Minnie Estelle Shone

Minnie Estelle Shone [December 20 1911]

The Shones’ success as farmers did not escape the attention of bushranger Martin Cash.

This Irish convict had been at Norfolk Island, escaped from Port Arthur, and ranged around the southern parts of the Midlands and Hobart with his gang members Jones and Cavanagh.

Cash’s Cave remains in the heavily bushed gully in the hills behind Stanton, and it was from here that he watched the property until, in February 1843, during an afternoon social gathering, he and his gang kidnapped a neighbouring farmer, James Bradshaw, and used his identity to gain entrance to the house.

Once inside, they herded the family, servants and friends into the living room, until 16 people were at gunpoint.

Removing valuables from their person and from the house, the Cash gang made off back into the hills, eventually being captured finally in August of that year, after a celebrated foot chase through the streets of Hobart.

This robbery is celebrated in Cash’s autobiography, and is the subject of a chapter of Frank Clunes’ book, Martin Cash (1955).

An interesting postscript to the event is that, during the enquiry into the robbery, the presiding magistrate decided that ‘Thomas Shone is not a fit and proper person to be supervising convict labour, and they will therefore be removed.’

Shone understandably petitioned his innocence, the crux of the matter seeming to be that the powers-that-be suspected Shone of at worst complicity, at best sympathy, with the bushrangers, and that he was not deemed to have put up a sufficient fight during the robbery.

Shone protested that he and his family and friends were at gunpoint, the bushrangers took many things of value from the house, and what else was he supposed to do?! Authority won out, and Shone lost his convicts.