The Australian ghost story with its own festival
Tim the Yowie Man
Tim the Yowie Man
Today, if you battle traffic in the bustling metropolis of Campbelltown in South Western Sydney, it’s hard to imagine this place was once a quiet outpost on the fringe of European settlement.
In the 1820s Campbelltown was the haunt of convicted felons – both the freshly emancipated and those still in chain gangs.
One of those ex-convicts was Frederick Fisher. After receiving his ticket of leave in 1822, Fisher was making a good fist of farming until a quarrel with a carpenter landed him a short prison sentence in 1825. Concerned about the ongoing viability of his farm while he was locked up, Fisher granted his neighbour George Worrall power of attorney. But soon after his release from prison on 17 June 1826, Fisher mysteriously disappeared. Worrall told locals that Fisher had secretly returned to England. Some believed Worrall’s story. Most didn’t.
Three weeks later, Worrall sold Fisher’s horse and personal belongings, claiming Fisher had sold them to him before setting sail for the Old Dart. Locals remained suspicious. Those who knew Fisher described him as an “artful and covetous” man, one who wouldn’t have left Australia without selling his possessions for a profit.
Four months after Fisher’s disappearance, a farmer named John Farley burst into the local hotel in a very agitated state. He claimed he had just “seen the ghost of Fisher” sitting on the wooden rail of a bridge near Fisher’s farm. Apparently, the apparition pointed to a paddock down the creek, then faded away.
Five weeks later, while taking a shortcut through Fisher’s land, two boys found bloodstains on a fence, a lock of human hair and a human tooth. With no sign of a body, a local constable enlisted the help of an Indigenous tracker. The tracker entered the paddock and announced, “White fellow’s fat here!”
And yes, you guessed it: Fisher’s badly decomposed remains were found lying in a shallow grave nearby – on Worrall’s land.
Some believe Farley’s ghost story was invented to protect an anonymous source who knew more about the murder. But there’s nothing in the written record to confirm this rumour because (surprise, surprise) tales of the supernatural aren’t admissible evidence in a court of law.
Worrall was found guilty of murder and hanged at Old Darlinghurst Gaol. He apparently confessed that he’d accidentally killed Fisher because he’d mistaken him for a horse in a wheat crop. Not that anyone believed him – especially those who’d seen Fisher’s head wounds.
Fisher’s corpse was found next to a creek. Today, this stream (now a stormwater drain) is called Fishers Ghost Creek. Some paranormal enthusiasts believe Fisher haunts Campbelltown’s Town Hall Theatre, which was built on the boundary of Fisher and Worrall’s land.
The Festival of Fisher’s Ghost began in 1956, when 1500 people gathered in the dead of night hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous apparition. Now it’s a week-long festival that attracts more than 250,000 visitors, making it Australia’s biggest celebration of a ghost. While many view things that go bump in the night as mere mumbo jumbo, try telling that to the local chamber of commerce, which benefits from the millions of dollars pumped into the Campbelltown economy by this annual event.
However, perhaps the most unexpected legacy of the story of Fisher’s ghost isn’t the paranormal claims, but rather the legal records surrounding Fisher’s disappearance and Worrall’s trial, regarded as one of the best-documented legal sagas in Australia’s colonial history.
