This supposedly true story by John Lang is set in the early 1800s. John Fisher had come to Australia as a convict. He worked hard, won his freedom and became rich. One day a neighbor tells everyone that Fisher has returned to England. A year later, he says that Fisher has written asking him to sell all he owns and send the money to him. According to this version, at about the same time three men (one a policeman) are returning home late one night. Sitting on a rail beside the road is Fisher’s ghost. This spoils the neighbor’s plan.
Although Ghost upon the Rail is far from a masterpiece, it is an important part of Australian literary history and was widely circulated throughout England at the time. Lang was Australia’s first native born novelist. In addition to being his best-known short story, it is also thought to be the first example of Australian gothic fiction. The story, which appeared in Lang’s 1859 book Botany Bay, True Tales of Early Australia, made the legend of Fisher’s Ghost famous… so much so that these days it is celebrated each year through a major festival in the city where the events took place.
Original Text / PDF (8,206 words)
History of the Story
Other versions of the story had appeared before this. It first appeared in writing (and rather obscurely so as the names of the main characters were changed) in an 1832 poem The Sprite of the Creek. Four years later it featured in an article under the name Fisher’s Ghost: A Legend of Campbelltown in the Sydney magazine, Tegg’s Monthly. Finally, six years before Lang’s book was published, an article written by him appeared under the name Fisher’s Ghost in Charles Dickens’s popular British magazine Household Words.
It is quite likely that Lang’s source for the story was the Tegg’s Monthly article referred to above. Its publisher, James Tegg, published Lang’s first novel, Legends of Australia in 1842. In England, Tegg’s father (Thomas) was the publisher of Dickens’s Household Words and his brother (William) published Botany Bay, True Tales of Early Australia.
It is interesting to consider how closely Lang’s final version of the story matches real events. Although the basic plot is the same, the names and locations are different in Lang’s story. However, this is explained in the introduction to the book where Lang wrote that these had been changed to protect the feelings of surviving family members. Of greater concern is that there are a number of other important differences between fact and realty which indicate that Lang’s research for the story was somewhat superficial (download available here). Moreover, it would appear that Lang progressively embellished the story in relation to sightings of the ghost. In the Tegg’s Monthly version, the ghost is seen on only one occasion. In Lang’s versions, the ghost is seen on two occasions. Moreover, in the book version, two further people (including a policeman) witness the second sighting. One must wonder how closely Lang’s other “True Tales of Early Australia” match real events.
Was There Really a Ghost?
Although this is one of the best documented legal cases in Australian colonial history, there is no mention of a ghost in any of the official records. In court, the jury were told that Fisher’s body was found by aboriginal trackers after police followed up blood stains that two boys had noticed on a fence.
The story about the ghost came from a man named John Farley, who claimed to have come across it when returning home late one night from a local hotel. Farley told how the ghost was sitting on the rail of a bridge over a creek, with one arm pointing behind him in the direction of where the body of Fisher was later to be found. The rail that the ghost was sitting on was in the same part of the fence that the blood stains were found. He is said to have reported his story to a local magistrate, but no record of this has ever been found.
Possible reasons for the ghost story being kept out of the trial were discussed by Scottish author and historian Andrew Lang (no relation to John Lang) in his fascinating book The Valet’s Tragedy and Other Studies. In the chapter titled The Truth about ‘Fisher’s Ghost’, Lang concluded:
The case for the ghost stands (is true) in my opinion. Despite the silence (about it) at the trial, Farley’s ghost-story was really told before the discovery of Fisher’s body, and led to the finding of the body.
Whether Farley actually saw Fisher’s Ghost or made the story up is another matter. As he lay dying, he is reported to have sworn to his doctor that he really did see the ghost. However, after Farley’s death his wife Margaret claimed that he had invented the story of the ghost. She said that he had been drinking with Fisher and Worrall the night Fisher disappeared and had seen them walk home together. She believed that Farley was so sure that Worrall had something to do with Fisher’s disappearance that he made up the ghost story to bring him to justice.
Margaret Farley’s version of events does not make sense unless her husband had witnessed the murder. Otherwise, how would he have known the correct rail to say the ghost was sitting on, and in which direction Worrall had taken the body? And if he was a witness, why would he make up a story about a ghost rather than tell the police what he knew? Especially as a large reward had just been announced for information leading to the finding of Fisher’s body!
The truth or otherwise of the story of Fisher’s Ghost died with Farley. However, it is much nicer to believe that there really was a ghost as opposed to the story being made up or, even worse, a figment of a drunk man’s imagination.