[6] Francis Augustus Hare was born at the Cape of Good Hope, in a little village called Wynberg, eight miles (12.9 km) from Capetown, on 4 October 1830, and was the youngest son of a family of sixteen or seventeen.

[4] Hare joined a party of visitors, and an eight days' tramp brought them to Bendigo, passing en route through the Black Forest, then a noted haunt of bushrangers.

[4] He worked there for a time digging, or evading the digger's license in the same area he was to return as a lieutenant in the Mounted Police[4] But a serious illness sent him to Sydney, with very little prospect of ever reaching it, and in his book, The Last of the Bushrangers, which contains the record of his life and adventures in Australia, Hare tells a story of his lying on top of a loaded dray beneath a gum-tree, with a crow perched just above him waiting for the end.

[4] For several years Hare was on duty at the new rushes, such as Back Creek, Chinaman's Flat, and the notorious White Hill, near Maryborough, where murder was common.

Hare was a tall man of some bulk and did not invite physical altercations although he once had a narrow escape from being shot at Back Creek by one of his own troopers.

[4] In his later years in the police force the more important episodes in Hare's experiences were the capture of Power, the bushranger, who, after surviving many vicissitudes and a long term of imprisonment, was accidentally drowned in the Lower Murray .

They had been chiefly horse and cattle stealers, from childhood, but their outlawry commenced with the shooting of three mounted troopers at Stringybark in the Wonbat Ranges on 28 October 1878.

[4] From that time the pick of the Victorian police, aided by six Queensland trackers, were in pursuit of them; but with the help of friends and relations and a thorough knowledge of the vast surrounding bush they managed to evade capture for two years, and provide themselves with funds from two bank robberies.

[4] One of his first acts was to seek an interview with Aaron Sherrittwho, like Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne, was an able bushman, a known sympathiser with the outlaws, and a participator in some of their earlier horse-stealing raids.

[4] Hare in his book tells how Mrs. Byrne, the mother of one of the bushrangers, found her way one day into a police camp and recognised Aaron Sherritt as he lay asleep.

Hare later recalled, "The coroner who held the inquest on Ned Kelly told me he seldom saw a man show so little pluck, and if it had not been for his priest, who kept him up, he would not have been able to walk to the gallows.

According to press reports of the time, a large number of people gathered along the route of the funeral procession and a great many friends, family and senior officials were at the graveside.

[8] His obituary in the Argus noted, "While his discretion in connection with the pursuit of the Kelly gang was matter for comment, his personal courage was never once doubted.

Hare published his own autobiography, first as a series of articles in the Leader newspapers, then in book form: The Last of the Bushrangers: An Account of the Capture of the Kelly Gang (1892).