| Narrative | According to Ian Clark, 'In either April or May 1840, Mustons station near Mount Rouse, and leased by Peter Aylward and Augustine Barton', was alleged to have been 'attacked' by 300 Aboriginal people who took a number of Aylward's sheep to the other side of the Serra Range. 'In June, Aylward took his revenge in an act of reprisal in which seven Aborigines were killed and many others wounded‘ (Clark 1995, p. 66). RW Knowles, Robert Martin's overseer at Mount Sturgeon station, was a perpetrator in the massacre as was Robert Tulloh from nearby Bochara Station at the junction of the Wannon River and Grangeburn Creek. On 27 June 1841, Tulloh told Chief Protector GA Robinson that he was one of eight horsemen in the party (Robinson cited in Clark 1998b, p. 284). The group not only included Aylward and Knowles, but also stockman George Robinson.
Historian Jan Critchett (1990) examined the depositions each of the men gave on different days on different properties to produce this account: '[They] came across a large party of Aborigines... Aylward estimated the Aborigines to number nearly 300, Knowles [or Knolles] more than 150, Tulloh about 500... The Europeans, on horseback, fired on them and then retreated... As soon as the three men had reloaded their guns, they charged again with the Aborigines fleeing before them. The "engagement" lasted a quarter of an hour' (p. 124). Aylward reported that 'there must have been a great many wounded, and several killed ... saw two or three dead bodies'. Knowles reported: 'Some of the Natives must have been wounded, but I saw none dead' (Aylward and Knowles cited in Critchett, 1990, pp. 124-5). |
