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By Carol Baxter
It was once the biggest financial institution theft in Australian historical past. On Sunday 14 September 1828, thieves tunnelled via a sewage drain into the vault of Sydney's financial institution of Australia and stole 14 000 in notes and funds - the similar of $20 million in latest foreign money. This audacious staff of convicts not just defied the weekly exhortation 'thou shalt no longer steal!', they specific the financial institution owned by means of the colony's self-anointed the Aristocracy.
Delighted at this affront to their betters, Sydney's principally felony and ex-criminal inhabitants did all they can to undermine the experts' makes an attempt to seize the robbers and retrieve the spoils. whereas the determined financial institution administrators provided more and more huge rewards and the govt officials forged longing appears on the gallows, the robbers persisted to elude detection. Then in the future .
With a wealthy solid of characters who refused to abase themselves to the institution, this meticulously researched and fast moving background tells the tale of the bold financial institution of Australia theft and of the scheming robbers, grasping receivers and unlucky suspects whose lives have been irrevocably replaced via this outrageous crime.
On An impossible to resist Temptation
'. a piece that captures the reader. . . a great instance of ways an outstanding tale can remove darkness from the past.' - affiliate Professor Gregory Melleuish, Australian Literary Review
'. [told] with a very good eye for the advanced motivations, either political and private, of characters [Baxter] paints a vibrant photograph of Jane New's world.' - Dr Kirsten McKenzie, Sydney Morning Herald
'. [a] vibrant social history.' Canberra Times
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Extra info for Breaking the Bank: An Extraordinary Colonial Crime
Sample text
Blackstone soon learnt that the system was even harsher than the Governor had intimated. He didn’t need to break the rules to be punished—being a ‘bad character’ was enough. Once men like Blackstone were caught in the penal system, their fate was partly beyond their own control. Those blessed with a docile nature generally passed through the system more smoothly than the defiant, particularly when assigned to a kindly rather than an ill-tempered, unreasonable or even sadistic master. Perhaps Blackstone suffered under a difficult master in these first couple of years; more likely he was by nature rebellious or intransigent.
The bank played an important role in the development of the New South Wales economy and contributed to the penal settlement’s evolution from an autocratically administered and restricted gaol to a free market capitalist economy. Nonetheless, some groups within the community were unhappy with the bank’s direction. As the settlement evolved, the voices of the people clamoured to be heard. Liberals like William Charles Wentworth, who supported the small settlers and emancipated convicts, demanded concessions from the government and from the colony’s social leaders, the conservative ‘exclusives’.
Blackstone was soon recaptured. In January 1820 he again faced Police Magistrate Wentworth. The magistrate made no allowance for justification, if any was offered. He sentenced the runaway to another year’s servitude among the 1200 or so unreformed and largely unrepentant prisoners at Newcastle. Blackstone was returned to Newcastle’s blacksmiths’ workshop, only to face further problems soon afterwards when property reportedly stolen from the hospital stores was found in his possession. He incurred the wrath of ‘King Lash’, as one visitor to Newcastle’s penal settlement dubbed the Commandant.