Breaker Morant
Harry Harbord "Breaker" Morant was an English horseman, bush balladist, military officer, and war criminal who was convicted and executed for murdering nine prisoners-of-war and three captured civilians in three separate incidents during the Second Boer War.
Morant travelled to the Australian colonies in 1883 and for more than fifteen years he worked in a variety of occupations in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, during which time he developed a reputation as a horseman and bush balladist. In 1899 he enlisted in the second contingent of the South Australian Mounted Rifles to be sent by the government of that colony to serve as part of the British Empire forces fighting in South Africa during the Second Boer War. Morant embarked as a corporal and ended his term of service as a sergeant, having spent much of his time as a despatch rider. He then returned to England for six months while he unsuccessfully sought to clear some debts.
Returning to South Africa, Morant received a commission as a lieutenant with an irregular regimentthe Bushveldt Carbineers. He was arrested and court-martialled for committing murder on active serviceone of the first such prosecutions in British military history. According to military prosecutors, Morant retaliated for the death in combat of his squadron commandera close friendwith a series of revenge killings against both Boer POWs and many civilian residents of the Northern Transvaal. Morant's defence attorney, Major James Francis Thomas, asserted that his clients should be acquitted, claiming that they were acting in accordance with superior orders not to take prisoners. Despite this, Thomas was unable to establish that an order to that effect had been issued.
Morant was accused of the summary execution of Floris Visser, a wounded POW, and the slaying of four Afrikaners and four Dutch schoolteachers who had surrendered at the Elim Hospital, five of whom were members of the Soutpansberg Commando. Morant was found guilty and sentenced to death. Morant and Lieutenant Peter Handcock were then court-martialled for the murder of the Reverend Carl August Daniel Heese, a South African-born Minister of the Berlin Missionary Society. Heese had spiritually counselled the Dutch and Afrikaner victims at Elim Hospital and had been shot to death the same afternoon. Morant and Handcock were acquitted of the Heese murder, but their sentences for murdering Visser, the eight victims at Elim Hospital, and three others were implemented by a firing squad from the Cameron Highlanders on 27 February 1902.
Morant and Handcock have become folk heroes in modern Australia, representing a turning point for Australians' self-determination and independence from British rule. Their court-martial and death have been the subject of books, a stage play and an award-winning Australian New Wave film by director Bruce Beresford. Upon its release during 1980, Beresford's film both brought Morant's life story to a worldwide audience and "hoisted the images of the accused officers to the level of Australian icons and martyrs". Despite the seriousness of the evidence and charges against them, some modern Australians regard Morant and Handcock as scapegoats or even as victims of judicial murder. They continue to attempt, with some public support, to obtain a posthumous pardon or even a new trial.
According to South African historian Charles Leach, "In the opinion of many South Africans, particularly descendants of victims as well as other involved persons in the far Northern Transvaal, justice was only partially achieved by the trial and the resultant sentences. The feeling still prevails that not all the guilty parties were dealt with – the notorious Captain Taylor being the most obvious one of all."
Early life in England
Edwin Henry Murrant was born at Bridgwater, Somerset, England, on 9 December 1864. According to his Queensland marriage record, he was the son of Edwin Murrant and Catherine Murrant. Edwin and Catherine were master and matron of the Union Workhouse at Bridgwater. Morant's father died in August 1864, four months before Edwin Henry was born. Despite her reduced circumstances following her husband's death, after four applications and help from her contacts Catherine was able send her son to the local Royal Masonic Institution for Boys. He received prizes for French, German, classics, dictation and elocution, but also constantly misbehaved and influenced other boys to join him in his misdemeanours. Catherine continued as matron of the workhouse until her retirement in early 1882, having completed 21 year service. She died in July 1899.Australia (1883–1899)
Morant arrived in Queensland aboard the SS Waroonga when it docked in Townsville on 5 June 1883. At the time, there was no difference in legal status, in either country, between people born in the UK and British subjects born overseas – a category that included a vast majority of people born in the Australian colonies. This did not change until the Australian nationality law of 1948. Morant did not regard himself as Australian. His former defence counsel, Major James Francis Thomas, later "reacted strongly" whenever his former client was described as such. In a letter to The Sydney Morning Herald on 16 June 1923, Thomas wrote, "Morant was not an Australian, he was an Englishman, who came to this country for 'colonial experience'."Soon after arriving in north Queensland, Murrant joined a travelling circus/rodeo which was making its way to the mining town of Charters Towersabout south west of Townsvilleand upon arrival he made an immediate impression on the locals with his drinking, jokes, ballads, horse riding and pursuit of women. He was employed as a stockman at Fanning Downs Station on the Burdekin Riverabout east of Charters Towerswhere he met the governess, Daisy May O'Dwyer. A brief courtship resulted in marriage at Charters Towers on 13 March 1884the marriage registration gives his name as Edwin Henry Murrantbut this was short-lived, as he failed to pay the officiating minister his fee of five pounds and his new wife threw him out. Murrant had promised the minister that the necessary funds would be arriving soon from his aristocratic family in England, but the money never came.
