Who was John Vane?

John Vane will be best remembered for the time he spent with the Hall/Gilbert gang of bushrangers during 1863. It was while in connection with Vane the gang conducted some of their most audacious activities including:

• the first daylight bank holdup in the colony at Carcoar,
• raid the town of Bathurst,
• seize the town of Canowindra with all its residents and travellers,
• disarm and relieve three troopers of their uniforms and tie them to trees,
• attack on gold commissioner HM Keightley at Dunn's Plains,
• visit numerous properties such as Louden's Grubbenbong Station, Icely's Coombing Park, Edmond's Demondrille Station, Rothery's Cliefden and William Lawson Jnr's Errowanbang, and
• bail up coaches, gold buyers, chinamen, store owners and others.

John Vane was the only member of the gang of 1863 to survive. He surrendered to Carcoar's resident priest Father Tim McCarthy in November 1863. The other members of 1863 included Ben Hall, John Gilbert, John O'Meally and Micky Burke who all died by the bullet, either by private citizens or police.

Can you help?

Maybe you or someone you know can provide information on characters in the story. Why not visit my People page to see who I'm keen to obtain more information about.

I'm also keen to identify historically significant sites. If you or someone you know has information on the places the gang or other characters in the story lived, visited or made camp etc why not visit the Places page to see what I'm looking for.

Maybe it's been a while since we've corresponded and in the meantime you've come across someone or something that might be of interest. Either way I'd be delighted to hear from you or your friends and colleagues. Use the Contact page to get in touch.

Google map

This Google map identifies the location of sites significant to the John Vane and Hall/Gilbert gang.

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