Martin Cash

Martin Cash

Martin Cash (born October 10, 1808 in Enniscorthy , County Wexford , Ireland ; † August 27, 1877 in Glenchory , Tasmania , Australia ) was a British convict and Australian bush robber from Ireland. His fate became well known in the 1870s when an Irish writer described his life in book form.

Martin Cash was the son of George and Margaret Cash. He worked as a boy on a farm in Wexford and was arrested in March 1827 for a criminal act - armed robbery . Six months after the crime, he was deported to Australia for seven years as a prisoner, where he had to work for a farmer in the Hunter Valley . After his release he went to what was then Van Diemens Land , what is now Tasmania, where he was again sentenced to seven years of prison labor in Port Arthur for theft . In the first three years of his imprisonment, he attempted three escape attempts; the last one succeeded. Cash was caught two years later, re-incarcerated, and four years in prison.

Soon after, he fled again from Port Arthur Convict Prison with two seasoned Bushmen, Kavenagh and Jones. They overcame the heavily guarded Eaglehawk Neck , which leads to the mainland of Tasmania. The three refugees then robbed inns, settler houses and the post office - without using force. This earned them the name 'Gentlemen Bushrangers'.

Cash was publicly accused of killing one of his prison guards. He then risked a visit to Hobart , where he was arrested, charged, and sentenced to death. The death penalty was changed to ten years of convict labor on Norfolk Island . In March 1854, shortly before the transportation of convicts was stopped, he married Marry Bennett (1824–1879), a female convict from County Clare . He was released six months later and went back to Tasmania, where he worked for the Cascades Agricultural Settlement and as a state garden overseer in Hobart. After the general convict amnesty in May 1856, he went to New Zealand for four years . On his return he bought property at Glenorchy in Tasmania and worked there until his death. He left his wife. His son Martin, who was born in 1855, died in 1871.

The charm, kindness and life of Cash caught the attention of James Lester Burke , an Irish writer who met him before his death and who wrote the story of his life. Burke published Fate Cashs in book form in Hobart in 1870 and achieved several editions with this book. He gave the experiences of Cash in a strongly exaggerated form, but it also attracted a lot of attention.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Martin Cash on adbonline.anu.edu.au