1830: Cornered at Abercrombie Caves: Ten Ribbon Gang Bushrangers Sentenced to Death at Bathurst
Ralph Entwistle was an escaped convict who had been publicly flogged on the orders of Bathurst magistrate Thomas Evernden after being spotted bathing in the Macquarie River by the Governor’s travelling party. Within a year he had turned bushranger, gathering escaped convicts into a band that grew to as many as eighty men, the largest convict uprising since Castle Hill, known as the Ribbon Gang for the white streamers Entwistle wore in his hair.
The gang’s campaign turned deadly when overseer James Greenwood refused to let them recruit his master’s men, baring his chest and daring them to shoot. They did. Troopers and armed volunteers, guided by two Aboriginal trackers, finally cornered the remaining bushrangers at the Abercrombie Caves, where a gunfight lasting hours forced the survivors onto a nearby hilltop before reinforcements ran the exhausted gang down.
On 30 October 1830, ten captured bushrangers faced trial at Bathurst before a jury of military officers. The court convicted six, including Entwistle, of Greenwood’s murder, and four others of plundering farmhouses, sentencing all ten to death.
