Джимми Говернор: Австралияның туған жерлік қарақшысының тарихы

Indigenous Australian outlaw

Jimmy Governor (c. 1875 – 18 January 1901) was an Indigenous Australian who was proclaimed an outlaw after committing a series of murders in 1900. His actions initiated a cycle of violence in which nine people were killed (either by Governor or his accomplices). Governor and his brother Joe were on the run from police for fourteen weeks before Jimmy was captured and Joe was killed by authorities. In July 1900, Governor and his accomplice Jack Underwood murdered four members of the Mawbey family and a schoolteacher at Breelong in what was then the Colony of New South Wales. Underwood was captured soon afterwards, but the Governor brothers took to the bush. During the period they were at large, ranging over a large area of north central New South Wales, the brothers committed further murders and multiple robberies. A manhunt involving hundreds of police and volunteers was initiated, with the Governors occasionally taunting their pursuers and deriding the police. In October 1900, Governor was wounded and, a fortnight later, captured near Wingham. Four days after his brother's capture, Joe was shot and killed north of Singleton. Governor was tried for murder and hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol in January 1901. Governor's life and crimes formed the basis for Thomas Keneally's 1972 novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, which explored themes of Aboriginal dispossession and racism. Fred Schepisi's 1978 movie of the same name was an adaptation of Keneally's novel.

Jimmy Governor was born in about 1875 on the Talbragar River near Denison Town, Colony of New South Wales, the son of Tommy Governor (or Grosvenor), an Aboriginal man, and Annie Fitzgerald. Jimmy was the eldest of eight children, with four brothers and three sisters. The children attended a number of different schools as they moved from place to place contingent on Tommy being employed in various bush work. His mother had been raised northeast of Mendooran and was the daughter of Jack Fitzgerald, a white Irish stockman, and an Aboriginal mother named Polly, who worked as a house servant. Annie's father died before her birth and she was raised by Polly and her Aboriginal stepfather, a man named Henry. In 1887, while mending a dam east of Dunedoo, Tommy found "samples of metal bearing ore" which he showed to George Stewart, manager of 'Pine Ridge' station. Stewart had them assayed, revealing that they contained silver, after which he took up mineral leases of 70 acres and formed a company of Mudgee businessmen to work what became known as the Mount Stewart mine. In 1888, "the original promoters of the Mount Stewart and Grosvenor leases" presented Tommy, on his departure with his family to the Paterson River district, "with a purse of sovereigns to help the old fellow on his journey". The fact that he had "received no substantial benefit" for his discovery of the "silver field" remained a source of resentment for Tommy. but by the following July they were living under canvas on the St. Clair reserve north of Singleton. In August 1890, Tommy stabbed another Aboriginal man during an altercation at the Singleton "blacks' camp". He was subsequently tried and convicted on a charge of malicious wounding in the Singleton Quarter Sessions, and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour in Maitland Gaol. Following his release, Tommy moved his family westwards back to the Gulgong district, where they set up camp on the Aboriginal reserve in the police paddock, across the creek from Wollar township.

