Andrew Cunningham’s 1870 Captain Thunderbolt Photographs

On 25 May 1870 the bushranger Frederick Ward (also known as Thun­der­bolt or Cap­tain Thun­der­bolt) was shot and killed by a police trooper named Alex­an­der Wal­ker at Ken­tucky Creek, near Uralla, in northern New South Wales. In the following days an Arm­idale photographer named And­rew Cun­ning­ham captured at least ten photographs pertaining to Ward’s death. These included three relatively well known images of Ward’s corpse and two portraits of Alexan­der Wal­ker (see Figure 2 below). Five much lesser known outdoor scenes were also taken by Cunningham at Ken­tucky Creek, including three photographs of the site where Ward was ‘captured’. Two of these were photographic re-enactments, in which Alex­an­der Wal­ker participated, of the verbal exchange between the men just before their final struggle in the creek. Quite surprisingly, virtually no attention has been paid to the re-enactment photographs in the literature upon Ward. While a reported third photograph of the capture site does not appear extant, a woodcut engraving explicitly made after a Cun­ning­ham photograph was published in the Illustrated Sydney News in July 1870. Other representations of the final struggle between Ward and Walker were also published in the colonial illustrated press and this essay examines its visual representation in both photography and engraved forms.

Frederick Ward/Captain Thunderbolt

Following his escape from the Cocka­too Island penal establishment in Syd­ney Har­bour in 1863,¹Empire, 16 September 1863, p. 4. Fred­e­rick Ward was at large for more than six and a half years and much of his time on the run was spent in northern New South Wales.²For Ward generally see R.B. Walker, ‘Captain Thunderbolt, bushranger’, Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 47, No. 5, 1957, pp. 223–51; Stephan Williams, A ghost called Thunderbolt, Woden, 1987. Despite his habitual reliance upon horse theft and armed robberies, Ward was perceived as a comparatively non-violent and largely independent bushranger and he and his folklore are now central to Uralla’s heritage identity. Like the later Kelly Gang, Ward was the subject of one of the earlier commercial motion films made in Aus­tra­lia (Thunderbolt, 1910; another film, Captain Thunderbolt, was released in 1953). And, like other famous bushrangers, a romanticised and counterfactual folklore has arisen around Ward (including the evergreen assertion that he was not the man Walker killed at Ken­tucky Creek).³See David A. Roberts and Carol Baxter, ‘Exposing an exposé: fact versus fiction in the resurrection of Captain Thun­der­bolt’, Journal of Australian Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2012, pp. 1–15. More generally, see Graham Seal, The outlaw legend: a cultural tradition in Bri­tain, America and Australia, Melbourne, 1996. For his part, Alex­ander Wal­ker received a very substantial reward, medal and other recompense for ‘capturing’ Thunderbolt; he also was transferred to Glen Innes (another New England town about 120 kilometres to the north) and soon after promoted to sergeant.⁴Armidale Express, 27 August 1870, p. 2.

On the day he died Ward had been drinking at the Royal Oak, an inn located on the main Nor­thern Road at Church Gully, about six kilometres south of Uralla (near the landmark now known as Thunderbolts Rock).⁵Ward had been shot by police at Thun­der­bolts Rock (formerly known as Split Rock) in late 1863, soon after he escaped custody in Sydney, but he and an accomplice avoided capture. See Armidale Express, 31 October 1863, p. 2; 7 November 1863, p. 3. Note that, by convention, possessive apostrophes aren’t used in Australian place names. During the day Ward held up the licensee of the Royal Oak, John Blanch and his wife as well as a hawker, Giovanni Cap­pa­sotti; upon being allowed to leave the inn, Cap­pa­sotti disobeyed Ward’s admonitions to steer clear of Uralla as he promptly informed police there of a bushranger’s presence at the Royal Oak. Wal­ker and another trooper set out for the inn, Wal­ker coming upon Ward nearby, riding a horse he had just stolen. Wal­ker accidentally discharged his pistol, Ward returned fire, and a chase to the west between the two men ensued until Ward dismounted at a waterhole in Ken­tucky Creek, near its junction with Chil­cotts Creek, and swam to the opposite bank. Wal­ker shot the stolen horse dead and rode around the waterhole to the opposite bank where he came face to face with Ward at a narrow channel in the creek (Ward had re-crossed to the eastern side). In their final verbal exchange Ward refused to surrender and Wal­ker urged his horse into the creek; during the ensuing struggle he shot Ward at close range and struck him on the head with his spent revolver, apparently killing him. Wal­ker then dragged Ward from the creek and returned to the Royal Oak for assistance. Following a fruitless search during the night, Ward’s body was located early the following morning and taken to the inn where a post mortem examination and Mag­ister­ial Inquiry were held and Ward’s identity confirmed.⁶Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1870, p. 5.

