FORBES, NSW. — Frank Gardiner was born Francis Christie in 1829, in Scotland. He was first convicted of horse stealing in Victoria in 1850, and sentenced to five years’ hard labour in Pentridge Gaol.
After escaping a year later, he took up bushranging in the district around Goulburn, New South Wales. He was arrested again for horse stealing in 1854 and sent to Sydney’s infamous Cockatoo Island.
He was released five years later on a ticket-of-leave, on condition that he remain in the Carcoar district and regularly report to the police. He broke parole by heading straight to the Kiandra gold diggings in the New South Wales high country.
After a brief stint as a butcher near Lambing Flat (now Young, NSW) he gradually fell back into a life of crime, progressing from horse and cattle stealing to highway robberies under arms, violent assaults, and the attempted murder of two police officers.
On June 15, 1862, together with Ben Hall and Johnny Gilbert, Gardiner bailed up the Lachlan Gold Escort in Eugowra Rock, near Forbes.
This hold-up is still considered the largest-ever gold robbery in Australia’s history. The total value of the 2,700 ounces of gold taken was estimated at £14,000.
Almost half of the gold was recovered by mounted police following a raid on one of the Gardiner hideouts in the Weddin Mountains near Forbes in NSW.
After initially disappearing from the scene, Gardiner was later recognised at Apis Creek near Rockhampton, Queensland. He served ten years of a thirty-year sentence before heading off to California.
There has been much speculation about two Californians who arrived in Wheogo in 1912, posing as mining prospectors.
After digging up the area around Gardiner’s former camp and departing with their specimen bags full, it has been speculated that they were Gardiner’s sons returning for the remaining gold.