Schooling for the eight Governor children was irregular owing to the family's circumstances. Jimmy, the eldest, attended school at Denison Town and Wollar, and possibly also at Gulgong, Coonabarabran and Allynbrook (in the Paterson River district). A former pupil of the Wollar school recalled that Jimmy and his younger brothers Joe and Jackie "could read and write tolerably well". Jimmy was described as a "smart, athletic and cheerful native" and Joe as "rather sullen and morose". In 1883, when white parents in Yass objected to "aboriginal and half caste" pupils attending the public school, the local school board decreed that the indigenous children were forbidden to attend. The Minister of Public Instruction, George Reid, upheld this decision after being requested to rule on the case by the teacher at the school. This precedent determined subsequent public education policy in New South Wales whereby local objections were sufficient to preclude Aboriginal children attending a specific school. In 1890, at age 15, Jimmy was lopping trees on properties in the Dunedoo district. Later he and his brother Joe worked along the Allyn River and in the Singleton district, doing a variety of jobs including fencing, mustering stock and breaking horses. His father's example had given Jimmy a strong work ethic and a sense of independence, and he resolved to work for wages instead of rations or handouts. At his trial Jimmy later stated, "I was never a loafer like some blackfellows", before adding: "I always worked, and paid for what I got, and I reckon I am as good as a white man". During this period of his life, Jimmy had his first significant adverse encounter with the justice system. In February 1893 he was convicted of "stealing" at Denison Town and received a sentence of one month imprisonment. Other sources describe the offence as "horse sweating" (riding a horse without the owner's permission), a less serious offence than the actual theft of a horse. By the mid 1890s, with his family living on the Aboriginal reserve at Wollar, Jimmy worked on stations and farms in the district. In July 1896 he enlisted as an tracker with the New South Wales Mounted Police and was stationed at Cassilis. This occupation lasted only seventeen months, with a police officer who claimed to know Jimmy stating he had left after seducing the daughter of a selector. Whatever the reason, soon after his departure a formal inspection of Cassilis police station by Superintendent Atkins revealed "everything in a fairly satisfactory condition except the conduct of the Senior Constable and Constable", which Atkins intended to bring "under the notice of the Inspector General of Police". In August 1898, Ethel became pregnant by Jimmy. The pair married in December in the rectory of St. Luke's Anglican church at Gulgong, with Jimmy wearing a borrowed white cricket suit for the occasion. When Ethel was later asked "if she did not think it would have been better to have remained single rather than marry an aboriginal", she replied: "You might think so, but I was very fond of Jimmy". Jimmy and Ethel lived in a house in the Gulgong district next to Ethel's parents, where she gave birth to a son named Sidney in early April 1899. Mawbey owned a property known as 'Old Breelong' or 'Breelong West' on the Wallumburrawang Creek at its junction with the Castlereagh River, ten miles southeast of Gilgandra. The locality was once a coaching change station on the Mendooran Gilgandra road, and the family's first home was in the old Breelong Inn. By 1900, Mawbey's original selection had expanded to 1,500 acres and a new house had been built north of the old inn. By this stage Mawbey and his wife, Sarah, had nine children. Sarah's younger sister Elsie Clarke also lived with the family. In late January 1900, a 21 year old teacher, Ellen Kerz, joined the household. 'West Breelong' had been declared a provisional school, so Kerz boarded at the new house and taught the Mawbey siblings, as well as other children from the district, at this location. The Mawbey men slept in the inn while the women and children occupied the new house. Jimmy and Ethel arrived at Mawbey's property in January 1900, after leaving their young baby with Ethel's parents in Dubbo. Jimmy was contracted to construct three miles of fencing, a job that would take about a year. The Governors made their camp further up the creek, about three miles from the Mawbey home and near where Jimmy would be working. The couple constructed a gunyah at the camp from bark sheets propped against a large log, and laid bark and leaves on the floor for bedding. Mawbey had agreed to supply rations of flour, meat and sugar, but any extras would be charged. The arrangement also involved Ethel working in the house several times a week as a domestic servant. In late June the Governors received a visit from Jimmy's brother Joe and a friend named Jack Underwood. Underwood was aged about 38 years; he walked with a limp and was blind in one eye. The two traveled to the Redbank Mission near Coonamble to visit family members, then returned nine days later with 80 year old Jack Porter and the Governor brothers' young nephew, Peter. Joe and Underwood set up their camp about a hundred metres from the Governors' campsite, while Porter and Peter camped another hundred metres further away. Bitterness towards the Mawbeys increased in Jimmy's mind as the weather turned colder at Breelong. He had complained that Mrs. Mawbey had overcharged him for rations when she compiled the bill. As the grievances began to pile up and his resentment increased, Jimmy began to fantasise about bushranging. In a statement made after his capture, he said that he, Ethel, Joe and Underwood "were talking about bushranging at night after our work was done", with the discussions taking the form of boastful talk and bravado between the men. By this stage it was late in the evening, between ten and eleven o'clock. At least two of the men carried weapons: Underwood carried a rifle and a tomahawk and Jimmy carried a boondi (a hardwood club). They had no bullets or gunpowder, so taking the gun suggests that the weapons at this point were being carried for the purpose of intimidation. The group went first to the old inn, where John Mawbey, his brother in law Fred Clarke, and the two eldest Mawbey sons were staying. Jimmy and another man (probably Underwood) approached the inn and called for Mawbey, who came outside. Jimmy asked him for a bag of flour and a bag of sugar, to which Mawbey replied that he would provide them some time the following day. By Jimmy's account he then returned to where the others were waiting and said to his wife: "I am going to see Mrs. Mawbey about those words she has been saying, I'll make her mind what she is talking about". The group then walked to the Mawbey house in order for Jimmy to confront Mrs. Mawbey. According to Jimmy's version of events, Mrs. Mawbey and Kerz came to the door, at which point Jimmy asked: "Did you tell my missus that any white woman who married a blackfellow ought to be shot? Did you ask my wife about our private business? Did you ask her what sort of nature did I have – black or white?". The women (by Jimmy's account) responded "with a sneering laugh" and he then "struck Mrs. Mawbey in the mouth". Kerz is then quoted as saying: "Pooh, you black rubbish, you want shooting for marrying a white woman". Jimmy then hit Kerz on the jaw, knocking her down. In his own words he then "got out of temper and got hammering them, and lost control of myself." Jimmy's attack set off a series of chaotic and murderous events. A panel of the front door was shattered by a tomahawk, indicating it had been closed against the assailants. Mrs. Mawbey was mortally wounded by five gashes to her neck and head inflicted by Jimmy. Kerz and 16 year old Grace Mawbey retreated to an adjoining bedroom where Hilda Mawbey (aged 11) and Elsie Clarke were in bed. Three boys – 'Percy' Mawbey (aged 14), 'Bert' Mawbey (aged 9) and their cousin George (aged 13) – were sleeping in an enclosed verandah and woke to the noise. Jack hid under a bed and Percy went to confront the attackers but was "chopped down" by Underwood as he entered the front sitting room where his mother lay. The door to the bedroom where the women had retreated was smashed in, but Kerz and the two Mawbey girls managed to escape by climbing out a window. However, 19 year old Elsie Clarke was caught and attacked with a boondi, receiving severe wounds to her face and head. After they had climbed out the window, Kerz and the two girls started running towards the inn. Jimmy set off in pursuit; he caught up with Kerz and Grace, killing the former and mortally wounding the latter with blows from the tomahawk and the boondi. Hilda was ahead of the other two but stumbled and fell down the steep bank of the creek. Jimmy caught up with her and hit her with repeated blows from his boondi, leaving her head "completely crushed in". Mr. Mawbey grabbed his gun and hastened to the house, closely followed by his son Reggie and Fred Clarke. They arrived barely ten minutes after the murders had begun, but the assailants had left the scene. The only family members who remained unscathed were Bert, his cousin George (who had hidden under the bed) and the two youngest children (who had been sleeping in a separate kitchen behind the house). Percy, Hilda and Kerz were dead. Grace lingered for two days before succumbing from her wounds. Elsie Clarke survived her injuries but was made permanently deaf from the blows she had received.

