Bushrangers Andrew Scott

BUSHRANGER PROFILES

Andrew Scott (Captain Moonlite)

Andrew Scott alias Captain Moonlite.
Published in The Australasian sketcher

From full charge sheet when Scott was
committed to Pentridge in 1872

Andrew Scott (Captain Moonlite) was born in 1845, County of Down, Ireland (although some sources claim 1842). His father was a clergymen who wanted him to train for the Church. However, he trained as a civil engineer instead, after receiving a very good school education.

He arrived in Sydney from New Zealand in 1868 and moved to Melbourne where he obtained a licence to act as a Lay Preacher first at Bacchus March and then at Egerton.

In May 1869 he robbed the local branch of the London Chartered bank of over a thousand pounds in gold and money. He then wrote a note exonerating the Manager and signed it 'Captain Moonlite'. However, the manager had recognised him and testified that it was Scott who had committed the robbery. Scott immediately pleaded his ignorance and suggested that the Manager and School Teacher (who recognised his writing) had robbed the bank themselves, and were now trying to shift the blame. Scott was believed (after all, since when do Ministers of Religion carry out robberies) and, although the charges against both men were dismissed through lack of evidence, they both lost their jobs.

Scott fled with the money to Sydney where he mixed with the cream of Society, posing as a wealthy squatter down from the western districts. When he had spent the money some of his cheques bounced, including one with which he had bought a yacht in 1870 intending to sail to Fiji . He was arrested the night before he sailed.

He was sentenced to 18 months' gaol for fraud in Sydney and was then sent back to Victoria where he was sentenced in Ballarat to ten years for the Egerton robbery.

Scott was released in 1879, when the Kellys were becoming notorious, and gave a series of lectures about the brutality of the prison system .

Calling himself "Captain Moonlite" (thought to be after American criminal Archie Telford who used the alias) he formed a gang and took to the roads. On 13 November 1879 the gang robbed the store at Clarendon, near Wagga Wagga. >From there they bailed up MacDonald's station and the Inn at Wantabadgery holding some 30 captives. One of these men escaped and raised the alarm. When the police arrived there was a gun battle and the bushrangers escaped on horseback to a McGlede's farm where they had a shoot out with another party of police commanded by Sergeant Carroll.

During the gun fight Senior Constable Edward Webb Bowen was shot dead and Wernicke and Nesbitt were killed. The rest of the gang surrendered and were taken to Sydney for trial where they were found guilty of the murder of the Senior Constable and other offences and sentenced to hang. The sentences on Bennett and Williams were commuted to Life Imprisonment but Moonlite and Rogan were hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on 20 January 1880. Moonlite was buried in Rookwood Cemetery. but in January 1995 his body was taken in a horse-drawn hearse to its final resting place in Gundagai Cemetery.