Australian Crimes - BUSHRANGERS. Bushranger. History[edit] More than 2000 bushrangers are believed to have roamed the Australian countryside, beginning with the convict bolters and drawing to a close after Ned Kelly's last stand at Glenrowan.[3] 1850s: gold rush era[edit] The bushrangers' heyday was the Gold Rush years of the 1850s and 1860s as the discovery of gold gave bushrangers access to great wealth that was portable and easily converted to cash.
Their task was assisted by the isolated location of the goldfields and a police force decimated by troopers abandoning their duties to join the gold rush.[3] Australian Bushrangers. Bushranger. Early Australian bushrangers. McFarlane & Erskine, Gold escort attacked by bushrangers, 187-, print: lithograph.
Image courtesy of the : nla.pic-an8420450. Bushranging - living off the land and being supported by or stealing from free settlers - was either chosen as a preferred way of life by escaped or was a result of the lack of supplies in the early settlements. Australia's bushranging period spanned nearly 100 years, from the first convict bushrangers active from 1790 to the 1860s, through the of the 1860s and 1870s who were able to be shot on sight, to the shooting of the in 1880.