Clarke of the Kindur: Convict, bushranger, explorer

By Dean Boyce

Transported convict George Clarke absconded in the early 1800s and went far into the then unexplored wilderness of northern New South Wales. There, thought by the Aborigines to be a 'ghost', he lived with them

for four years, integrating into their lives and later leading them on raids to steal the white men’s cattle. On eventual capture he claimed to have crossed the continent and to have discovered a great inland river, the 'Kindur'—a 'desired blessing' of the colonists—which prompted Major Thomas Mitchell's expeditions into the area.

This biography traces Clarke's eventful history from his transportation from England in 1824 for robbery, his escape and life with the Kamilaroi Aborigines, his ventures into bushranging, his capture and subsequent imprisonment on Norfolk Island, and death on the public gallows in Van Diemen's Land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Oct 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9780522865936

Book preview

PRAISE FOR CLARKE OF THE KINDUR

Dean Boyce has given us some penetrating insights into the times. Records of Clarke’s own career are sparse and obscure, yet he has brought the man alive—in his bushcraft, his ambivelant responses to white civilisation and his final self-abasement under sentence of death. … Sydney journalist Dean Boyce has done a remarkable job of research under difficulties.

George Farwell, The Sydney Morning Herald

All this Mr Boyce relates in an agreeably objective way against the background of the time—the conditions in the prison hulks and transports and in the Australian gaols, the plots of people bent on mutiny or murder, the retribution which they called down upon themselves and the despair which led some to prefer death on the gallows to life on Norfolk Island or at Macquarie Harbor. Mr Boyce, who has a taut and effective style, has not sought to pad out his tale. It is a quite short bit of Australian history but as much as will ever be known, presumably, is told—a model of Australian prose.

Clive Turnbull, The Age

Mr Dean Boyce has reconstructed a coherent, lively and entirely fascinating study of the period, setting his picture of the convict Clarke (cunning, naive, courageous, felonious) against that of the bigwigs, the officers, the petty officials and the floggers (earnest, ferocious, moral, hypocritical, well-meaning and bloody-minded.

Kenneth Slessor, Daily Telegraph

Dean Boyce has achieved sterling results from what were frequently no more than listings. Boyce’s commendable enterprise tells us more than any previous authority. The book challenges imagination.

Olaf Ruhen, The Australian

The events of Clarke’s adventurous life, and the workings of the convict system against which they are shown, have been well researched, and the author is to be congratulated on producing so eminently readable and interesting a narrative. The illustrations, including sketches by the author, are attractive and well chosen, and the maps are clear and informative.

Hazel King, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society

Transported convict George Clarke absconded in the early 1800s and went far into the then unexplored wilderness of northern New South Wales. There, thought by the Aborigines to be a ‘ghost’, he lived with them for four years, integrating into their lives and later leading them on raids to steal the white men’s cattle.

On eventual capture he claimed to have crossed the continent and to have discovered a great inland river, the ‘Kindur’—a ‘desired blessing’ of the colonists—which prompted Major Thomas Mitchell’s expeditions into the area.

This biography traces Clarke’s eventful history from his transportation from England in 1824 for robbery, his escape and life with the Kamilaroi Aborigines, his ventures into bushranging, his capture and subsequent imprisonment on Norfolk Island, and death on the public gallows in Van Diemen’s Land.

CLARKE OF THE KINDUR

Convict, bushranger, explorer

DEAN BOYCE

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

11–15 Argyle Place South, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

[e-mail]

www.mup.com.au

First published 1970

Reprinted 2013

Text © Dean William Boyce 1970, 2013

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Printed in Australia by OPUS Group

To my parents

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the Mitchell Library, Archives Authority of New South Wales, Tasmanian State Archives, and Public Record Office for allowing me access to their records. Many people have given me valuable help in the preparation of this book, in particular Mr Noel Buchanan and Miss Margaret Franldin in England, and Mr Michael Hollingworth in Sydney. I am indebted to the Gunnedah Historical Society, particularly the Honorary Secretary, Mr A. H. Palmer, for interest and help, and to Mr D. B. Cameron of Boggabri who sent me carefully prepared notes on the site of the Barbers stockyard.

The following publishers kindly granted permission for me to quote passages from the publications mentioned. Angus & Robertson Ltd: Colin Roderick, John Knatchbull, from Quarterdeck to Gallows and G. C. Ingleton, True Patriots All; Burns & Oates Ltd: William Ullathorne, From Cabin-boy to Archbishop; the Royal Historical Society of Queensland: Raphael Cilento and Clem Lack, ‘Wild White Men’ in Queensland.

A number of people, including Miss Mary Caulfield, Mr Gareth Morrison and Mr Bernard Smyth, assisted with the tasks of compiling notes or checking the manuscript: to them and all others who helped, I offer my thanks.