Andrew Cunningham

Thunderbolt’s death was sensational news in the New Eng­land region and Andrew Cun­ning­ham, who appears to have been Armi­dale’s sole resident photographer in 1870, gathered his equipment and set out for nearby Uralla to record events. Born in Mon­trose, Scot­land in 1831, Cun­ning­ham arrived in New South Wales in 1848 as a young assisted migrant.⁷Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, NSW State Archives, [Ship Fairlie], 1848, 4/4786, p. 121; Ken McCarron, A tale of two Scots, Rockdale, 2016, chs. 9–10. When he married Isa­bella Bowers at Armi­dale in 1856 Andrew stated his occupation as sawyer although over the next couple of years he advertised his services as a painter, glazier and decorator.⁸Lionel Gilbert, ‘Andrew Cunningham’, Design and Art Australian Online; NSW Marriage Registration 1009/1856, Andrew Cunningham and Isabella Bowers; Armidale Express, 23 May 1857, p. 5; 31 July 1858, p. 4. The fledgling local pastoral economy having been transformed by a substantial gold rush to the Rocky River near Uralla, Cun­ning­ham expanded into the still comparatively exotic photography business in 1859.⁹Armidale Express, 2 April 1859, p. 2. By 1870 he was well established locally and made every exertion to capitalise upon the substantial demand for information about Fred Ward’s death.

Like most commercial photographers at this time, Cun­ning­ham utilised the collodion process. Generally speaking, collodion glass plate negatives needed to be processed quite quickly—and hence the portable dark rooms associated with the period.¹⁰See J.M. Edar, History of photography, trans. Edward Epstean [1945], New York, 1975 ed., ch. 44. Presumably, Cun­ning­ham made use of a portable dark room as well (likely a specially designed small tent), particularly for the photographs he took in the bush at Ken­tucky Creek. One of the advantages of the collodion process was that it enabled photographers to make positive paper prints (in the popular carte de visite or larger formats). Advertising copy published in June 1870 suggests that Cun­ning­ham hoped to sell Thun­der­bolt prints from his Arm­idale studio for two shillings each; the same source makes it clear that he was well aware that he was in a virtually unique position as far as recording Ward’s demise was concerned.¹¹Armidale Express, 11 June 1870, p. 1. For a relatively obscure rural photographer, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The Thunderbolt Re-enactment Photographs

As noted above, at least ten photographs relating to Fred Ward were taken by Andrew Cun­ning­ham in late May 1870. Fortuitously, the images were described in the Arm­idale Express within days of being executed:

Mr. A. Cunningham has taken several excellent photographs to illustrate the end of Thun­der­bolt, and other matters connected with it. Of Ward’s dead horse there are two views. There are three different views of the spot on which the final struggle took place, Mr. Wal­ker being shown in the same dress and on the same horse as he had when he came up to the W. side of the creek; the reality of the scene being added to by Mr. Smo­ker, of Uralla, representing, on the E. side, Ward—each with weapon levelled at his opponent. To secure a good view, Mr. Cun­ning­ham took the trouble to cut down several trees. Then there are two portraits of Mr. Wal­ker, one being full length; while there are three of Thun­der­bolt, when he was lying dead, after the post-mortem examination. One represents him with his hat off, another with his hat on, and the third is his profile.¹²Armidale Express, 4 June 1870 reprinted 3 June 1921, p. 6. Uralla did not then have its own newspaper but Arm­idale had two, the Armidale Express and Armidale Telegraph. Although neither paper has survived in original form for the couple of weeks following Ward’s death, some of the missing content (such as this excerpt) can be reconstructed from copy reprinted in the Express and other newspapers.

