Claim: Lawrence Kavenagh, Martin Cash and George Jones were a trio of bushrangers who robbed mail coaches, homesteads and inns on a seven-month spree making the Government offer a generous reward of one hundred acres of land or one hundred sovereigns, in addition to the reward of fifty sovereigns, free pardon and passage from the colony, for their capture in July 1843.
Evidence: Lawrence Kavenagh (c. 1805 – 13 October 1846) was a convict bushranger known for escaping from Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land (the so-called escape proof colony), with Martin Cash and George Jones. On 26 December 1842 Lawrence Kavenagh, Martin Cash and George Jones absconded from a work party. Now naked, the trio robbed a road gang's hut for clothing, and began a seven month spree of bushranging and robbing mail coaches, homesteads and inns. In July 1843, the Government offered 'one hundred acres of land or one hundred sovereigns, in addition to the reward of fifty sovereigns, free pardon, and passage from the colony, for the apprehension of' Cash, Jones and Kavenagh. Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under arms" as a way of life, using the bush as their base.