Reliving our wild colonial history
Historian Peter Smith from Araluen telling the gathering outside the Bushranger Hotel, formerly known as Kimberley’s Inn, about the history of the hotel and the murder of Constable Nelson.
HISTORY’S LINKS: Descendants of police and bushrangers on the Goulburn Courthouse steps following their guided tour with sheriff Vesper Stanberg on Saturday.
AN interest in family history brought together the descendants of police and bushrangers for an anniversary gathering in Goulburn last weekend.
The group consisted of relatives of some of Australia’s most notorious bushrangers, the police who hunted them down and those who were killed by the felons.
Many travelled from interstate for the anniversary with a number of police officers among their number, carrying on the family tradition - or in the case of bushranger descendants, switching sides.
Group activities included a tour of Goulburn Courthouse on Saturday conducted by Vesper Stanberg. Ms Stanberg spoke of the history of the Goulburn Courthouse, the morgue and the old gallows, as well as the difference between court in earlier times and today, with the use of closed circuit video links and security.
Following the tour, many of the group gathered for a photo on the courthouse steps before departing for Collector where they visited the Bushranger Hotel.
The hotel, which is now closed, had once been known as Kimberley’s Inn at the time when bushranger John Dunn shot dead the local lock-up keeper Constable Samuel Nelson in front of Constable’s 18-year-old son Frederick.
Historian Peter Smith and others spoke about the events surrounding the death of Constable Nelson on January 26, 1865.
For the full story, please see Wednesday’s Goulburn Post, available from our front office in Auburn St, or at all leading newsagencies across the Goulburn area