Photo 1: The late Henry Facey Hurst, 27 October 1866
By engraver Samuel Calvert, 1828-1913. © Digital reproduction copyright of State Library Victoria
Photo 2: Hurst women, 1910
Sisters, Francis Ellen Hurst (who married William George Gray), of Hurstbridge, Mary Ellen Hurst (who married C. E. Rankin) with their mother Catherine Hurst (nee Heffernan) of Hurstbridge and Ada Alice Hurst (1880-1910). Ada married Claude Pizzey of Diamond Creek. It is thought that this photo was produced after Ada’s death and has incorporated a separate image of Ada behind the piano. (Victorian Collections)
Nineteen-year-old Henry Facey Hurst came to Allwood Station in 1852 to assist with the breaking of wild horses for the new Victorian police force. Henry’s letters home gave such a positive account, that in 1855 his family back in Dorset, England, decided to follow him out. They all took up residence at Allwood Station, where Henry was became the manager for Cornelius Haley.
Henry Hurst was described as a moody, yet well-respected personality around Diamond Creek, the sort of person you could reliably refer to as a “top bloke”. Handsome, athletic and hard working, Henry is a fine example of the squatter class.
Photo 1: The late Henry Facey Hurst, 27th October 1866, Engraving by Samuel Calvert, 1828-1913. © Digital reproduction copyright of State Library Victoria
Photo 2: Flyer from Allwood House community led play, The Bridge, depicting the life and death of Henry Hurst and Bushranger Burke.
Henry Hurst was now in charge, and designed the first log bridge across the Diamond Creek, giving the township its name.
The events of Thursday 4th October 1866 (as printed in the programme of The Bridge play)
Henry Facey Hurst is not happy. A storm during the night has caused damage to fences across Allwood Station with possible loss of cattle. Accompanied by his father, Robert Hurst Senior, they come across the young orphan boy, William Hammett, who was running to post the letter that Henry’s sister, Sarah Ellen has given him.
Henry had a bit of a temper and didn’t stand for idleness, nor did he suffer fools lightly. This trait of bad temper and superiority may be the reason that, whilst living in Eltham in 1855, Henry’s hut was burned to the ground and his goods stolen while he was away on a trip, carting materials to miners.
Henry reprimands young William, despite the interjection of his more tolerant father on the boy’s behalf. This day had already begun badly and was only to get worse for everyone at the Station.
A tall stranger soon arrives at the property under the guise of ‘Robert Bourke’ (AKA Robert McCluskey). A seemingly friendly traveller, he requests breakfast from Sarah Ellen. Strangers were usually made welcome at Allwood Station, situated as it was, four miles from its nearest neighbour and a good twenty miles from the city. Allwood would have stood out like a beacon of civilization in a country that appeared untamed and hostile to the new European arrivals.
Sarah Ellen is initially friendly and hospitable but notices very quickly that Bourke is carrying two pistols in his belt. This is at a time when even the newly established Victorian police force was unable to supply all of its members with firearms. Sarah quickly finds and tells Henry of her unease and Henry too is immediately perplexed.
Bushrangers were no stranger to the property – Cornelius Haley, Henry’s boss, had after all been held at gunpoint by the notorious Plenty River bushrangers back in 1842. Other prominent squatters in the district were also threatened by the gang, and thus this was a crime three of its members were hanged for – the first Europeans to be hanged in the Port Phillip district.
Considering the armed stranger, Henry realises he has just recently hired two sailors who were absent without leave from their ship, now berthed at Port Phillip bay with insufficient manpower to make the return voyage to England. Could this interloper actually be a bounty hunter looking to return the two seafaring scoundrels?
Or was the cocky stranger making small talk with his sister, a customs official, coming to investigate the illicit alcohol still that Henry was running down by Diamond creek, supplying grog to the myriad of gold miners that were coming into the district?
Or perhaps this upstart, making free with his sister’s hospitality, was another Irish carpetbagger on the lookout for a free ride through life? Well not on Henry Hurst’s dime he isn’t and Henry is already having a bad day! How much worse can this day get?
Breakfast is often called the most important meal of the day, and on this particular day, its importance takes on a whole new dimension. The request for breakfast soon disintegrates into murder when Henry arrives on the scene, demanding answers from the stranger. This same stranger who has crossed over his bridge, and is now attempting to undermine a proud man in his own home.
Amidst the commotion, Joseph Abbot, a freed convict living on Allwood Station since the time of Cornelius Haley, is called over to help restrain Bourke. But he is too late to prevent the shooting of his master. As Henry bleeds to death from his wounds, waiting for a doctor, Bourke is tied to a tree (that still stands at the end of the railway line on Arthurs Creek Road).
The reward money for capturing Bourke the bushranger is five hundred pounds. This sum could secure the Hurst family with a chance of a comfortable life back in England now that their son has been killed. But could Robert Hurst Snr. and his wife Francis ever feel comfortable spending such money, earned as it was, as a result of the spilling of their eldest sons’ blood?
Had Henry and his temper somehow also been instrumental in his own demise? Had his perceived arrogance, pride and class prejudice clouded his judgement in his dealing with Bourke? Was Henry’s death a murder or self-defence?
Robert Hurst Snr. sees more humanity in Bourke than the Melbourne broadsheets see. Letters published in these newspapers, owned by John Pascoe Fawkner (the self-promoting moral guardian of Melbourne in the 1860s and a known hypocrite for his stance on alcohol abstinence, while he was simultaneously the proprietor of several of the cities grubbiest drinking dens), call for Bourke to be hanged.
Robert Hurst Snr., defying the calls for retribution from the Squatter class, adds his name alongside two thousand other signatures on a petition to save the life of the young bushranger.
Robert Bourke is taken to Melbourne Gaol and held in a cell to await trial.
The presiding Judge is Sir Redmond Barry, who is also probably best recognised today as the presiding Judge who sentenced another young bushranger of Irish stock to hang in Melbourne Gaol in November of 1880 – the notorious Ned Kelly.
Based on the evidence presented before the court, Judge Redmond Barry informs the Jury that they have three possible options in delivering their verdict:
1. Convict Bourke of murder and guarantee a sentence of death.
2. Convict Bourke of manslaughter and a probable sentence of death, though they could apply for mercy to be shown and a possible sentence of life with hard labour.
3. That the killing of Henry Facey Hurst was a justifiable homicide based on the evidence of Henry’s sister, Sarah Ellen, that Hurst had indeed fired first, missing the defendant and subsequently resulting in the deadly struggle and Henry being shot as a consequence of that struggle.
If the third option was the verdict delivered, Bourke might very well have walked from the court a free man. But it was not to be.
In the dock,Bourke is left wondering that if only things were different, the outcome may have not been so preordained. If he had spoken with a different accent, or worn another man’s shoes. But life is like a hand of cards and he is holding a pair of Aces and a pair of eights. The Dead Man’s Hand.
The last words spoken by Robert Bourke on the gallows were: ‘Just as I am and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot, to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God I come, I come.’
The date is 29th November 1866.
Photos taken from The Bridge play of Burke and Barry at Allwood House, 2024
After Henry’s death on 4th October, 1866 at the hand of the bushranger Bourke, his father Robert Hurst Snr bought the property from Cornelius Haley. He left the Station to his remaining sons, Robert Edward and Fredrick Hurst, in 1873. Sadly Robert died after falling off a horse in 1891 and Fredrick married Catherine Heffernan and had three daughters, Francis Ellen, Mary Emily and Ada Alice. After these daughters married, the Hurst name vanished from the district.