One of our more recognisable bushrangers, Ben Hall, was born in Maitland, NSW, on 9 May 1837, to ex-convicts Benjamin and Elizabeth Hall. After a short career in crime, he was killed in an aggressive police ambush on 5 May 1865, just days before what would have been his 28th birthday. The dramatic end to Hall’s life — a goodlooking man gunned down in a rush of adrenaline, fear and bullets — has kept him alive in the popular imagination. His death near Goobang Creek, northwest of Forbes, was very different to the sombre ceremony that a judicial hanging would have provided if he had been captured and found guilty in a courtroom. This violent end has generated some sympathy for a felon who committed numerous property crimes, but who was also widely considered to be a gentleman bushranger.