Australian History: Ben Hall
Ben Hall started his working life as a young and hard-working farmer in New South Wales. In 1862, when he was twenty-four, he was arrested and kept in jail for a short time. He was suspected of being part of a gang that had robbed a stagecoach carrying gold. Ben Hall was proved innocent and set free. He returned to his farm. When he arrived there, he found the farm was in ruins and his stock had been stolen or had strayed. His wife had run away with another man and taken their son with her.
Ben decided to become a bushranger. He stole a horse and joined a gang. He was a peaceful man who had no wish to harm anybody. Although some of the gang members were far more ruthless and violent, Ben Hall soon became their leader. They robbed farmhouses, stagecoaches carrying mail and gold, and country hotels. In one raid on a small country town, they locked the townspeople in the local hotel and held a party there that lasted for three days. All the people in the hotel joined in. The drivers of bullock teams passing through the town were also locked in the hotel to join in the party. Ben Hall's gang was so successful that the police were embarrassed. Newspapers printed articles asking who controlled the roads the police or Ben Hall.
Ben Hall was not a killer, and for some time he was able to run his gang without bloodshed. Then in October 1863 one of his gang was shot dead. Another member of the gang, upset by the death, gave himself up. A month later another member of the gang was shot dead while they were robbing a farmhouse. A year later, the youngest member of the gang, seventeen-year-old Johnny Dunn, shot and killed a policeman. By now the police were really after Ben Hall. His gang members were declared outlaws with a price of 1000 pounds on each of their heads, dead or alive.
Ben Hall was sick of the violence and his desperate life. He decided to escape to America. He asked a friend who owed him money to pay it back. Instead, his friend told the police where Ben Hall was hiding out. Ben Hall was woken in his bush hideout by the sound of police approaching. As he stood up he was gunned down by six policemen. At least fifteen bullets were found in his body. His career as a bushranger had lasted less than three years.