By B J Nelson
First Published in 2005
Copyright BJ Nelson
ISBN 0-9758206-0-5

Reviewed by Barry Sinclair Dec 2005.

At no time in this review, do I intend to comment on the stories concerning Will Monckton as they are outside of my field of Family History research and I am sure the author would have a far more accurate knowledge of Will Monckton than I could possibly have. My research is an attempt to clarify and correct the stories of the life of Thunderbolt, which so many authors fail to do. This book is no exception.

In his introduction Barry Nelson says "Noel William Sadler's publication 'The Life and Legend of Thunderbolt' (1988) brought my attention to the fact of the misquoted death of Mary Ann in November 1867". The death of Mary Ann in November, 1867 is accepted in Police records as being a fact. This is an example of the need to do further research when writing a book and not to take as gospel the research done by other authors.

On page 14 in Chapter 2, Barry Nelson has "From the Windsor area, it appears that the Ward family moved to Maitland about 1846. The 1837 census records a family comprising Michael Thompson Handley Ward, Sophia (Wife), Sarah (12), Emily (8), George (4), Joshua (6), Hester (2) and Selina (1 month). However he goes on to note that neither William nor Frederick were listed." He has taken this information directly from the poor research on page 8 of Bob Cummins book.The Census was, in fact, dated 1828 not 1837 & can be found in the Newling Library in Armidale. My g-g-grandmother Sarah was born in 1815 making her 12 when the census was taken early in 1828, certainly not 12 in 1837, when Nelson claims the census was taken. He goes on to question why William & Fred were not mentioned in the census. William (b 1829) & Frederick (b 1933) were not even born then, so that is why they were not recorded. This is a typical example of much of the author's poor quality research, in accepting material directly from other authors without conducting his own research fully.

In the first paragraph on page 15 the author has "The death certificate of Hanley Thomson Ward in 1859 list as the children as Sarah (40) Amelia (38) Joshua (36) Esther (36) Selina (32) William (30) Frederick (30)......... this is most likely the correct family." With a little more checking he would have found there were other children Sophia (b. 1809), Edward George (b. 1821), George Edward (b. 1824), & Harriet (b. 1833) were also children of Michael Hanley Thompson Ward but had all predeceased him, again showing his failure to find all the relevant details, also as often happens in death certificates many of the ages of the children are incorrect. Sarah was in fact 44, Esther was 32, and Frederick was 26 not 30. In quoting such precise and provable details, a true researcher needs to be correct.

Again on page 15 the author has "In 1856, Frederick with his brother William (William was his uncle not his brother), was associated with their nephews, John and James Garbutt (Fred's half brothers) in a large scale cattle stealing business....." yet two pages later he goes on to say "James Garbutt was found guilty of stealing the horses and Ward guilty of receiving". He makes no mention of the fact that the police could find NO PROOF of the involvement of Fred Ward in the stealing of the horses.

On page 18 the author says, "It is understood that Mary Ann attended St. John's School at Stroud, receiving a fairly reasonable education............ Her siblings were, John (1836), Eliza (1841), James (1843) Jane (1845), and Elizabeth (1847). Soon after the birth of Elizabeth their mother died. Her father remarrying in 1848 to Charlotte Derby (b. 1813) they subsequently had a son Thomas." In actual fact Mary Ann was sent to a school in Sydney in 1840 either at Parramatta or the Anglican Cathedral school in Sydney paid for by the AAC. This was done in reparation for forcing her mother, Elizabeth, & her father, James, to be separated as it was against company policy for staff to cohabitate with an Aboriginal person. He later took up with Charlotte Derby , a half English/Aboriginal girl born in Sydney in 1814 of an English father, who the company considered to be acceptable, & they married several years later. The children William (1841) V1841-1200 49, James (1843) V1843-1201 49 Jane (1845) V1845-1202 49 and Elizabeth (1847) V1847-1203 49, were, according to their birth certificates, all the children of James and Charlotte. They were baptised together on the day of their parents wedding BDM V1848-607 78 at St Stephen's Church Port Macquarie. Eliza was born in 1837 not 1841 as stated by the author but there is no record of her baptism. It appears that she was the third child of James and Elizabeth, born just before they separated, and reared by Elizabeth's Aboriginal family. Records show how Eliza was treated differently to all the other children of James Bugg

On page 20 the author says, "Police records show Britten to have been a native of Hobart, although it is universally stated that he was born at West Maitland." In fact it is universally stated that Fred Britten was born in Windsor & was known by Fred Ward while living there before the Ward family left for West Maitland. Again the author says "Stealing clothes at the Hawkesbury River Ferry, they headed north - Ward dressing as a woman." The clothes were taken from a house in Balmain not at the Hawkesbury.

Throughout this book the author excessively uses paper and police reports, often with no relationship to the story being told. An example of the misuse of of material is shown on page 42, Chapter 7 " Mary Ann". He starts with a half page extract from the "Sydney Mail" Saturday 2nd January 1892 titled "NEATNESS" which has nothing to do with Mary Ann and he even places it in bold printing making it a total waste of space. Again at the beginning of Chapter 5 "1866 - A Quite Year" he has a copy of a letter dated 28th November, 1868 taking up a full page, which again is totally irrelevant to the topic. He then goes on to try and show why it was a quite year but finds no adequate reason. A little research would have shown "When his third daughter Mary Ann was to be born at Wallabadah in August 1866 he took about 9 months off from being a bushranger. He was even known to have worked on a property to the west of Wallabadah township during that period, without being troubled by the police. This would make him the first Australian male to take "paternity leave" , indicating his great love for Mary Ann."

On page 34 there is a drawing which the author claims is a drawing of Frederick Ward and Jemmy "the whisperer" - proper research would have shown that this is not a drawing of Fred Ward but of Kelly and Jemmy the Whisperer. See Bob Cummins "Thunderbolt" page 55. The one Barry Nelson claims to be Thunderbolt does not look like other photos of Fred Ward.

Rather than continue on showing the poor quality of this research, as it would take up more space than used by the book itself, I asked an independent book seller for his thoughts on this book and was given these words as a review, "Total rubbish, poorly researched and poorly written. I certainly will not be selling it" It is interesting how many authors will critisise the present day journalists for their lack of accuracy and bias, yet when it comes to researching our history accept the newspaper reports of the time as thought they contained absolute truth. More thorough research shows that, in so many cases they just pushed their own version of a story, showing their own personal biases.

In the Acknowledgments on page 6 of the book the author mentions the help he has received in his efforts to research this book at the various libraries. Yet he did not even try the Newling Research Centre in Armidale which, from my own research, has the most complete and uptodate material on Thunderbolt. Much of the material you will not find in other research centres.

You will find all the material studied and copied by both Bob Cummins and Stephan Williams, which they had obtained from all of the other centres in preparation for their books, plus other valuable material, some of which they included and some that they rejected. In several cases the material they rejected can now be proven to be more correct than what was actually used. Anyone intending to write a book on Thunderbolt and not checking this material is wasting their time and only kidding themselves on the quality of their research.

For those wishing to learn the truth about the life of Fred Ward I would not recommend this book as a purchase to anyone. I find it is a total waste of one's money and does nothing to assist in sorting fact from fiction, but duplicates many of the provable errors found in other books.