On Tuesday 24 July, Underwood, walking without food or blankets, called at William Shaw's selection near Leadville. Claiming his name was 'Charlie Brown', he said he had come from Wellington and hadn't eaten in three days. Shaw suspected his guest was one of the Breelong murderers and provided food and conversation while his wife proceeded to a neighbouring selection to seek assistance. Contact was made with a group searching for the fugitives, who proceeded to Shaw's selection and captured Underwood without resistance. He was taken to the lock up at Leadville and guarded by civilians (as no police were present at the time). Two days later Underwood, under guard, was taken by coach to the gaol at Mudgee. Underwood was initially held in custody at Mudgee with the expectation the Governor brothers would be soon apprehended and a single trial held, but when that did not eventuate legal proceedings were initiated against him. On 18 August 1900 he was taken by train to Dubbo and thence to Gilgandra "in which district the principal witnesses reside". He appeared before the Gilgandra Police Court on August 22, charged with murdering members of the Mawbey family and Ellen Kerz at Breelong. Witnesses were examined and evidence presented, and he was committed to stand trial for murder. Underwood was tried for the murder of Percy Mawbey at Dubbo on 2 October 1900 before Judge G. B. Simpson. The prisoner pleaded not guilty. Ethel and Porter had been held in custody until the day before the trial, but the Attorney General dropped the charges against them as their evidence was required for Underwood's trial. Ethel gave evidence but Porter and Peter Governor were withdrawn as witnesses, as it was decided they did not understand the concept of an oath. The cousins Jack and Bert Mawbey, who survived the massacre, each gave evidence and stated they had not seen Underwood among the assailants. After an hour the jury returned a verdict of guilty but advised the court that "they could not come to a decision as to who struck the fatal blows on Percy Mawbey". Judge Simpson then passed a sentence of death on Underwood.

