Australian Dictionary of Biography

Maryann Bugg (1834–?), Birrpai warrior and bushranger’s wife, was born in May 1834 in the vicinity of what became Gloucester, New South Wales, the first of eight children of Charlotte, a Birrpai (Birrbay) Goori (Koori/First Nations) woman, and James Bugg, a convict from Little Horkesley, Essex. Her life was full of intrigue, adventure, and speculation, due, in large part, to her connection to the bushranger Frederick Ward, known as ‘Captain Thunderbolt.’ As a person of mixed-descent and, for a time, a focus of interest of the press, she was subject to all manner of criticism and conjecture.

With her brother John (b. 1836), Maryann first appeared in the public record in 1837 amid heightened frontier conflict in the upper Williams River district. Governor Sir George Gipps (1837–46) linked such hostilities to the cohabitation of white men, particularly convicts, with Aboriginal women, most often by coercion, and threatened to remove convicts from districts where this was occurring. His attention was drawn to the Port Stephens Estate of the Australian Agricultural Co. (AACo) where such practices were known to be common. James Bugg had been assigned to the AACo in 1827 and had commenced a relationship with Charlotte in the early 1830s. Unlike other cohabiting couples, their union would be long-lasting; by 1837, it was already well established. The AACo, fearing ‘instantaneous ruin’ (NBAC AU 78) if Gipps’s threat came into effect, arranged for Maryann and John’s removal. In February 1839 Maryann was placed at the Female Orphan School, Parramatta, and John at the Male Orphan School, Cabramatta.

Little is known of the next two decades of Maryann’s life as few definitive records exist. In 1848, aged fourteen, she married Edmund Baker, a former AACo shepherd and later miner, at St John the Evangelist Anglican Church, Stroud. After moving to the Mudgee district with Baker, she may have given birth to a daughter, Helena, in 1849.

Following Baker’s probable death in the 1850s, Maryann formed a relationship with Ward in 1860. She travelled with him to her parents’ farm at Monkerai in October 1861 for the birth of their daughter, Marina Emily. Maryann’s mother had died several months earlier but her father and sisters and brothers were there. Ward had been sentenced to ten years’ hard labour for horse stealing in 1856 and was on conditional release. Due to his late return for muster at Mudgee following Marina’s birth, his ticket-of-leave was revoked. He was returned to Cockatoo Island to serve out his original sentence plus additional time for stealing the horse that he hastily rode to muster.

Ward escaped from Cockatoo Island with Frederick Britten in 1863. Some historians suggest that Maryann played a role in their escape, but there is little evidence to support this. What is clear is that Maryann and Ward were reunited, along with Marina, within weeks of the escape. It is also the case that Maryann, who had two more children with Ward between 1863 and 1867, often rode with him during his time on the run. Contemporary newspaper accounts noted her and the children’s presence, describing the bushranger as travelling with ‘a half-cast woman and two children’ (Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser 1864, 2).

In 1865 police descended on Ward’s camp and, finding him absent, detained Maryann, then heavily pregnant, after she:

sprang like a tigress upon one of the police, ribboning his uniform, and taunting him with cowardice for seeking her apprehension instead of Thunderbolt’s, finally challenging them to single combat, and resisting her apprehension with such desperation that forcible means had to be adopted to secure her. (Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser 1865, 2)

Left by police at nearby Wilbie Wilbie station, Maryann and the children were later rescued by Ward and his accomplices.

Maryann was never charged with complicity in Ward’s criminal activities. Yet, in an apparent attempt to capture the bushranger, she was twice arrested and brought to trial. Her first trial followed a charge of vagrancy and was presided over by Magistrate Thomas Nicholls at Stroud. Nicholls found Maryann guilty and sentenced her to six months in Maitland gaol, commencing 4 April 1866. Almost immediately a question was raised in parliament as to whether an Aboriginal person could be charged with vagrancy. The attorney-general found that the case against her had been ‘inaccurately drawn up and therefore would not be supported by the Supreme Court’ (MHNSW-StAC NRS-299-1), resulting in her release two weeks later.

On 15 January 1867 Maryann appeared at the Paterson Court House charged with the theft of fabrics found in her possession. She protested her innocence; however, as she had no receipt, she was held in custody before being gaoled at Maitland for three months. A public outcry followed, leading Magistrate Edward Denny Day to make enquiries on Maryann’s behalf. With Day’s help, Maryann petitioned the governor for early release and was successful, being freed on 27 February 1867. Newspapers reported the release of ‘Mrs Thunderbolt—the “wife” of Frederick Ward’ (Illawarra Mercury 1867, 2).

Reconnecting with Ward, Maryann was sighted with him in September 1867 at Manilla. They were travelling towards Monkerai when the Dungog police picked up their tracks in early October, firing upon Ward who eluded capture once again. A month later the death of a woman called Louisa Mason, reportedly ‘Thunderbolt’s mistress’ (Empire 1867, 3), led to speculation that Maryann and Mason were the same person and, therefore, that Maryann had died. Others have claimed that Maryann left Ward soon after Mason’s death, living out her life in the greater Mudgee area. This scenario posits a fourth child born to Maryann and Ward, Frederick Wordsworth Ward, in 1868, Maryann’s assumption of a new identity or several identities, and her death in 1905.

With so many unknowns, Maryann’s story has lived on, inspiring popular histories, websites, and podcasts. In these she is sometimes accorded the character of a mythical being, the ‘Lady Bushranger.’ Yet, as noted, she was never charged with crimes connected to Ward’s activities. Nor was she declared an outlaw. To her many descendants, such characterisations are not only disrespectful, but also they obscure the reality of her life. An honoured member of the Goori-Bugg family, she is remembered as a stoic Birrpai warrior.

John Heath is a Birrpai Traditional Owner living on Country at Bonny Hills, New South Wales. He is a third-great-grandson of Charlotte Bugg; Maryann Bugg was his second-great-aunt.