Skip to main content
Menu

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

An affray which deserves particular mention

Ben Hall and his gang outdone, 6 February 1865

by Joanna Gilmour, 6 February 2016

Percy, Reginald, Monty and George Faithfull, undated by Henry Dorner. Image courtesy the National Museum of Australia.

Bushranger Ben Hall and his cronies John Gilbert and John Dunn indulged in a bit of a spree early in 1865. They kicked things off during the first week of January by holding around 40 people hostage in the pub at Binda, north-west of Goulburn, reportedly telling their captives ‘don’t be alarmed; we don’t want to rob or injure anyone, we only came here for a bit of fun’.

A few days afterwards, the trio were spotted ‘partaking of sundry nobblers’ at a race meeting near Forbes. Later, they relieved a Yass auctioneer of £100 in cheques and money orders and then bailed up a station near Binalong, helping themselves to food and fresh horses. On 26 January they showed up in Collector, where they ‘took possession’ of Kimberley’s Hotel and where Dunn, without provocation, shot dead the local policeman, Samuel Nelson.

The Goulburn district was accordingly soon swarming with troopers, but this didn’t curb the bushrangers’ depredations for long, and less than a fortnight later the Goulburn Herald related the tale of how four plucky local lads – in contrast to the police – had finally given the reprobates a taste of their own medicine.

Percy, Reginald, Monty and George Faithfull were the sons of William Pitt Faithfull, the owner of a grazing property named Springfield. Hall et al had the misfortune to encounter the four on 6 February 1865, when Monty and Reginald, aged seventeen and fourteen respectively, left Springfield to return to school in Sydney. Percy, aged twenty, and George, eighteen, were accompanying them as far as Goulburn. Not long after their coach reached the main road it was fired at by Hall, Gilbert and Dunn. However, ‘one of the Messrs Faithfull had a single-barrelled rifle, with which he had hoped perhaps to shoot a wild turkey on his way home, and another had a revolver, and they at once returned fire’, engaging the bandits in a short, fierce exchange during which Gilbert managed to shoot dead the stolen racehorse he was riding. The brothers retreated to Springfield unharmed to stock up on ammunition. Having ‘armed themselves thoroughly’ they set out again ‘with the determination of having a fair fight with the bushrangers’, only to find that the latter had seen fit to quit the scene of the action. This result was said by the paper to ‘redound greatly to the credit of the young men...  who have set an example to others which it is hoped will be imitated’.

It took more than ten years, however, for the brothers’ efforts to be officially recognised, with the state government taking until 1876 to award them a gold medal for bravery. 

© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency