In search of Thunderbolt’s treasure

BY TONY MATTHEWS

When Frederick Wordsworth Ward, alias the notorious bushranger Captain Thunderbolt, died from a gunshot wound on 25th May, 1870, he left behind an enduring mystery. Where did he hide the £20,000 in gold and notes he was reported to have stolen during his seven years of bushranging? Some historians claim that Thunderbolt spent all his ill-gotten gains, or that he never actually stole that amount. Others claim the man who was shot and killed on that fateful May day wasn’t Thunderbolt, and that the real bushranger lived a happy, and presumably wealthy life, in the Roma region of Queensland.

Myth and mystery interwoven with fact and fantasy, but the legend of Thunderbolt’s fabulous treasure still inspires those who are prepared to believe it has remained hidden in the rugged country of northern New South Wales for the past 150 years. Frederick Ward was convicted in 1856 of horse stealing and sentenced to 10 years hard labour on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour. He served out four years before being conditionally released but was again arrested while on ‘ticket-of-leave’ for horse stealing and breaking his parole. Returned to Cockatoo Island to complete his original sentence and serve an additional three years, Ward served only two years before making a desperate hid for freedom. One cold September night in 1863, Ward and another convict named Frederick Britten broke free of their shackles and plunged into the harbour, ignoring the danger of sharks which were attracted to the area by waste products from several nearby slaughterhouses. Both men managed to struggle ashore to the mainland exhausted but free. It was to be the beginning of an era. Ward was just 27 years old, a wanted criminal on the run with a price of £25 on his head, and so he turned to the only profession left open to him. He became a bushranger.

Captain Thunderbolt on the day of his wedding to Mary Ann Bugg

Ward was a superb horseman and expert in bushcraft. For the next seven years he roamed the New England region of New South Wales, holding up travellers, inns, coaches and prospectors. The name “Captain Thunderbolt” came about after Ward robbed the tollbar house at Campbell’s Hill near Maitland on 21st December, 1863. It was Ward who started calling himself that though the Thunderbolt legend has it that when the customs officer was rudely awoken by Thunderbolt banging loudly on his door, he is purported to have said, “By God, I thought it must have been a thunderbolt.” Another account has the customs officer asking, “Who’s that making such a thundering noise?” And Ward answering “I’m a thunderbolt. The noise you hear is the thunder and,” pointing his revolver at the customs officer, “this is the bolt!” Ward was joined in his nefarious activities by a motley collection of wouldbe bushrangers however none could match him for cold cunning and horsemanship. His one constant companion was a welleducated Aboriginal half-caste girl, Mary Ann Bugg, whose aboriginal name was Yellilong. Living a harsh and rugged life in the bush, dogged by danger and constantly hunted by the police, she stayed with her lover until she finally died of pneumonia, having born Thunderbolt three children. According to legend, it was Yellilong who taught the bushranger his signature song: “Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still.”

This photograph of Captain Thunderbolt clearly shows the bullet wound above the left breast and the stitched incision caused by the post mortem examination

After her death, Thunderbolt became quite sullen, and is reported as saying that he wished it was all over. “My life’s a misery,” he told one of his friends, “I wish I’d been shot long ago.” Thunderbolt finally got his wish. It was a cold day in May, 1870, when he bailed up his last victim, a hawker named Giovanni Capasotti near Blanche’s Inn at

Church Gully, six kilometres from Uralla. After the robbery, the bushranger went to the inn and Capasotti made all haste to Uralla and informed the police. Upon arrival at Blanche’s Inn, Constable Mulhall fired his pistol in the direction of Ward who was at the time testing an inferior horse, but the trooper’s horse took fright and Ward rode off. However an off-duty trooper, Constable Alexander Binney Walker, who was mounted on a well-bred and fast horse, finally cornered Ward at Kentucky Creek near Uralla. Walker called upon Ward to surrender, the bushranger refused and after a brief gunfight in which Ward’s horse was shot out from underneath him, Ward was hit at close range, the bullet entering his chest and rupturing both his lungs. The fight continued for a few seconds longer but Walker’s gun was empty and so he used the butt to smash Thunderbolt’s face into a bloody pulp. The whole exchange had taken just a couple of minutes but when it was over, Thunderbolt was dead and the secret of where his treasure was hidden died with him.

Wood engraving of the moment Captain Thunderbolt was shot by Constable Walker

Twenty years after Thunderbolt’s death, a young lad hunting for birds’ eggs stumbled upon a cave in the remote Goulburn River region. Inside the boy discovered a bottle containing a thick wad of mouldy £5 notes and it was assumed this was a small portion of Thunderbolt’s haul. But what of the remainder? Many people in the New England area still claim it’s there somewhere, just waiting for some lucky bushwalker to find it. Ward was 5 ft 8¼ ins (173cm) tall, slight, and of sallow complexion with hazelgrey eyes and light-brown curly hair. He undoubtedly had great nerve, endurance and unusual self-reliance and his success as a bushranger can be largely attributed to his horsemanship and splendid mounts; to popular sympathy inspired by his agreeable appearance and conversation; and to his gentlemanly behaviour and avoidance of violence; he also showed prudence in not robbing armed coaches, or towns where a policeman was stationed. The last of the professional bushrangers in New South Wales, Ward’s seven years of bushranging was the longest of any of Australia’s highwaymen. Some historians have equated this with success, but if dying a violent death at just 35 years of age can be called successful, it’s little wonder no-one followed in his footsteps.