Moondyne Joe

**Moondyne Joe** (1826 – 1900), real name **Joseph Bolitho Johns**, is the most famous bushranger from Western Australia. He became famous, not for his crimes, but for his many escapes from gaol (jail).

## Early years
Johns was born in Cornwall, England around 1826. His father Thomas Johns was a blacksmith. He might have had smallpox in his youth, as later his face is said to be "pockmarked". After his father died, Johns and his three brothers worked in the copper mines. In 1841 the family was living at Illogan, Penwith, Cornwall. By 1848 Johns had moved to Wales, working as an iron ore miner, at the Clydach Iron Works.

## Crimes
On 15 November 1848, Johns and a friend, John Williams, were arrested near Chepstow for  stealing from the house of Richard Price, three loaves of bread, one piece of bacon, several cheeses, and "other goods". They were charged with burglary and stealing, but they said they did not steal anything. On 23 March they were tried in court with Sir William Erleas the judge. Newspaper reports say that the men were very determined to prove their , but Johns was not  and did not follow the normal court rules. The men were convicted and sent to gaol for ten years.  Johns must have made the judge angry. In other cases before the same judge that day, people on the same type of charges were sent to gaol for times between three weeks to three months.

Johns and Williams spent the next seven months working on a government work party in the local area, before being sent to Millbank Prison. On 1 January 1850, they were sent to Pentonville Prison to serve six months of solitary confinement.  On 21 October 1851, they were sent to Dartmoor Prison. Johns was sent to the Woolwich prison hulk *Justitia*, probably for bad behavior.  When the *Justitia* was destroyed by fire, he was moved  to the *Defence*.  About a year later, he was put on convict transport ship, the *Pyrenees*, and sent to the British penal colony of Western Australia.

## Moondyne
Johns was a well behaved prisoner, so he was let out early with a ticket of leave in February 1864.  He worked on a farm at Kelmscott. In January 1865 a bullock was killed and eaten, and the police said that Johns had done it. He said he had not killed the animal, but in court he was sent to gaol for ten years. At this time the only things he owned were one pair of trousers, one shirt, one pair of boots, one strap and one old hat. Johns decided he would not stay in gaol because he had not done anything wrong. In November he and another prisoner escaped from a work party. During the next month they robbed a few houses. Johns began calling himself *Moondyne Joe*. They were captured  east of York by the police with help from a black tracker, Tommy Windich. Black trackers were Indigenous Australian who had very good skills for finding things in the bush. For escaping, and for having a gun, Moondyne Joe was sent to prison for 12 months. He had to wear iron chains around his legs. This festival takes place in the main street with street theatre, markets and performances. The most recent Moondyne Festival was on Sunday May 1, 2016.

## Books, movies, music and art
While Moondyne Joe was bushranging in 1869, an Irish prisoner named John Boyle O'Reilly was in Fremantle Prison. He must have heard many stories about Joe's escapes.  In September 1869, O'Reilly escaped with help from an American ship.  After he got to the United States, he wrote a novel about convict life called Moondyne: An Australian Tale, whose main character was called *Moondyne Joe*. The book is not a true story, and the character and the story are different to the life of Joseph Johns.

In 1913, O'Reilly's book was made into a movie called *Moondyne*. Directed by W. J. Lincoln, it starred George Bryant, Godfrey Cass and Roy Redgrave.

Randolph Stow wrote a funny children's book, *Midnite: The Story of a Wild Colonial Boy*, in 1967. This told the story of an Australian bushranger based on the lives of Moondyne Joe and a Queensland bushranger, Captain Starlight.

In 2002, Cygnet Books published *The Legend of Moondyne Joe*, by Mark Greenwood and pictures by Frané Lessac. The book won the award in the Children's Books section at the 2002 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards.

**The Ballad of Moondyne Joe**, a song which started:

*In the Darling Ranges, many years ago*,
*There lived a daring outlaw, by the name of ‘Moondyne Joe’...*.

**Anonymous** 
sung at the time of his 1867 escape:

''The Governor's son has got the pip*, 
*The Governor's got the measles*.  
*For Moondyne Joe has give 'em the slip*,  
*Pop goes the weasel.*

**Anonymous**

*It were Moondyne of course*
*That took Ferguson's horse...''

## References