The Bathurst Rebellion

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While many bushrangers are celebrated as rebel leaders, the one man who might really fit the bill—Ralph Entwistle, leader of the Ribbon Boys—is all but unknown. It was his naked swim that led to Australia’s biggest convict uprising—1830’s The Bathurst Rebellion—and resulted in one of the largest mass hangings in our history. Yet the entire tragedy wouldn’t have happened if it not for a police magistrate’s fondness for handing out brutal punishments.

    This is how Truth newspaper in 1952 envisaged the murder of John Greenwood.

    The start of George Suttor’s 1830 letter about the Bathurst Rebellion.

    Part of The Sydney Gazette’s report on the trial and execution.

    Part of the September 1833 list of convicts Thomas Evernden had flogged.
    Lionel Long remembered the events in his 1963 song “The Bathurst Rebellion”. You can hear it in full at the end of the episode.

    Henry Bialowas’s Ten Dead Men is the best resource on the Ribbon Gang and was very useful in researching this episode.
    For more information, visit his website.

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