Review:
Martin Brennan's Police History
Police History of the Notorious Bushrangers of New South Wales and Victoria
By Martin Brennan
Unpublished manuscript dated around 1910
[Mitchell Library ref: MS A2030; Reel CY 934]
By Martin Brennan
Unpublished manuscript dated around 1910
[Mitchell Library ref: MS A2030; Reel CY 934]
Catalogued Genre: History
True Genre: Fiction based on fact
Research: Negligible; contents mainly a miscellany of gossip and second/third/fourth-hand anecdote
Source-references: None
Accuracy: Unreliable
Many of the errors in published works about bushranger Frederick Ward and Mary Ann Bugg result from writers placing too great a reliance on secondary-source material such as Martin Brennan’s Police History of the Notorious Bushrangers of New South Wales and Victoria. While himself a police officer in the 1860s, Brennan was not stationed in the northern districts where Thunderbolt roamed, and the details provided in his manuscript are clearly the product of anecdote (not necessarily first-hand), and a minuscule amount of research.
Most Thunderbolt researchers seem to have assumed that Brennan had access to police files, or at least to the recollections of some of the policemen who pursued Thunderbolt. However, when Brennan’s accounts are compared with contemporary newspapers reports and witness depositions, the pronounced differences reveal otherwise. Yet inexperienced researchers – those lacking the knowledge necessary to correctly balance primary-source evidence against secondary-source information on the historical accuracy scale – have decided that the policeman must be right. Accordingly, they have relied heavily on Brennan’s unsubstantiated account written forty years after Thunderbolt’s death rather than on contemporary primary-source references. This has led to endless and oft-repeated errors in Thunderbolt works – like the claim that Thunderbolt was carrying a tap rather than a gun when he robbed the toll-bar in 1863!
Brennan's account is a frustrating mix of fact and fantasy. While many of Brennan’s descriptions contain a thread of truth, indeed a good deal of truth in some instances, mostly they contain significant errors as well. For example, regarding the toll-bar robbery, Brennan wrote:
At 6 a.m. Mr O’Brien, the keeper being in bed, was roused unceremoniously by hearing a loud noise. On going outside, he saw a man on horseback knocking at the gate. He asked the equestrian sharply who he was that “dared to make such a thundering noise?”
“I am”, said Ward, “ ‘Thunderbolt’; the noise I made was the thunder, while this is the bolt”, pointing a revolver at his head and ordering him to “bail up”. O’Brien was startled and replied in a conciliatory tone, “I meant no offence, do not resort to extremes, as you can have all the money there is.”
Ward having given himself the title of “Thunderbolt”, decided on retaining it, searched the place, found four shillings in coppers which he returned. (p.333)
This is definitely anecdotal. In fact, it sounds like Mr O’Brien was attempting to claim his fifteen minutes of fame. While O’Brien was indeed the toll-licencee, he was not the robbery victim. Contemporary accounts reveal that the victim was his employee, Delaney, that the robbery occurred at 4.45 am (rather than 6 am), that the circumstances of the robbery were quite different, and that the robber made no comments about thunder and bolts. Instead, the robber introduced himself as “Captain Thunderbolt” as he was departing, indicating that Fred Ward had adopted the nickname prior to the toll-bar robbery. A full description of this incident is provided in Captain Thunderbolt and his Lady.
Remember the historical detection tool I keep repeating: that a researcher needs to assess the likely accuracy of unknown information by determining the accuracy of known information. If researchers are thinking of using Brennan’s material, they should compare Brennan’s account with the details provided in the relevant Timelines on this website, then use the source-references quoted in the Timelines to find the primary-source references to the specific event in question, then compare the information in the two sources. If Brennan’s “facts” vary markedly from the primary-source references, then researchers/writers must ignore all of Brennan’s account. Cherry-picking historical information is dangerous! For example, in the above quote, the fact that Brennan incorrectly listed the time of the robbery and the identity of the victim means that his whole account must be dismissed as unreliable. Consequently, Brennan’s oft-repeated story about how Thunderbolt acquired his nickname must be dismissed as well. It is, in short, fiction, possibly made up by O’Brien in the aftermath to make himself seem important.