I have followed the original spellings with the exception only of place-names; here, where the original and present-day spellings differ, I have added the latter in parentheses.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

1 Great River or Inland Sea?

2 The Term of his Natural Life

3 Pressed Farm-hand

4 White Aboriginal

5 The Flying Barber

6 The Search for the Kindur

7 The Governor’s Pleasure

8 The Poison Plot

9 Hell in Paradise

10   The Uprising

11   The Threat

12   Van Diemen’s Land

13   Epilogue

Appendix: The Kindur Myth

Abbreviations

References

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

PLATES

The peak of Tangulda facing 36

(By courtesy of the Mitchell Library)

Mitchell’s party in the Nandewar Range 37

(By courtesy of the Mitchell Library)

Norfolk Island in 1835 52

(By courtesy of the National Library of Australia)

The ‘Desired Blessing’ 53

(By courtesy of the Mitchell Library)

MAPS

Explorers’ routes 4

New South Wales in the 1800s 42

Australian river systems 86

FIGURE

Clarke’s letter to the Colonial Secretary 73

(By courtesy of the Archives Office of New South Wales)

Author’s note: The Massacre Claim

In the forty-odd years since this book was first published, new information became available in the NSW State archives that brought with it a serious claim against Clarke; namely, that he was a willing participant in a massacre of Kamilaroi Aborigines in 1827. Readers may wish to read this note before beginning Chapter 4.

Of the few available surviving documents relating to this, the first mention is a letter by Benjamin Singleton (to whom Clarke was assigned) to the chairman of the bench at Patricks Plains, dated 24 October 1827. It began:

Sir. This morning my people returned from Liverpool Plains and from their report it appears the Blacks in that Quarter made a Desperate Attack on the party at the Station. [A]t the first onset a party of them came with a determination to do mischief, the men ordered them off but they still persisted in advancing and threw a great number of spears and wounded one man in the arm.¹

A short distance away, he wrote, a second group described as ‘a great number’ of armed Aborigines held back ‘to reinforce the others in the Combat’ as the first group launched its attack on Singleton’s men. The stockmen, seeing their situation was critical, were ‘under the necessity to make use of their Fire Arms to preserve their lives, wherein they killed Six Blacks and suppose to have wounded many more. ... it appears they went off with a very Sullen Disposition, it was supposed there was upwards of 200 in number had they been together at the beginning’.

After rumours of the clash reached Sydney, Upper Hunter officials were asked for an examination of the matter, but no documents remain apart from a letter written to Colonial Secretary McLeay, almost a year after the event, by an Anglican lay leader and former naval officer, Richard Sadleir, who was something of an activist on indigenous rights. Sadleir’s account is important as the only known detailed report of what he called ‘an affray’. It follows in full:²

Cumnaroy District

Hunter River

Sept 19th 1828

Sir

I have the honor to enclose you the notes relative to the affray on Liverpool Plains which you were pleased to request of me when in Sydney, their date you will observe is as far back as May last consequently the then named may be now in other services than those mentioned but are not I have reason to suppose out of the district.

The natives have again recently speared five more of the Horton family cattle on the Goulbourne & if not checked by a timely example of the murderers of Ireland (the man lately killed in that neighbourhood) will in all probability continue their outrages.

The only effective way perhaps of apprehending the murderers would be that of offering a reward (if not of money) of either a Ticket of leave or an abatement of servitude to a certain number of stockmen or other Prisoners for their apprehension, the Candidates first having been approved of by the Magistrates of the district so to prevent men of truly exceptional character from receiving such an indulgence.

Notes respecting the affray on Liverpool Plain between the Stockmen & the Aborigines taken May 25th 1828 by [J.O.] Dunn (prisoner) by direction of Mr Rich Sadlier:

Ben Singleton & [Edwin] Baldwin are the only ostensible proprietors, their men occupy the same House situate a distance of Twelve miles from the ridges bounding our out settlements. These two Proprietors have severally several Hundred head of Horned Cattle the property of many persons residents of various parts of the Colony & likewise have some others run gratuitously along with their own, being in charge of the men, Servants of Onis & Town of Richmond, but inhabiting the same House with Baldwin & Singleton’s men & are said to have been active in the affray.

The names of the men concerned are

Edmund Taylor

A man nicknamed Capt Pike

William Osborne

A man nicknamed The Barber

The Shepherd belong to Baldwin

Onis & Towns two men beside Hut Keepers.

The foregoing were all actively employed in the affray of which Pike Osborne & the Barber (an assigned Servant to Singleton) were considered most active.

Taylor

Taylor was headman over cattle to Singleton, was a prisoner at the time of the occurrence, since become free by Servitude, is one of the individuals that attended the Patricks Plains bench and deposed to the affray. This man has been recently discharged from Singleton’s employ & has been ever since drinking at Potters Public House.

Pike

This man came to the Colony with Captain Pike of Pickardy (is and was free) has been from this circumstance nicknamed Captain Pike.

[He] fills the situation from which Taylor has been dismissed under Singleton, was subsequent to