VICTOR IS mentioned on the Police Wall of Remembrance

On 11 August, 1946 Detective Constable Ahearn and Detective Constable Bowie waited at Long Bay Gaol to arrest two suspects ( Sydney Grant and Keith George Hope ) who were wanted for break and enter and motor vehicle theft offences. When the two men arrived to visit two female prisoners at the gaol, as expected, the detectives arrested them. They then set out to convey the prisoners to Daceyville Police Station, with Constable Bowie driving and Constable Ahearn seated in the rear of the vehicle between the prisoners. Shortly after leaving the gaol Grant produced a firearm and shot Constable Ahearn twice in the side. Constable Bowie quickly stopped the vehicle, and when trying to assist his colleague now struggling with the offenders, he was also attacked. The offenders then made good their escape. Unfortunately Detective Constable Ahearn died of his wounds before medical assistance arrived at the scene. Both offenders were later arrested.

The Sydney Morning Herald of 14 August, 1946 reported on the detective’s funeral.

LARGE NUMBER AT FUNERAL OF DETECTIVE.

The funeral yesterday of Detective V. D. Ahearn, who was shot by a gunman on Sunday, was one of the largest seen in North Sydney. Christ Church, Lavender Bay, was crowded for a memorial service. About 300 members of the police force remained in the street, and many other sympathisers were unable to get into the church. Detective Constable Alexander Bowie, who was injured in the police car in which Detective Ahearn was shot, was among the mourners. The funeral service was conducted by the Rev. Dr. Frank Cash. Archbishop Mowll, who gave the address at the service, said he hoped it would be some comfort to Mrs. Ahearn that so large and representative a gathering had come together to do honour to her husband, who in the course of his duty had suddenly been killed.

The Advocate newspaper of 12 December, 1946 announced the result of the trial of the two offenders.

GRANT SENTENCED TO DEATH: UNUSUAL SCENES.

SYDNEY, Wednesday – Extraordinary scenes were witnessed at the conclusion of the murder trial in the Central Criminal Court to-day of Sydney Grant (23), labourer, and Keith George Hope (23), farm laborer, for the murder of Detective Constable Victor Donald Ahearn on August 11 at Matraville. The jury found Grant guilty and Hope not guilty. Grant was sentenced to death. Mr. Justice Herron agreed that the jury’s verdict was inevitable.

The constable was born in 1906 [ and was the son of Percy Augustis Ahearn & Elizabeth Anne Pirie ] and joined the New South Wales Police Force on 8 January, 1930. At the time of his death he was stationed at North Sydney.

As an aside – Victor AHEARN was the cousin of Clarence PIRIE who was also shot and murdered in 1960 aged 40.

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NSW BDM’s
Birth
17164/1906 AHEARN, VICTOR D : PERCY, ELIZABETH A   @ PENRITH

Marriage
14450/1934 AHEARN, VICTOR D,  MALLARD IRENE  on 15 September 1934 in St Johns Church, PARRAMATTA, NSW

Death
25813/1946 AHEARN, VICTOR DONALD : Parents: PERCY AUGUSTUS & ELIZABETH ANNE  @ KINGSFORD

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Kalgoorlie Miner (WA : 1895 – 1950), Wednesday 14 August 1946, page 4

 

The Sydney Morning Herald                    Monday  12 August 1946               page 1 of 14

DETECTIVE SHOT IN POLICE CAR

Troops And Plane Join In Sydney Manhunt

One detective was shot dead and another brutally attacked at Matraville yesterday afternoon while they were escorting two men they had arrested at the gate of Long Bay Gaol.

Four hundred armed police, soldiers ( some carrying machine-guns ), the police aeroplane, and police dogs later took part in one of the most intensive manhunts ever organised by the New South Wales police.

The two men, who had been visiting two girl prisoners in the gaol, were not located at an early hour to-day.

 

DRAMATIC DRIVE FROM GAOL

The detectives were attacked as the men were being driven away in a police car. After a fierce struggle in the car the men made off across sand dunes and scrub covered hills.

