Frederick Taylor (mass murderer)

Frederick Taylor (25 December 1810 - 14 February 1872) was an English colonial property manager and agricultural capitalist in the Victoria region of Australia. He is best known as the main perpetrator of the Murdering Gully massacre which occurred in 1839 along Mount Emu Creek near Mount Noorat. This massacre resulted in the deaths of about 40 men, women and children of the Tarnbeere gundidj clan of the Djargurd Wurrung people. Taylor was also involved in other shooting deaths of Aboriginal people near Geelong and Lake Colac. After moving to Gippsland, he was involved in frontier conflict there with the Gunai people. Despite his responsibility for the killings being well known and well documented, Taylor was never convicted and enjoyed high esteem in British colonial society until his death in 1872.

Frederick Taylor was born 25 December 1810 in England. He came to the Port Phillip region in Australia in March 1836 and not long after was overseer at Charles Swanston's Indented Head station. He seems to have had strong connections with notable British people in India such as Captain Swanston and George McKillop.

In October 1836, a head clansman of the Wathaurung named Woolmudgin (or Curacoine) came to Indented Head. Taylor mistakenly identified Woolmudgin as a person wanted for an armed attack. He tied Woolmudgin to a tree and placed a shepherd named John Whitehead as sentry while he went to notify the authorities. Whitehead later shot Woolmudgin and dumped his body in the Barwon River. Whitehead was arrested and Taylor was placed on a ₤50 bond as a witness. At the subsequent trial, Taylor failed to appear and Whitehead was acquitted. Captain William Lonsdale wrote that he thought Taylor "entertained a strong suspicion that he had given strong encouragement to the prisoner [Whitehead] to commit the murder". Taylor then avoided any further legal scrutiny by fleeing to Van Diemen's Land.

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