George Jones ( – 30 April 1844) was a convict bushranger who, with Martin Cash and Lawrence Kavenagh, escaped from Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land, in late 1842. The three men took to bushranging for a six-month period, robbing homesteads and inns with seeming impunity. After Kavenagh and Cash were captured, Jones remained at large for a further seven months, committing a number of robberies in company with two other escaped convicts. In April 1844 he was captured in a shoot-out with police, convicted and executed.
Biography
Early life and transportation George Jones was born circa 1815 in London, England.Convict Entrance and Description Books, NSW State Archives; (1) No. 189; Series: 2517; Item: 4/6296; Roll: 855; (2) No. 633; Series: 2514; Item: 4/6437; Roll: 853 (per Ancestry.com). By 1829 Jones was employed as an errand boy, living in London.
On 20 March 1829, Jones, aged about fourteen years, was tried at the Surrey Assizes for robbing a till and sentenced to transportation for life.Conduct Registers of Male Convicts arriving in the period of the Assignment System (Convict Department, Van Diemen’s Land), 1350 Jones George, "Extract from Sydney Records". Jones was transported to New South Wales aboard the Dunvegan Castle with 179 other convicts, arriving in Sydney on 13 March 1830. On arrival he was assigned to Richard Lang on the Hunter River in the Newcastle district.
Servitude and highway robbery
Jones’ convict record indicates occasional bouts of resentful disobedience. In June 1833 he received twenty-five lashes for "stealing grapes". In May 1835 he received fifty lashes for disobedience and the following September, one hundred lashes for "refusal and neglect of duty". In March 1837 Jones was given fifty lashes for absconding. By 1841 George Jones was assigned to Captain John Pike of 'Pickering' farm near Merton, who was known as a harsh master whose convict servants were kept under deplorable conditions.Cash, pages 13-14. Jones absconded from his service on 25 May 1841, remaining at large for eight months.The Muswellbrook Mail Robbers, Sydney Herald, 1 February 1842, page 3. While he was at large, Jones teamed up with another escaped convict, an older man with a variety of tattoos named Joseph Bowers.Jones' companion was Joseph Bowers (some sources record his name as 'Bower'), a native of Yorkshire born in about 1806 and convicted at the York Assizes to transportation for life; he arrived at Sydney in March 1831 aboard the Lady Harewood; see: Bowers had been assigned to William Blaxland of Cassillis from whose service he absconded in June 1841.
In the early afternoon of 17 January 1842 two men, John Lucas, superintendent of Buchanan’s 'Marsheen' run beyond Muswellbrook, and a man named Cotterell, were riding on the road about nine miles from Maitland when they were bailed up by George Jones and Joseph Bowers, each of them brandishing double-barrelled guns. They compelled the men to dismount and took them about forty yards into the bush. The bushrangers took what little money the pair had, and kept them captive until nightfall. Before they were released Lucas was handed back five shillings "to pay for his bed", and both men had their horses returned to them.Highway Robbery, Australasian Chronicle (Sydney), 25 January 1842, page 2.
The following morning the mail-cart travelling from Muswellbrook to Singleton was bailed up by Jones and Bowers. The cart was ascending a hill near Maidswater Creek, midway between the townships, when the two men emerged from the thick scrub with double-barrelled guns. They took the mail and their two captives (the driver and a passenger) into the bush back from the road and proceeded to cut up the mail-bags and open letters, during which process they were reported to be “very merry and jocular”. Afterwards the bushrangers prepared some pots of tea which they shared with their prisoners, before fetching their horses and riding off. The driver of the mail-cart recognised one of the bushrangers as someone who had participated in an earlier robbery of the same mail.Robbery of the Inland Mail, Australasian Chronicle (Sydney), 25 January 1842, page 2.
On Monday, January 24, George Jones walked into a Commercial Bank in Sydney Town soon after it had opened and presented a cheque to be cashed. The bank officer informed Jones that he would need to accompany him to the Police Office in order for Jones to account for how the cheque came into his possession. Jones agreed to do so; at the Central Police Office “having told a made-up story and given an assumed name” he was directed to make an affidavit. Certain details in the affidavit aroused suspicions in Police Magistrate Windeyer and he ordered that the man be detained. A search of his person revealed thirty bank cheques and orders totalling about £171, which he admitted were taken from the stolen letters from the Muswellbrook mail-bag. When asked why he had dared to go into the Police Office, Jones replied that “he knew it was neck or nothing, and if he did not get the cheques and orders cashed, there was no use in doing the job”.The Robbery of the Muswellbrook and Maitland Mail, Sydney Herald, 27 January 1842, page 2.
