Thomas Hustler

59

greg petersen on 28th June 2024

Tom HUSTLER was admitted into hospital on Monday, the 12/01/1863. He died next day on the 13/01/1863, aged 49. He was buried in the Bendigo Cemetery on Thursday, the 15/01/1863. His interment number being #1378. notes form Bendigo Independent, 1897 Thomas Hustler "ONE ARMED HUSTLER." The Bendigo Independent (Vic. : 1891 - 1918) Sat 29 May 1897 Page 2 AT THE BEEHIVE - by MOSQUITO. {a writer in the Independent} His Christian name - or it might be more appropriate in this connection to say, his front or given name - was Thomas, I believe - Thomas Hustler. Hustler he was by name and hustler by nature. Though he had but one arm, he could hustle around with the bravest and boldest and roughest of the Bendigo diggers and quartz pioneers of the glorious roaring “fifties". Those were the grand days - when shanties were as common and plentiful on the hills and gullies as tombstones now are in the cemeteries. Enquiries were a day or two ago being made through the Bendigo press for the whereabouts, of one Hustler, a gold mining pioneer. I suspect that in some English village or parish - what countryman or townsman was Hustler? - there are some poor relatives of this man sending out these enquiries in the forlorn hope that, waiting all these years for them in Australia, there may be an unclaimed fortune. If so it is a forlorn hope of the forlornest. There are few - perhaps not half a dozen - left alive in Bendigo, or in communication with Bendigo, who remember the discoverer and baptismal sponsor of the afterwards Australasian-wide famous Hustler’s Reef. Of the pioneer party of six or eight friends - all young and vigorous men in those days - who worked alongside of old one armed Hustler when he first came to Bendigo, only two survive - our hale, kindly and cheerful old friend Major Stribley in Bendigo and (in Melbourne) our genial and good-natured Mr Latham (of Latham and Watson). The Major tells me that Hustler was an older man than any of their own party. From the major’s description of him, I gather that he was a very fine sample indeed of “The Legion That Never was Listed”. That is, he was about as rough, as hard-swearing, hard-drinking, hard-working, hard- living, hard-handed, hard-muscled sample of courage and recklessness as was then to be found on the diggings. He was evidently “a man, with a past”. But where he came from or how he came, Hustler’s was not one of those angelic, open natures that invited confidential interviews from friends. The man had evidently had a rough and trying time of it before he appeared on Bendigo. He came here with an old woman as a companion - a very counter-part of himself, and as much, of a mystery as himself. In their tent when they weren’t growling, they lived a Darby and Joan life, and there was generally a drop in the bottom of the old black billy, that wasn’t made of tea, and then “Old Tom Burnett” and their pound a bottle brandy - horribly poisonous stuff, you can imagine - seldom ran dry for two consecutive days. Somewhere or somehow Hustler had lost his left arm. It had been whipped off, clean as a whistle, close up to the shoulder. I have seen on Extended Hustler’s Company’s scrip and on the company’s official memorandum forms, a figure of a one armed digger. It was placed there at the suggestion of the late Robert Carr, Joseph Millin, John Hechle, Thomas Hawkey or other of the Hustler’s Reef identities, in testimony of the one armed man’s pioneership of the line. “How did he work so hard.” I asked the major, “if, as you say, he only had one arm. Did he have a hook on the other?” “Hook! no!” replies the major. “Hustler didn’t want a hook, and if he did, there was no place to fix it to, the arm having been taken off quite up to the shoulder. He could use his one arm as well as the best of men could use their two, and a great deal better than most of them. By usage and necessity the power of the two arms seemed to have been forced into his remaining arm. It was muscled in ridges, strong as an ordinary man’s leg. Pick, hammer, shovel, axe, he could use with any man on the reef, wielding them to some purpose with that wonderful strong arm of his.” “His arm was like a branch of a tree,” the writer observed, “that had been lopped off by a prunor, and the strength of the two branches then went into the remaining one.” “Something like that, I suppose,” continued the major. “You should have seen him one day break up a big boulder of quartz. It was as big across as a footbridge. The men had blasted it out and levered it out in an open cutting where they were working on the side of the hill. They were chip, chip, chipping at it, and by degrees were working it into the shape of a big billiard ball, or rather into the form of one of those 300lb cannon balls which in my military days I used to read of the Turks shying at the Knights of St John in the siege of Rhodes. While they were nibbling and chipping away at it, Hustler came up. He treated them to some of his customary verbal explosives strong enough almost to have blasted the rocks asunder. Taking a hammer from one of the men he set to work on it. It was a sight to see him - that one-armed past master of the art of stone-cracking. He welted and welted with his one arm, fair on the block of quartz. Blow upon blow descended in the same spot, though not a flake flew, and there was nothing to show that his blows were not being thrown away. After about ten minutes of this, however, there was a slight movement of the rock. Hustler followed it up, the rook began to open, and by the end of the ten minutes the big boulder that had baffled three men and six hands for two days fell crumbled to pieces before the strength and expert skill of the one man with the one hand. If you’d been there you’d have enjoyed it. Hustler could crack stones.” “Was Hustler rich at any time?” the major was next asked. “No, no, was the reply, “whatever he made, he and his old woman and their companions managed to get through in time for the next lot.” “Somewhere about 1858 Latham bought him out for £500 and that was the most money that I think Hustler over had at one time. After selling out to Latham he continued to work and drink about the reef, but did no more good. In something like in twelve months, and when the last of the £500 was gone, Hustler was taken seriously ill. They took him to the Bendigo Hospital and he died there. It was some time in 1861 or 1862.” (it was 13/01/1863)

