The career of the Darling Downs bushranger Alfred Allwood began as full and colourful as any bushranger but despite his best efforts, he never seemed to crack the big time. I told a version of this story live on radio 4AK.

Allwood was another one of those southern New South Wales criminals, quite likely the offspring of convicts, and born in the Windsor district on the banks of the Hawkesbury River. This is where the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt was born. In fact, Allwood in his formative years may have been influenced by the highly publicised exploits of Thunderbolt.

Allwood began his career in Queensland in 1864 when he was around sixteen years old. He got caught sticking up the mail between Leyburn and Goondiwindi. Allwood rifled through the bags, while his mate held a pistol to the mailman’s head. They were both charged in the Toowoomba courthouse with the serious offence of highway robbery under arms. Allwood was sentenced to seven years’ hard labour on the roads, while his mate got ten years, the first year in irons.

Allwood was described as having dark brown hair, hazel eyes, a sallow complexion, thick lips, heavy chin, narrow forehead, and a stout build. This is where AI can be useful because an AI-generated picture of Allwood today does as much as anything to bring the boy alive.

In 1866, Allwood was just 2 years into his sentence when he escaped from Brisbane Gaol and quite possibly did it twice. Once was when he feigned madness, so was sent to the Lunatic Asylum at Woogaroo and escaped from there. He was soon recaptured by the police at Warwick and sent back to Brisbane.

Second was in the middle of the night when he climbed to the top of the gaol wall and dropped over the other side about five o’clock in the morning. He then audaciously mounted a horse which was standing tied up to a post outside a house near the goal, and rode off, leaving the owner of the animal to lament on the hazards of visiting a poor neighbourhood. He was pursued by police troopers, and after a hard chase of 150 miles, was captured at Boondoomba Station in the South Burnett.

Allwood was found guilty of breaking out of gaol and sentenced to another twelve months’ hard labour, which was added to his existing sentence.

After a decade in gaol and most of that on Moreton Bay’s prison St Helena Island, in 1874 Allwood was released but unfortunately went straight back to his chosen trade. This time he was in Roma where he stole a cashbox. He was convicted and sentenced in Stanthorpe to two more years’ imprisonment with hard labour.

Allwood got out in 1876 and from St Helena went to Brisbane where he committed burglary in a house in Mary Street. He was caught red handed by occupant. On his way to the lock-up, because he had rather small hands, Allwood managed to slip out of the handcuffs. The constables, however, held onto him in the subsequent struggle.

Allwood’s career never reached the great heights, and deaths, of the famous bushrangers. But he did continue to annoy the magistrates by committing endless offences, many of them relatively minor compared to the highway robbery under arms with which he announced his presence.

For example, in 1886, approaching forty years of age, Allwood was convicted of stealing a pocketbook and some cash. The judge lost patience with the repeat offender and sentenced him to a severe three years’ penal servitude.

Allwood spent much of the second half of his life in and around St George, Cunnamulla and Charleville. Despite his career path, Allwood lived to the advanced age of around eighty-four years old. He passed away in in 1932 at the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum on Stradbroke Island, from which he could see his long-time prison on St Helena Island.

That’s quite a journey for an ambitious bushranger who began his career as a sixteen-year-old on the Darling Downs, destined to remain in the shadow of his local hero Captain Thunderbolt.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON RADIO 4AK.

Photo credits:
Attacking the mail bushranging, New South Wales, 1864 – National Library of Australia.
Frederick Ward alias Thunderbolt – Truth, 21st February 1892, public domain.
Alfred Allwood aged 16 in 1864 – ChatGPT Image Apr 14, 2025, 10_06_18 PM.
Head warders house St Helena, 1940s – Brisbane City Council.