Ralph Entwistle

The Bathurst Rebellion was a brief bushranging episode outside of Bathurst, New South Wales, involving a group of escaped convicts known as the ‘Ribbon Gang’, during September and October 1830. The insurgents were led by 25-year-old English convict-servant Ralph Entwistle and at its peak they numbered more than 80 men. Although the circumstances remain unresolved the men may have been motivated by an act of injustice inflicted on Entwistle the previous year when he was flogged by the local police magistrate for swimming naked at a ford on the Macquarie River when governor Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Darling and his entourage had passed by. Alternatively the real cause may have been a grievance at being deprived of adequate food and clothing by a local landowner. The troubles began on 23 September when Entwistle and four others escaped from their assigned farm in Fitzgerald’s Valley, 20 km (12 mi) south of Bathurst, seizing firearms in the process. During the following days the escapees appeared at other farms, seizing more weapons, and being joined by more convicts. When the convict manager of one of the farms refused to join Entwistle he was shot and killed. Following an extensive manhunt by local volunteers, mounted police and British Army soldiers from the 39th Regiment of Foot, ten members of the gang–including Entwistle himself–were subsequently captured, but not before a series of shoot-outs during which a number of men on both sides were shot and wounded.[1] The rebels were subsequently tried and found guilty of murder before a Special Commission and a jury of military officers; they were publicly executed in Bathurst by hanging on 3 November. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathurst_Rebellion

He was 25 yrs old when hung.

NSW 1828 Census In household of settler, John Liscombe , aged 30, a police clerk and his wife and child at Bathurst Settlement: Ralph Entwistle, aged 24, C.G.S. (JOhn, 1827, Life,) employed as brickmaker, protestant.

Reminisces of Jim, the village vet, as reported in the Western Herald, 15 Dec 1917. ...He dropped into a reminiscent vein and told me the following tale of early Bathurst. 'In those days, it was before I was born, my father was living with Mr. Suttor, of Brucedale — the father of Sir Francis and that lot. He had been sent over to Bathampton, and coming back he met the bushrangers of Cherry Tree Hill. It was the famous Entwistle gang. Ralph Entwistle, the leader, had been driven to desperation by an officious magistrate, who had ordered him to be flogged for bathing in the Macquarie, after the day's work was finished, a punishment which, even in those savage times, was out of all proportion to the offence committed. The bushrangers admired my father's clothes to such an extent, that they left him almost in a state of nature, and when he arrived at Brucedale, late that evening, Mr. Suttor thought be had gone stark staring mad. Mr. Suttor was entertaining the Governor and Bishop Broughten, and was much upset when my father told him that the bushrangers had stated that it was their intention to murder all the settlers round Bathurst, and set fire to their homesteads. Mr. Suttor was much alarmed, but my father assured him that the place would be well guarded. He then got the key of the store, and taking with him a large quantity of meat, and other rations, he visited the blacks at their camp, and arranged with them to watch the homestead. "Soon afterwards, Mr. Suttor came to say the place was on fire, but my father explained that what he had seen were the watch fires of the men, who were guarding him and his home. Next day my father was sent round the district to all the settlers, who assembled in a large shed, erected by Mr. Cox, at Hereford. One after another came forward to suggest a way of meeting the threatened danger. At last a little bandy-legged man, whose appearance excited much ridicule, undertook to solve the difficulty. "You know." he said, "my two black mares, and that they are the best in the district I will go forth and join the bushrangers, and if you are at a certain place on a certain day, you will find us there, and a capture may be effected.' This treacherous scheme seems to have commended itself to the terrified settlers, who, according to Jim, at once adopted it. The little man with the bandy legs, and the two black mares, went out and ingratiated himself with the Entwistle gang. He persuaded the bushrangers, who must have been a very confiding lot, to let him carry all their arms and ammunition on his pack horse. With these, as soon as the alarm was given, he made off, eventually throwing his ill-gotten booty into a water hole along the Orange Road. The bushrangers were surprised, and captured. Mr. Suttor begged two of them off, on account of their youth, but ten of them were convicted and sentenced to death. They were hanged one bright spring morning, at the top of George-street, where Prince's Park now stands, their bodies were exposed all day, as a warning to others, and then buried near the place of execution." This is the tale as it was told to me, and there is certain corroboration to be found in two entries in the parish register at Kelso Church. There it is set forth that, on the 27th September, 1830, James Greenwood was shot by a large party of armed bushrangers at Bartlett's Farm, and that on the 2nd November of the same year, 10 young men, whose ages range from 18 to 32 years, were hanged on the Settlement side, for the murder of James Greenwood. It is further stated that the condemned men were attended by the Rev. Mr. Therry and the Rev. Espey Keane.

New South Wales, Australia, Convict Indents. Ship: John - 1827 No; 57 Name; Ralph Entwistle. Age; 22 [1805] Reads. Single, Native County; Bolton Trade; Brickmaker Offence; Stealing clothes Trial; Lancaster - 10 March 1827. Life. Height; 5 ft. 8 1/2 Complexion; Ruddy freckled Hair; Sandy Eyes; not details Date of Certificate; Assigned; John Liscomb, Bathurst Additional Remarks; EXECUTED; at Bathurst December 1830. for bush-ranging and felony ----------------------