A simple strategy for determining whether a supposedly factual account is truly fact or highly fictionalised is to assess the amount of dialogue contained in the work. Brennan’s police history abounds with dialogue which is a sign that it is heavily fictionalised (original records do not include much dialogue). You can compare the dialogue found in Brennan’s work with that contained in the original records by locating the original references (following the same procedure described above). If Brennan’s account closely resembles the original records, it is fairly reliable. If it doesn’t (as is the case with his description of the toll-bar robbery), then it is probably part of Brennan’s “dramatisation” of the story.
Some of Brennan's accounts are so close to the mark that the information evidently came from someone with a personal knowledge of the events in question. But these accounts are frequently interspersed with information that is so clearly inaccurate it throws everything else into doubt. For example, Brennan (pp.326-8) discusses Fred Ward's origins and initial conviction for "horse stealing" and provides some incredibly accurate information about the crime, details that were not easy to discover in original sources even by those with ready access to newspapers and government records. But then he says that Tocal's superintendent, Mr Henry Lowcock, headed to Sydney on a steamer and, during the journey, "heard two of Frederick Ward's friends conversing on the probable success of Ward and the Garbutts in their last venture". Lowcock testified at Fred's committal hearing and also at his eventual trial and his description of the incident, recorded in newspaper reports and the trial transcript, not only make no reference to such an encounter, it indicates that the information was discovered in a different manner entirely.
This makes it very frustrating for researchers seeking accurate and detailed information as they are then forced, often reluctantly, to dismiss everything that Brennan recounts, even though some of his information is almost certainly correct. The problem is that it is impossible to determine which impossible-to-confirm information is fact and which is fantasy.
Martin Brennan’s Police History has been treated as fact by many Thunderbolt writers. Indeed, Brennan’s account of events that occurred 40 to 80 years previously has often been given more weight by these writers than newspaper reports and archival material from the time of the events in question. However Brennan’s account is an unsubstantiated secondary-source work that is clearly the product of second-hand information. Thunderbolt researchers and writers keen on providing an accurate account are advised to use Brennan’s Police History very carefully.
True Genre: Fiction based on fact
Research: Negligible; contents mainly a miscellany of gossip and second/third/fourth-hand anecdote
Source-references: None
Accuracy: Unreliable
Many of the errors in published works about bushranger Frederick Ward and Mary Ann Bugg result from writers placing too great a reliance on secondary-source material such as Martin Brennan’s Police History of the Notorious Bushrangers of New South Wales and Victoria. While himself a police officer in the 1860s, Brennan was not stationed in the northern districts where Thunderbolt roamed, and the details provided in his manuscript are clearly the product of anecdote (not necessarily first-hand), and a minuscule amount of research.
Most Thunderbolt researchers seem to have assumed that Brennan had access to police files, or at least to the recollections of some of the policemen who pursued Thunderbolt. However, when Brennan’s accounts are compared with contemporary newspapers reports and witness depositions, the pronounced differences reveal otherwise. Yet inexperienced researchers – those lacking the knowledge necessary to correctly balance primary-source evidence against secondary-source information on the historical accuracy scale – have decided that the policeman must be right. Accordingly, they have relied heavily on Brennan’s unsubstantiated account written forty years after Thunderbolt’s death rather than on contemporary primary-source references. This has led to endless and oft-repeated errors in Thunderbolt works – like the claim that Thunderbolt was carrying a tap rather than a gun when he robbed the toll-bar in 1863!
Brennan's account is a frustrating mix of fact and fantasy. While many of Brennan’s descriptions contain a thread of truth, indeed a good deal of truth in some instances, mostly they contain significant errors as well. For example, regarding the toll-bar robbery, Brennan wrote:
At 6 a.m. Mr O’Brien, the keeper being in bed, was roused unceremoniously by hearing a loud noise. On going outside, he saw a man on horseback knocking at the gate. He asked the equestrian sharply who he was that “dared to make such a thundering noise?”
