Robbery Under Arms
on the Coolgardie Road
Police Gold Escort Leaving Coolgardie – c 1898
In the early days of the Goldfields the gold escort used to leave Coolgardie every week with parcels of gold varying in value from £5000 to £50,000 in value. It was a common remark to hear passed by the diggers, who usually gathered to watch the gold being taken out of the banks and delivered into the company of the mounted troopers, that
“someday an escort will be stuck up”
and then the mettle of the police will be tried. They look very fine with their loaded carbines and revolvers; their nicely blackened riding boots- which were a standing reproach to the diggers, as no one thought to shine their boots, their pawing steeds, and themselves dressed in smart, well-fitting uniforms; but they will be tried one day and found to be wanting, you take note of my words!
We were always expecting to hear of the gold escort being stuck up, and, truth to tell, we were always disappointed. Troopers with whom I have conversed have told me that there was a part of the road, where it led around the foot of granite rocks, which afforded plenty of shelter, and at which, if ever the escort would be stuck up this would be the spot. When the troopers reached this spot the troopers always got their arms ready for a scrimmage. It was however, through no lack of men – bold, daring and unscrupulous enough to attempt such a crime- but rather for want of a means of escape with the booty in the event of it being obtained. It would have been necessary to obtain horses or camels to carry the gold away, and these could have easily have been tracked by the natives through any part of the bush. Besides, there were no watering places outside the few that were along the main road.
So many gold escorts had come and gone without any attempt to molest them that everyone was lulled into a feeling of false security. Fancy then, the excitement that thrilled the people of Coolgardie when one Friday afternoon a horse and buggy was driven into town at a furious pace, the animal in a lather of sweat from hard-driving, and when they stopped in front of the police station and the occupants jumped out and ran into it, a large crowd soon gathered.
The news soon spread that two men, named John MITCHELL and John PAULL, who had been taking the money for the wages of the employees on the ‘Burbanks’ mine out in a buggy, had been ‘bailed up’ by armed men. The money they were carrying amounted to £800 and it had been taken from them and the robbers had got clean away. Shortly afterwards, Inspector McKenna, accompanied by two troopers and a black tracker left the station yard armed to the teeth. They had not got far from town when they met the men who had been robbed. It transpired that the two men had come into the bank and received the money for the wages and were driving home in a buggy each with a bag over their shoulder in which the money was placed. They were both eating grapes out of a bag and chatting away in a friendly manner taking no notice of what was happening when suddenly, three masked men jumped out from an ambush near the road. One of them grasped the horse’s head and the others covered the two men with rifles and told them if they valued their lives not to stir. They then fired a few shot at the buggy to intimidate the occupants, smashing the spokes of the wheels.
The coach to Malcolm with an armed police officer with the driver.
The attack was so sudden and so unexpected, and the occupants were armed with nothing more deadly than a penknife, that they immediately surrendered, judging that under the circumstances,
discretion was the better part of valour
One of the robbers then lead the horse off the road into the scrub and the robbers ordered the men to hand over the money they had or they would be shot. Each reluctantly handed up his bag with the best grace possible under the circumstances. The ruffians then proceeded to bind Mitchell and Paull, and they then drew up a gunny sack over the head of each and then tied them to a tree.
A solitary traveller, who was carrying his swag on his back, hearing the gunshots and thinking something must be wrong, went to see what was going on. When the robbers saw the man they pointed their guns at him and made him put his hands above his head, he was also gagged, blindfolded and tied to a tree. The robbers then said they would leave one of their number behind with orders to shoot the first one who attempted to move. After they had been gone some time one of the captives managed to get the bag over his eyes, and he could see the robbers had all decamped. He then wriggled himself out of his cords with which he had been imperfectly bound and let the others loose.
They then proceeded towards the town at their best possible speed but had not gone far when a buggy with three men came into view. The occupants of the buggy were surprised to see three men shouting, gesticulating and motioning them to keep back. When they got close enough one of them shouted ‘Go Back, for Gods Sake!’ They are shooting everybody down the road. One of the men in the buggy said “These fellows are ratty, they must have been having a big spree”. The buggy was stopped however and they could see that something had occurred. The man whose frame was trembling with fear exclaimed “we have been bailed up by bushrangers and robbed of all our money” smashed our buggy and tied us to trees and then they shot at us. The tone and the evident distress of the man impressed his hearers and they could see he was telling the truth. Turning their horse around they returned to Coolgardie for the police.
The Bushranger Flees
The inspector listened to the stirring story and then the whole part went back to the scene of the outrage. There they found an ambush built near the road, which completely screened the robbers and enabled them to command the road. Some distance away the horse was found tied to a tree. The black tracker then picked up the tracks and followed by the troopers traced the robbers in a westerly direction for nearly a mile. Here a fire was burning which had evidently been lit by the villains for the purpose of burning the two rifles they had used, the wood work of which was totally destroyed, the metal parts being of white heat. The tracks were then followed for a considerable distance and some miles away from where the fire was burning a pair of boots was found in a hollow log where the owner evidentaly changed them for another pair. The robbers had doubled back towards the town and when near Coolgardie the tracks were lost.
Every effort was made to detect the perpetrators of such a daring outrage but despite the exertions of the police nothing ever became of the search and it remains a mystery to this day of who carried out this daring plot.
POST SCRIPT:- John Mitchell and John Paull were eventually dismissed under a cloud of suspicion. However, some 30 years later a man in Queensland confessed that he and his friends were the bush rangers and Mitchell and Paull’s names were cleared
The following photograph was sent in by Rae Lee and shows Richard Mitchell who was John Mitchell’s son aged 16yrs. Rae tells me:
‘According to notes on the back of this photograph it was taken at the Oroya Gold Mine in the 1898. The young man on the right, Richard Mitchell, was aged 16 and was a blacksmith’s apprentice. It is believed he arrived in Boulder City sometime in 1897. His parents John and Susan, came to Western Australia from the mining district of Clunes, Victoria where he and all of his siblings had been born. No information is to hand about his life until the commencement of World War 1.
Richard tried to enlist but was initially rejected on the grounds of his small stature. He persisted and eventually joined the 28th Battalion, 7th Reinforcements and served in numerous theaters of war on the Western Front, being discharged in October 1919. He eventually married and had several children.
Photo Richard Mitchell from Burbanks GM
Moya Sharp
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