Mad Dan Morgan

Shirley: Actually my home town, it’s called Culcairn, it’s famous for a man called mad Dan Morgan. And, he was a friend of Ned Kelley’s and he lived in an area of my home town which is a very flat area, but there’s one small hill and if you go to the top of that hill you can see for miles and miles around 360 degrees because everything is completely flat. So Mad Dan Morgan had his hideout up on this hill so he could see if the police were coming. Of course in those days everyone was on horses.

Jake: What did Mad Dan Morgan do? He was a friend of Ned Kelly’s but what did Mad Dan Morgan do himself?

Shirley: Well like Ned Kelly he was also a bush ranger which is what we call bandits in Australia-bush rangers, and I’m not sure exactly what he did but he robbed and people and I think he killed a few people and hid out. But again he was one of those people that the needy people sort of worshipped because he was fighting authority. We have a big tradition in Australia of rebelling against authority. So, even though these guys were not particularly good or doing good things they were lauded for being-for standing up to the authorities which in those days were very British controlled.