captain starlight: Outback outlaw
Legendary larrikin and King of the Cattle Duffers, Outback Queensland's Harry Redford is not your average historic hero.
By: Sarah Hinder
An idolised outlaw, Harry Redford was most notorious for his bold exploits as a cattle duffer (thief), during which he drove more than some 1,000 stolen cattle from Bowen Downs Station outside Longreach on a tremendous overland journey into South Australia. He was written into history as ‘Captain Starlight’ and immortalised in Australia folklore as a national hero who changed the landscape of Australian pioneering.
Harry Redford Cattle Drive
His father was a convict, transported to Australia for stealing four pieces of leather. Henry “Harry” Redford was the youngest of 11 children and left his family home outside Mudgee, New South Wales to begin the tough career as a stockman at the Bowen Downs Station.
Realising that remote parts of the extensive cattle station were rarely patrolled, the young maverick devised a plan, along with two fellow workers, to steal cattle from Bowen Downs and drive them on an untraversed 3,000km overland journey to South Australia, selling the cattle along the way.
Redford’s epic journey across the Channel Country and Strzelecki Track in 1871 was the same hazardous route followed by the ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills, who had perished while attempting to cross Australia just 10 years before – but Redford survived and made his way back to his family home in NSW.
Some two years after settling in Mudgee, Redford was finally caught by authorities in Sydney and transported to Queensland’s Roma District Court to be put on trial. However, in a sensational twist of events, the jury was so in awe of the cattle thief’s outstanding droving skills and so endeared by his natural charm that he was found not guilty and acquitted of all charges.
The trial became infamous across Australia, but his role in Rolf Boldrewood’s 1892 novel, Robbery Under Arms, elevated Harry Redford to something of a national hero. Based on Redford and other notorious bushrangers, the novel follows the fugitive’s cattle-droving escapades and adventures, earning him the affectionate nickname of ‘Captain Starlight’.
Harry Redford Old Time Tent Show in Longreach Qld
Despite being on the wrong side of the law, Redford’s skills and contribution to Australia’s droving history are unmatched other than by a select few
drovers. In the 1880s, he was one of the first pioneers to drive cattle along the Strzelecki Track and Cooper Creek. For more than a decade afterwards, Queensland cattle were overlanded along the very tracks Redford pioneered.
Even today, Australia’s most experienced drovers traverse the 19-day Redford trail. Redford’s larrikin spirit lives on at Longreach’s Kinnon & Co’s Harry Redford Old Time Tent Show, which re-enacts the enduringly popular story of Captain Starlight. On a tour of historic Nogo Station, you can witness the stockyard ruins where Redford is said to have kept his stolen cattle before setting out, while Starlight’s Spectacular Sound & Light Picture Show retells the adventures of the cheeky cattle thief around a bush campfire or at sunset aboard the Thomson Princess Riverboat.
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