Thunderbolt bushranger biography of christopher

How strange,and yet sinfully thrilling, to think that an Australian bushranger may have come up in conversation around the dining table of my grandmother’s home in 1908. I can just hear the noisy discussion which took place, “Did you know old Geordie had a run in with Thunderbolt?”  “Lucky to live through it, I heard!”, the voices of all 13 family members talking at once!

My granma, Ines Maude Smith, was born in 1882 and would only have been around 26 years old when the old coach driver mentioned in the article, Geordie Wilkinson, passed away.  She perhaps may not have known him, although in such a small community like Tamworth was at the time she would certainly have known of him.  She would have undoubtedly heard of the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt who had actually passed away 12 years before she was born. 

Thunderbolt was an iconic Australian bushranger and there is a well known family story of ours involving him demanding money of another relative, so the mention of his name in the local paper would certainly have triggered conversation within the walls of the Smith family home.

Captain Thunderbolt, for those of you who don’t know, had a reputation for being the “gentleman bushranger”, and for his lengthy survival.  He roamed

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