Thomas Brian Nugent

Thomas Brian Nugent also known as Tom Nugent (14 March 1848 – 11 August 1911) was a stockman, pastoralist and bushranger who spent much of his life in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Biography

Nugent was born in Maitland, New South Wales and very little is known of his early life. Nugent was widely recognised as their leader.

Together the group plagued the Halls Creek goldfields and the surrounding country as bushrangers between 1885 and 1887 after which point they disbanded. In one instance of theft that group travelled to Victoria River Downs Station, where Nugent introduced himself as Lockhart, and while he and the manager Lindsay Crawford were playing cards that rest of the group removed the planks from the side of the store and took all of the horseshoes stored there; these were then incredibly valuable in such a remote location. During this early period Nugent also worked for a time as a linesman on the Overland Telegraph Line.

It was reported in 1900, by John Archibald Graham Little, the senior telegraph officer, that Nugent had formed a "nice station" at Banka Banka and that "a small garden at the homestead yields an ample supply of all kinds of vegetables of remarkable size and quality".

In 1902 William Linklater, known then as Billy Miller, came to work on Banka Banka and together the pair were involved in cattle stealing, most often stealing cattle from across the border in either Queensland or Western Australia. Linklater would later leave there to be a prospector in Halls Creek. Later, in 1941, Linklater wrote an account of The Ragged Thirteen which he had learned from Nugent which was never published; Linklater was also used as a source by Ernestine Hill about them.

In July 1911 while unwell Nugent travelled to the Tennant Creek Telegraph Station, near Tennant Creek (Jurnkkurakurr), for treatment. He died there on 11 August 1911 and was buried there.