Bolt from the past

The town of Uralla in northern New South Wales has built a thriving tourist industry on its links with a notorious 19th-century bushranger, Captain Thunderbolt, who was buried in the local cemetery after being shot dead by police.

Thunderbolt, known as the "gentleman bushranger" because he never shot anyone and was always polite to his victims, roamed the area for five years, robbing from properties and holding up the mail coach. According to official records, the outlaw (whose real name was Fred Ward) was killed in 1870 after being pursued on horseback by a policeman.

But local Barry Sinclair, a descendant of the bushranger, has upset Uralla residents by claiming that the body in the cemetery is not that of Ward but of his elder brother, William. Fred Ward, he says, escaped police and fled to the Californian goldfields before settling in Canada, where he died in Ottawa in the early 1900s.

Sinclair's claims have caused consternation in Uralla, population 2300 and 480km north of Sydney. The town, which receives thousands of tourists eager to see Ward's grave, has a bronze statue of the outlaw on horseback in its main street and a sign welcoming visitors to "Uralla, Thunderbolt Country". People staying overnight can choose between the Thunderbolt Roadhouse or the Bushranger Motor Inn. They can visit Thunderbolt Rock, a granite outcrop just outside town, where Ward and a companion once held up a mail coach. They can purchase Thunderbolt Pies from the Uralla Bakery.

Sinclair, a retired teacher whose great-great-grandmother was Fred Ward's sister, says family tradition has always held that the person killed at Kentucky Creek, south of Uralla, was William Ward, also known as Harry. After researching his family history and studying police statements and the autopsy report, Sinclair is even more convinced.

Fred Ward's body was identified by a one-time associate, Will Monkton, who pointed out a scar on the right knee. But Monkton, according to Sinclair, knew that Harry Ward had been shot in the knee while escaping from police 12 months earlier. After identifying the body, he was released from prison, where he had served one year of a four-year sentence.

Sinclair said Thunderbolt's funeral was attended by a tall woman dressed in black, her identity concealed by a heavy black veil. As she left, it was noted that she walked with a manly gait. "My family has always believed that this was Fred Ward paying final respects to his brother," he said.

According to anecdote, Fred Ward partnered women at Saturday night dances in the area for six weeks after his "death". Sinclair believes he spent that period recovering his booty from various hiding places before taking the boat from Sydney to San Francisco.

Thunderbolt was famously courteous. If he held up a pub, he would use the stolen money to buy everyone a beer before leaving.

He also took a year off from bushranging after the birth of his child, becoming, as Mr Sinclair puts it, "the first Australian to take paternity leave". It was thanks to his wife, Mary Ann Bugg, that he never used his firearm, Mr Sinclair said. "She was part Aboriginal and many of her people had been shot dead by the white population. She had a hatred of guns and she gave him that same hatred."

Mr Sinclair's claims are dismissed by the Uralla Historical Society.

But Terry Cutler, owner of the Bushranger Motor Inn, is less certain. "We'll never know for sure who's buried in that grave, and I for one am not going to get ulcerated about it," he said.

- INDEPENDENT