Detective First-class Constable Victor Donald Ahearn, 40, married, with one child, who was stationed at North Sydney, was shot dead. Two bullets entered his body, one passing through his heart. Ahearn joined the police force 16½ years ago, and lived at Lavender Bay.

Detective Constable Alexander Bowie, 27, stationed at Mosman, was kicked about the head and body, and suffered severe abrasions and shock. He is the son of Superintendent L. Bowie, who was recently in charge of the Tamworth police district.

The two detectives had driven in a police car to Long Bay in the morning, believing that two men for whom they had been searching in connection with charges of car stealing and breaking and entering garages might visit two girls, aged 19 and 20.

The girls recently had pleaded not guilty to charges of illegally using motor cars and breaking into a Lindfield garage. According to the police, two men had   been seen with the girls on the night of one alleged crime, but escaped.

The detectives yesterday parked their police car near the outer gates of the gaol. Soon afterwards the big gates opened and two men came out.

Ahearn and Bowie immediately intercepted them, and after a short conversation, ordered them to get into the car.

Bowie sat at the wheel and Ahearn sat between the two men in the back seat. The men, though sullen and disinclined to talk, gave no indication that they intended resisting arrest until the car had travelled about two miles along Anzac Parade.

About 300 yards from where the main road crosses the tram line near Pozieres Avenue, Matraville, and where dunes and tea-tree skirt the road, one of the prisoners is alleged to have pulled a .32 revolver from his pocket.

Bowie did not know it until he was attracted by a sudden scuffle from the back seat of the car. In less than two seconds there were two shots, and as Bowie turned round Ahearn muttered, “They’ve got me.”

Two bullets had plunged into the side of his body, piercing the heart and other vital organs.

 

LONG STRUGGLE IN MOTOR CAR

As Ahearn slumped dying on the floor of the car with portion of his clothes singed with the flame from the shots, Bowie swerved the car on to the grass track off the macadam road.

He pulled on the brake and after throwing the engine into neutral, he leaned over the seat to seize the two men.

The tracks of the car showed that during the subsequent struggle, the car travelled several yards before stopping.

As Bowie attempted to hurl himself on to the men, the one with the revolver pointed the gun at his head with the muzzle only a few inches from Bowie’s temple, the man said. “Get back or you’ll get it, too!”

Bowie saw the man pull the trigger and he heard a click. The revolver had jammed. The man holding the gun then crashed the butt of the revolver on to Bowie’s head, causing a deep cut.

 

Still Fought On

As Bowie was attempting to lever himself over the back of the front seat, the two men leaned back and raising both their feet, kicked him viciously about the face and head.

Each kick brought a new trickle of blood down Bowie’s face, but he continued to struggle with the men, and eventually wrested the gun from them.

Evidently, fearing that Bowie would continue the fight and get the better of them, the men threw open the doors on either side of the car and leapt to the road.

One ran through a wire fence up the sandhill towards Yarra Bay and was soon lost in the thick scrub.

The police last night issued these pictures of two men they are seeking in connection with the shooting of a detective at Matraville yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOP: Sidney Greenep, alias Grant, alias McMahon.

LOWER: Keith Beckett (or Hope).

The other bolted in the opposite direction and was last seen making across the tramline over the sand

dunes.

Bowie, who by this time was on the point of collapse, tried to lift Ahearn from the door of the car.

But Ahearn was dead. Powder marks   and blood on his clothing showed where the bullets had entered his body.

Glen Rich, a young man living in Page Street, Botany, who was passing on his bicycle, saw Bowie leave the   car and stagger towards the road. He helped to lift Ahearn from the car to the grass on the side of the road, and then went to look for a telephone to summon the police.

Many Cars Passed

Police believe that many cars passed after the shooting, but it was not until 15 minutes later that a man and a woman who had driven along Anzac Parade to Maroubra, accosted Sergeant Ryan and Constable Watts on   the beach.

