John Henry Fleming

John Henry Fleming (27 March 1816 – 20 August 1894) was an Australian-born squatter and stockman, who is best known as being the ringleader of the 1838 Myall Creek massacre which resulted in the murder of at least twenty-eight unarmed members of the Wirraayaraay people, Indigenous Australians who spoke a Gamilaraay language.

Early life Fleming was born in 1816 to parents Henry Fleming and Elizabeth Hall. The Halls and the Flemings were some of the first British families to take up land in the Hawkesbury River region of the British colony of New South Wales. Although Fleming's father was a significant landowner along the Hawkesbury, he also had many convictions for assault and liquor offences.

Flees from arrest When the manager of Myall Creek, William Hobbs, and the overseer of a neighbouring station, Thomas Foster, discovered the approximately twenty-eight bodies, they decided to inform a local squatter Frederick Foot. Foot reported the massacre to the Governor of New South Wales, George Gipps. Supported by the Attorney General, John Plunkett, Gipps ordered Police Magistrate Edward Denny Day at Muswellbrook to investigate the massacre.

Fleming was also able to continue to maintain his pastoral interests, owning considerable amounts of livestock on northern frontier leaseholds associated with his brother. It has been postulated that Fleming also continued to work as a stockman on his brother's northern properties, particularly at Talavera, near Surat, where there was bloody conflict with the local Aboriginal population.

Fleming died, childless, in 1894 and was buried in the Church of England cemetery next to St John's Church in Wilberforce.