Robert Cotterell, better known by the alias Bluecap, was an Australian bushranger and gang leader.
Biography
Little is known about Cotterell's early years. He was born to Robert and Jane Cottrell and was employed as a stockman on Curraburrama Station in New South Wales. He suffered from ophthalmia, an eye condition that made him sensitive to light, and wore a dark shade for protection. He turned to bushranging in 1867, teaming up with convict Jerry Duce, who adopted the nickname White Chief. The gang grew over the following year with the inclusion of bushrangers known as Scotch Jock, Jack the Devil, and King. Bluecap assumed leadership of the gang as it committed many audacious raids, robbing stations and travellers in an area covering Young, Griffith, Narrandera and Tumut. It earned a reputation as the most formidable gang in New South Wales. During one raid on a station, while his men helped themselves to provisions, Bluecap nursed and played with the manager's daughter, two-year-old Mary Gilmore, who grew up to become a renowned poet. After raiding a station owned by Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh, the gang crossed the flooded Urangeline Creek with mounted police in pursuit. One gang member, Hammond, drowned in the process. This first incarnation of the Bluecap Gang disbanded soon after. White Chief was eventually caught and sentenced to death but this was later commuted to fifteen years on the roads. In October 1867, Bluecap teamed up with a bushranger named Doolan to form another gang. Doolan hatched a plan to stage a mock gunfight at a station where he worked, during which his accomplices would steal the owner's firearms. The gang then intended to rob the local bank. The plan was foiled and Doolan was arrested. Bluecap's bushranging career came to an end when he attempted to rob three plain-clothed policemen. He attempted to flee but was shot and captured. Put on trial in Wagga Wagga on 20 April 1868, Cottrell was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to ten yearshard labour. Cotterell served 6 and half years before being released in 1874.
Legacy
English writer James Skip Borlase wrote an 1876 penny dreadful inspired by Bluecap titled Bluecap the Bushranger, or the Australian Dick Turpin. Best known for his 1882 bushranging novel Robbery Under Arms, writer and squatter Rolf Boldrewood was held up by Bluecap and his gang when riding home from Wagga Wagga. This incident inspired scenes in his novels The Squatter's Dream, in which the bushranger is renamed Redcap, and The Crooked Stick. Boldrewood recounted the experience in a memoir titled Fallen Among Thieves, included in his 1901 book In Bad Company: And Other Stories. When Barcroft Boake, the bush poet, was found dead from suicide in 1892, he had in his pocket a manuscript for a set of verses about Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh's encounter with Bluecap. Titled "Fetherstonhaugh", the poem was first published posthumously in The Bulletin, 11 June 1892, and later in Boake's poetry collection, Where the Dead Men Lie, and Other Poems.
