Benn Hall

Early life

Ben Hall was born on 29 April 1837, in Maitland (though some reports say Breeza, in the Hunter Valley of NSW. His parents were Benjamin Hall (b. Bristol 1802) and Eliza Somers (b. Dublin 1807), both convicted for minor stealing offences and transported to New South Wales. They married in 1834 and had numerous children; Ben junior was the third. After they received tickets of leave they moved to the Hunter Valley and Benjamin senior squatted on a small area of land in an isolated valley. Here Benjamin built a rough hut and began raising cattle and collecting any wild cattle and horses he could find in the hills. In 1842 he bought a small block of land near Murrurundi where he established a butcher shop. The family were hard working but there were numerous brushes with the law regarding the dubious ownership of cattle and horses. About the end of 1850 Ben senior moved down to the Lachlan River area taking with him some of children Ben junior, William, Mary and stepson Thomas Wade. It appears that Ben junior never returned to Murrurundi although his father did in 1851. Young Ben worked on numerous cattle properties along the Lachlan and gained a reputation as a hard working and reliable stockman.[citation needed]

In 1856, aged 19, Hall married Bridget Walsh (1841-1923) at Bathurst[1]. One of Bridget's sisters was the mistress of Frank Gardiner's; another sister married John Maguire. On 7 August 1859 Ben and Biddy had a son, also named Benjamin. In 1860 Ben Hall and John Maguire jointly leased the "Sandy Creek" run of 10,000 acres about 50km south of Forbes. Hall built a house, sheds and stockyards and established a stock of cattle which he sold at the Lambing Flat goldfield. This was where he met Frank Gardiner.

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Bushranger

What happened next in his life remains shrouded in mystery, but circumstances and chance caused Ben Hall to turn from a successful grazier to an infamous bushranger. By early 1862 his marriage was in trouble and Biddy left to live with a man named Taylor.[citation needed] At this time there were many highwaymen operating around the area where Ben Hall lived and he would have known most of them. Robbery became almost a way of life for many young men. In April 1862 Ben was arrested on the orders of Inspector Sir Frederick Pottinger for an incident in which a teamster was robbed. Hall was acquitted of the charge but when he returned to Sandy Creek all his cattle and horses were gone.

He was soon involved with Frank Gardiner and on 15 June 1862