4

Aldo Penbrook on 20th January 2023

Thomas lost his right arm shoulder-down, likely in Bradford his home town. The first record of this disability was in the arrival convict record Hobart Town November 1836. He was issued a Ticket of Leave on arrival. His convict Conduct Record has many misbehaviors usually related to alcohol, each resulting in hard labour on convict road marking gangs in & beyond Hobart. He was issued a Certificate of Freedom Dec 1843 & remained in Hobart Town & living with Caroline Harris nee Brian/Bryan, who was also a freed convict. Caroline was still married to Richard Harris. The one armed Thomas Hustler next appears as a quartz gold miner in Bendigo. (A newspaper article on Hustlers story in 1897 Bendigo Independent claimed he lived with a female companion - this could be Caroline Brian) 1852-1855 he establishes a opencut gold mine on the side of a hill, which became known as Hustlers. Subsequently it was realized that many rich seams of gold ore ran beneath the hill a.k.a Hustlers Reef. In 1854 he took out a patent on a quartz crushing machine for gold extraction. He sold his claim to Latham & Watson, who were initially in partnership with him. In 1856 Latham & Watson formed what became a world famous gold mine, the Great Extended Hustlers Quartz Mining Company funded by shareholders/investors. 1856-1863 Hustler found no success, & was buried in a paupers grave Bendigo Cemetery 1863

108

Nell Murphy on 2nd October 2017

Thomas HUSTLER was convicted at West Riding, York, England on 6 Jan 1836 for stealing from the person - highway robbery. Previously convicted. Gaol Report " idle, drunken, profligate, bad character connected with the worst of thieves, bad disposition". Hulk Report: "orderly". Transported to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) per the ship 'Lady Nugent' arriving 12 Nov 1836. Single man; Native place: near Bradford, England . Assignments in the Colony. 1837 a Watchman - charged with being asleep at his post. Reprimanded. Several other records of misconduct. Ticket of Leave granted. Free Certificate issued 1843, W83. In 1848 there is a Census record for a Thomas Hustler in Davey St. Hobart.

4

aldo penbrook on 2nd October 2017

VDL 1848 Census he lived/worked as a servant,Davy St, Hobart Town. In 1853 he worked a quartz reef mining claim on Sandhurst [Bendigo] Goldfield. His name was given to the world famous Hustlers [gold] Reef - the name survives to this day as Hustlers Reef Reserve, Bendigo