Frank Gardiner, John Gilbert and Ben Hall…

Frank Gardiner, John Gilbert and Ben Hall lead the most notorious gangs in the heyday of Australia’s bushrangers:  the Gold Rush years of the 1850s and 1860s.

There is much bushranging activity in the Lachlan Valley, around Forbes, Yass and Cowra in News South Wales.

Ben Hall was born on May 9, 1837, in Murrurundi, New South Wales (though some reports incorrectly say Breeza), in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales.

His parents are Benjamin Hall (born Bedminster, England 1805) and Eliza Somers (born Dublin, Ireland 1807), both convicted for minor stealing offenses and transported to New South Wales.

They had married in 1834 and had had numerous children; Ben Junior is the fourth child and third son.

After receiving tickets of leave, they had moved to the Hunter Valley, where Benjamin Senior had taken charge of a station belonging to Mr. Hamilton, called Uah on the Duna run.

In about 1839, Benjamin had squatted on a small area of land in an isolated valley north of Murrurundi.

Here, Benjamin had built a rough hut and had begun raising cattle and collecting any wild cattle and horses he could find in the hills.

In 1842, he had bought a small block of land near Murrurundi, where he had established a butcher shop.

About the end of 1850, Benjamin Senior had moved down to the Lachlan River area, taking with him the children, Ben Junior, William, Mary and his stepson Thomas Wade.

It appears that Ben Junior never returned to Murrurundi, although his father did in 1851.

Young Ben had spent his early years working with horses and cattle, developing his skills and expertise.

In 1856, at the age of ninetreen, Hall had married Bridget Walsh (1841–1923) at Bathurst.

Kitty, one of Bridget's sisters, is the mistress of the notorious Frank Gardiner; another sister had married John Maguire.

On August 7, 1859, Ben and Biddy (as she was called) had a son, whom they named Henry.

It was not far from twelve months after the birth of this child, while he was absent attending a muster at Bland, hat his wife had run off with a Mr. James Taylor.

In 1860, Ben Hall and John Maguire had jointly leased the "Sandy Creek" run of ten thousand acres (forty square kilometers) about fifty kilometers south of Forbes.

At this time, there are many highway men operating around the area where Ben Hall lives.

After Biddy left him, he had begun associating with Gardiner.

In April 1862, Ben had been arrested on the orders of Police Inspector Sir Frederick Pottinger for participating in an armed robbery while in the company of Gardiner.

The charge had been dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

On June 15, 1862, Gardiner had led a gang of eight men, including Hall, in robbing the gold escort coach near Eugowra, New South Wales Eugowra of banknotes and twenty-seven hundred ounces of gold worth more than fourteen thousand pounds.

Hall and several others had been arrested in July, but once again the police were unable to gain enough evidence to formally charge him, and he had been released about the end of August.

However, he and his partner at Sandy Creek, facing mounting legal costs, had been forced to transfer the lease of the property to John Wilson, a Forbes publican.

From then on, estranged from his wife and young son, and with his property gone, Ben Hall had gradually drifted into a life of crime.

In one instance, Hall and his gang had bailed up Robinson's Hotel in Canowindra, New South Wales and held all the people of the town captive for three days.

The hostages were allegedly not mistreated, and were provided with entertainment.

The local policeman had been subjected to some humiliation by being locked in his own cell.

When the hostages were set free, the gang had insisted on paying the hotelier and giving the townspeople "expenses".

The aim, which they had achieved, had been to make public the gang's power and lampoon the police.