#Wantabadgery Station

[qnewsau]

NSW heritage listing for graves of gay bushrangers

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/nsw-heritage-listing-for-graves-of-gay-bushrangers/

NSW heritage listing for graves of gay bushrangers

The graves of two Australian bushrangers, who were believed to be a gay couple, have been added to the State Heritage Register by the NSW Government.

The government announced today the final resting place of Captain Moonlite (Andrew George Scott) and James Nesbitt are now on the register.

The graves in Gundagai, 390 kilometres south-west of Sydney, are a rare symbol of 19th century gay male relationships.

The men died within weeks of each other in late 1879 and early 1880, at a time when homosexuality was illegal in NSW, punishable by life imprisonment.

“Captain Moonlite and James Nesbitt were outcasts even among outcasts, who might have lived very different lives in more contemporary times,” said NSW Minister for Heritage Penny Sharpe, in a statement released today.

“This listing on the State Heritage Register reflects the desire to tell the diverse stories that reflect the rich history of NSW,” she said.

Duty MLC for Cootamundra, Stephen Lawrence, said: “The protections afforded to the gravesites in North Gundagai Cemetery through listing on the NSW State Heritage Register ensure that this rare, one-of-a-kind site, and the life story it represents, are preserved.”

Moonlite + Nesbitt

Andrew George Scott – also called Alexander Charles Scott but best known as Captain Moonlite – was born in Ireland on 5 July 1842. Nesbitt, meanwhile, was born in Australia on 27 August 1858.

Moonlite committed his first serious crime in 1869, robbing a bank in Victoria.

After escaping to Sydney, where he was arrested and jailed, Moonlite was extradited to Victoria’s Pentridge Prison, where he met James Nesbitt, who was serving time for petty crimes.

Upon their release, the pair and four other young men moved to NSW where, in 1879, they held up Wantabadgery Station near Gundagai. During a shootout with police, Nesbitt was shot in the head.

It was reported that Moonlite held Nesbitt in his arms, sobbing uncontrollably as the 21-year-old died, on 17 November 1879. According to one report: “[Moonlite] wept over him like a child, laid his head upon his breast and kissed him passionately.”

Together in life – and death

Nesbitt was buried in Gundagai, as were two police officers and another bushranger killed during the shootout.

Moonlite was caught, sent to Sydney and imprisoned. While awaiting trial, he penned multiple letters outlining his bond with Nesbitt.

In one, addressed to Nesbitt’s mother, he wrote: “His hopes were my hopes, his grave will be my resting place, and I trust I may be worthy to be with him where we shall all meet to part no more.”

Moonlite was sentenced to death and executed by hanging on 20 January 1880. He went to the gallows wearing a ring woven from a lock of Nesbitt’s hair.

The authorities, who had not sent any of Moonlite’s letters, did not grant his wish to be buried alongside Nesbitt in Gundagai. Instead, he was interred at Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery.

But, more than a century later, Captain Moonlite’s letters were discovered and two Gundagai women successfully campaigned for his dying wish to be fulfilled.

In January 1995, after 115 years apart, Moonlite’s remains were exhumed from Rookwood and reinterred at the North Gundagai Cemetery, under a eucalyptus tree next to Nesbitt.

The listing of the graves on the State Heritage Register highlights same-sex relationships from a time when they were suppressed and “shows respect for the many histories that shape NSW,” said Stephen Lawrence.

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[queerasfact]

pride 2019 15/30 | captain moonlite

Andrew George Scott’s career as a bushranger began with a dramatic bank robbery featuring the mysterious masked and cloaked Captain Moonlite. While George always denied that he was Moonlite, the debacle eventually landed him in a supposedly inescapable prison. He executed a dramatic prison-break, but was eventually recaptured, and returned to prison, where he met and fell in love with fellow prisoner James Nesbitt. James was waiting at the prison gates for him on his release, and George went on to become a campaigner for improved prison conditions. 19th-century society, however, had no interest in the reform of former criminals, and he eventually turned to bushranging to support himself.

George was executed in 1880 after holding up Wantabadgery Station in New South Wales, and is buried alongside James, with whom he was, in his words “united by every tie which could bind human friendship …one in hopes, one in heart and soul…” 

learn more with queer as fact: a queer history podcast

[qnewsau]

Gay bushranger musical Captain Moonlite comes to Sydney

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/gay-bushranger-musical-captain-moonlite-comes-to-sydney/

Gay bushranger musical Captain Moonlite comes to Sydney

Be gay, do crime! Captain Moonlite: A New Australian Musical is coming to the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre this month and tells the story of Andrew George Scott – Australia’s “gay bushranger!”

When composer Jye Bryant stumbled across the story of a bushranger who had gone to his death with a ring made from another man’s hair on his finger, and who wished to be buried beside him in the same grave, he knew he had to tell it.

Andrew George Scott, AKA Captain Moonlite, first rose to prominence when he was accused of robbing the Egerton gold bank in Victoria in 1869 where he was ministering as an Anglican lay preacher to the miners.

But it was his kidnapping of forty people at Wantabadgery Station in NSW and subsequent shootout with police that resulted in his conviction in the courthouse behind Taylor Square and then hanging in Darlinghurst Gaol in 1880.

His death cell letters suggest a relationship between himself and his main sidekick, a young man named James Nesbitt, who he had lived with on the outside after meeting him in jail, and who died in his arms in the shootout.

“I stumbled across the Moonlite story a fair few years back and I remember thinking that this would make a really interesting musical but I didn’t know how I would go about it until I read those letters, Bryant tells QNews.

“When I did, they spoke so beautifully and passionately to me. Imagining him in his death cell in Darlinghurst Gaol in the midst of his grief for James Nesbitt while having to fight for his own life in court.

“I just knew that would be how I told the story. With him reliving all of the events that had led up to those final hours of his life.”

We exist through the centuries

Bryant says he thinks it’s important for these sorts of stories to be told so that LGBTQIA+ people can see themselves as present in the historical fabric of Australia.

“It’s particularly important for emerging younger queer people to see that there are generations of queer people before them and we as a society should recognise that. We’ve always been here,” Bryant says.

The version of the musical that will greet audiences at its Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre season is actually its third iteration as Bryant has updated the play based on feedback from audiences and historians each time it has been performed since it premiered in Queensland in 2020.

“I’m quite excited to see some of those changes and how audiences will react to them after sitting in on a couple of rehearsals,” Bryant says ahead of the 2024 season.

The Heritage Council of NSW is currently considering adding the Gundagai gravesite of Scott and Nesbitt to the State Heritage Register for their significance in providing “a window into queer relationships in the nineteenth century.”

Bryant would also like to see some form of permanent recognition near Taylor Square.

“Someone who was allegedly part of our community was put to death in the heart of gay Sydney with a ring of his partner’s hair on his finger, yet that story is so invisible when you go there,” Bryant says.

He’d also love to see a future version of the musical staged by the Darlinghurst Theatre Company one day, just a stone’s throw from where Scott’s trial and death played out.

Captain Moonlite: A New Australian Musical is at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre with performances daily from Wednesday, May 15 to Saturday, May 18.

-For more information go to www.casulapowerhouse.com

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.