Henry Beresford Garrett

Henry Rouse was born in Bottesford, Leicestershire, England c.1818.[1] The fourth of five children his mother died when he was three. Rouse had little schooling, but learnt the trade of coopering. He would later in life write a series of stories that were later published. He once wrote that his father neglected him as he grew up in the care of his grandmother.

In 1842 Rouse received three months' gaol for assaulting a gamekeeper, and in 1845 was sentenced to 10 years' transportation for stealing from a tailor in Bingham, Nottinghamshire. He departed England on 25 August 1845 on board the Mayda with 198 other convicts. Rouse was sent to Norfolk Island, then from 1847 in the Hobart area.

Given a ticket of leave, Rouse headed for Port Philip and the goldfields. In 1850 Rouse used the alias Codrington Revingstone when he held up the Portland to Port Fairy mail coach three times causing the area to become known as Codrington's Forest. Codrington is the only township in Australia to be named after a bushranger.

About this time he took the name, Henry Garratt where he lived with an 'actress' on the Ballarat goldfields.

On 16 October 1854 'Long Harry', with three accomplices, Quin, Murryatt, and Bolton robbed the Ballarat branch of the Bank of Victoria of at least £20,000. The four men who entered the Bank with their faces covered with crape, in broad daylight, and armed with pistols. There were only two persons in the Bank at the time, and, while the Garratt stood over them with a loaded pistol, the others rifled the place.

Garrett and his wife travelled overland to Sydney before sailing in December 1854 to England on the Dawstone, they arrived at Deal on 12 April 1855, and immediately travelled by railroad to London. The following day the Garrett sold to Messrs. Samuels and Montague, bullion dealers, Cornhill, 499 ounces of gold dust for £1,975 claiming he struck it rich on the Bendigo goldfields.

What Garrett could not have known was his accomplice Quin had turned Queens evidence and a warrant was issued and waiting for him to turn up. London detective Henry Webb arrested Garrett the next day as he was walking down the Oxford Street. His room was searched and two revolvers and a dagger were found.

Garrett was returned to Melbourne for trial and sentenced in November 1855 to 10 years hard labour. He was confined on the prison hulks President and Success, that were moored in Hobsons Bay. The conditions were appalling on the hulks.

Released in 1861, Garrett boarded a ship and moved to New Zealand.

Garrett arrived in Dunedin on the Kembla on 7 October 1861 en route for the Otago goldfields. Garrett and several companions carried out highway robbery of fifteen men, they stole gold and property worth some £400 at the foot of the Maungatua range, on the track between Gabriels Gully and Dunedin. Garrett fled to Sydney where he was arrested in December, sent back to Dunedin and sentenced to eight years goal in May 1862.

Released in February 1868 and sent back to Victoria by the Otago police. The Victorians didn't want him so they sent him back and he returned to Dunedin, where he worked as a cooper in a brewery. In November 1868 he was arrested while burgling a seed merchant, he had also broken into a chemist's shop. He received 10 years' gaol for each burglary, to be served consecutively.

Released from Lyttleton goal April 1882 after being transferred from Dunedin Goal in 1881 because of failing health, he again worked as a cooper. Habits of a lifetime were impossible to break and in November 1882, he was caught thieving and sentenced to seven years. He died of chronic bronchitis on 3 September 1885 while serving his sentence in Wellington Goal.

• Garrett, H. Recollections of convict life in Norfolk Island and Victoria. Dunedin, 1973
• Hill, R. S. Policing the colonial frontier. 2 vols. Wellington, 1986
• Tonkin, L. The real Henry Garrett. Dunedin, [1980]