Jimmie Governor

Defined as a half-caste, Jimmy Governor challenged the white man's Aboriginal stereotype of 1900 - he was highly intelligent, better educated than many of his white contemporaries, personable, a hard worker, did not drink alcohol, and married to a white woman. Only the colour of his skin prevented any rise from the lowest rung of white society. On the cold winter night of July 20, 1900, Jimmy Governor and Jacky Underwood smashed their way into the Mawbey homestead at Breelong and began killing women and children. Using meticulous research, Maurie Garland sheds new light on the Governor and Mawbey families to provide a new analysis of the story that gripped Australia in 1900.