2. What made him famous!
• James enjoyed life on the run. He loved telling the people that his rob was
apart from Ben’s Hall’s gang. He also enjoyed showing people the scar on
his arm from a bullet shot by a police. At the age of 21 he started to hang
out with wrong people. He then felt cool and started to steal things which
was mostly bad.
3. Where James was from?...
• James Alpin McPherson (1842-1895), bushranger best known as the 'Wild
Scotchman', was born in Inverness-shire, Scotland, eldest of the eight
children of John McPherson, farmer, and his wife Elspeth, née Bruce. The
family migrated in the William Miles and arrived at Moreton Bay on 19
January 1855. The father worked as a farm labourer for D. C. McConnel of
Cressbrook. Alpin went to a Brisbane school where his diligence pleased
the teachers; he learnt some French and German, and became a fluent and
entertaining speaker. Apprenticed to the builder, John Petrie, he attended
the Brisbane Mechanics' School at night and achieved prominence in its
debating class.
4. In 1863 McPherson ran away and worked on various stations, becoming an excellent
horseman and an accurate shot. His first recorded law-breaking activity was early in
1865 near Bowen, where at gunpoint he held up a publican who owed him back wages.
The government offered a £50 reward for his apprehension. He went to New South
Wales and is alleged to have stuck up several parties on the Northern Road. According
to the Sydney Morning Herald, 23-24 February, he assumed the name of John Bruce,
stole a horse from Wowingragong but failed to find his hero, Ben Hall.
The Scotchman lost his horse and ammunition and, in his only clash with the police,
was shot in the arm by Sir Frederick Pottinger; in return he had only blank cartridges to
fire. He took to the scrub and was reading quietly by the Lachlan River when the police
surrounded him. He was taken to Forbes and remanded from week to week until he
was sent to Sydney to be tried for shooting at Pottinger. The charge was dropped when
that officer died in April.
5. How he became a Bushranger
• There was a mystery about how he had come to be a bushranger - a mystery never
solved. A son of decent parents, with a solid education, trained by the prominent Mr
Petrie, who used to be very particular about the choice of his students, a young man
with a bright future ahead, who spoke several languages and was well respected,
could have certainly done better for himself than to have become the leader of an
evil, bloodthirsty gang of wretches! Unfortunately, at the age of twenty-two he
changed the course of his life, took to the roads, and became just that. He began
with sticking up Wills' Hotel on the Houghton River, and then went to New South
Wales, promising to fight a duel with the head of the police force, Sir Frederick
Pottinger. It is known that he did exchange shots with Sir Frederick and some
troopers, and received a slight wound.
6. His History
• A warrant had been issued for his arrest in New South Wales, but by then
he was back in Queensland. Here he and his gang made their presence
known by robbing the mails, sticking up travellers, stealing race-
horses, and breaking into homes in isolated places, where they helped
themselves to the hard-earned money and assets of poor workers, received
after shearing seasons or annual musterings. The name of James Alpin
Macpherson was forgotten, as he used alias's like "Scotchey", "The Wild
Scotchman", "Scotia", "John Bruce", "Mar", or "Kerr". The inevitable
happened in 1866, when he was captured and sentenced to twenty-five
years imprisonment, but he was released after serving only eight years.
Once again he became James Alpin Macpherson, and worked as a
stockman, never to be in trouble with the law again.
7. His History 2
• When he was thirty-seven years old, he married Elizabeth Hoszfeldt, the seventeen
year old daughter of a German settler from Isisford. She bore him four sons and two
daughters. Her husband died in a riding accident in 1895, aged fifty-four. He was
buried in an unmarked grave in the Burketown cemetery in Queensland. The
historians call him "Queensland's only bushranger", but by some people he was
remembered as "the Robin Hood of the Burnett". Perhaps another Elizabeth knew
why. One night, an attack by fourteen bushrangers was launched on her home deep
in the bush, where she was alone with her new-born son. The eyes of their leader
mellowed as they lit on the baby, and he ordered his men to leave the house
without touching anything. He asked permission to hold the little boy, and when he
left, he had tears in his eyes. Later the young mother found a thick wad of
banknotes tucked into her baby's cot. Though he was usually spoken of as a
wild, reckless person, she knew that he was capable of tenderness and reason, and
she wished that he wouldn't have lived such a worthless life.
• And time went by...., but the two never met again. Still, whenever she
prayed, Elizabeth Lawrence wouldn't forget a prayer for the soul of one James Alpin
Macpherson.
8. His History 3
• James was born at Wester Aviemore in Scotland in the year 1841. He was
taken to Australia by his parents in 1855, where his father worked for Mr
McConnell at Cressbrook in Queensland. Young James did well at
school, and at eighteen years of age he was apprenticed to Mr Petrie, the
well known stonemason in Brisbane. James enjoyed the reputation of an
intelligent, hard working young man. He was also popular as a member of
the Debating Class in the Brisbane Mechanics School of Arts, and well
known as a fluent speaker and a diligent reader.
9. James McPherson
• McPherson was remanded for holding up the publican near Bowen, where he
was committed to the October Assizes at Rockhampton. He escaped from the
ship at Mackay, stole a horse and began to rob mail coaches on the roads
between Maryborough, Gayndah and Gladstone, sometimes sending the
stolen cheques to Governor Sir George Bowen.
• The government raised the price on McPherson's head to £250 and the police
commissioner, David Thompson Seymour, lamented the appearance of
bushranging in Queensland while the parliament debated the felons
apprehension bill. On 31 March 1866 the Scotchman was waiting for the
mailman near Gin Gin station when he was recognized by John Walsh who
quickly organized an armed party of four. McPherson's horse was too fatigued
to outpace his pursuers and when they fired he surrendered. He was taken to
Maryborough and remanded to the criminal sittings in Brisbane for holding up
the publican but was found not guilty, much to the disgust of officialdom. He
was then taken to Maryborough to face charges of robbing the mails, found
guilty and sentenced by Chief Justice Cockle to twenty-five years in the penal
settlement on St Helena Island, Moreton Bay.
