This is the published version: Thomason, Bronwyne 2014, A slippery bastard : B J Thomason on the legend of Breaker Morant, Overland, no. 214, Autumn, pp. 10‐16. Available from Deakin Research Online: http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30062472 Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright owner. Copyright : 2014, O. L. Society A SLIPPERY BASTARD BJ THOMASON ON THE LEGEND OF BREAKER MORANT n July 2013, a moot appeal at the Victorian campaigned on Morant’s behalf for almost a ISupreme Court ruled that Harry ‘Breaker’ decade, hopes the recent interest will further Morant and his co-accused, George Witton pressure British authorities to issue a post- and Peter Handcock, were unfairly tried for humous pardon. crimes committed during the final part of the The appeal did not find the soldiers Second Boer War (1899-1902).1 The three sol- innocent of the murders – in fact, Morant diers were court-martialled for the murder of was almost certainly guilty – but ruled that nine captured Boers,2 and Morant and Hand- they had been denied a fair trial and execut- cock were executed on 27 February 1902. ed before a chance of appeal (Morant and Last year’s non-binding verdict – along Handcock were both shot within eighteen with a recent two-part documentary, Breaker hours of sentencing). Moreover, the court Morant: The Retrial – has renewed calls found that the accused had followed Lord for an official inquest into the convictions. Kitchener’s order – obeying one’s supervi- Military lawyer James Unkles, who features sor was a legitimate legal defence up until heavily in the documentary and who has the Nuremberg Trials – to take no prisoners 10 OVERLAND ISSUE 214 and to shoot Boers caught in British uni- O’Dwyer and Edwin Henry Murrant, form. According to Unkles, when Morant, gentleman, age twenty-on (note: HISTORY Handcock and Witton were charged with according to the birth record, he would murder, their commanding officer refused have turned twenty in December 1884) to risk a scandal by defending them – in fact, • 1884 – court records: Ed H Morant, Lord Kitchener himself signed their death thief, age undefined warrants. The courts martial, Unkles con- • 1899 – enlistment in second contin- cludes, were a sham. gent: Lieut. Harry Harbord Morant Morant should be pardoned for the • 1901 – prison records: Harry Harbord sake of military justice. After four years Morant, convicted murderer, age of research, however, I am in no doubt thirty-five. that in his personal life, Morant, like other Australian anti-heroes such as Ned Kelly and Some biographers argue that his wife, Chopper Read, was a slippery bastard. Daisy May O’Dwyer (later Daisy Bates, the famous anthropologist, Aboriginal activist Birth certificates issued by England’s General and writer), encouraged him to change his Register Office warn that ‘a certificate is not surname to Morant. While the marriage evidence of identity’ and that is certainly does mark the beginning of Murrant’s trans- true in this case. The Breaker did not start formation, his name did not alter until after life as Harry Harbord Morant: his certificate he and Daisy had split. states that he is Edwin Henry Murrant, born Morant avoided paying the clergyman in the subdistrict of Bridgwater in Somerset his honorarium for the marriage ceremony; on 9 December 1864. Before he died by shortly after the marriage, Morant wrote a firing squad in Pretoria, he had become a cheque to pay for a saddle and some horses lieutenant in the British army,3 fighting on and then quickly left Charters Towers. The behalf of the Empire in South Africa. But cheque was dishonoured. When he was before that he was well known throughout caught, Morant was also charged with steal- Australia as the Breaker – a published poet ing thirty-two pigs. and horseman. Official records show his transformation as follows: In his personal life, Morant, like other Australian anti-heroes • 1864 – birth certificate: Edwin Henry such as Ned Kelly and Chopper Murrant Read, was a slippery bastard. • 1871 – census records, Bridgwater Union Workhouse: Edwin Henry Murrant, scholar, age six The couple never divorced – and Morant • 1881 – census records, Silesia College: continued to fabricate his past. Edwin Henry Murrant, tutor, age In their biography, In Search of Breaker seventeen Morant: Balladist and Bushveldt Carbineer, • 1883 – shipping records: Ed Murrant, Margaret Carnegie and Frank Shields note age twenty (note: according to the the limited evidence from this period: birth record, he would have turned nineteen in December 1883) Exactly when Edwin Henry changed • 1884 – marriage certificate: Daisy May his Christian names to Harry Harbord OVERLAND ISSUE 214 11 is uncertain, nor is