The man said, “We think there’s been a bit of shooting along the road. You had better go along and see what’s happened.”

Ryan, and Watts raced back along Anzac Parade until they came upon the police car still parked on the side   of the road. Bowie was sitting, still dazed and bleeding profusely, on the grass alongside the body of Ahearn, holding the revolver which he had taken from one of the men.

Two empty cartridge shells from which Ahearn had been shot were in the car. One cartridge bore a faint hammer imprint, but had jammed. There were other live cartridges in the revolver.

 

SPECTACULAR HUNT DEVELOPS

With at least 20 minutes start the men had probably travelled a long distance before the police search for them was begun, but within a short time Superintendent F. Matthews had organised   one of the biggest manhunts ever known in Sydney.

The police plane was called out for the first lime to assist in the search. Police dogs were rushed to the car in which the shooting had occurred

and then they were let loose in the direction taken when the men ran away. And 400 armed police were rushed from the city and all suburbs to form a cordon around the district.   Army personnel some armed with sub-machine guns, were rushed in military wagons to join in the hunt and within an hour an area extending from Malabar, Botany Bay, Yarra Bay and Kingsford was being systematically combed.

Every car returning from the seaside of the district was stopped and searched. The contents of several utility vans being removed to ascertain if anyone was hiding there.

 

Plane Uses Radio

The police plane swept low in circles over the sandhills, the observer using powerful glasses to scan the thick scrub as he kept in touch by radio with the police cars racing backwards and forwards throughout the district.

One message radioed from the plane and picked up by the police cars near the scene of the shooting was that a man was seen making his way over the sand dunes towards Yarra Bay.

Superintendent Matthews revealed late last night that a taxi-driver had picked up a man walking along Bunnerong Road near the Matraville Hotel about 3.30 p.m.

The man asked him to take him to East Sydney.

The description of the man tallies with that of one of the escapees. There were bloodstains visible on his neck and clothing.

Police found a cream Hillman car with a Victorian registration plate, near Long Bay Gaol. It was later learned that the car had been stolen in Melbourne on Friday.

The police state that the two men had used the car to drive up to the gaol and brazenly left it near the gate while they visited the two girl inmates.

Police said last night that one of the men sought is known to them as Sidney Greenep, alias Grant, alias McMahon.

 

Suspects Described

The police issued the following description of him:

“Twenty-six years old, 5ft 7in, dark hair and complexion, freckled face, brown eyes, scar over right eye, appears to be new scar on forehead, and two old scars on forehead as well. Lobe of left ear is peculiar shape. Dressed in black and white or dark brown and white very small check pattern sports coat. Badge in lapel appeared to be returned soldier’s badge. Man wearing light blue or bluish-green sports trousers. Green silk open-neck sports shirt, no hat. Very tidy appearance.”

A second suspect, the police say is known as Keith Beckett (or Hope). He is 22 to 25 years old, 5ft 9in or 10in. fair complexion, medium brown-coloured straight ball hooked nose, rather large and red; wearing a light blue American type of coat of woollen material, large lapels, and dark blue piping on pockets and lapels blue shirt with collar to match, a tie and fairly new grey felt pork-pie-shaped hat.

 

North Sydney Report

On latest reports, it was believed both hunted men had reached and possibly passed through the city.

Becket was said to have been seen in North Sydney at 3.30 p.m., after the shooting. He was wearing a white open-neck shirt, light coloured sports suit, light grey felt hat.

The search early this morning was covering a great part of the metropolitan area.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17982254#pstart995837

The Sydney Morning Herald                    Monday  12 August 1946               page 1 of 14

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17982253#pstart995837

The Sydney Morning Herald                 Wednesday  11 September 1946                  page 4 of 36

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~aherns/ahvda.htm

On 25 April, 1940 Sergeant Hall attended a dwelling in Ocean Street, Wollongong where an offender named Hinsby had beaten his wife to death.