Four weeks after their marriage, Murrant was charged with stealing a saddle and thirty-two pigs. When arrested, he began denying writing false cheques until he realised he was being arrested for stealing instead. He then used two chequeswhich were soon dishonouredto buy two horses. He went to the town of Wintonabout further to the south west, but was acquitted of the stealing charges. His wife, who later became Daisy Batesa noted anthropologistnever divorced him or revealed her early connection to Murrant/Morant.
After this, Murrant assumed the name Harry Harbord Morant, but was also known to use the surname alias Harbord to avoid creditors. He often claimed to have been born in 1865 in Devon, and to be the son of Admiral Sir George Digby Morant of the Royal Navy, a claim repeated as fact in a book published soon after his execution. Admiral Morant released a statement in 1902 that the executed man was not his son and was not in any way related to him. The author Nick Bleszynski uses circumstantial evidence to theorise that Admiral Morant could have been Edwin Murrant's biological father, predominantly citing geographic proximity and questions about the funding of Murrant's education. Other recent books such as the 2020 biography of Morant by Peter FitzSimons dismiss as fictitious Morant's claims that he was the son of Admiral Morant. Morant also claimed to have studied at the Royal Naval College, but none of his names appear in naval records.
During the next fifteen years, Morant travelled around southern Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, being employed variously as a horse-breaker, drover, rouseabout, rough rider, horse trader, bush newspaperman, bookkeeper and storeman. He gained a reputation for his horsemanship, including as a steeplechaser and polo player, and also as drinker and womaniser. A contemporary described him thus:
Morant shamelessly drew upon the generosity of othersoften claiming to have been robbedand routinely failed to pay back loans or pay bills he owed, moving on before the debts caught up with him. In 1889, while in Blackall in central western Queensland, Morant was arrested, charged and convicted of obtaining money under false pretences from a man in Muttaburrafor selling the same horse to two different menand was sentenced to three months hard labour in Rockhampton jail. The warrant for his arrest described him as tall, stout build, with brown hair and moustache, slight stammer in speech and "boasts of aristocratic friends in England".
Along with his propensity to avoid repaying loans and paying debts, Morant also had a reputation for animal cruelty and for goading Aboriginal stockmen into bare-knuckle fistfights. Morant would encourage an Aboriginal stockman to fight a few rounds with him by initially hiding his true boxing skills, then reveal them by beating him severely. He developed skills as a bush balladist, and from 1891 many of his ballads or poems were published in The Bulletin, using the sobriquets "The Breaker", "The B", "B", Harry Morant, HM, and "Apollo Beledere". Through this work, which helped fund his drinking, he made the acquaintance of the famous Australian bush poets Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, and Will Ogilvie. The bond between Morant and Ogilvie was quite strong, and Ogilvie wrote several pieces about Morant both before and after his death.
One of the most well-known demonstrations of Morant's horsemanship occurred in 1897 at the Hawkesbury Show, north west of Sydney in New South Wales. A rough rider had brought a notoriously wild brumby called "Dargin's Grey" to the show, an eight-year-old but very muscular horse known to throw all who attempted to ride it. For over a minute, Morant rode the violently bucking horse into submission, popularising his nickname "The Breaker". In 1898, while still working in the Hawkesbury region, Morant associated with the Sydney hunt club set, through which he first made the acquaintance of a prominent Sydney solicitor, Robert Lenehan, the Mahdist War and Burma veteran Lieutenant Colonel Henry Parke Airey, and Thomaswho later became Morant's defence lawyer when he was court martialed in South Africa. Thomas had travelled from his home in Tenterfield to participate in a hunt. On 5 November 1898 one of Morant's other acquaintances was convicted by the Penrith Police Court for being drunk and disorderly at Springwood in the nearby Blue Mountains. A summons had been issued for Morant to appear on the same charge, but it had not been served because he had fled to Gunnedah in north eastern New South Wales.
Around this time, Morant's personal circumstances were increasingly straitened, and this continued until early 1900 as he reached his mid-30s. Pursued by many creditors, he was no longer young, his clothes were shabby, he looked careworn, and his alcohol-affected facial features were less attractive to women. He had to flee Melbourne in Victoria after only a month, and travelled to Adelaide in South Australia where he also quickly wore out his welcome. He retreated to a cattle station outside Renmark on the Murray River north east of Adelaide, where he obtained free food and accommodation by convincing a local member of the Morant clan that he was a relative. Having few prospects if he remained in Australia, Morant soon gathered a few members of the local rifle club and rode back to Adelaide to enlist for service in the Second Boer War.