Aussie historian, author & entertainer Jim Haynes joins Overnight each week for his unique knowledge of the not-so-famous characters from Australia’s history. This week Jim shines the spotlight on Christina Macpherson – Two Claims of Fame…

Christina Macpherson is not a name that would immediately mean much to many Aussies.

If you were aware of the history of our national song, Waltzing Matilda, it might ring a bell somewhere deep in your subconscious, but that’s about all.

Christina Rutherford Macpherson (1864-1936) is credited with having re-played a tune she’d heard circa 1895 which the Australian poet A.B. Patterson (Banjo Paterson) then set to words.

Oddly enough Christina Macpherson has another ‘claim to fame’ in our history, totally unconnected to Waltzing Matilda.

On the 8th of April 1865 the psychotic bushranger, arsonist and murderer, Mad Dan Morgan, arrived at the Macpherson homestead ‘Peechelba’ near Wangaratta and held the family and their employees hostage at gunpoint in their dining room.

Alice Keenan, a nursemaid, was allowed to go and attend to a crying infant in the next room. This infant is believed to have been the 15-month-old Christina. The nursemaid escaped through a window and alerted the Rutherfords who lived on the adjoining property.

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