The Gentleman Bushranger

In the summer of 1840, the colony of New South Wales was at a crossroads. Convict misery and squatter wealth sat side by side, and nowhere was this more evident than in the Hunter Valley. Out of the brutal iron gangs emerged an unlikely hero. A Jewish stable boy from Gravesend, Teddy Davis was not your typical bushranger. He was a gentleman of the road - a charismatic leader who staged mock trials to punish cruel overseers, dined with his victims, and adorned his gang and their horses with stolen pink ribbons. Davis and his fellow outlaws waged a psychological war against the colonial establishment: rob the master, feed the servant, and spill no blood.

But in the heat of a December morning at Scone, the gentleman's code was shattered by a single bullet. What followed was one of the most dramatic manhunts in Australian history. A gruelling fifty-mile pursuit by the relentless police magistrate Edward Denny Day ended in a fierce firefight in the mud of Doughboy Hollow.

Former Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi AM KC tells the gripping, tragically true story of a man who tried to be a Robin Hood in a world that only wanted a hanging.

'Puts Ned Kelly in the shade ... A fascinating read.' Geoffrey Robertson AO KC

'Teddy Davis's short-lived campaign was the most dangerous insurrection in our colonial history' Peter FitzSimons

'A brilliant true story from a master storyteller' Grace Karskens

'A meticulously researched and wonderfully told story' Scott Bevan