After he was confronted and threatened by the offender, who had now taken siege in the house, he called for reinforcements.

Among those to attend were Detectives John Dunn and R.A. Debney.

While negotiations were taking place with the offender, a piece of paper was thrown from a window, and, assuming that it was a note from the offender, Detective Debney crept up to the window to retrieve the paper. As he did so, a shot was fired from inside the house, through the window. The shot struck Detective Dunn, who was waiting nearby and watching Detective Debney. The bullet hit Detective Dunn in the forehead and he was killed instantly.

Tear gas was then used in an effort to flush the offender out, however it was soon found that Hinsby had committed suicide.

The Advocate newspaper of 22 May, 1940 reported briefly on the inquest into the matter.

RISKED LIFE ONLY TO SEE COMRADE SHOT

SYDNEY, Tuesday – “You two are married, I’m single. I’ll go and get it.” Saying this to two other detectives, Detective Debney went to a window of a house in which an armed murderer was holding the police at bay at Wollongong on April 25 to receive a paper which had fallen from the window.

When he reached the window a shot was fired and Detective Dunn, one of the detectives who had remained behind, fell fatally wounded.

This story was told at the inquest to-day into the death of Detective John Edward Dunn (35), George Hinsby (55), and his wife, Amelia Devine Hinsby (45).

The Coroner found that Hinsby murdered his wife and Detective Dunn and committed suicide while temporarily insane.

It was stated in evidence that since an accident 15 years ago Hinsby had been subject to ungovernable fits of rage.”

The detective constable was born in Victoria in 1904 and joined the New South Wales Police Force on 27 March, 1929.

At the time of his death he was stationed at Wollongong.

John was, reportedly, married to Lawna DUNN nee COOK.

Samuel NELSON

New South Wales Police Force

Regd. #  ?

Rank:  Constable

Stations:  Moreton Bay, Collector ( 7.5 years )

Service:  From  5 August 1857  to  26 January 1865 = 7+ years Service

Awards:  ?

Born:  ? ? 1823 – arrived in N.S.W., from England, aboard the ship ‘ Parsee ‘ in 1855

Died on:  26 January 1865

Cause:  Shot – murdered

Location of Event:  Collector, NSW

Age:  38

Funeral date:  ?

Funeral location:  ?

Buried at:  Grave in the C of E portion of the Catholic and C of E Cemetery, Collector

Grave:  34 54’54S, 149 25’51E

Monument:  34 54’44S, 149 25’53E

[alert_green]THOMAS IS mentioned on the Police Wall of Remembrance[/alert_green]

Shortly before 6pm on 26 January, 1865 bushrangers Hall, Dunn and Gilbert attacked Kimberley’s Inn at Collector. At the time the local police were out searching the area for the bushrangers, and the only man on duty in town was the lockup-keeper, Constable Nelson. When news of the attack reached the constable, he remarked to his wife that he would simply “have to do his best” against the gang. As he approached the hotel, armed only with a police carbine with bayonet attached, the constable was shot by Dunn who had hidden behind a fence post. Nelson was hit in the chest by a shotgun blast and, as he staggered, Dunn fired again, hitting him in the face. He died almost instantly.

The bushrangers then stole the constable’s personal belongings and the carbine, and escaped. The entire incident had been witnessed by young Frederick Nelson, one of the constable’s nine children, who was also fired at by Dunn. Frederick Nelson would later go on to have a long and successful police career himself. Hall, Dunn and Gilbert all met with violent deaths shortly after this incident. Hall and Gilbert were shot dead by police, and Dunn was convicted of Constable Nelson’s murder and was hanged: fitting results for this extremely violent gang of criminals.

Many years after the murder the Australian Town and Country Journal dated 27 November, 1907 printed the following story.

BUSH RANGING DAYS RECALLED.

