Convict cry
Advertiser 18 th May 1844. Not Steward & Keating version
Billy is a good boy now
Billy is a good boy now
They keep him still, in the old treadmill,
Yes, Billy is a good boy now.
The Pitcairn Island Anthem
From 'Seven Cities of Australia' 1978 and refers to Brisbane
For I was hunger'd and ye gave me meat
I was thirsty and ye gave me drink
I was a stranger and ye took me in
Naked and ye clothed me
I was in prison and ye came unto me
In as much as ye have done it unto me
Of the least of these my brotherhood
Ye have done it unto me
Ye have done it unto me.
Quoted in Peach's Australia 1976
A822/A
KELLY THE BUSHRANGER
� a short play in three acts
A G Stephens
Circa 1910 (?).
price 4d
This is a pamphlet used by NSW schools to present 'for boys' an opportunity to experience the bushranger days.
Thunderbolt
1868 Colonial Society magazine
Bushranger Thunderbolt makes a good haul
Then he skedaddles and doesn't sing small
Sluggish authorities peelers and men
Will catch artful Thunderbolt who'll say when?
Bold Morgan
1868 Colonial Society magazine
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The LANTERN
The Mount Gambier Marauders
March 8/1879
(Tune: In The Strand aka In The Land, In The Land)
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Gold from the mine
April 26/1879
If your life would keep from slips
Five things observe with care:
Of whom you speak, to whom you speak,
And how, and when and where.
ADVENTURES OF A GUARDSMAN
981/51A1
CHAS COZENS
MEMOIR 1848 LONDON
Mentions on his voyage to Australia on the Woodbridge (prison ship) that the following was written "in large chalk characters, in a conspicuous part of the hulks, -
True patriots all, for e it understood,
We leave our country, for our country's good,
Moondyne Joe
(Tune: Pop Go The Weasel)
Perth and Tooday goals
The governor's son has got the gyp
The Governor's sons the measles
For Moondyne Joe has given them the slip
Pop goes the weasel
From Perth when the measles epidemic had swept the city including Gov. house. Also time when the bushranger had escaped and recaptured. 1860s
Jack Donahoe
"First and foremost our attention is attracted to a blind ballad singer on George Street. With a shrill cracked voice and no end of gasping he sits at the foot of a corner [post turning up his ghastly sightless eyeballs to the glaring gaslights and straining his poor old voice to laud the deeds of one brave 'Jack Donahoo..oo..oo' with an additional libitus prolongation on the closing syllable�. Further down the street we come upon a band of niggers always an attraction if not a professional exhibition � one armed with a banjo as black and greasy as a overgrown frying pan, another with an additional set of bones to which he ahs already been gifted by nature. The third has a violin. When we stop to listen to one melody wherein is the usual preponderance of 'cabin homes and 'Lubbly Nells' but hurry off before the familiar conundrum is announced lest (having heard it so often before) we should be tempted to sing out the answer.
From Australian Portfolio by F S Wilson in The Aust Journal. 1867
Kelly Gang
fragment
From 1879 and quoted in 'Kelly Gang Outlaws of the Wombat Ranges' by G Wilson Hall
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Paddington Ditty
Truth Newspaper 25th Sept 1927.
Following a report that shady hawkers had been selling dyed sparrows instead of Roller Canaries.
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Old Melbourne Ditty
Melbourne Street Boy's Chant 1852 The Aust Jnl Nov 18 1865 'Memories of a Police Officer/Jim Brooks'
Old Jimmy Brooks and his troopers so tall
Would have empty stomachs if it weren't for the wall
Sing A Song of Mischief
(tune: Sing a song of sixpence)
Australian Journal Aug 1871
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Bushranger's note
Poem written in blood and found in the pocket of a man captured for bushranging in Tasmania
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Jack Donahoe
Truth Newspaper 1928 quoting correspondent C Raleigh.
"Dear old chum� regarding the mention of old John Donahue in recent Old Sydney numbers. I came across a ballad of that name in the public library the other evening. It is in a volume (of all places) in a world of cowboy songs the author of which is an ex cowboy. How it came to be included amongst cowboy songs is to me somewhat of a mystery. The ballad consists of 6-7 verses of which I append a couple:
Come all ye bold undaunted men
You outlaws of the day
It's time to beware of the ball and chain and also slavery
I will relate the actual fate of bold John Donahue
We had scarcely landed as I tell you upon Australia's shore
Than he became a real highwayman as he had been before
There was Underwood and McKinnon and Wade and Walmsley too
These were the four associates of bold John Donahue.
The ballad was included in the extensive repertoire of Blind Billy Hutchinson who many old Sydneyites will recall at the corner of George and Market St in the early 1880s. Billy and his concertina in the partly railed little quadrangle of James Cooper's ancient stone warehouse where the present boot shop of James Hunter stands, were a feature of George St on Saturday night of those days.
FELONY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
James Mudie
Published London 1837
This book details life in (penal) Sydney.
Highlights the importance of emigration to the growth of the colony especially post 1820s and how NSW received a better class of emigrant compared to America and other colonies.
'The superiority of the emigrant to NSW was partially owing to the great expense of the passage out, and still more to the peculiar regulations as to grants of land. Under those regulations, lands were only granted in proportion to the means of the emigrant applicant to give employment and maintenance to a specified number of convicts. Eg if he could satisfy the government that he was able and entered into a bond obliging himself, to give sustenance to five convicts for a certain number of years, he received a land grant of 500 acres of land, and also rations for his family and convict servants for six months, together with a breeding cow for each convict � the cows to be repaid by an equal number of cows after a specified term of years. If he employed 20 convicts he would be entitled to 2000 acres and this was the average because of the means of early emigrants. The scheme was such as to create a scarcity of convicts.'
The book mentions the particularly hard life of the soldiers in the young colony so much so that two decided to attempt escape by posing as felons. 'Two soldiers of the 57th regiment, Sudds and Thompson, decided convict life was preferable to that of a soldier so they went to a Sydney store and stole two pieces of cloth. When caught they were sentenced to 7 years in Moreton Bay or Norfolk Island � two of the most-dreaded gaols.
ADVENTURES OF A MOUNTED TROOPER
SC1568 rare books.
W BURROWS.
LONDON 1859
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THE PENNY SATURDAY JNL.
Sydney Jan, 1846.
Weekly news digest.
64 King St
Issue 4.
Celebrates the 58th anniversary of the colony.
These reminiscences are from an early settler by the name of Collins.
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EDMOND MORLEY'S REMINSCENSES
MSQ326.
Landed in Sydney (from England) at age 17 in 1842.
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OLD PORT MACQUARIE
clippings book MSS100
T. Dick published in the 1920s from his memories and manuscripts.
Convict memories from Mr Branch.
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JOSEPH HOLT
Holt's (born Wicklow 1756 and transported to Botany Bay) memoirs carry several patriotic songs including this opening verse described as being from 'a popular song'
All have heard of Vinegar Hill
Likewise of the battle of Tara
Of General Holt and his men
With their guns they call tantra ra ra ra ra
In Vol 1 of the memoirs, published London, 1838,
"The history of Holt is still kept alive in the memory of the Irish peasantry by various popular songs, especially one titled 'The Victim of Tyranny'
I had a tyrant landlord, base,
Who saw my heart to Erin yearned,
He to the ground my cot (cottage) did raze,
And fired my substance dearly earned,
My cottage falling, as it burned,
His savage band insulting yelled,
Nor from their deed of ruined turn.
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