Way We Were: Meet the brazen Qld cattle thief who inspired Captain Starlight character
When Queensland resembled the Wild West, there was one brazen cattle rustler who defied the odds of survival — and justice — to become a legend of the outback.
Opinion
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THE Outback was Queensland’s Wild West and Henry Readford became its king pin in 1870, as not even in the wilds of Texas had a rustler ever dared to steal a thousand head of cattle in one go.
Cattle duffing was a common colonial crime, and Readford’s scheme was bigger, better and bolder, than any other.
A young stockman from the Hawkesbury, who was yet to turn 30, he would drive the huge herd 1200km down through western Queensland to South Australia, an area known only to a handful of explorers. Readford’s exploits would inspire the fictional character Captain Starlight and his exoneration by a sympathetic jury would close the Roma courthouse.
Also known as Henry or Harry Redford, or on this occasion, Henry Collins, Readford in company with four other men, built a stockyard in a concealed gully on the Thomson River near Barcaldine, and began helping himself to cattle from the Bowen Downs station.
When the holding yard was full, the cattle were split into three mobs to avoid raising a dust that might give them away, and in March 1870, they set off for southern sale yards. Star of the show was Whitey, a pedigreed pure white stud bull imported from England and worth more than £500. They hadn’t planned to take the distinctive white bull, but Whitey refused to be separated from his cows.
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After three weeks, they had reached the junction of the Barcoo and followed the track blazed by the explorer Edmund Kennedy in 1847. When they were more than 300km south of Bowen Downs, they brought the three herds together as one big bellowing mob.
The daring duffers then drove the mob down Cooper’s Creek and past the stockade of Burke and Wills Camp 65, where, less than a decade earlier in 1861, what we now know as the Dig Tree, was marked. They passed Sturt’s Stony Desert and travelled down the Strzelecki track south of Innamincka without losing a single beast.
At Wallelderdine station, the furthest outpost of polite society in South Australia, the Walke brothers could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw the cloud of dust on the northern horizon of their desert-bound property.
Readford told them he was a Queensland grazier travelling a mob belonging to himself and his brother overland to the saleyards at Port Augusta. Whitey had resisted attempts to drive him away along the route, but the Walke brothers now presented an opportunity to get rid of the prize bull before he could be recognised. They paid three pairs of moleskin trousers, 70kg of flour, 3kg of tea, cream of tartar and baking soda, and plugs of tobacco for him.
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The duffers continued south and at Mount Hopeless Station, an unsuspecting cattleman jumped at the chance to buy the desert mob for £5000. There was no hint of theft, as in all Australian history, cattle duffers had never lifted more than a few head at a time.
The deal done, the drovers quickly left for Adelaide.
Readford was arrested in 1871, but his companions simply vanished. He was charged with stealing 100 bullocks, 100 cows, 100 heifers, 100 steers and one bull, in all a paltry charge considering that the mob was more than 1000.
When the case was tried at Roma in February 1873, the public gallery was crowded with cattle duffers as was the jury box.
The prisoner produced no evidence but his guilt was beyond all doubt, thanks in no small part to that distinctive white bull.
The jury retired at 9pm and returned an hour later with a verdict of not guilty. Judge Blakeney was furious, famously saying, “Thank God, gentlemen, the verdict is yours, not mine,” before slamming the bench with his gavel, and leaving the courtroom in a huff.
A few months later, Roma district court’s criminal jurisdiction was ordered to be shut down for two years.
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Readford was said to be the Captain Starlight of Rolf Boldrewood’s bushranger story Robbery Under Arms released 10 years later, although cattle theft was their only commonality. He was a descendant of convicts, not a noble English family and while Starlight was lean and athletic, Readford was heavily built.
The notorious cattle duffer redeemed himself in later life when he took 3000 cattle from the Barcoo to Brunette Downs in the Northern Territory where he stayed as manager.
He drowned there in March 1901, while trying to cross the flooded Corella Creek, thus ending his colourful career at the age of 59.