Changing the story on robbery tale

A BALLARAT writer and academic is aiming to shift the story behind an infamous bank robbery that took place at Mount Egerton during the late 1800s.

Brian Pola released his book called The Great Mount Egerton Bank Robbery recently after undertaking the work since the start of the year as a research associate at Federation University.

The book details the 1869 robbery of the London Chartered Bank of Australia, which was believed to have been carried out by Andrew George Scott, known as Captain Moonlite.

Pola said the book offers a different perspective on the incident.

“It was a stitch-up,” he said. “It’s my reading of the statements that there are no hard, factual evidence that Scott committed the robbery.

“The popular mythology is that he did it. He was a convenient scapegoat and what we would call today queer which didn’t do him any good in a very conservative Victoria at the time.”

Following his conviction for the robbery three years later in Ballarat, Scott served seven years out of a decade-long sentence at Pentridge Prison where he met James Nesbitt, who became his lover.

After their sentences, the pair relocated to New South Wales in search of food and work, where they held up a station near Gundagai, resulting in the death of Nesbitt in Scott’s arms.

Scott was executed at Darlinghurst in 1880 for the murder of an officer during the attempted hold up, which Pola also said no evidence exists for.

“That tragic outcome was the result of what, it seems, was a false conviction,” Pola said. “He maintained until the day he died that he wasn’t involved in the Mount Egerton robbery.”

Pola transcribed statements from the era in researching the story, many of which are featured in the book.

He explored a similar subject with his Homosexuality in the goldfields piece, written with Gabriel Waldron and David Waldron, and featured in the latter’s Goldfields and the Gothic anthology.

A gay man himself, Pola said he was intrigued by the queer mythology surrounding Mr Scott when creating the work.

“It struck me as part of Victoria’s queer mythology,” he said.

“Mount Egerton at that time was a wild mining town with about 6000 people and about 16 pubs so it was that context of a dodgy robbery and someone being scapegoated.

“People have got back to me saying it’s an entertaining read. It’s a new slant on a popular story.”

The Great Mount Egerton Bank Robbery is available digitally at Pola’s website, or physically at Everybody Knows Books for $30.