The Mr Smoker referred to in this excerpt likely was James Smo­ker, then licensee of the Uralla Hotel.¹³New South Wales Government Gazette, 24 August 1869, p. 2131; 9 September 1870, p. 1923.

Not all these photographs appear to have survived; however, at least seven are extant, including two of the site of the final struggle.

Figure 3 above is an Andrew Cun­ning­ham carte de visite albumen print held in the State Lib­rary of New South Wales.¹⁴Call Number SPF/3295.Now somewhat faded and partly captioned in pencil at rear ‘The spot where Thun­de­rbolt was captured’, this is plainly one of the re-enactment photographs referred to in the June 1870 Express article. I say ‘one’ as Figure 4 below, held in monochrome (modern) printed form at the Uni­ver­sity of New Eng­land and Reg­io­nal Archives (UNERA) in Arm­idale, is almost certainly another Cun­ning­ham photograph of the same scene.¹⁵‘Capture of Thunderbolt’, Accession No. HRCP3682, UNERA. I thank Dr Philip Ward and Mr Mick Reed of UNERA for their extended assistance with matters raised in this paper. Unfortunately, UNERA does not have any records relating to the provenance, acquisition or original format of this comparatively detailed image; that said, its ‘HRCP’ accession number suggests it was acquired as part of the Arm­idale Col­lege of Advanced Edu­ca­tion Her­i­tage Res­ources Col­lec­tion prior to 1990.

At first sight, the photographs look virtually identical in composition (note the symmetry in the grass tussocks in the creek channel and nearby waterlines, in addition to more permanent landscape features). However, in Figure 4 a different (seemingly bearded) man took the role of Ward. It’s not clear which of the two men ‘playing’ the bushranger was Mr Smoker (or who the second man participating in the re-enactment actually was). In any case, both the 1870 re-enactment images depict the actual location where the final struggle between Wal­ker and Ward had taken place a few days earlier, as well as the nature of the vicinity at that time.

As mentioned earlier, another Cunningham photograph of the Kentucky Creek site was the basis of a woodcut engraving published in the July 1870 issue of the Illustrated Sydney News (Figure 5 below). Not portraying Walker, his horse or a proxy for Ward, the photograph used for the newspaper engraving was likely the third image of the death struggle site mentioned in the 1870 Armidale Express report.

Figure 5 certainly contains scenery clearly identifiable in the other views: in particular, note the narrow channel in the centre foreground, the fallen tree at left, and the distinctive obelisk-like large rock near the water’s edge in the middle distance. In sum, we have a surprisingly detailed photographic (and near-photographic) record of the bush location where Fred Ward was killed in 1870.

The Illustrated Press and Thunderbolt’s Death

Andrew Cun­ningham very likely set about making a detailed photographic record of Ward’s demise with sales to illustrated newspapers at least partly in mind. Of course, the technology to directly print photographs in newspapers did not exist in 1870 (the half tone photographic reproductive process appears to have been first utilised in an Aus­tra­lian paper in early 1888).¹⁶Peter Dowling, ‘1861–62: seminal years in the publishing history of illustrated newspapers in Australia’, La Trobe Journal, No. 88, 2011, p. 26. Rather, wood engravings cut by artists working in the tradition of the Eng­lish master engraver Thomas Bewick were deployed until the very late nineteenth century (and beyond). While comparatively expensive to produce, these hardwood engravings could be integrated beside type with comparative ease and reused many times.

