Wild Colonial Boy

Born in Inverness but transported as a wayward youth to Tasmania, charming outlaw Captain Melville left a trail of crime in his wake

- KENNY MacASKILL

MANY years ago, I recall being told by a Scottish émigré in Australia that there was no equivalent from this country of Ned Kelly or other outlaw bushrangers. The reason being that transported Scots had largely been literate and, on release from jail and finding a land of opportunity, had taken to it like a duck to water.

Now there's a lot of truth in that as so many migrant Scots have been hugely successful. But we are no different to any other ethnicity and, as well as being capable of great acts, there have been some who strayed from the straight and narrow. They may have been few, but they were there, along with the successful, hardworking and honest.

So, this is the story of one of those Scottish bushrangers, Captain Melville. A man the Australian Dictionary Of Biography describes as creating a “legend of the cultured gentleman of good address and scholarship turned highwayman, considerate to those whom he robbed, courteous and charming to women, a 19th-century Robin Hood. Yet he was a swaggerer, courageous behind a brace of pistols and a skilful confidence man destroyed by the penal system and his unbalanced character.”

With that description you almost wish to meet him but doubtless there was a malevolent side, as some would sadly discover. But there's a backdrop and perhaps even an explanation, though no excuse, given what occurred in his childhood and during penal servitude, as well as some redeeming features to the man.

Captain Melville is understood to have been born Francis McNeiss McNeil McCallum in Inverness in 1822. He had limited schooling and for whatever reason - be it poverty, abandonment, bad company or even just through choice - he was involved in thieving and housebreaking by the tender age of 12 and two years later was appearing before the High Court in Perth.