Owen Gorman

In 1843 after the closure of the penal colony, Gorman was appointed Superintendent of the Iron Gangs at the Towrang Convict Stockade near Goulburn in New South Wales.

[1] In 1840, the penal colony at Moreton Bay was being prepared to be turned into a free settlement (which ultimately became the city of Brisbane).

As there was settlement already occurring west of Moreton Bay on the Darling Downs, Gorman needed to find a wagon route between the two locations, but the obstacle was the mountains of the Great Dividing Range.

A convict John Sterry Baker had escaped from the penal colony in 1826 and had lived among the Goomburra Aboriginal people in the Lockyer Valley area and walked with them on a track to the top of the range.

Having returned to the penal colony in 1840, Baker told Gorman of the track up the range and modified an Irish jaunting car to test as a wagon on the route.