John Foley (183326 February 1891) was a bushranger and associate of Fred Lowry. In July 1863 they robbed several mail coaches, including the Mudgee mail robbery which netted £5,700 in bank-notes. Foley was captured several weeks later with bank-notes from the Mudgee mail in his possession. He was tried at Bathurst and sentenced to fifteen-years hard labour. Foley was released in 1873; he settled in the Black Springs district near Oberon and led a respectable life until his death in 1891.
Biography
Early life and family
John Joseph Foley was born at Kelso (near Bathurst) in 1833, the son of Laurence Foley and Mary (née Sullivan).No. 234, John Foley; NSW State Archives; Bathurst Gaol Description and Entrance Books, August 1863; Series: 1993; Item: 4/8492; Roll: 251 (per Ancestry.com).New South Wales: Births, Deaths and Marriage records. He was third of eleven children, having seven brothers and three sisters.
Foley’s parents had both been transported from Ireland as convicts.Laurence Thomas Foley was born in about 1798 in county Sligo, Ireland; he was convicted in 1822 of having a stolen cow in his possession and sentenced to seven years transportation; arrived in Sydney in September 1823 aboard the convict ship Earl St. Vincent.Margaret Mary Sullivan was born in 1807 in county Kerry, Ireland; she was convicted of stealing clothes and sentenced to seven years transportation; arrived in Sydney in January 1828 aboard the convict ship Elizabeth. They married at Campbelltown in June 1828 (five months after Mary Sullivan's arrival in Sydney). Soon afterwards, however, Laurence Foley was brought before the Campbelltown Bench of Magistrates “for harbouring Bushrangers & Robbers”; on 30 October 1828 he was sentenced to three years at the Moreton Bay penal settlement. Mary Foley relocated to the Oberon district soon afterwards, where the first of her children was born. Laurence Foley returned from Moreton Bay and received his Certificate of Freedom in August 1833.Lawrence Foley, Certificate of Freedom, No. 33/892, 7 August 1833 (per Ancestry.com). Laurence and Mary Foley's children were all born in the Oberon and Bathurst districts.Family records, per Ancestry.com. By the 1840s the Foley family had settled at Wiseman’s Creek on the Campbell's River (north-west of Oberon).Gemmell-Smith, page 106.
As a young man John Foley was a skilled horse-rider and “was considered the ablest man in the saddle of his time”.The Early Days, recollections by John Murphy of Reedy Creek (near Rockley), Bathurst Times, 21 February 1922, page 1. It was recorded that Foley could "read and write well and work arithmetic".
Bushranging
On 13 February 1862 John Foley was charged with horse-stealing, and was allowed bail to appear at a later date.Bathurst Police Court, Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 19 February 1862, page 2 However, the charge was not proceeded with and after a fortnight Foley was discharged.Bathurst Police Court, Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 1 March 1862, page 2
On Thursday, 31 July 1862, Ann Webb’s store at Mutton’s Falls on the Fish River was robbed by two men “with blackened faces”. They entered the premises and bailed up Mrs. Webb and her staff, eventually departing with £25 in cash and store merchandise to the value of about £70.Store Robbery, Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 6 August 1862, page 2. John Foley was later indicted for this offence.Robbery of the Mudgee Mail, Empire (Sydney), 11 September 1863, page 2.
John Foley probably joined with Fred Lowry during 1862 (possibly as early as Webb's store robbery in July) and the two began committing robberies. Foley and Lowry were of a similar age. Lowry was a notorious horse-stealer who had been released after serving a prison sentence.Gaol Description and Entrance Book, Bathurst, July 1858, Frederick Lowry, entry numbers 323 and 324; NSW State Archives NSW: Series: 1993; Item: 4/8492; Roll: 251 (per Ancestry.com).
On Sunday, 14 September 1862, the mail contractor, William Weston, was stuck-up by two armed men at a location called the Black Swamp, two miles from Wilson’s inn between Cassilis and Mudgee. The bushrangers took the contractor’s horse, mail-bags and saddle-bags. The horse was later recovered with the empty mail-bags fastened to the saddle. The bushrangers had their faces covered with crêpe, though at one stage the fabric fell from the face of one man whom Weston was able to identify as Fred Lowry (alias Boyd).More Bushranging, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 September 1862, page 2.Robbery Under Arms, New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 17 September 1862 (Issue No. 29), page 170.Miscellaneous Information, New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 24 September 1862 (Issue No. 30), page 180. On 20 September 1862 Fred Lowry (alias Boyd) and two others stuck up Mr. Lawrence and his men at ‘Wilpingong’ station near Reedy Creek (north of Rylstone) and robbed them of £29 in notes, a cheque and “two silver hunting watches”.Robbery Under Arms, New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 24 September 1862 (Issue No. 30), page 176.