In late January Constable Lynch apprehended Joseph Bowers in Castlereagh Street in Sydney, on suspicion of being "a runaway". Jones and Bowers were committed for trial at the Hyde Park Barracks court. In late February, in what was obviously a formality, their tickets-of-leave were cancelled.Tickets of Leave Cancelled, New South Wales Government Gazette, 4 March 1842 (Issue No. 18), page 366; Joseph Bowers is listed as “George Bowers, per ship Lady Harewood”, but this clearly refers to Joseph Bowers – see
At the Sydney Court of Quarter Sessions on Monday, 4 April 1842, the escaped convicts, Joseph Bowers and George Jones, were indicted on charges of highway and mail robbery and being illegally at large with firearms in their possession. They were identified by John Lucas as the pair who had stopped and robbed him on January 17 on the Maitland Road. Both men were found guilty, and sentenced to transportation to a penal settlement for life.Sydney General Court of Quarter Sessions, The Australian (Sydney), 7 April 1842, page 2.General Court of Quarter Sessions, New South Wales Examiner (Sydney), 6 April 1842, page 3. On 30 May 1842 George Jones, along with forty-two other prisoners of the Crown (including Joseph Bowers and Lawrence Kavenagh),Indents of Convicts Locally convicted or Transported from Other Colonies (Van Diemen's Land), Marian Watson indent 1842; George Jones (Police No. 1250) and Joseph Bowers (Police No. 3709); Marian Watson indent 1842; Lawrence Kavenagh (Police No. 860). was transported from Sydney to Van Diemen’s Land aboard the schooner Marian Watson, arriving at Hobart on June 8, from where he and Kavenagh were taken to the Port Arthur penal settlement.Shipping Intelligence, Colonial Observer (Sydney), 1 June 1842, page 276.Ship News, Colonial Times (Hobart), 14 June 1842, page 2.
Escape from Port Arthur
Towards the end of 1842, while in a work gang carting stone from the Port Arthur quarry, Jones and Lawrence Kavenagh met Martin Cash. Jones had previously heard of Cash, who had been an assigned convict to George Bowman, a landholder near Muswellbrook and neighbour to Captain Pike (although Cash had left the district before Jones had been assigned to Pike's farm). The three convicts had a common interest: “a strong inclination to abscond”. Cash had made a previous attempt at escaping from Port Arthur, being captured within a mile of the mainland near East Bay Neck.Cash, pages 62-63. They discussed a plan of escape, and agreed to make the attempt on the afternoon of Boxing Day as the carts came up to the quarry for the first load.Cash, page 65.
On Boxing Day, 26 December 1842, the escape occurred as planned. In Martin Cash’s words: “I walked deliberately over to where [Kavenagh and Jones] were at work; fixing my eyes on them for a moment, they both instantly dropped their picks, and springing on a steep bank, were lost in a minute in the scrub, I soon following their example”. Kavenagh took the lead, directing the others to where he had previously stashed a quarter of a loaf and some flour. Then the three convicts headed for the thick scrub at the foot of Mount Arthur. They decided to remain hidden in the bush for the next three days, expecting that the soldiers “would relax in their vigilance, under the impression that we had made our escape”.Cash, page 66.
On the night of their third day of freedom they left their hiding place, keeping to the bush and flanking the coastline to their right. Near Long Bay they crossed a road and continued north-west through the bush to the side of Signal Hill, where they rested until morning. Cash made a "charcoal fire" in a hollow tree and cooked a damper for breakfast. The three convicts continued on through the thick scrub until dusk when they came in sight of Eaglehawk Neck where they could “see the line literally swarming with constables and prisoners”. Realising that crossing the Neck was impossible they decided to swim past it.Cash, pages 66-67.
Eaglehawk Neck is a narrow isthmus connecting the Tasman Peninsula (where Port Arthur was located) with the Forestier Peninsula. Across the neck were placed guards, lamps and chained guard-dogs, some of them on stages set out in the water. To the west of the Neck was the narrow Eaglehawk Bay and on the eastern side was the much wider expanse of Pirates Bay. Following Cash's lead the escapees chose the longer swim on the eastern side, about half a mile in width and the same route that Cash had taken on his first escape attempt.Port Arthur, Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil (Melbourne), 9 August 1873, page 86. Moving stealthily through the bush in darkness they reached the water-line along the arc of Pirates Bay and started swimming with their clothes bundled above their heads. With a strong wind blowing, waves crashed against the swimmers and carried away their bundles, so each of the men arrived naked on the other side.
Finding themselves at the base of steep and scrubby hill the three convicts advanced up the slope and rested near the top until daybreak. Martin Cash knew of the location of a hut near the road connecting Eaglehawk Neck and East Bay Neck, normally occupied by a road-repair gang who had nearly completed their sentences. In their naked state and without shoes or food, the three convicts decided to take the risk of raiding the hut. They rushed through the door, Kavenagh holding an axe he had found outside, to find it occupied by only one man, the sub-overseer of the work gang. The man was tied to a post and clothes, boots and a quantity of food were procured.Cash, pages 68-69.
Realising that, upon discovery of their raid on the road-gang’s hut, the focus of those engaged in the pursuit would shift to the Forestier Peninsula and the East Bay Neck, the escapees decided to remain hidden for a few days more. At the northern end of the peninsula they considered swimming to the mainland (which was half the distance of their previous swim), but with a strong current flowing both Kavenagh and Jones expressed disquiet. Kavenagh told the other two “that he had a very narrow escape from drowning when crossing at the Neck, at one time giving himself up for lost, observing that it was nothing short of a miracle that he had reached the land”. Deciding to attempt a crossing by land at East Bay Neck, the three convicts waited for nightfall and, by stealth, managed to evade the sentries and then crawled through a field of wheat until they were a safe distance from the military barracks. A quarter mile further on they came to dense bush where they could momentarily relax, having “escaped the sharks by land and water”.Cash, pages 69-71.
Bushranging