On the evening of Sunday 22 July, after the Governor brothers had separated from Underwood, they were spotted at Slapdash Creek, both riding bareback on a grey horse. That night they were given food by Charlie Wade and spent the night in a hut near Wade's house on Tallawang Creek. In the morning they headed east towards the village of Ulan, thirteen miles northeast of Gulgong. In the early afternoon of 23 July, the brothers arrived at the farm of Alexander McKay at Sportsman's Hollow, two miles from Ulan. McKay, aged 70, was pruning a fig tree near his fence when the two men approached carrying a rifle and a tomahawk. The farmer was mortally wounded by a vicious blow from the tomahawk on the top of his head. The brothers then approached the house, calling out, "We are going to kill the lot of you!" McKay's wife Mary was on the verandah and "made a rush for the door" as Jimmy struck at her with a stick, fracturing her left temple. She managed to get inside, but the Governors broke several windows and eventually gained entry to the house. An 18 year old woman, Louisa Jonson, was also residing with the McKays. The Governors took money and some clothes before leaving on a stolen horse and saddle. The two women discovered McKay by the fig tree "groaning pitifully". They carried him to the house, where he died soon afterwards. McKay's wife was in no doubt "the motive of the crime was revenge", stating that “some years ago” her husband had reproached Jimmy "for obtaining food by false representations, when he was eluding arrest on a charge of horse stealing" (probably a reference to when Governor was charged with that offence in 1893). Elizabeth and Bennett were shot several times, the former also struck by Joe's tomahawk, inflicting a fatal blow. Jimmy broke the rifle stock by using it to beat James to death. The Governors then ransacked the house, taking money, clothes and boots. On a blank cheque form they wrote: "You dog, I shoot you also". Bennett was still alive, shot with a bullet that entered her collarbone and passed through her chest. She staggered from the kitchen after her assailants had left and found Michael O'Brien, who walked to a neighbouring selection to send a rider to alert police in Merriwa. By the time the troopers had arrived, the Governor brothers Jimmy and Joe Governor had long departed, but Bennett had been laying for six hours in the bush suffering from exposure. The supposed motive behind the attack at the O'Brien selection was a longstanding grudge held by Jimmy. Years beforehand, during a cricket match being played at Wollar, "Jimmy made a pest of himself" and O'Brien "gave him a ducking in the creek to quieten him down a bit". On 25 July a notification was published offering a reward of two hundred pounds "for the apprehension" of each of the offenders, Jimmy Governor and Joe Governor. The notice referred to the murders "by aboriginals" at Breelong and the subsequent inquest which returned a verdict of "wilful murder" against Jimmy Governor, Joe Governor, Jack Underwood, Jack Porter and Ethel Governor. The following day, the Governor brothers broke into an empty house belonging to Thomas Hughes, stealing a Winchester rifle and ammunition. Now in the vicinity of Wollar, they headed to Kieran Fitzpatrick's farm. Jimmy believed Fitzpatrick had poisoned his dogs years beforehand, so his was another score to settle. A broad region of New South Wales, lying between the Northern and Western railway systems "within the boundary of lines drawn between Gilgandra and Muswellbrook on the north and Mudgee and Newcastle on the south", was now on high alert. The resources of every police station within that area were being called upon. It was reported that business "on the farms or in the shops is practically at a standstill, and those who are not engaged in the active work of search and pursuit spend their time in speculation and discussion of the tragedies and their perpetrators". Settlers moved out of their homesteads in fear of the Governors, with women and children brought together in towns for safety while many of the men joined the pursuit. After the Fitzpatrick killing outside Wollar, and the fact that the Governors' mother and younger siblings were living on the Aboriginal reserve at Wollar, the township became a focus of attention by the police and the colonial press. A visitor in late July noted: "When we rode into the town we met men armed to the teeth, riding round looking out sharply for any sign of the blacks". The police had brought all the local aborigines into the township in order to keep them under surveillance. At night they were locked up in a hall which had been "appropriated for their accommodation". Such was the fear and panic in the Wollar district that "families from up and down the Wollar Creek have flocked into town, and every available place is crammed with humanity". A visitor to the Merriwa and Cassilis district in late July recounted that "the people are terror stricken for miles around, and nearly every person is carrying firearms in fear of meeting the blacks". It was stated that every hut and house in the Wollar Ranges district "has been vacated" and it was "next to impossible to obtain a bed" at any of the hotels in Merriwa or Cassilis. Outlying settlers in the Coolah district were reported to have "deserted their houses, and are stopping in the town at hotels, and private houses are packed". It was observed that local stores had completely sold out of rifles. Jimmy had frequently been in Coolah and it was feared he would "visit persons with whom he has quarrelled".

