A Short Summary
There are gaps in the detail. A more comprehensive life story to follow.
Martin Cash – Bushranger
- 1808 – 1877
- born in Ireland, wealthy, literate
- Convicted: 7 years transportation: shot at a man who was flirting with Cash’s girlfriend
- 1828 – arrived Sydney
- On assignment in the Hunter Valley in NSW
- 1837 – Avoided a cattle theft charge by coming to VDL
- Caught for a minor offence in Hobart:
- 2 more years added to sentence
- then 4 years hard labour: Port Arthur
- Escaped Port Arthur and caught: added 18 months
- Escaped again, made his way to Hobart and his lover Bessie
- They travelled to north of VDL, almost made it across Bass Strait
- Caught and sentenced to 10 years at Port Arthur
- 1842 – Cash & two others escaped Port Arthur work party
- Reached the Neck
- tied their clothes to their heads and swam across at dusk
- First recorded swim across Eagle Hawk Neck – full of sharks
- All three of them lost their clothes
- Now naked, no weapons and no food
- Had to rob a work gang hut and lived in shabby clothing
- Started a 2-year bushranging adventure
- robberies from mail coaches, homes, inns, reputation built
- 1843 Cash: heard Bessie in Hobart was now with another fellow
- Cash swore to kill them both, went to Hobart
- Spotted in Hobart by a Constable, there was a shoot out
- The constable died, Cash was tried for murder
- Found guilty, sentenced to hang, last minute reprieve
- Transported to Norfolk Island for life
- Became a trusted convict there: later a constable
- 1854 – married aged 46, got his ticket of leave; Daughter – Monique
- 1856 – was overseer at Botanic Gardens in Hobart
- 1860 – travelled to NZ & opened several brothels
- wrote his memoir = best seller
- 1863 – gained his freedom
- 1877 – died in Glenorchy
- The only Australian bushranger to die of old age in his own bed
