The Clarke Gang : Outlawed, Outcast and Forgotten

Before the Clarke gang burst onto the public stage most people thought the worst of the bushranging menace that had plagued rural New South Wales since the beginning of the decade was a thing of the past.

They soon found they were wrong. The Clarke gang became arguably the worst or most troublesome bushrangers of all time.

The gang terrorised an area stretching from present day Canberra to the coast from 1865 to 1867, intimidating, assaulting, robbing and murdering police and civilians alike.

At the heart of the bushranging outbreak was an entrenched network of harbourers and sympathizers whose support for the bushrangers eclipsed all other gangs.

Family ties and loyalties bound a community accustomed to petty crime, where horse stealing and cattle duffing was the norm.

The Clarke Gang, Outlawed, Outcast and Forgotten explores the root and cause of the bushranging outbreak, the outlawing of Tommy Clarke and Pat Connell, the murders that made them outcasts and asks the question, why they have been virtually forgotten while another bushranger, Ned Kelly has become the most well-known figure in Australian history?