Black Bunny's Bushrangers (T) - Johnny Gilbert. Galong, New South Wales, Australia
By Just a cacher on 25-Sep-17. Waypoint GA10803

Bushranger Series - Johnny Gilbert

Johnny Gilbert.

Johnny Gilbert was an Australian bushranger shot dead by the police at the age of 23 near Binalong, New South Wales on 13 May 1865.

At eighteen he fell under the influence of the bushranger who used the alias Frank Gardiner.

In 1862, John Gilbert was first named as an accomplice of Gardiner when they and two others held up a storekeeper. Just over a month later, John Gilbert was involved in another robbery, this time with Gardiner, and Ben Hall, From then on John Gilbert was identified as being involved in several hold-ups between Lambing Flat (Young) and Lachlan.

Frank Gardiner enlisted the assistance of John Gilbert, Ben Hall, John O'Meally, Dan Charters, Henry Manns, Alexander Fordyce and Johnny Bow, to rob the Forbes gold escort at a place called Eugowra Rocks.

On 15 November 1864 the gang robbed the Gundagai Mail near Jugiong and Gilbert shot Sergeant Parry dead.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gilbert_(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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