1342. Frank Gardiner (Traditional Australian)

Frank Gardiner, Australia's most mysterious bushranger, was born around 1829 in Ross-shire, Scotland, or possibly in 1832 in Boro Creek settlement near Goulburn, Australia, and died in about 1904 in Colorado, USA. His real name is thought to have been Francis Christie, though he used several aliases such as "Frank Clarke", "The Darkie", "The Prince of Tobymen", "General Gardiner" and "King of the Road". His father was probably Charles Christie, who had traveled to Australia from Scotland before the rest of the family, and his mother was a part aboriginal woman known as Anne Clarke. He is thought to have taken the name Gardiner after a man who lived with his family and taught him how to ride and break in horses.

Together with Ben Hall and Johnny Gilbert, Gardiner was responsible for the largest ever gold robbery in Australia's history, when they held up the Lachlan Gold Escort in 1852. There is still a lot of speculation about what happened to about half the gold that was never recovered. Gardiner was arrested after a large manhunt, living with Kitty Brown, Ben Hall's sister-in-law. She is the Mrs. Brown mentioned in the song. He was sentenced to thirty-two years imprisonment, escaping the death penalty as he had not killed anyone, and released ten years later thanks to intensive lobbying from his sisters. He went to America where he is said to have opened a bar in San Francisco. He is reported to have died in a gunfight in 1895, but more likely died peacefully about eight years later.

There are a number of fragmentary versions of this song, such as "The Only True Account of Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall and Gang" published in Orange, NSW, in the 1890s. This version of the song was reconstructed by John Meredith from various sources and published in "The Penguin Australian Song Book", edited by John Manifold. It has been sung by Warren Fahey among others.

Other songs to this tune are the Irish "Willie Riley" and the Scots song "Tramps and Hawkers". Bob Dylan's "I Pity the Poor Immigrant" also seems to have drawn on this melody.

You can see a playlist of my Australian songs here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0DE11C284435E7A2

For lyrics and chords of all my songs, please see my website: http://www.raymondcrooke.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• folk
• song
• bushranger
• outlaw
• australia
• ben
• hall

[nondepouk]

a very nice song that you are singing with feelings; thank you Raymond

[raymondcrooke]

@nondepouk Merci, Jean.

[liaojunder]

Happy Chinese New Year !!

[raymondcrooke]

@liaojunder 恭喜发财

[coolanddark]

Great song! Sounds a little like `Englands motorway` and `Tramps and Hawkers`! such is the way with folk songs putting new words to old folk songs. Those songs probably borrowed form this song! Sounds great!

[raymondcrooke]

@coolanddark I think "Tramps and Hawkers" would have come first, though no doubt there were earlier songs using that tune. Most Australian songs borrowed their melodies from traditional Irish music - probably because so many Irish came here in the early days as convicts.

[raymondcrooke]

@marcoacca Thanks, Marco. Chinese New Year starts today. All the best for the Year of the Dragon!

[raymondcrooke]

@SirCoughsalot I'll probably do a few more as we are coming up to Australia Day (January 26).

[raymondcrooke]

@1952banjo Thanks, Virginia. These old Australian songs are not even well known here in Australia.

[raymondcrooke]

@diamonddiva1954 Thanks for watching. There are a lot of good songs about Australian bushrangers.