Attack on stockworker

Date: 31 May 1824
Place: Hassall's station
Convict stockworker John Hollingshead was ‘in the employ of Mrs Hassall, under the superintendence of Mr [William] Lane’. On 31 May he was ‘searching for horses’ when ‘he fell in with a tribe of black natives, about 30 in number, upon the summit of a hill’. According to Hollingshead, ‘they were in ambush’ and that as he was ‘aware of disturbances that had only recently occurred, he took to flight’. Obviously, word of the attacks to the north on 25 May had travelled to the south of Bathurst within six days. Then, Hollingshead recounted, the ‘spears came flying after him in showers’. He was ‘twice wounded … but kept running, as the natives were in close pursuit with the tomahawk’. Hollingshead ran for his life and ‘came home wounded in two places; one spear having passed through the left arm, just below the elbow, and another fractured the thumb bone’. He made it to ‘within one mile of the farm’, where he stumbled upon his fellow worker Alexander Grant, who had been out that morning looking for cattle. Grant said he found Hollingshead ‘in a bleeding state, from the effect of the wounds caused by the spears’. Unlike Hollingshead, Grant ‘was riding, and attended by several dogs’, which he believed meant that earlier that day he was ‘passed unmolested’ by a group of Wiradyjuri. Grant had suspected something was amiss, as that morning he had seen a group of Wiradyjuri who ignored him when he called out to them. He even recognised and ‘named one of them’, but still no word came back from the group and they passed silently by.
The warriors left off their pursuit of Grant and Hollingshead, and the two men managed to return to their hut.

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Sources

  • Gazette, 10 June 1824, p. 2; ‘Supreme Court’, Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 2

Event mentions

  • Attack on stockworker
    31 May 1824 — Hassall's station
    Convict stockworker John Hollingshead was ‘in the employ of Mrs Hassall, under the superintendence of Mr [William] Lane’. On 31 May he was ‘searching for horses’ when ‘he fell in with a tribe of black natives, about 30 in number, upon the summit of a hill’. According to Hollingshead, ‘they were in ambush’ and that as he was ‘aware of disturbances that had only recently occurred, he took to flight’. Obviously, word of the attacks to the north on 25 May had travelled to the south of Bathurst within six days. Then, Hollingshead recounted, the ‘spears came flying after him in showers’. He was ‘twice wounded … but kept running, as the natives were in close pursuit with the tomahawk’. Hollingshead ran for his life and ‘came home wounded in two places; one spear having passed through the left arm, just below the elbow, and another fractured the thumb bone’. He made it to ‘within one mile of the farm’, where he stumbled upon his fellow worker Alexander Grant, who had been out that morning looking for cattle. Grant said he found Hollingshead ‘in a bleeding state, from the effect of the wounds caused by the spears’. Unlike Hollingshead, Grant ‘was riding, and attended by several dogs’, which he believed meant that earlier that day he was ‘passed unmolested’ by a group of Wiradyjuri. Grant had suspected something was amiss, as that morning he had seen a group of Wiradyjuri who ignored him when he called out to them. He even recognised and ‘named one of them’, but still no word came back from the group and they passed silently by.
    The warriors left off their pursuit of Grant and Hollingshead, and the two men managed to return to their hut.
    Source: Gazette, 10 June 1824, p. 2; ‘Supreme Court’, Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 2