“I am”, said Ward, “ ‘Thunderbolt’; the noise I made was the thunder, while this is the bolt”, pointing a revolver at his head and ordering him to “bail up”. O’Brien was startled and replied in a conciliatory tone, “I meant no offence, do not resort to extremes, as you can have all the money there is.”
Ward having given himself the title of “Thunderbolt”, decided on retaining it, searched the place, found four shillings in coppers which he returned. (p.333)
This is definitely anecdotal. In fact, it sounds like Mr O’Brien was attempting to claim his fifteen minutes of fame. While O’Brien was indeed the toll-licencee, he was not the robbery victim. Contemporary accounts reveal that the victim was his employee, Delaney, that the robbery occurred at 4.45 am (rather than 6 am), that the circumstances of the robbery were quite different, and that the robber made no comments about thunder and bolts. Instead, the robber introduced himself as “Captain Thunderbolt” as he was departing, indicating that Fred Ward had adopted the nickname prior to the toll-bar robbery. A full description of this incident is provided in Captain Thunderbolt and his Lady.
Remember the historical detection tool I keep repeating: that a researcher needs to assess the likely accuracy of unknown information by determining the accuracy of known information. If researchers are thinking of using Brennan’s material, they should compare Brennan’s account with the details provided in the relevant Timelines on this website, then use the source-references quoted in the Timelines to find the primary-source references to the specific event in question, then compare the information in the two sources. If Brennan’s “facts” vary markedly from the primary-source references, then researchers/writers must ignore all of Brennan’s account. Cherry-picking historical information is dangerous! For example, in the above quote, the fact that Brennan incorrectly listed the time of the robbery and the identity of the victim means that his whole account must be dismissed as unreliable. Consequently, Brennan’s oft-repeated story about how Thunderbolt acquired his nickname must be dismissed as well. It is, in short, fiction, possibly made up by O’Brien in the aftermath to make himself seem important.
A simple strategy for determining whether a supposedly factual account is truly fact or highly fictionalised is to assess the amount of dialogue contained in the work. Brennan’s police history abounds with dialogue which is a sign that it is heavily fictionalised (original records do not include much dialogue). You can compare the dialogue found in Brennan’s work with that contained in the original records by locating the original references (following the same procedure described above). If Brennan’s account closely resembles the original records, it is fairly reliable. If it doesn’t (as is the case with his description of the toll-bar robbery), then it is probably part of Brennan’s “dramatisation” of the story.
Some of Brennan's accounts are so close to the mark that the information evidently came from someone with a personal knowledge of the events in question. But these accounts are frequently interspersed with information that is so clearly inaccurate it throws everything else into doubt. For example, Brennan (pp.326-8) discusses Fred Ward's origins and initial conviction for "horse stealing" and provides some incredibly accurate information about the crime, details that were not easy to discover in original sources even by those with ready access to newspapers and government records. But then he says that Tocal's superintendent, Mr Henry Lowcock, headed to Sydney on a steamer and, during the journey, "heard two of Frederick Ward's friends conversing on the probable success of Ward and the Garbutts in their last venture". Lowcock testified at Fred's committal hearing and also at his eventual trial and his description of the incident, recorded in newspaper reports and the trial transcript, not only make no reference to such an encounter, it indicates that the information was discovered in a different manner entirely.
This makes it very frustrating for researchers seeking accurate and detailed information as they are then forced, often reluctantly, to dismiss everything that Brennan recounts, even though some of his information is almost certainly correct. The problem is that it is impossible to determine which impossible-to-confirm information is fact and which is fantasy.
Martin Brennan’s Police History has been treated as fact by many Thunderbolt writers. Indeed, Brennan’s account of events that occurred 40 to 80 years previously has often been given more weight by these writers than newspaper reports and archival material from the time of the events in question. However Brennan’s account is an unsubstantiated secondary-source work that is clearly the product of second-hand information. Thunderbolt researchers and writers keen on providing an accurate account are advised to use Brennan’s Police History very carefully.