Matthew Brady

A Ladies Man

Australia has produced numerous heartthrobs over the years. Actors such as Errol Flynn, Russel Crowe and Mel Gibson have played the role of the rebellious rogue and won the admiration of Australian ladies as a consequence. However one Tasmanian, Matthew Brady, was no pretend rogue. Characterised by great chivalry, flashness and bravery, he endeared himself to the female population and so became Australia's first sex symbol.

Matthew Brady was sentenced in 1820 to seven years transportation for stealing a basket with some bacon, butter and rice. Wild with resentment, he tried again and again to abscond and was pushed down from assignment (working as a servant) to the chain gang and finally to the penal nadir: Macquarie Harbour, a hell-on-earth located on Tasmania's west coast.

In the first four years of his transportation he received 350 lashes. In June 1824, Brady and 13 other Convicts escaped from Macquarie Harbour in a whaleboat. Against all odds, they reached the Derwent River, came ashore, robbed a settler of his guns and provisions and began to range the bush. Later that year, Brady and his gang 'captured' the town of Sorell. They then released all the Convicts and subsequently captured the troopers who had been sent to capture the gang. The troopers were incarcerated and Brady led the town in a celebration. The act enshrined Brady as a hero and Convict servants did all they could to help Brady evade capture. As his popularity grew, so did the rewards that Governor Arthur offered for his capture; first £10 per head for each member of the growing Brady gang - which was by now rumoured to be 100 strong - then £25. If a Convict gave information that led to the arrest of one of the bushrangers, he would get his ticket-of-leave. If he caught the bushranger himself, he would receive a conditional pardon. Brady responded by pinning the following notice to the door of the Royal Oak Inn:

"It has caused Matthew Brady much concern that such a person as Sir George Arthur is at large. Twenty gallons of rum will be given to any person that can deliver this person to me."

As well as being flash, Brady was chivalrous. He would never harm a woman nor let any of his gang do so. When his partner McCabe threatened a settler's wife, Brady shot him through the hand, flogged him mercilessly and threw him out of the gang. Arthur's police caught McCabe 10 days later, and hanged him.

Knowing that his protection was other Convicts, Brady took care not to harm assigned servants in the homesteads he robbed; but in case they "gave music" to the police later, he forced them to drink their masters' whiskey until they were too drunk to remember what the gang had said, or which way they had gone.

But Lieutenant-Governor Arthur worked tirelessly to eventually wear Brady down. With extra police and soldiers at his disposal, he picked off the gang members in running skirmishes, one by one. He offered irresistible rewards - 300 guineas or 300 acres of land to the man who brought Brady in; or for Convicts, a full unconditional pardon and free passage to England. He sent police out wearing fetters, to infiltrate the remnants of Brady's gang with a story of having escaped from a chain gang.

Betrayed and outflanked, Brady was shot in the leg in a skirmish near Launceston. He got away but was captured a few days later, limping and exhausted, by a settler named John Batman (the future founder of Melbourne).

By the time of his trial and hanging, Brady was a popular hero. Dozens of petitions for clemency arrived at Government House. Women shed tears for the "poor colonial boy'" who had shown such consideration to their sex. His cell was filled every day with visitors bringing baskets of flowers, fan letters, fruit and fresh-baked cakes. Even the troopers he had locked up in Sorrel came to pay their respects and share a laugh.

If his fate had been decided by vote, Brady would have gone free. But the judge was determined to make an example of him. On May 4, 1826, Brady mounted the scaffold above a sea of faces, contorted in grief or cheering him over the drop; only his enemies were silent.

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