticket of leave to his mother's property at Cooyal near Mudgee in 1860. After his release, he followed Mary Ann Bugg to Stroud where he married her in 1860 and settled down, until he arrived late for monthly muster at Mudgee a few days before his first child was born and was accused of stealing two shoes and the horse he rode in on. He was sent back to prison to finish his sentence, plus a further four years for horse stealing.

On 11 September 1863 he escaped with the help of Mary Ann Bugg, who had swum to Cockatoo Island, carrying with her tools to help Ward escape. Ward, Bugg and another prisoner, Fred Britten, made a daring swim for freedom and the couple soon became notorious bushrangers, committing crimes ranging from highway robbery to horse stealing and earning Ward the name Captain Thunderbolt. They operated widely across the Hunter Valley-Tamworth-New England region from 1864 to 1870. On one occasion they even rode as far west as Bourke. During this time, Ward and Mary Ann Bugg managed to have four children.

On 25 May 1870, it is alleged by some that Ward was shot and killed near Uralla by Constable Alexander Walker during a highway robbery. However, many Uralla locals claim that it was his uncle, William (Harry) Ward, who was killed at this time and not Fred Ward. It has been claimed that Fred Ward and his mother, Sarah, arrived in California late in 1870.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb0hAPimGrU&feature=related

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well, so far this is going rather terribly. but the cats like it, so be it...

here's another one that killed the famous folks thread the other day.

Alfred 'Lash' LaRue

http://www.b-westerns.com/lash.htm

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at least one of us enjoys this thread. (ya'll go do whatever it is you were doin'...)

Conor O’Brien

Following the prohibition on the import of arms into Ireland (Dec 1913), in the aftermath of the introduction of the Home Rule Bill for Ireland (1912), a yacht named Kelpie was involved in the smuggling of rifles, in July and August 1914, for the Nationalist organisation the Irish Volunteers. The Kelpie was skippered by Conor O’Brien (1880"1952), a Limerickman.

Conor O'Brien was an intellectual, Irish aristocrat, republican, nationalist, pioneer in modern maritime theory, owner and captain of one of the first boats to sail under the tri-colour of the Irish Free State (during his circumnavigation in the Saoirse. Reputedly this was the first small boat to sail around Cape Horn. This is slightly unfair to Joshua Slocombe, the Bostonian, who was the first single-handed yachtsman to successfully pass this way (in 1895)although in the end, extreme weather forced him to use some of the inshore routes between the channels and islands and it is believed he may not have actually passed outside the Horn proper. Given the scale of Slocombe's achievement it might be considered unfair to deprive him of the honour! Although it was nearly 30 years later, a strict definition of "the first small boat to sail around outside Cape Horn" could indeed cover the 42-foot (13 m) yacht Saoirse, sailed by Conor O'Brien with three friends, who rounded it during a circumnavigation of the world between 1923 and 1925 It was the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world's ports and harbours). He was a ship builder/designer (notable boats include the Saoirse and AK Ilen), gun runner for the IRB during the war of independence in Ireland, captain of a ship sailing in the merchant navy during WWII.

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@Rockhead,

People who like bushrangers seem to be a bit few and far between.

I have a friend who used to be quite obsessed, and I have lots of memories about rants about Captain Starlight etc.

But they don't seem to have become such a big part of the national psyche as outlaws are for USians.

That's likely why we don't talk about them.

Ned Kelly is the one who made it through to the national psyche.

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Captain Thunderbolt and other characters of distinction

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