Obituaries Australia

A notorious criminal who was well known in Australia, named Henry Garrett, died recently in New Zealand. He is the bushranger who has spent no less than 50 Christmas days in gaol. He died at Wellington on September 2 at the age of 72. The criminal career of Garrett has been a very long one. In 1842 [i.e. 1845] he was sent to Norfolk Island for 10 years for an offence committed at Birmingham. His daring robbery at a bank at Ballarat in 1865, when he secured some £6000 with which he made his way to London, will be fresh in the mind of old Victorians. The robbery was done in broad daylight. Garrett posted a notice on the bank door that it would be closed for an hour and then entering the building, presented a revolver at the heads of the officials. On being taken out to Australia he was tried, and received a sentence of 10 years. He was present when Mr. Price, at one time superintendent of the convict establishments in Victoria, was murdered by the prisoners. Coming to New Zealand on the breaking out of the diggings he resumed his career of crime, and at Maungatua "stuck up" and tied to trees no less than 17 men. Since then most of his time has been spent in gaol. When released in 1882, he for a time devoted himself to contributing biographies to a Christchurch newspaper of several noted criminals in the colonial goals. By a strange chance, the foreman of the jury who held the inquest on the deceased in Wellington was one of the victims stuck up by Garrett in Otago many years before. He had given Garrett a ride in a waggon which he was driving some days before the robbery and on being reproached with a want of gratitude, Garrett released him without making a search. The man had in his possession at the time some £900 worth of gold. It is to be said of Garrett's long career of crime that he never took the life of any of his victims and so he contrasts favorably with other well-known bushrangers.