When Mr. Carruthers, in his capacity of Premier, visited the country some time ago, a spot was pointed out to him at Collector, in the Goulburn district, at which Constable Nelson was shot dead over 40 years ago, while assisting in the capture of the notorious bushranger, John Dunn. The then Premier promised that a suitable monument would be erected to mark the spot, and that has just been completed by Messrs. Ross and Bowman, of Pitt-street. It will be unveiled at an early date by the Treasurer, Mr. Waddell. The Metropolitan Superintendent of Police, Mr. Sherwood, has received a photo of the monument, which stands 9ft 6in high. It shows the stump of what “was at that time a tree near where Nelson stood when he received the fatal wound, and another higher stump behind which some of those held up by the outlaws took refuge. The monument bears the following inscription near the base: “Erected by the Government of New South Wales to the memory of Constable Samuel Nelson, who was shot dead on this spot while in the execution of his duty, by the outlaw John Dunn, January 26, 1865.” On the other side are the words, “In memory of a brave officer”.

The constable was born in 1823 and joined the police force on 5 August, 1857. In 1862 he became a member of the newly-formed New South Wales Police Force. At the time of his death he was stationed at Collector.

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Wollongong police memorials

The NSW Police Force carries on its logo the phrase “Proud Traditions since 1862“, but capturing the history of these traditions at an operational level has never been a priority for the force.

https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/602982/wollongong-police-memorials/

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Grave in the C of E portion of the Catholic and C of E Cemetery, Collector.

Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 1865, p 7

Nelson, Samuel (1827–1865)

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• Tim the Yowie Man

It’s the murderous event which put the village of Collector on the map. On  January 26, 1865, outlaw John Dunn shot dead Constable Samuel Nelson outside the Kimberley Inn while his partners in crime, the notorious Ben Hall and Johnny Gilbert raided the hotel.

The brave Nelson, on being informed that the Hall Gang  was in town, had earlier marched defiantly from the nearby police station towards the hotel with the aim of stopping the infamous mob of bushrangers in their tracks.

Next Sunday, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the dramatic hold-up, a Wild Colonial Day is being held in Collector in which descendants of both Nelson and the Hall Gang  will converge on the town.

One of the most anticipated highlights of the day is the planned re-enactment of the tragic events of January 26, 1865. Although playing out such a momentous event in our region’s history will be no doubt be entertaining for the crowd, I don’t envy the performers of the Gold Trails Re-enactment Group who will need to settle on an agreed sequence of events that unfolded on that fateful day in 1865, the exact details of which appear to have been lost in the mists of time.

One person who has spent months poring over the evidence is Boyd Trevithick, Nelson’s great-great-grandson. In doing research for his family history book, Believe Nothing That You Hear and Only Half of What You See: a compilation of sundry articles, facts, photographs, maps, poems and family anecdotes dating back to 1087AD, (self-published, 2011) Trevithick reports he was “constantly confronted with conflicting accounts”.

“Discrepancies exist as to precisely where John Dunn stood to shoot, what course Nelson took, the distance from which the shooting occurred, the times of the day, the words uttered, whether Nelson staggered forwards, backwards or towards the road and where exactly Nelson fell,” explains Trevithick.

Trevithick isn’t the only one to have struggled to provide a definitive account of the details leading up  to Nelson’s death. Respected historian, the late Stuart Hume, whose widely lauded article  published in the Goulburn Evening Post on January 26, 1965, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Nelson’s death, wrote “to try and get an accurate account of what actually did occur is to find the wayside strewn with garbled, highly coloured accounts from old hands who’d ‘heered telled’ arguments from bush lawyers with a misguided sympathy for the bushrangers and bush balladists using poetic licence to cover a multitude of sins”.

Two of the most contentious issues concern what have subsequently become Collector landmarks – first, a rotting wooden stump standing next to the Bushranger Hotel, and second, Nelson’s final resting place.

1. Stumped

Trevithick reports that his “family members have handed down two versions of the role the stump played in events of 26 January 1865,” and he cites the following references to illustrate these disparate accounts.

