The Last Outlaws: The crimes of Jimmy & Joe Governor and the birth of modern Australia

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Katherine Biber

The Last Outlaws

The crimes of Jimmy & Joe Governor and the birth of modern Australia

Katherine Biber

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English

Scribners
01 July 2025

History; Australasian & Pacific history; Colonialism & imperialism

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Brilliantly reconstructed from contemporary narratives, The Last Outlaws is both a gripping work of historical true crime and a richly revealing examination of our nation at its birth. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith meets Killing for Country.

In the winter of 1900, Wiradjuri man Jimmy Governor and his brother Joe murdered nine people across New South Wales, in a rampage that caused panic in the colony on the cusp of nationhood. Triggered, it seems, by a racist incident, they killed men, women and children, evading a vast manhunt until they were eventually captured. Joe was shot in the open; Jimmy survived to be put on trial. Thus the last man to be outlawed in the colony was hanged in the new nation, meeting his end in Darlinghurst Gaol as the Federation decorations were taken down. The brothers’ names still resonate, partly due to Thomas Keneally’s novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Fred Schepisi’s subsequent film, but their story has remained distorted and obscure.

Undertaken with the co-operation of the Governors' descendants, Katherine Biber’s compelling reconstruction of events – from the murders themselves to Jimmy’s eventual execution – brings this extraordinary story back to life. In doing so it sheds fresh, vivid light on the country that inspired and reacted to the murders. Not only did many of the lawyers and politicians involved also play key roles in Federation, but the case revealed in microcosm the psychology of the nascent nation: its attitudes to land and race; its anxiety about a wider First Nations insurrection; its obsession with paperwork and the emerging ‘sciences’ of neuroanatomy and criminology; its nepotism, religiosity, sweeping police powers and sensationalist media. More powerfully than the story of Ned Kelly or the Anzacs, the fate of Jimmy Governor illuminates the origin story of the Australian nation.

Populated by a cast of extraordinary characters and compelling detail, The Last Outlaws brings the energy of true crime into the telling of history, offering an electric new understanding of both our past and our present.

By: Katherine Biber
Imprint: Scribners
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9781761631665
ISBN 10: 1761631667
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 01 July 2025
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Katherine Biber is Distinguished Professor of Law at UTS. Her podcast The Last Outlaws won the NSW Premier’s History Award (2022, Digital History); Australian Podcast Awards (2022, Podcast of the Year, overall winner; 2022 History Podcast of the Year); Australian Legal Research Award (2022, non-traditional research award); and was a finalist in the Webby Awards (2023, Best Limited Series).

Reviews for The Last Outlaws: The crimes of Jimmy & Joe Governor and the birth of modern Australia

‘I was lucky enough to read early Katherine Biber’s The Last Outlaws … It’s a story that encapsulates our complex national origins.’ * <B><I>The Weekend Australian</I></B> *