Australian illustrated papers began to be published during the first gold rushes of the 1850s.¹⁷Dowling, ‘Seminal years in the publishing history of illustrated newspapers in Australia’, pp. 18–19. The earliest publications were often short-lived although by mid 1870 two illustrated journals were published in Syd­ney as well as others in Mel­bourne and Adel­aide. This meant that Cun­ning­ham could look beyond the predominantly local (or perhaps regional) market for the carte de visite prints he made and sold from his isolated Arm­idale studio. Thus, in addition to the death struggle site engraving (Figure 5 above), a Cun­ning­ham photograph of Alexan­der Wal­ker expressly was utilised as the basis of a engraved portrait published in the Aus­tra­lian Town and Coun­try Jour­nal in June 1870.¹⁸Australian Town and Country Journal, 18 June 1870, p. 24.While not explicitly attributed, the engraved portraits of Wal­ker and Ward that appeared in the Illus­tra­ted Syd­ney News a week or so earlier (Figure 1 above for Ward) also appear to follow Cun­ning­ham photographs of Wal­ker and Ward’s cadaver.¹⁹Illustrated Sydney News, 8 June 1870, p. 1. We don’t know what fees Cunningham received for this work but the ultimate value of the photographs to the illustrated newspapers lay in their perceived authenticity (albeit published in a comparatively low resolution engraved form).

In fact, both of Syd­ney’s illustrated newspapers published engravings purporting to represent the final moments of Ward’s life as soon as they possibly could. However, unlike Cun­ning­ham’s carefully constructed photography record, the earliest published engravings were created with little regard for factual veracity.

Consider the very first published engraving (Figure 6 above) of the struggle at Ken­tucky Creek, which appeared in the newly-established Aus­tra­lian Town and Coun­try Jour­nal on 4 June 1870. Alexan­der Wal­ker was the only surviving witness to events at Ken­tucky Creek (and he was hardly a disinterested observer); however, Figure 6 departs from Wal­ker’s accounts of events in a number of ways. Firstly, Ward’s (stolen) horse was killed by Wal­ker some distance away from the narrow creek channel where he subsequently shot Ward. Secondly, Wal­ker was not in his police uniform that day (and had no sabre). Third, Wal­ker was mounted throughout the final struggle. These embellishments can be contrasted with Cun­ning­ham’s re-enactments, where Wal­ker was in the same clothes and on the same horse as the day he killed Ward (and where, for practical reasons, Ward’s dead horse was recorded as a separate subject altogether).²⁰See Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1870, p. 5 for Wal­ker’s evidence to the Mag­ister­ial Inquiry held at Uralla on 26 May.

Despite Ward’s reputation as a relatively non-violent bushranger, the Town and Country Journal’s engraver also equipped him with three revolvers (he was only armed with one at the time he died, and it was jammed). Earlier, Ward had dropped another revolver later found near the Nor­thern Road. The former point, among other criticisms, was made by the bemused editor of the Armi­dale Express upon receiving the Sydn­ey paper by post. ‘We have never heard more hearty laughing in Arm­idale’, he said of the illustration’s local reception.²¹Armidale Express, 11 June 1870, p. 2. ‘Really, a copy of it should be sent to the Syd­ney Museum’, he continued in a sarcastic vein.²²Armidale Express, 11 June 1870, p. 2. Other engravings with similar content also appeared in June 1870 (Figures 8 and 9 below).

Again, dramatic license played a significant part in the creative process. In addition to compressing and embellishing events, the engravers depicted Wal­ker in a more heroic manner. For example, in both illustrations Ward seems to be trying to escape rather than struggling with Wal­ker (as Wal­ker himself deposed). To be fair, it’s possible that the first engraving published in Syd­ney ten days after Ward died was executed (at least partly) from initial summary intelligence sent from New Eng­land by telegraph. On the whole, however, commercial prerogatives seem to have guided the composition of the Cap­tain Thun­der­bolt capture engravings published in June 1870.

