Henry Arthur "Harry" Readford (sometimes spelt Redford) (December 1841 – 12 March 1901), was an Australian stockman, drover and cattle thief. Although Readford himself never used, and had never been associated with the moniker,

Rolf Boldrewood Thomas Alexander Browne (born Brown, 6 August 1826 – 11 March 1915) was an Australian author who published many of his works under the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood. He is best known for his 1882 bushranging novel '' Robbery Under Arms''. Biog ...

indicated that the '

Captain Starlight Frank Pearson (1837–22 December 1899) was an Australian bushranger, operating under the pseudonym ''Captain Starlight.'' Pearson claimed he was the inspiration for a fictional figure of the same pseudonym: the character Captain Starlight in ...

' character, in his 1882–83 novel ''

Robbery Under Arms ''Robbery Under Arms'' is a bushranger novel by Thomas Alexander Browne, published under his pen name Rolf Boldrewood. It was first published in serialised form by ''The Sydney Mail'' between July 1882 and August 1883, then in three volumes i ...

'', was a composite of several infamous people of the era, including Readford and several

bushrangers 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 unde ...

. Readford's 1870 cattle drive was a major

story arc A story arc (also narrative arc) is the chronological construction of plot in a novel or story. It can also mean an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, board games, vid ...

in the book.

Early life

Henry Arthur Redford was born in December 1841 near

Mudgee Mudgee is a town in the Central West of New South Wales, Australia. It is in the broad fertile Cudgegong River valley north-west of Sydney and is the largest town in the Mid-Western Regional Council local government area as well as being th ...

in the Cudgegong District of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

to a respectable family. Little is known of his early life. He originally operated locally, but later moved to

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

where there were more opportunities for duffing.

Bowen Downs Station

In 1870, Redford was working as a stockman on

Bowen Downs Station Bowen Downs Station is a pastoral lease that has operated both as a cattle station and a sheep station. It is located about east of Muttaburra and north west of Aramac in the outback of Queensland. It is watered by the Thomson River and t ...

near

Longreach Longreach is a town and a locality in the Longreach Region, Queensland, Australia. It is the administrative centre of the Longreach Regional Council, which was established in 2008 as a merger of the former Longreach, Ilfracombe, and Isisford ...

. Realising that remote parts of the property, which stretched some along the Thomson River, were seldom visited by station workers, he devised a plan to steal some of the station's cattle. With two associates, George Dewdney and William Rooke, he built stockyards in an outlying part of the property, and gradually assembled a mob of about 1,000 cattle, which he then took from the property, all without any of the station workers realizing what was going on. Redford knew the cattle would be recognised from their brands as being stolen if he tried to sell them in Queensland, so he headed for

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

through the

Channel Country The Channel Country is a region of outback Australia mostly in the state of Queensland but also in parts of South Australia, Northern Territory and New South Wales. The name comes from the numerous intertwined rivulets that cross the region, ...

and the

Strzelecki Desert The Strzelecki Desert is located in the Far North Region of South Australia, South West Queensland and western New South Wales. It is positioned in the northeast of the Lake Eyre Basin, and north of the Flinders Ranges. Two other deserts occup ...

. Only ten years earlier, explorers

Burke and Wills The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61. It consisted of 19 men led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, with the objective of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the ...

had set out to cross the continent along the same track, and died in the attempt. As a

droving Droving is the practice of walking livestock over long distances. It is a type of herding. Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the aid of dogs—has a very long history in the Old World. An owner might entrust an agent to de ...

exercise, it was a remarkable achievement, as anyone who has travelled the present-day Strzelecki Track will know. Three months and later he exchanged two cows and a white bull for rations at Artracoona Native Well near Wallelderdine Station. They then moved the remainder of the mob via Mt Hopeless, and sold them for £5,000 (2009:A$250,000) at Blanchewater Station, east of Marree. Workers at Bowen Downs eventually discovered the yards, and the tracks heading south. A party of stockmen and

Aboriginal tracker Aboriginal trackers were enlisted by Europeans in the years following British colonisation of Australia, to assist them in exploring the Australian landscape. The excellent tracking skills of these Aboriginal Australians were advantageous to set ...

s set out on the trail, many weeks behind Readford. They eventually reached Artracoona where they recognised the white bull. In April 1871 Redford married Elizabeth Jane Scuthorpe at Mrs Elizabeth Nevell's home in Lewis Street, Mudgee, NSW. The couple had at least one child, a daughter, Jemima Mary Elizabeth, in 1872. Readford was apprehended in Sydney in 1872, and faced trial in

Roma, Queensland Roma is a rural town and locality in the Maranoa Region, Queensland, Australia. It is the administrative centre of the Maranoa Region. The town was incorporated in 1867 and is named after Lady Diamantina Bowen (née di Roma), the wife of Sir ...

. However, the jury members were so impressed by his achievements that they found him not guilty, whereupon the judge, Charles Blakeney, remarked, "Thank God, gentlemen, that verdict is yours and not mine!" In response to the verdict, in July 1873, the Government shut down the Roma District Criminal Court for two years but rescinded the order in January 1874. In 1881, several counts of horse stealing resulted in Readford being jailed for eighteen months in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

. After his release, he drove cattle from the Atherton Tableland to Dubbo. In 1883, on behalf of Macdonald, Smith and Company, Readford drove 3,000 cattle which were the first mob taken to

Brunette Downs Brunette Downs Station, mostly referred to as Brunette Downs, is a pastoral lease operating as a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. Location Brunette Downs Station is located in the Northern Territory about north-eas ...

near Corella Creek on the Barkly Tableland in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

where he was the station manager. In 1899 he became the manager of McArthur River Station.

Later life

In 1901 Redford set off from Brunette Downs to explore Central Australia, but (in what one author would later describe as "one of the great ironies of the outback" ), the man who had guided so many travelers to safety drowned on 12 March of that year, while trying to swim across Corella Creek, which had flooded due to heavy rain.

An inspiration for Captain Starlight

Readford became something of a national hero, and the character Captain Starlight in Rolf Boldrewood's book ''

'' was based in part on his exploits. Readford was never himself known by the name of Captain Starlight, which was the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

of the bushranger Frank Pearson. Pearson had adopted the name Captain Starlight in 1868, twenty one years prior to the publication of the novel in 1889, but Boldrewood himself claimed that the Captain Starlight character in his novel was a composite of several bushrangers of the era. These did include Henry Readford, but another key inspiration was

Thomas Law Thomas John Law (born 17 December 1992) is an English actor. He began his career as a child actor, playing Peter Beale in the BBC One soap opera '' EastEnders'' from 2006 to 2010. He was the fifth actor to reprise the role, followed by Ben H ...

, the bushranger better known as Captain Midnight. In particular, the early chapters of ''Robbery Under Arms'' recall Readford's exploits, while the

denouement Dramatic structure (also known as dramaturgical structure) is the structure of a dramatic work such as a book, play, or film. There are different kinds of dramatic structures worldwide which have been hypothesized by critics, writers and schola ...

follows the shoot-out and death of Midnight. An annual Harry Redford Cattle Drive commemorates Readford's exploits as a drover. A range of riders from the city and country participate in this droving expedition, taking part for three days or up to three weeks, at their choice.

References

External links