On 2 October 1862 William Todd’s store on the Fish River was held up by armed men and robbed of cash totalling about £50 (the number of offenders was initially reported as two). The men had their faces covered, but it was suspected that "Thomas Foley" was one of them.Robbery Under Arms, New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 8 October 1862 (Issue No. 32), page 192. It was later reported that a man named John Cosgrove had been apprehended by the Bathurst Police on suspicion of being one of the men who robbed the store.Miscellaneous Information, New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 15 October 1862 (Issue No. 33), page 202. Cosgrove was a known criminal previously associated with the bushranger, John Peisley.Rockley, Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 24 July 1861, page 2. A later account maintained that it was in fact four men that robbed Todd’s store and that two of the men had been apprehended (Cosgrove and one other). Of the two who had escaped, one was identified as Fred Lowry.Miscellaneous Information, New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 22 October 1862 (Issue No. 34), page 208. The man initially identified as “Thomas Foley” was John Foley (later indicted for this offence).
On 9 November 1862 three armed men, with their faces blackened, robbed a number of Chinese miners at their camp in the upper Campbell’s River district. Foley’s younger brother Francis, then aged seventeen, was later convicted of being one of the men who carried out these robberies.Robbery Under Arms, New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 12 November 1862 (Issue No. 37), page 224.Robbery Under Arms, New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 19 November 1862 (Issue No. 38), page 230.Gemmell-Smith, page 52.
Race meeting shooting
A race meeting was held on New Year's Day 1863 at a race-course on Daniel McGuirk's land in the Brisbane Valley, south-west of Oberon near the Native Dog Creek diggings. Amongst those who attended were Fred Lowry and John Foley, described as “two men for whom the police have been some time on the look-out”. Towards evening after the races were concluded and the prize-money had been paid out, Lowry (by some accounts in a state of drunkenness) "attempted to bail up the persons present". Holding a revolver in each hand Lowry sought to drive a number of men towards the house. A man named Allen refused to move and Lowry struck him across the cheek with a revolver, which fired and struck a horse tethered nearby. At this a man named Patrick Foran came out of the house and rushed at Lowry, who fired again, hitting Foran in the chest. Despite his wound Foran held on to Lowry until others intervened and the assailant was secured.Outrage with Firearms, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 January 1863, page 5; reprinted from the Bathurst Free Press.Shooting with Intent to Kill, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 January 1863, page 4; reprinted from the Bathurst Free Press. Lowry was conveyed under heavy guard to Bathurst gaol. The accounts of the events make no mention of John Foley after the shooting; it is assumed he made his departure when his companion was apprehended. A newspaper report of Lowry's capture made the following comments: “There are several charges of robbery against him, and his apprehension will be a source of gratification to the inhabitants of the district, to whom he has long been a terror and a pest”.Capture of a Bushranger, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 January 1863, page 5.
Goulburn mail robbery
Fred Lowry accomplished a sensational escape from Bathurst Gaol in mid-February 1863 and for several months rode with members of the Gardiner-Hall gang, a loosely-formed group of bushrangers notorious for having robbed the Lachlan Gold Escort near Eugowra in mid-1862.The Escape of Prisoners from Bathurst Gaol, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 1863, page 4.Sticking-up of the Boro Mail, The Golden Age (Queanbeyan), 21 May 1863, page 2. By the end of June, however, Lowry had again joined up with John Foley.
On the early afternoon of 3 July 1863 Cobb and Co.’s coach was bailed up by two armed men within a quarter of an hour of its departure from Goulburn, still within sight of the township and less than a mile from the police barracks. The incident was described as “the coolest case of bushranging perhaps ever recorded”. The coach was carrying mail for Sydney. The contents of the mail-bags were ransacked and one of the three passengers, Mr. Copeland, was robbed of £15 and his watch. While the robbery was in progress two men rode up, unaware of what was happening until too late when the pair were forced to dismount at gunpoint. One of the men, Captain Morphy, was robbed of a gold watch and chain. Other passers-by were also stopped and robbed by the bushrangers. One traveller who was stopped, Mr. March of Jerrara, remonstrated with the bushrangers, telling them “he had just buried two sons, and needed the money more than they”, in response to which the outlaws returned his money to him. After they had finished examining the mailbags the bushrangers rode off towards the Cookbundoon range (north-east of the township).Bushranging: Sticking-up the Goulburn and Sydney Mail, Sydney Mail, 11 July 1863, page 10.Inquest on Lowry, the Bushranger, Yass Courier, 5 September 1863, page 2.Daring Outrage, Bathurst Times, 21 July 1913, page 4; ‘Half a Century Back’ (reprinted from the Bathurst Times, July 1863).
Even though the bushrangers who held up the Goulburn mail did not attempt to disguise themselves, their identity was not immediately established. The correspondent to the Sydney Mail newspaper speculated that they belonged “to the Abercrombie or Bathurst side”. After Fred Lowry was fatally wounded two months later the gold watch he had stolen from Captain Morphy was found in his possession and three witnesses, including Morphy and the driver of the coach, Michael Curran, positively identified the deceased Lowry as one of the two bushrangers who had robbed the coach outside of Goulburn. Lowry's companion was almost certainly John Foley; the two of them were later proven to have held up the Mudgee mail, just ten days after the Goulburn mail robbery.When Inspector Stephenson retired in 1891 he gave an interview regarding his integral role in capturing Fred Lowry and the events leading to his capture; even though Stephenson mixes up the sequence of events, he was in no doubt that the Goulburn mail robbery was carried out by both Foley and Fred Lowry; refer: A Bit of Old Time Goulburn History, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 24 January 1891, page 8.
Mudgee mail robbery