The Queanbeyan Age (11/2/1908) reports “… The railing encloses the stump near which Nelson stood when he received his fatal wound.” Meanwhile, The Sydney Morning Herald (10/2/1908) reports “. Inside the railing [of the memorial] is one of the posts of the fence behind which Dunn concealed himself on approach of the Constable …”

Regardless of the significance of the stump, cynics have questioned whether it’s plausible that a 150-year-old stump could still be standing, suggesting that perhaps the stump isn’t the original from 1865 and, is, in fact, a ‘replacement’.

2. Grave diggers

Nelson died during the height of summer and with no morgue within cooee of the Collector, Hume reports, “research indicates that he was hastily buried without the aid of a minister in the grounds of the police station [still operational] … over the grave they struck a willow stave which grew, and, in the course of time, only the willow wept there”.

“Although there is currently no marked grave in the grounds of the police station, some old-timers did recall a willow growing there mid last century,” reports life-long local Gary Poile. However, the precise location of the willow may be a moot point for those who wish to pay their respects to the slain police officer, for it appears that Nelson was unlawfully exhumed  about 50 years later.

Hume reveals that “just after World War I someone decided to remove Nelson’s remains from the Police Station without an exhumation order or permission from the family”. “Not knowing exactly where Nelson lay…they sank several ‘duffers’ till they struck paydust in the shape of the constable’s bones. These they reverently gathered and crawling through a hole in the dividing fence put them in a grave alongside the Kimberleys [in the neighbouring cemetery].”

According to Hume, with the public becoming more history conscious, some years later a cross was  placed on the freshly dug unmarked grave in the cemetery and inscribed “Constable Nelson 1865”.

Neither Hume (nor Trevithick) uncovered the identity of those who allegedly moved Nelson’s bones, nor their motives. Trevithick hypothesises that it may have been “so that Nelson was buried in consecrated ground”.

While snooping around Collector this week I bumped into a couple of bushranger-era enthusiasts who questioned whether Nelson’s remains were moved at all. The duo suggested that a ground-penetrating radar, or perhaps something even more invasive, ought to be employed to prove the presence of remains.

I don’t know about you, but I think poor old Constable Nelson suffered enough trauma in the final moments of his life and that he should be left to lie in peace, wherever that may be.

Fact file

Collector Wild Colonial Day: Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the day Constable Samuel Nelson was killed on duty by John Dunn outside the Bushranger Hotel. Next Sunday,  January 25, from 10am–4pm in Collector Village (about a 30-minute drive north of Canberra on the Federal Highway). Free admission.

Expect: Historical displays, re-enactments, bush poetry, author talks, food, wine, local produce, art and craft. Devonshire tea and all day barbecue.

For the kids: Horse and cart rides, face painting (small charge) and bushranger activities (if you dare!) all day.

Shoot-outs: The Gold Trails Re-enactment Group will perform a realistic re-enactment of the murder of Constable Nelson at 3pm near the Collector Police Station (Bourke St) and again outside the Bushranger Hotel (Church St) about 6pm.

Become a star: At midday, there will be a re-enactment of the trial of John Dunn, including an opportunity for “extras” to participate (scripts will be provided).

Don’t miss: The rare collection of guns and equipment used by bushrangers and police during the colonial period (in the Memorial Hall).

Nelson’s Grave: Located in the Anglican Cemetery in Bourke St.  About 3.30pm, the NSW Police Chaplain will lead a graveside Memorial Service, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony.

The stump: Takes pride of place next to Nelson’s Memorial outside the Bushranger Hotel. Unfortunately, there’s precious little information on the state of the stump in 1865, so it’s difficult to determine if it’s the original. However, if any suitably qualified foresters would like to offer an educated opinion, I’d love to hear from you.

More: www.facebook.com/Nelson150 or ph: 0423 672 153

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Gang-gang: 150 years ago – Constable Samuel Nelson shot in Collector

One hundred and fifty years ago this week the brigands Ben Hall, John Gilbert and John Dunn descended on Collector and Dunn shot dead brave constable Samuel Nelson. The gang fled. The Sydney press throbbed with the news. The murder was on 26 January and the inquest, held at Collector the next day, was reported in great and grisly detail by the Sydney Morning Herald. 

