Black Bunny's Bushrangers (T) - John Tennant Australian Capital Territory, Australia
By Black Bunny on 17-Sep-17. Waypoint GA10688

Bushranger Series - John Tennant.

John Tennant.

John Tennant was an Australian bushranger who was active around the Canberra district in the 1820s. Mount Tennent is named after him as it was on the slopes of this steep mountain behind the village of Tharwa where he would hide.

Tennant was born in Belfast, Ireland, and was 29 years old when he was sentenced to transportation to Australia for life in 1823. He arrived in Sydney on 12 July 1824 on the 'Prince Regent'. He was assigned to Joshua John Moore and sent with two other men, James Clarke and John McLaughlin, to establish Moore's property Canberry or Canberra, the first European habitation on the Limestone Plains.

In 1826 Tennant and another man, John Ricks, absconded from their assigned landholder and took to the bush.  At about noon on November 21 or 22 1826, he and John Ricks (some references spell it Rix) robbed the camp of James Ainslie, the overseer at Duntroon. He stole nine vests of various colours, foreign and local currency, two silk handkerchiefs, 150 lbs of flour and 29 lbs of Brazilian tobacco. He then hid out on Mount Tennent, then called Mount Currie, and took to the bush.

Tennant was captured, convicted and hanged in 1828.  More detailed information available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tennant_(bushranger)

Bushrangers.

Over 2,000 bushrangers are estimated to have roamed the Australian countryside, beginning with the convict bolters and drawing to a close after Ned Kelly's last stand at Glenrowan.

Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts who had the survival skills necessary to use the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term "bushranger" had evolved to refer to those who abandoned social rights and privileges to take up "robbery under arms" as a way of life, using the bush as their base.

Bushranging thrived during the gold rush years of the 1850s and 1860s when the likes of Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner and John Gilbert led notorious gangs in the country districts of New South Wales. These Wild Colonial Boys typically robbed small-town banks and coach services.

In other infamous cases, such as that of Dan Morgan, the Clarke brothers, and Australia's best-known bushranger, Ned Kelly, numerous policemen were murdered.

The number of bushrangers declined due to better policing and improvements in rail transport and communication technology, such as telegraphy. Kelly's capture and execution in 1880 effectively represented the end of the bushranging era.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushranger

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