“’Frank Gardiner’, blurted out O’Meally, ‘the King of the Road, the Prince of the Highwayman! A bushranger they call him, but he’ll make money faster than Ben Hall or any other squatter on the Lachlan—and without all this hard work.’ (some excerpts and pictures from the novel) Frank Gardiner at the age of thirty-two was the most notorious man in Australia’s Wild West.
He was a native of Boro Creek in the Goulburn district, his real name Frank Christie. In his youth he had been convicted for horse-stealing in Victoria and had escaped from Pentridge Gaol. At twenty-three he had been again convicted for horse-stealing, this time in New South Wales, and had done six years’ penal servitude. Released on ticket-of-leave, he had failed to report himself as required and had shot two policeman who tried to arrest him, seriously injuring both. Now he was a hunted man, the police determined to make an example of him. Proclaiming himself “King of the Road” and “Prince of the Highwaymen”, he had adopted banditry as a trade and had become a hero to the lawless youths of the West, who admired his horsemanship and his bravado. The bushranger, for all his swagger and romantic glamour, was a ruffian who lived by robbery and violence. In a well-ordered community they would have had no scope for their perverse talents, but condition in the western districts gave them scope. Lawlessness on the gold-fields and an inefficient police force had encouraged crime.”
Return To Film Page	Part of the... Created by T.Kronberg my website