Cunningham’s Photographs in Thunderbolt Literature

Until quite recently the Cun­nin­gham re-enactment photos have not been utilised as evidence (or even for illustration purposes) within the diverse body of published literature that now exists upon Ward. They can thus be contrasted with Cun­ning­ham’s photographs of the dead bushranger—at least one of which tends to be reproduced whenever Ward is discussed in any detail.²³See, for example, Williams, A ghost called Thunderbolt, pp. 148–49; Robert Cummins, Thunderbolt: a biography of the last of New South Wales’ notorious bushrangers, Moree, n.d., pp. 114, 121. It would appear that most writers simply have not been aware of the survival of the 1870 Ken­tucky Creek photos. While the re-enactment scene held at UNERA (Figure 4) has been utilised recently, I’ve not come across any reference to Figure 3. However, the survival of this authentic Cun­ning­ham print is valuable not only for its own sake—but also because it very strongly suggests that the poorly documented re-enactment image held at UNERA (Figure 4) was taken by the same photographer at the same time and place.

Kentucky Creek Today

The 1870 re-enactment photos are also valuable for the detail they provide of the locale where Wal­ker shot Ward as the landscape has changed in this vicinity due to the construction downstream of Uralla’s town water supply dam (completed in 1945).²⁴Armidale Express, 10 October 1945, p. 8. The general site of Ward’s death recently was re-identified due to the discovery of the obelisk-shaped rock pictured in a re-enactment photograph (presumably Figure 4 held at UNERA; the rock is also evident in Figures 3 and 5).²⁵Armidale Express, 11 December 2015. Curiously, And­rew Cun­ning­ham was not mentioned by name in the press report just cited—despite his work being central to these modern investigative efforts.

Andrew Cunningham’s Later Career

Cunningham continued to work in Arm­idale for many years, opening a new studio in 1887.²⁶Armidale Express, 12 August 1887, p. 4. Notwithstanding his pioneering and long career in a rural Aus­tral­ian context, he remains an obscure figure from a scholarly point of view—particularly given the comparatively large body of historical research that has been published upon the Arm­idale district.²⁷In addition to scholarly work by academics at the University of New England, the local historical society journal has regularly been published for sixty years. In 1902, after almost 50 years’ residence, Cun­ning­ham moved to the New­castle harbour suburb of Car­ring­ton, citing the comparative severity of the New Eng­land winters.²⁸Armidale Express, 24 January 1902, p. 5.

It seems likely, however, that the move partly was spurred by humiliating events which unfolded in 1900 when Cun­ning­ham’s son And­rew was convicted of perjury at the Arm­idale Quar­ter Ses­sions and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. And­rew Cun­ning­ham senior, his daughter-in-law and grandchildren were all caught up in proceedings as defence witnesses and Judge Hey­don criticised their evidence in the strongest terms. ‘It has been one of the most shocking exhibitions I have ever witnessed’, he said of the family’s dubious testimony (apparently cobbled together in an ill-fated attempt to save And­rew junior from prison).²⁹Armidale Chronicle, 12 December 1900, p. 4. Heydon blamed And­rew junior for the apparent false testimony given by his family and this would appear to have contributed to the relatively harsh sentence that was imposed. Andrew Cunningham senior died at Newcastle in 1910 and was buried at Sand­gate Cemetery.³⁰New South Wales Death Registration 7638/1910, Andrew Cunningham; Newcastle Morning Herald, 24 May 1910, p. 6. While he may have left Arm­idale with his reputation under a cloud, Cun­ning­ham’s Cap­tain Thun­der­bolt photographs remain significant visual sources for the early history of the New Eng­land region.

© 2018, Andrew Messner. All rights reserved.