On July 29, a Chinaman’s hut was robbed near Gulgong. The following day, the Governors were seen at Two mile Flat, twelve miles from Gulgong. Later they were camped near the village of Yamble when a party of pursuers surprised them while they were preparing a meal. The tracks of the fugitives were lost at the Cudgegong River near Goolma, and for about a week no information of their whereabouts was obtained. By this time large numbers of police and civilian volunteers had joined the search, including six black trackers from Queensland under the charge of Sub inspector Galbraith of Ipswich. Over the next three months the Governor brothers, styling themselves bushrangers, carried on a series of break ins, robberies and assaults. The reward was increased on 25 September 1900 to £1,000 each. As the brothers outwitted and even taunted the police and trackers hunting them, public pressure grew for the police to capture them. The government instituted a process on 2 October 1900 to proclaim the brothers outlaws so that, when they failed to appear at a police station by the afternoon of 16 October 1900, they could legally be shot and killed on sight. the last persons to be so declared in New South Wales. On Friday 12 October, Constable Richard Harris, a Sydney police officer stationed at Ashfield, and a tracker named Landsborough were occupying the hut of a selector named O'Doherty, three miles from Yarras at the junction of the Hastings River and Lahey's Creek. At about four o'clock in the afternoon, they heard movements outside and then saw a rifle flash as Harris was hit in the hip by a bullet fired through an opening between the slabs. The bullet passed through his flesh and struck the wall of the hut. Harris and Landsborough rushed outside and saw the brothers running towards the creek "and dodging from tree to tree". Shots were exchanged and Harris claimed to have hit Jimmy. Harris bandaged his wound and walked to a nearby selection, from where he was taken to Port Macquarie for medical treatment

With Jimmy wounded, he and Joe camped in the bush for the next three days. The following day, Wednesday 17 October, the Governors were sighted near George Branston's house on the Hastings River, two miles west of Yarras. Constable Young and a tracker were stationed in the house. Joe Governor was on the opposite bank and Jimmy was in the riverbed when Young and the tracker started firing at them. In the chaos of the shootout, the brothers became separated. In Jimmy's words: "Joe ran away down the other side of the river, and that was the last I saw of my brother". He had a Winchester rifle, but only two bullets. For about a week he remained hidden near Bobin, dispirited and looking for food to scrounge. On Friday 27 October, John Wallace, the postmaster at Bobin, was camped on his selection on Bobin Creek, a mile and a half from the village. After returning from a visit to a neighbour at mid afternoon, Wallace found that his tucker bag and billy were gone. Suspecting he had been robbed by one of the Governors, Wallace caught his horse and returned to Bobin, after which he walked back through the scrub on the opposite bank of the creek and lay concealed, watching his campsite from a distance of about 60 yards. At dusk, in Wallace’s words: "I saw a darkey come walking leisurely along to the fire". After ascertaining that the man intended "to make the fire his camping place for the night", Wallace returned to the village and gathered a party of seven other men. After planning their hiding places so none could be hit by crossfire, the men took their positions by about 3.00am Saturday morning and waited for daybreak. Just on daylight Jimmy stood up, fifty yards higher up the creek than expected and only 20 yards from where one of the party, Tom Green, was stationed. When Green called out "surrender", Jimmy grabbed his rifle and started running up the creek, with Green and Wallace in pursuit and firing with breechloading shotguns. After a chase of about 200 yards, with the others in the party closing in and firing, the outlaw finally fell when Green shot him in the thigh. Two members of the party were sent to Wingham to report the capture to the police. Jimmy laid "as if insensible" for over an hour, after which he began to move. Leaning on his elbow, he said: "I give you fellows credit for catching me. The police could not run down a poddy calf". Wallace returned to Bobin to get a spring cart while the others carried their prisoner to the road, and Jimmy was taken by cart to Wingham. On Tuesday 30 October, Jimmy was brought before the Police Magistrate at Wingham and charged with the murder of Ellen Kerz. Evidence at the hearing was mainly concerned with formal identification of the prisoner and accounts of admissions by Jimmy of having committed the crimes at Breelong. When asked if he wished to question the witnesses, "Jimmy replied in the negative by quietly shaking his head". The police superintendent then formally applied for the remand of the prisoner to Sydney, which was granted. During the voyage he "occupied the time in playing cards with his custodians". Electra arrived in Sydney on the following evening and Jimmy was taken to Darlinghurst Gaol.