Frederick Nelson, 18, eldest son of the dead man’s many children, saw his father shot dead.

” ‘A bushranger sprang from behind the fence and called to my father to stand, and fired immediately afterwards [with a shotgun], on which my father staggered into the road and called out “Oh!”. The bushranger fired again and my father fell. I heard his carbine fall from his hands on to the ground.

“Dr. Hanford deposed: I have made a post-mortem examination of the body of the deceased; I found a bullet wound midway between the nose and the ear on the left side of the face; also a wound, two inches long and two and a half inches broad, on the left side of the chest, and twenty shot marks round the wound; on examining the cavity of the chest, I found the heart lacerated … I found several shots in the liver … the stomach was perforated. Death resulted from the wounds I have described and no other cause.

“The jury returned a verdict that deceased was wilfully murdered by John Dunn, and that Benjamin Hall and John Gilbert were aiding and abetting.”

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-life/ganggang-150-years-ago–constable-samuel-nelson-shot-in-collector-20150126-12yg5f.html

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The New City of Canterbury Bankstown

Samuel Nelson

Samuel Nelson was born in 1828 in Chesterton, Oxfordshire, England. His Father was Samuel Nelson and mother Elizabeth Taylor. In England he married Elizabeth Goode who was born in 1828.^[1]

They came on the ship called “Parcee” and arrived in Sydney on 11th January 1853. Samuel and Elizabeth could both read and write. They came with their three children who were born in England, Fredrick 6 years born 1846, Henry 1848 4 years, Jonas 2 years 1850. While the ship was at sea Elizabeth Nelson gave birth to Matilda Parcee Nelson. The ship anchored in Sydney and then proceeded to Queensland.^[2]

Samuel Nelson worked at Drayton Darling Down’s then made his way to Collector N.S.W. which is between Canberra and Goulburn. Four more children were born at Collector Emma born 1857, Samuel 1860, David 1862 and Thomas 1864.

It was on a Thursday, Foundation Day 26th January 1865 in the country town of Collector, when the team of bushrangers, John Dunn and his group, were spotted in the District. They had bailed up Judge F.W. Meymott and two escorting troopers at Geary’s Gap a few miles south of the town. The gang of bushrangers were almost on the outskirts of Collector, when they bailed up a bootmaker named Tom Menzy; three farmers named Mitchell and William Deveron and James Bull; and a 16 year old boy named Henry Nelson – the constable’s son.

At the police station Constable Samuel Nelson was studying his day’s labour. He had chopped a good supply of wood and his gardens were in fine shape. He was looking forward to cleaning up a hearty supper and a quiet evening with his family, including his wife who was eight months pregnant with their ninth child. Suddenly, a young girl came running towards him calling “Mr Nelson come quickly the bushrangers are at the Kimberley’s Inn”, then shots from Dunn’s gun were heard.^[3]

Samuel Nelson entered the station and put on his uniform, jacket and belt while Elizabeth his wife looked on in surprise. At the trial of Dunn, Kimberley’s Inn Keeper said “John Dunn came back from direction and said there one of your bloody are down”. When somebody asked who was shot Dunn said “a little sandy bugger”. Kimberley replied “I felt sure it was Nelson knowing he was a short sandy man”.

Some of the other people brought in the dead body of Constable Samuel Nelson who had a wound on his cheek and a large wound over his heart. Fredrick Nelson was fired upon by the accused. Henry Nelson was forced to hold the estranger’s horses under the threat of having his brains blown out.^[4]

The trial of John Dunn on the 19th February 1866 jury returned the verdict of guilty, the sentence of John Dunn was to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. On the 19th March 1866 the 19 year old murderer was taken from Darlinghurst to the place of execution and was hanged.

http://www.canterburycommons.net/index.php?title=Samuel_Nelson

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