Bullet-riddled fate of teen who dreamt of being a bushranger

Dozens of police and locals spent days searching the Neerim bush for wannabe-bushranger Henry Maple. Despite being armed with 800 rounds of ammunition, the 15-year-old never stood a chance.

Henry Maple (left) and Robert Banks enjoyed fleeting careers as bushrangers.

In the early hours of the morning, at a farmhouse in the paddocks near Neerim, Mrs Johnstone woke to the sound of a bullet ripping through her kitchen wall.

No further noise came from the inky darkness around the house so she went back to bed, but three hours later when her daughter walked outside about 6.30am, the shooting started again.

Another bullet whistled past, missing the girl by less than a metre.

She ran back inside as another volley of shots — about half a dozen — struck the side of the house.

Out in the paddock, kneeling behind a tree stump was the shooter.

After putting the wind up the Johnstones, he slunk away into the early morning light.

It was April 1922 and Mrs Johnstone couldn’t think of anybody in the tiny country hamlet of Neerim who would be angry or aggrieved enough to do such a thing.

Except one boy.

She started thinking about Henry Maple, just 15 years old.

Newspaper images of teenage bushranger Henry Maple, left, and Neerim local George Woolstencroft who was shot during the search for the young outlaws. Pictures: Trove

On Christmas Day about four months earlier, Maple had been out shooting near the Johnstone’s house and some of the shots came dangerously close.

Mrs Johnstone had gone out and given the lad a talking to, which he didn’t take well.

The teenager was prone to bouts of anger.

But was that incident enough for the boy to return months later and shoot up the Johnstone’s house?

Soon there were more clues. One of the local stores at Neerim had been broken into the evening before the shooting at the Johnstones’.

A huge haul of food and goods had been taken, including a rifle and 1000 rounds of ammunition, and authorities were looking for two culprits.

Mrs Johnstone told police a key detail about young Henry Maple’s twisted psyche that affirmed him as a key suspect: He had once told her that his ambition in life was to become a bushranger, like the notorious sort who roamed Victoria in the late 1800s.

Now, with a fellow teenager as an accomplice, Maple’s dark ambition was playing out, and it was destined to end in violent tragedy.

ON THE RUN

Soon police were hot on the trail of Maple and his accomplice, 18-year-old Robert Banks.

They recovered some of the goods stolen from the store and sought Aboriginal trackers to help search the thick, rugged bushland around Gippsland.

The day after the shooting at the Johnstones, two constables and a detective formed one of the parties scouring the landscape for the fugitive teens.

Hacking through thick scrub, they were met with a rifle shot that pierced Constable Bartils’ hat and tore his skin.

He fell and was attended to, but miraculously the bullet had only grazed his head.

The youths got away but now police hardened their resolve.

The store at Neerim, pictured right, where the youths began their ill-fated crime spree. Picture: Trove

Soon more than 30 officers were on the search, joined by many more locals who kept watch over the paddocks and tree lines.

There was a possible sighting of the pair in an orchard, then word that both boys were armed and were walking the road back towards Neerim to do God-knows-what in the centre of town.

Meanwhile Neerim locals George Woolstencroft and Henry Wilkinson had joined the search and were riding with rifles on a road outside of town when they came across young Robert Banks, alone and unarmed.

He surrendered, and showed the pair where he had stashed a shotgun and hundreds of cartridges nearby.

He was marched back to Neerim and taken in by police, who extracted a disturbing statement from the teenager.

Banks had met Henry Maple in a youth reformatory.

Maple had a troubled home life and while his mother was often in hospital, Maple turned to the sort of behaviour that led him to youth detention.

Maple’s accomplice, 18-year-old Robert Banks, and the thick bushland near Neerim where the teens were on the run. Pictures: State Library of Victoria, Trove

A 1922 newspaper headline about the boys’ crimes. Picture: Trove

Upon release the pair agreed to meet again, and when Banks travelled by train to Gippsland, Maple hatched his plan for the pair to become outlaws.

They broke into the shop in Neerim and took everything they could carry, stowing food and other goods in hiding places on the outskirts of town.

But when they returned to collect some food they had hidden near the Johnstones’ place, it was gone.

Maple had flown off the handle. He blamed the Johnstones for the missing loot.

He shot at the house then waited until the girl emerged and shot again, but Banks wasn’t sure if his unhinged friend had been shooting to kill.

After fleeing to the bush and making a crude shelter to sleep in, the pair agreed to split up so Maple could find a change of clothes, and meet again the following day.

With Banks captured, young Maple was alone in the bush with at least 800 rounds of ammo and an increasingly desperate disposition.

Then Banks revealed a chilling detail about his fellow outlaw.

Maple said he wouldn’t be taken alive.

THE FINAL SHOOTOUT

Soon sightings were pouring in from the paddocks around Neerim, with the armed Maple stalking across several properties.

Police and locals including George Woolstencroft closed the net and soon the boy was in their sights.

Upon seeing the approaching throng of armed men, Maple dived behind a log in the scrub.

Woolstencroft opened fire and the youth returned, hitting Woolstencroft’s rifle with the bullet ricocheting into his arm.

His rifle now damaged, Woolstencroft went for his rifle but Maple was quicker.

A bullet hit Woolstencroft in the back and he was down.

As Woolstencroft was attended to, Maple fled into a gully.

The wounded Woolstencroft was taken to hospital in Warragul while even more searchers flooded the district with intent to shoot Maple on sight.

Police carefully transporting wounded Henry Maple to hospital where he later died. Picture: Trove

It was now more like a hunt than a search.

Within days the mob of farmers and police zeroed in on an area where Maple was likely to be.

Soon the teenager was found behind a fallen tree and when a shot was fired in his direction, he shot back.

But this time he was well and truly outnumbered. A barrage of gunfire slammed the fallen tree and struck the boy down.

He was found bloody and unconscious with a bullet wound between the eyes.

Police carefully took him to hospital but he soon died.

His ill-fated career as a bushranger had lasted five days, and he failed to achieve the notoriety of Ned Kelly or Mad Dog Morgan.

Instead, 15-year-old Henry Maple had the pity and regret of a town who mourned a young man turned bad.