it known when he Just before leaving for South Africa, invented the tale that Admiral Sir George Morant worked for the Ogilvie family on Digby Morant was his father, for he told Paringa Station in South Australia and them in Charters Towers [in Queensland] that he had been educated by an uncle. There is no doubt he had a chip on his It is now generally understood shoulder which made him boastful.4 that during his time in Australia, Morant was a fabricator and Other writers who knew Morant perpetu- that his familial connections ated a number of the myths he had initiated. were contrived. Major Claude Jarvis met him in Pretoria, just before Morant joined the Bushveldt Carbineers.5 In his 1943 autobiography, visited the well-known Morant family at Half a Life, Jarvis is sympathetic, describ- their orange orchard in Renmark. Charles ing Morant as ‘one of those extraordinarily Morant, known as the ‘Colonel’, was the attractive “ne’er-do-wells”’6 and Morant’s exe- brother of Admiral Digby Morant, whom cution as ‘the most ghastly tragedy of the Harry claimed was his father. The Colonel war’.7 He relates the rumour that ‘in his was renowned in the region for his great youth [Morant] had been in the Navy and kindness and unvarying courtesy, and he had been forced to resign from the Service had been hospitable to Harry Morant during over some escapade or other’.8 In response, his many visits. But it is now generally Jarvis received several letters from Morant understood that during his time in Australia, sympathisers, and this correspondence has Morant was a fabricator and that his familial contributed to the ongoing mythology sur- connections were contrived. rounding Morant’s personal history.9 In Closed File, Kit Denton describes One letter came from the daughter of a Morant’s relationship with the two families: Major Bolton of the Wilts Regiment, who claimed that her father had been the prov- Miss Hilda Truman of Adelaide has told ost marshal at Bloemfontein in 1901 and me in letters and in conversation that was prosecutor during some of the hearings. Charles always considered Harry to be In her letter, she claims that on the train to his relative; as did the Cutlack family of Pretoria just before he and his companions South Australia, a household where The were executed, Morant had told her father Breaker was a frequent visitor, a friend of that he ‘had been in the Navy, but had got the father of the house, and known well into trouble over a card debt which had enough for F M Cutlack to have detailed forced him to leave the service and embark in his book Breaker Morant much of what on a roving life’.10 But this was written forty the family knew of Harry’s life, although years after the events by a woman who was it must be understood that those details ten years of age at the time. were supplied by Harry and with no sup- The biographer Frederic Cutlack porting proof.12 acknowledges that the story of the Breaker is tantalising but ‘obviously lacking in certain There is no physical evidence to support details’.11 Looking closely at Morant’s differ- Morant’s story that he was Digby Morant’s ent incarnations, it is clear that he was not son, despite having been accepted as a ‘rela- averse to colouring his past. tive’ by the Cutlack family and the Renmark 12 OVERLAND ISSUE 214 branch of the Morant family. The admiral ‘vanished from the face of the globe’ after himself fervently and publicly denied pater- 1866,17 she did in fact live at the workhouse HISTORY nity – even after the Breaker’s death.13 until 1891. She later returned to live in What seemed important to Morant was Devon, where she died in 1899 at the age of how he was perceived. The idea that he was sixty-six.18 a ‘gentleman’ enabled him to associate with Morant was probably ashamed of his Australia’s cultural and social elite, espe- family’s workhouse history. In the wake of cially the poets connected with The Bulletin Charles Dickens’ 1838 classic Oliver Twist, – and, in particular, the bush balladeer and workhouses had become infamous as places writer ‘Banjo’ Paterson. of disease, prostitution and abandon, a ‘pas- Paterson’s uncle Andrew Barton, who sive emblem of misery of the nineteenth had employed Morant, warned his nephew: century’.19 Workhouse children, in particular, were regarded as the carriers of disease.20 [H]e says he is the son of an English The Bridgwater Union Workhouse recorded Admiral and he has good manners and tramps and vagrants – with comments such education. He can do anything better as ‘lunatic’ and ‘imbecile’ beside their names21 than most people … anything except – as living on site during the period when work. I don’t know what is the matter Edwin Henry Murrant was listed as a ‘schol- with the chap.