A dastardly bandit responsible for incredibly heinous crimes, or a runaway in search of his freedom? Meg Foster unravels the myth of “Black Douglas”, whose life of crime across 19th-century Australia made him a target of lynch mobs and the popular press. Speaking to Emily Briffett, she explains how Douglas was branded a shadowy bogeyman, and delves into his experiences as a hard-drinking prize-fighter and phrenologist.
(Ad) Meg Foster is the author of Boundary Crossers: The hidden history of Australia's other bushrangers (NewSouth, 2022). Buy it now from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boundary-Crossers-history-Australias-bushrangers/dp/1742237525/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
D-Day: Land
A 17th-century scandal & a writer's secret life
Plato: life of the week
Breastfeeding in the Middle Ages
Death and mourning in Britain: everything you wanted to know
Julian: the Roman emperor who (almost) changed the world
D-Day: Sea
A Soviet road trip through 1930s America
Galileo: life of the week
What was life like as a peasant?
The history of museums: everything you wanted to know
Forgotten women writers of the Renaissance
D-Day: Air
Cat crazy: the Victorian mania for moggies
Maria Theresa: life of the week
Agent Zo: spying against the Nazis
The Terror: everything you wanted to know
The real Lady Whistledown & the golden age of gossip
WW2's greatest battles | 5. Guadalcanal
A surprising history of sex between men
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Gone Medieval
Dan Snow’s History Hit
Not Just the Tudors
American History Hit
Empire