On the night of Tuesday 30 October, John Wilkinson of 'Glenrock' on Talbrook Creek was walking across his paddock towards his brother George's residence when he noticed a fire burning in a nearby gully. Later that night, Wilkinson and his brother, with just one rifle between them, went to investigate. The country near the fire was "very rough and precipitous, although not heavily timbered". When they got near, they could see a man asleep beside the fire. While his brother withdrew to the top of a hill to keep watch, Wilkinson, with the rifle, worked his way forward taking advantage of available cover as day began to break. Finding himself only about fifteen yards away, he decided that "hesitating might mean disaster" and so he ran towards the sleeper calling out "surrender". Joe Governor jumped up and Wilkinson fired, but "the cartridge hung fire" and the bullet missed. Joe grabbed for his rifle but was unable to reach it as Wilkinson charged forward, "so the fugitive darted away for dear life". Wilkinson chased Joe through the hills and ravines, firing several times but missing on each occasion. Eventually, with Joe about 120 yards distant, Wilkinson stopped and went down on one knee, took careful aim and fired. With that shot, Joe fell dead over the bank of the creek.

Jimmy was arraigned before Judge Owen at the Sydney Central Criminal Court in Darlinghurst on 22 November 1900, charged with the murder of Ellen Kerz. He was defended by Francis S. Boyce, who immediately moved for the acquittal of the prisoner based on the fact that he was a declared outlaw and hence "the accused is not able to plead and defend himself against the indictment" (in effect, already guilty in the eyes of the law). The judge disagreed, holding that the object of the declaration of outlawry was to bring about the person's capture "for the purpose of putting him on trial". The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the judge's direction and was discharged. Another jury was then empanelled to try the case based on the evidence. Testimony for the prosecution on the first day of the trial was given by John Mawbey, followed by Mawbey's nephew George and son Albert (who had been in the house during the murders). Ethel also gave evidence, together with a number of other witnesses. The case for the defence on the following day consisted of a written statement that Boyce requested be read on behalf of the accused as he "cannot read well". The prosecutor objected to this and the judge ruled that the statement "must be given orally" by the prisoner. Governor then read his statement to the court. After both counsels' closing addresses and a summing up by Judge Owen, the jury retired and returned after just ten minutes to return a verdict of guilty on the charge of murder. The prisoner was then asked if he had anything to say as to why the Court should not pass a sentence of death upon him. Jimmy "grasped the iron railings of the dock as he stood and shook his head"; after drinking water from a pannikin handed to him by an attendant constable, he "said in a weak voice, 'No, nothing'". Judge Owen then sentenced the prisoner to be hanged. After almost three and a half months in his cell at Dubbo Gaol, Jack Underwood was hanged on 14 January 1901. After the execution the hangman, Robert ('Nosey Bob') Howard, travelled back to Sydney to supervise the hanging of Underwood's partner in the Breelong murders. Jimmy Governor was hanged on the morning of 18 January 1901 at Darlinghurst Gaol. The certifying doctor was Robert T. Paton.

A little more than a month after Jimmy's execution, wax figures of "Joe and Jimmy Governor and their victims" were exhibited at The Waxworks at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. After she was released from gaol prior to Underwood's trial in October 1900, Ethel Governor and her child were admitted to a charitable institution in Sydney. She visited her husband in prison on a number of occasions prior to his execution. Ethel was pregnant and gave birth to a daughter in April 1901 at Wollongong. In November that year she married a part Aboriginal man, Frank Brown, prompting racist comments in the press. One article declared: "The second marriage is just as repulsive as the first, for the bride groom is a half caste, and in spite of all her faults the woman is white"; the article concluded that the "inevitable consequence" of the marriage "will be the completion of the damnation of her soul, and addition to the piebald of 'A White Australia'". Ethel and Frank had eleven children. Ethel outlived her second husband; she died in October 1945 and was buried in Rookwood cemetery.

The founding headmaster of The Southport School, the Rev (later Rt Rev) Horace Dixon, was nicknamed 'Jimmy' by the schoolboys in 1903 after Governor, and was known as 'Jimmy' for the rest of his life. The story of the Governors was adapted for radio in 1934 as an episode of the series Outlawry Under the Gums but the episodes were cancelled out of fear of offending the Aboriginal community. The life and crimes of Jimmy Governor was the basis for Frank Clune's book Jimmy Governor (1959) and Thomas Keneally's 1972 novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, which was filmed by Fred Schepisi in 1978. Governor was also the subject of Australian poet Les Murray's poem "The Ballad of Jimmy Governor". In September 2021, a 3 part Australian crime podcast called The Last Outlaws was released, detailing the brothers' story. It was produced by Impact Studios at the University of Technology Sydney. It was made in collaboration with descendants of the Governor family, the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research and the UTS Faculty of Law.