Narrative | According to military historian John Connor (Connor 2002, p59-61), following the declaration of martial law in the Bathurst District in August 1824, about forty soldiers from the 40th Regiment led by the Commandant at Bathurst, Major Morisset, three magistrates and three mounted settlers and some Aboriginal guides set off for the region north of Bathurst. According to missionary LE Threlkeld, a detachment of soldiers led by Major Morisset drove a large number of Wiradjuri people, men, women and children, into a swamp and 'all were destroyed'. In the aftermath, 'forty-five heads were collected and boiled down for the sake of the skulls! My informant, a Magistrate, saw the skulls packed for exportation in a case at Bathurst ready for shipment to accompany the commanding Officer on his voyage shortly afterwards taken to England' (Threlkeld cited in Gunson 1974, p 49). Military historian John Connor (2002, p59) acknowledges that Morisset made no report of the entire Bathurst operation. |