Endnotes

• 1
  Empire, 16 September 1863, p. 4. ↩︎
• 2
  For Ward generally see R.B. Walker, ‘Captain Thunderbolt, bushranger’, Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 47, No. 5, 1957, pp. 223–51; Stephan Williams, A ghost called Thunderbolt, Woden, 1987. ↩︎
• 3
  See David A. Roberts and Carol Baxter, ‘Exposing an exposé: fact versus fiction in the resurrection of Captain Thun­der­bolt’, Journal of Australian Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2012, pp. 1–15. More generally, see Graham Seal, The outlaw legend: a cultural tradition in Bri­tain, America and Australia, Melbourne, 1996. ↩︎
• 4
  Armidale Express, 27 August 1870, p. 2. ↩︎
• 5
  Ward had been shot by police at Thun­der­bolts Rock (formerly known as Split Rock) in late 1863, soon after he escaped custody in Sydney, but he and an accomplice avoided capture. See Armidale Express, 31 October 1863, p. 2; 7 November 1863, p. 3. Note that, by convention, possessive apostrophes aren’t used in Australian place names. ↩︎
• 6
  Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1870, p. 5. ↩︎
• 7
  Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, NSW State Archives, [Ship Fairlie], 1848, 4/4786, p. 121; Ken McCarron, A tale of two Scots, Rockdale, 2016, chs. 9–10. ↩︎
• 8
  Lionel Gilbert, ‘Andrew Cunningham’, Design and Art Australian Online; NSW Marriage Registration 1009/1856, Andrew Cunningham and Isabella Bowers; Armidale Express, 23 May 1857, p. 5; 31 July 1858, p. 4. ↩︎
• 9
  Armidale Express, 2 April 1859, p. 2. ↩︎
• 10
  See J.M. Edar, History of photography, trans. Edward Epstean [1945], New York, 1975 ed., ch. 44. ↩︎
• 11
  Armidale Express, 11 June 1870, p. 1. ↩︎
• 12
  Armidale Express, 4 June 1870 reprinted 3 June 1921, p. 6. Uralla did not then have its own newspaper but Arm­idale had two, the Armidale Express and Armidale Telegraph. Although neither paper has survived in original form for the couple of weeks following Ward’s death, some of the missing content (such as this excerpt) can be reconstructed from copy reprinted in the Express and other newspapers. ↩︎
• 13
  New South Wales Government Gazette, 24 August 1869, p. 2131; 9 September 1870, p. 1923. ↩︎
• 14
  Call Number SPF/3295. ↩︎
• 15
  ‘Capture of Thunderbolt’, Accession No. HRCP3682, UNERA. I thank Dr Philip Ward and Mr Mick Reed of UNERA for their extended assistance with matters raised in this paper. ↩︎
• 16
  Peter Dowling, ‘1861–62: seminal years in the publishing history of illustrated newspapers in Australia’, La Trobe Journal, No. 88, 2011, p. 26. ↩︎
• 17
  Dowling, ‘Seminal years in the publishing history of illustrated newspapers in Australia’, pp. 18–19. ↩︎
• 18
  Australian Town and Country Journal, 18 June 1870, p. 24. ↩︎
• 19
  Illustrated Sydney News, 8 June 1870, p. 1. ↩︎
• 20
  See Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1870, p. 5 for Wal­ker’s evidence to the Mag­ister­ial Inquiry held at Uralla on 26 May. ↩︎
• 21
  Armidale Express, 11 June 1870, p. 2. ↩︎
• 22
  Armidale Express, 11 June 1870, p. 2. ↩︎
• 23
  See, for example, Williams, A ghost called Thunderbolt, pp. 148–49; Robert Cummins, Thunderbolt: a biography of the last of New South Wales’ notorious bushrangers, Moree, n.d., pp. 114, 121. ↩︎
• 24
  Armidale Express, 10 October 1945, p. 8. ↩︎
• 25
  Armidale Express, 11 December 2015. ↩︎
• 26
  Armidale Express, 12 August 1887, p. 4. ↩︎
• 27
  In addition to scholarly work by academics at the University of New England, the local historical society journal has regularly been published for sixty years. ↩︎
• 28
  Armidale Express, 24 January 1902, p. 5. ↩︎
• 29
  Armidale Chronicle, 12 December 1900, p. 4. Heydon blamed And­rew junior for the apparent false testimony given by his family and this would appear to have contributed to the relatively harsh sentence that was imposed. ↩︎
• 30
  New South Wales Death Registration 7638/1910, Andrew Cunningham; Newcastle Morning Herald, 24 May 1910, p. 6. ↩︎