Ratbags & Roustabouts
Ratbags & Roustabouts tells the extraordinary histories of ordinary people. We dig around in the ancestry archive and dive into the genealogical gene pool to uncover the most incredible, never-before-told stories of seemingly common folk from our past.
Ratbags & Roustabouts
T.B. Margetts: Guns, gold and the wild northwest
In the late 1800s, the northwest of Tasmania was a wild place, where only the wildest of people survived. One such man was T.B. Margetts.
Born in Leicestershire but raised in Tasmania, he was a pioneer, adventurer, farmer and horseman. He was stubborn as they come, a bit hot-headed and never lost a battle.
An encounter with a bushranger in his youth also made him so security-conscious it was bordering on the paranoid, and he always wore a money belt of gold sovereigns and slept with a loaded revolver under his pillow as a result.
Meet this “ordinary” man as he battles the bush, threatens a fist fight outside a courthouse, waves a gun at his would-be son-in-law and travels the world three times over.
01.58 Wild northwest
05.00 T.B’s early days
09.51 Flowerdale
11.22 Courthouse fracas
15.00 Gentleman farmer and world traveller
18.32 Father of the bride
22.42 T.B’s final chapter
Credits:
Theme music: ‘Wellerman Epic Shanty’ by EBunny via Jamendo
Sound effects: Pixabay
Hosted by Marion Langford. Follow on Instagram or check out the website at ratbagsandroustabouts.com. Do you know a story that the history books forgot? Let us know about it!
