Black Bunny's Bushrangers (T) - The Rammer Cooma, New South Wales, Australia
By Just a cacher on 05-Oct-17. Waypoint GA10959

Bushranger Series - The Rammer.

The Rammer

Between 2 September 1834 and 14 December 1834, a trio of bushrangers terrorised the Monaro district of New South Wales. The leader was known as "Jack the Rammer" or "Billy the Rammer" and his confederates were Joseph Keys and Edward Boyd.

"The Rammer" was probably William Roberts who came from Dudley, Worcestershire, England. Roberts was a qualified tradesman, a cooper who made barrels. He married Elizabeth Husslebury at St Thomas', Dudley on 15 June 1826. They had three children. On 4 January 1832, Roberts was convicted of stealing a pail (bucket) and sentenced to transportation for seven years. He arrived in Sydney aboard the Heroine on 19 September 1833.

In 1834 he escaped from the "Ginninderry" property of George T Palmer that was located close to the present day Belconnen Town Centre in Canberra. He was recaptured but escaped, with Joseph Keys, from the Goulburn Jail on 2 September 1834. They travelled to the Monaro, where Edward Boyd, who had escaped from a grazing station of Sherwin's, probably "Yinibrothers", joined them.

One of the stations that the gang raided was the "Coolringdon" property of Stewart Ryrie, a senior government official. It has been said that it was the gang's practice to take a station by surprise in the night.

In the middle of a hot summer's night in mid December 1834, the gang attacked a property at Rock Flat, 15 km south of Cooma. A part owner, Joseph Catterall, and his wife, Georgiana, were there. Georgiana was about seven months pregnant. She was very frightened. The gang took everything of value and destroyed any weapons they did not want. They let the convict overseer, Charles Fisher Shepherd, keep his "fowling piece" (shotgun), in return for teaching the Rammer to use a compass, but took away all ammunition except birdshot.

The gang returned about dawn, probably intending to whip Shepherd, who had recently taken the law into his own hands and ordered one of his convicts stripped and given 50 lashes with a horsewhip. They may also have wished to punish Shepherd for boasts he had made that he was not afraid of them and would deal with them if they came.

Using his gun charged with birdshot, Shepherd shot the Rammer dead. However, Shepherd was shot several times, beaten unconscious, then shot at close range and left for dead. A neighbour, William Bowman who had a station at Curry Flat, took Shepherd by cart to Goulburn where he eventually recovered.

A party of mounted police was sent to find Keys and Boyd. It was led by Corporal Bugden and assisted by William Coleman, a convict. In mid January 1835, the party came up with Keys and Boyd where they were camped by the Snowy River. Trooper George Smith shot Boyd as he attempted to get away by swimming the river. Keys escaped. The police staked out the stations on the far side of the river. Two days later, Trooper Smith caught Keys at the "Jimenbuen" property of Amos Crisp.

On 4 May 1835, Keys pleaded Guilty in Sydney to a charge of attempted murder and was executed on 2 June. Also at the sittings of the Supreme Court on 4 May, Thomas Pearson, a convict from Catterall's station, was convicted of aiding and abetting Keys. Pearson was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to transportation for life to Norfolk Island. The evidence at Pearson's trial gives a graphic description the gang's last raid.

http://www.monaropioneers.com/bushrangers.htm

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

Hints