If you’re going to celebrate Halloween, could you at least include some local colour?

Opinion

October 31, 2026 — 5:30am

Some criticise Halloween as an American import, but Australia has always had a taste for ghosts and ghouls. In what other country does the most beloved song feature a ghost who will still be heard as you “pass by that billabong”?

That suicidal swagman, hero of Waltzing Matilda, is only one ghoul among many. Bill Wannan in his Dictionary of Australian Folklore lists 21 Australian ghost stories, most featuring details more terrifying than anything the Americans or Europeans can offer.

There’s the Headless Ghost of Berrima, for example, which Wannan says is “probably the best attested ghost story in Australia.” In 1842 Lucretia Dunkley was hanged in Berrima Gaol, alongside her lover Martin Beech. They’d been convicted of the axe murder of Dunkley’s husband.

Adding to the outrage was the fact the two had enjoyed a “hearty breakfast” following their bloody crime, and that Lucretia had made “jovial comments” to the coppers who arrested her. Lucretia and her lover were both found guilty.

Lucretia was pregnant but they were both hanged anyway. After the hangman had completed his task, the heads of both offenders were removed for scientific study, this being a time when pseudo-scientific studies of the cranium were strangely popular. Their skulls were later donated to the Australian Museum, alongside the skull of Lucretia’s unborn child.

The skulls of the two adults were still on display at the museum in 1900 as examples of the criminal mind. Perhaps, by then, some semblance of morality had declared the skull of the unborn child should be removed from display. It’s also said their headless bodies were buried standing up, so that they could never rest, which serves them right for enjoying a hearty breakfast.

For decades, eyewitnesses came forward to say they’d seen Lucretia’s headless ghost roaming the pine trees in front of the Berrima Gaol. Presumably, she was endlessly hunting for an affordable Devonshire Tea at one of Berrima’s cafes, as so many of us have done.

More famous is Fisher’s Ghost, said to still haunt Campbelltown. Frederick Fisher was killed by his mate George Worrall, who then invented a story about his housemate going back to England, leaving all his possessions to Worrall. At this time, in 1826, few Australians – whether settlers or convicts – would ever return to England, on account of the terrible weather.

Worrall’s story sounded unlikely, but it still convinced the authorities – right until Fisher’s ghost was spotted. The sightings of the ghost, in late October 1826, caused the case to be reopened. Fisher’s body was soon discovered at the bottom of a deep pool, close to where the ghost was said to have been pointing.

Worrall was duly found guilty. He was hanged on February 5, 1827. Amazingly, he was buried horizontally and allowed to keep his head. Presumably he’d eschewed the “hearty breakfast” and the “jovial comments”.

Campbelltown has held an annual Festival of Fisher’s Ghost since 1956. This year’s festival, marking 199 years since the first sighting of Fisher’s Ghost, includes a parade tonight on Queen St.

Next up there’s the Ghost of Yarralumla, a First Nations man said to haunt the residence of the Governor-General in Canberra. The story is complicated but in one telling, he swallowed a stolen diamond to protect a friend, was shot dead for his troubles, and then the diamond was buried with his body, somewhere in the grounds of what eventually became Government House.

This seems unlikely. Surely, Sir John Kerr would have excavated the body way back in 1975 and spent the proceeds on grog.

And then there’s the ghost of Johnny Gilbert, a member of Ben Hall’s band of bushrangers who, in 1865, was shot dead by police before he could return a horse he’d recently borrowed from a local squatter. Unable to rest in peace given his unreturned loan, Gilbert’s ghost rode in on the borrowed horse and placed it safely in the squatter’s stables, supposedly watched by many witnesses.

Why this career criminal – his rap sheet listed 630 hold-ups – had a post-death crisis of morality over a relatively minor loan is unclear. The modern equivalent would be the ghost of a slain Sydney gang member whipping into Telstra to pay his overseas roaming fee.

So, I agree, none of these stories make sense. But neither do the imported stories of ghosts and ghouls. If we want scary scenes in our front gardens celebrating Halloween, at least we could feature some locals.

What about a tableau of failed Australian explorers? There could be Burke and Wills, slowly starving to death, having dopily refused offers of help from local Indigenous people.

Or what about John Ainsworth Horrocks? According to David Hunt’s book True Girt, Horrocks purchased a bad-tempered camel called Harry for an expedition in 1846. When Horrocks was distracted, trying to unload his shotgun, the camel attacked him, causing the gun to go off, killing the explorer. To quote Hunt, Horrocks “holds the dubious distinction of being the only explorer to have been shot by his camel.”

Surely, in your front garden tonight, a scene depicting a dying Australian explorer, his leering camel and that fatal gun would be better than anything offered by a rehashed scene from Ghostbusters?

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