THE story of Ralph Entwistle, born in Bolton 200 years ago, is an extraordinary one. He was transported to Australia and later became an outlaw around whom a legend grew.

Now a street in a New South Wales town is named after his gang, the Ribbon Boys. John Wright tells the tale . . .

WHEN they order a priest before your trial even begins, you know you are in trouble.

It was being at the wrong end of a misunderstanding and plain nastiness that changed Ralph Entwistle from a law-abiding man, going about his business one sunny day in Australia, to a man with an army. For no reason other than to right a wrong, he began a war he knew he could not win; but he began it anyway.

They called his gang the Ribbon Boys because the Bolton man they rode with had white ribbons flying from his hat. And when the going got tough, he gave them all the choice of quitting or riding into hell with him. Thirteen picked hell.

Ralph was born in Bolton 200 years ago this year. He learned to read and became a brickmaker, but in 1827, at the age of 22, was sentenced at the Lancaster Assizes to transportation for life for stealing clothes.

Arriving in New South Wales, he was assigned to an English settler called John Liscombe, who was also clerk of the court in Bathurst.

"Entwistle soon became well liked and respected, and Liscombe recommended him for a ticket-of-leave, which would give him freedom of sorts and allow him to work for wages," say Al Grassby and Marji Hill in the book Six Australian Battlefields.

This was a rare concession for a convict after such a short time in the colony and he had earned it by his honesty.

In 1829 Liscombe trusted Ralph and another convict to take a bullock dray of wool east to Sydney and return with supplies. This journey would take them over 140 miles of rough tracks and last for several weeks.

It was on November 5 when the fireworks started, but it was not at night.

On their first day, the two men camped by the Macquarie River. "It was a hot day and they decided to strip off and have a swim. As they dived in, Governor Ralph Darling with a military escort came into sight."

Darling did not see the two men who by now were hiding from them in the water; nor did the women in his entourage. By hiding, the two men had been discretion itself, but, as the party rode past, a Lieutenant Thomas Evernden did see them.

Bathurst's Police Magistrate and Superintendent of Police "was, or thought he ought to have been, shocked at what he had seen," wrote W H Suttor, organiser of a civilian posse later to join the police.

He sent soldiers to take Ralph and his friend to Bathurst to be flogged.

Despite being within their rights to be there cooling off after their first long haul, they received 50 lashes each and Ralph's ticket-of-leave was cancelled. It was one of many injustices during the transportation era, but for Ralph it was one too many.

Evernden had a reputation for bullying assigned farmhands, as did his overseer Greenwood.

Right or wrong, Ralph decided not to take this kind of thing any more. It didn't help knowing his employer could so easily have vouched for him the moment it happened, especially given his position in the Bathurst court. But he did not.

After the flogging, Ralph went straight round to Liscombe's farm and stole weapons and ammunition. Six other men there with similar grievances joined him.

Whether he knew it or not, it was the beginning of Mr Entwistle's army. He went from farm to farm looking for supporters.

Soon he had 50 or 60 men with him. When another similar group of disgruntled convicts joined him, the numbers grew to 124.

The man they were ultimately defying was the other Ralph by the river who had been dishonourable in the first place, Governor Darling.

This ex-colleague of the Duke of Wellington had a "reputation of being cold and humourless," says Cedric Fowler in the Illustrated History of New South Wales.

"To increasing demands for basic British institutions such as trial by jury, Darling turned a deaf ear."

The press, "freed from official control," challenged him about it. "It irritated the Governor very much," says Fowler. The public had also seen the spiteful side to Darling when he punished two soldiers, Sudds and Thompson who, to be free of the Army, committed a minor offence thinking they'd simply be kicked out.

As well as sentencing them to seven years in a chain gang before re-joining the Army, he had them "publicly disgraced, loaded with chains and thrown into jail. The sickly Stubbs was dead within a few days. The press blazed with outrage that a dying man should be so loaded with fetters that he could neither rest nor sleep."

The public was behind Ralph Entwistle, the Sydney Gazette on October 7 the following year reporting that the gang "marched, on horse and foot, to Mr Icely's place, where they feasted, but did not do any great injury."

At the next property, they took some horses and were "well armed and resolute, but no outrage, only collecting food and ammunition".

The turning point came for the bushrangers when they turned up at Lieutenant Evernden's property. But only Greenwood was there. His farmhands joined the gang, but Greenwood challenged them and was shot dead. This was the moment Ralph Entwistle knew he'd be seen as crossing the line, and allowed reluctant gang members to leave.

They weren't quite down to the Dirty Dozen when Major Donald Macpherson, commander of the Bathurst garrison, sent troops out after them, but Ralph's men drove them away

The fighting went on for weeks and, despite dwindling resources, the bushrangers fought off yet another contingent that was sent after them.

Finally, it took fresh troops brought specially from the 39th Regiment in Sydney to knock over Ralph's starving and exhausted men.

Ten survivors, including Ralph himself, were taken prisoner and on October 30, 1830, subjected to a show trial in Bathurst led by Australia's Chief Justice Sir Francis Forbes. All eight jurymen were men the gang had fought and defeated.

Three days later Ralph and his men were all hanged in the main street of Bathurst, probably an appropriate place for the end of it all, given its uncanny resemblance to a studio set in a Clint Eastwood movie.

Today a street nearby, Ribbon Gang Lane, ensures that the brave Bolton man, Ralph Entwistle, will never be forgotten.