Dan Morgan (bushranger) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Daniel Morgan
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'Morgan the Bushranger', an 1864 woodblock print by Samuel Calvert.
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John Owen
30 April 1830 Appin, New South Wales, Australia
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| Died | 9 April 1865 (aged 34) Peechelba station, Victoria, Australia
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| Occupation | Bushranger |
Dan Morgan (1830 - 9 April 1865) was an Australian bushranger. His real name was John Fuller, but he may have had his mother's surname and been known as Daniel Owen.
Morgan was an expert bushman with superb horse-riding skills, a combination of abilities which enabled him to evade capture by the authorities for a significant period of time.
After Morgan killed a police sergeant in June 1864, the Government of New South Wales offered a one-thousand pound reward for his apprehension. He was killed in April 1865 after holding up Peechelba station in Victoria.
Morgan was known by multiple aliases during his criminal career, including Jack Morgan, John Smith, Sydney Bill, Warrigal, Dan the Breaker, Down-the-River Jack and Beardie. His life and exploits inspired the 1976 Ozploitation film Mad Dog Morgan, featuring Dennis Hopper in the title role.
Early life
Dan Morgan was born in Campbelltown, New South Wales in 1830. His mother was Mary Owen, known as "The Gipsy". As a small child he was adopted by “Jack the Welshman”, a travelling hawker from Appin. He went to school in Appin. As a young teenager, he hit a policeman and was put in Berrima Gaol for six months. He went to Victoria to look for gold in the 1850s. In 1854 he was arrested for armed robbery at Castlemaine, Victoria. Judge Redmond Barry (the same judge who sentenced Ned Kelly) sent him to Pentridge Gaol for twelve years, the first two years spent in chains. He was also kept on the prison ship Success. He was released after six years and went back to Appin. He worked as a stockman at Wagga Wagga.
Bushranger
In 1860 he stole horses from two squatters (farmers) at Whitfield, Victoria in the King River valley. The squatters, Evans and Bond, followed Morgan's tracks to where he was camped. They shot Morgan with their guns, but he was able to escape.
In July 1865, Morgan and his friend, “German Bill”, began to rob from farms around Gundagai, New South Wales. They stole food, gunpowder, guns, watches, and horses. Morgan robbed the police magistrate from Wagga Wagga, Henry Bayliss. Morgan said he would not shoot him as long as he didn’t report the robbery to the police. Bayliss told the police at Urana, and a search party was sent from Wagga Wagga. With the help of black trackers (Indigenous Australians with tracking skills), the police found Morgan’s camp. In the shooting that followed, Morgan shot Bayliss in the hand and shoulder. Morgan escaped into the bush. After more robberies, the government put a reward of £500 for the capture of Morgan.
On June 24 1864, he met up with two policemen near Tumbarumba. Morgan shot police Sergeant McGinnerty dead. The other man, Constable Churchley, escaped. After the incident, the government increased the reward to £1000. In March 1865, the government made him an outlaw, which meant he could be shot and killed by anyone without warning.
Mad Dan
Morgan often became angry, sometimes without warning. Farmers in the area were scared he would set their crops and haystacks on fire. He would be very nasty to any farmer that did not treat their workers properly. In 1865 he held up a farm at Mohanga. He made the farmer, Bobby Rand, give all the workers a drink, then made him dance for them until he collapsed.
A Victorian newspaper said that if he came to Victoria, the police there would soon catch him. He went to the King River area of Victoria and began to rob farms. On April 8 1865, he held up the Peechelba station (farm). He made them cook and serve him dinner. One of the maids was able to escape and tell the neighbors what was happening. By 3.00 am, the police had arrived from Wangaratta and together with workers from nearby farms, they surrounded Peechelba. When he came out of the farm house next morning he was shot in the back by a stockman, Jack Quinlan. Daniel Morgan died at about a quarter to two in the afternoon, aged 34 years.
Police Superintendent Cobham took Morgan's body back to Wangaratta and put it on display.
Cultural influence
The films Dan Morgan (1911) and Mad Dog Morgan (1976) are based on his life and death. Morgan also appeared as a character in the short lived television series Wild Boys, played by Colin Friels
Morgan appears as a character in the play Humping the Bluey, or Ransom (1911). His life is fictionalised in Will Dyson's historical novel Red Morgan Rides (1940), and it is likely he was the inspiration for the villainous bushranger "Dan Moran" in Rolf Boldrewood's novel Robbery Under Arms, first published in serial form in 1882. Two biographies have been written about Morgan: Margaret Carnegie's Morgan: The Bold Bushranger (1974), and Edgar F. Penzig's Morgan the Murderer (1989).
He was dramatised in the radio series Outlawry Under the Gums (1933).
Banjo Paterson wrote the words of "Waltzing Matilda", Australia's most famous folk song, to a tune played on the zither by the grown Christina Macpherson (who was the infant in the 1865 incident above).
Morgan — with his "Mad Dog" sobriquet — is referenced in the song "Billabong Valley" by Australian psychedelic rock group King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, released on their 2017 album, Flying Microtonal Banana.
Images for kids
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‘A Chase After Morgan’, woodblock print by Nicholas Chevalier, Australian News for Home Readers, 25 October 1864.
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Henry Baylis, Police Magistrate at Wagga Wagga, wearing the bullet on his watch-chain that wounded him during an encounter with Daniel Morgan.
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‘Morgan, the Bushranger, Sticking up “Round Hill” Station’ by Frederick Grosse (woodblock print)
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‘Capture and Death of Morgan, the Bushranger’, woodblock print by Nicholas Chevalier, published in Australian News for Home Readers on 19 April 1865.
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A post mortem photograph of Daniel Morgan (credited to Henry Pohl).
