Born 8 Jan 1845 in a small town in Northern Ireland, the son of an Anglican clergyman. He had one older brother. Scott came to Australia in 1868 age 23 from New Zealand. His family had travelled from Ireland to NZ when he was 16. In NZ, by his own recollection, he was said to have completed studies as an engineer/surveyor. He also fought in the Maori Wars and says he was wounded in the Battle of Orakau. Both of these statements have been called into question by many historians – e.g. the UK Institute of Civil Engineers advised, that in 1868, the minimum age to be qualified was 25. Scott’s father had high status as a magistrate and lay preacher. After Scott left NZ he never saw his parents or brother again. Moonlite has been described as an enigma, far removed from the traditional image of a bushranger. Educated and articulate, Moonlite was a poet, a preacher, skilled horseman, civil engineer, skilled with and knowledgeable about firearms, a fluent public speaker, gentlemanly, a soldier, sailor, prison reformer, adventurer, rebel. Magnetic personality. Moonlite was staunchly loyal to his comrades. The Reverend Canon Rich, who spent time with Moonlite when he was on death row, described him as follows: “Scott was indeed a peculiar man and one whose abilities no one could doubt after being in his company several minutes. His quickness of perception, rapidity and exactness of reasoning is a constant subject of wonder to those about him… and his knowledge of Scripture history is exceedingly good.” In 1879 Scott asked the writer Marcus Clarke (For The Term Of His Natural Life) to support his lecture tour. Clarke later wrote his impressions of Scott – who had struck him as a respectably dressed man ‘who looked like the sub-overseer of a station.’ Moonlite did not appear to be a villain and there was nothing peculiar about him except for his… ‘Light steel-blue eyes, which appeared without any depth in the iris, and shifted a good