17/09/2026
‘THE GUN BATTLE AT THE WHEELERS HILL PUB’ - 1900
Time Gents
FRED Gessner was applauded for his courage fending off three bushrangers who attempted to rob his pub in the year 1900.
The Wheelers Hill Hotel, where the fierce gun battle occurred over 120 years ago remains trading today, along busy Ferntree Gully Road, just 30km from the Melbourne C*D. Gessner’s bravery is still a topic of conversation over a few b**rs in the bar of the pub.
Fred must have been well and truly bushed by the time he arrived home to his pub on Wheelers Hill. The husband of publican, Jessie, Fred had been in Melbourne on business, and, after stepping from the train at Oakleigh – about halfway between Wheelers Hill and the city – he rode the remaining 15km home by horse. It was about 2am when he walked into his pub to greet his wife.
The pair were retiring for the night when Jessie heard a noise downstairs. “You had better go downstairs, Fred, and see what’s the matter,” she reportedly said.
After going down stairs to investigate a noise, Fred opened the side door of the pub leading from the living rooms and walked up the path at the side to the front paling fence. As he approached there stood three masked figures, one pointing a pistol, and calling upon Fred to throw up his hands. The Melbourne Leader reported in detail the confrontation on September 15 1900:
“What the devil do you want?” Gessner asked.
“We’ve come to blast up the show,” was the reply.
“Go on; what nonsense!” said the astonished hotelkeeper.
“You’ll get nothing here.”
“Won’t we? You’ll see!” answered the spokesman of the trio, and, addressing the armed member of the party, who had all this time kept the barrel pointed at Gessner, said, “You keep him covered while we try and get into the crib.”
Fred, who reportedly kept himself remarkably cool, said to the robbers: “What is the use of you fellows being such fools? You’ll only get yourselves into trouble.”
Without waiting for an answer to this appeal to reason, Fred ducked his head into the shadow of the fence and darted for the door. As he did so the highwayman fired, but he aimed too high, and as he reached the door a second shot was fired, which buried itself in the woodwork. Jessie by this time had locked the doors and windows of the pub, just as the robber showered the pub in bullets, smashing windows and damaging furniture and walls.
The Leader reported:
Gessner had a gun in the house and some cartridges. He loaded this weapon, and going into the bar, into which a couple of shots had been fired by the burglars, he discharged the weapon point blank at the wall, doing no more damage than the removal of a slab of plaster, as the small shot in the cartridges could not pe*****te the wooden shell of the building. The sound of a gun had a sensible influence on the robbers.
A man inside a house with a shot gun is a dangerous opponent for an attacking party not undercover, and they did not realise that quail shot were almost harmless. The masked visitors appeared to think that discretion was the better part even of a sticking up expedition, and they withdrew.
Gessner, with a caution that shows how collected he was in the exciting circumstances, drew off his white shirt, in order that it might not afford a mark; and going out on to the back verandah let off another cartridge at one of the retreating figures. It did not stop him. One of the robbers mounted a big brown horse, and rode off; the two others got into a cart drawn by a grey pony.
By the end of the month two of the three bushrangers had been captured.
John Gerard Wilckens, 20, and Frederick Tonsing, 24, were convicted of various robberies in the Black Flat and Dandenong districts, including that of Gessners’ pub, and each sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. A third bushranger, said to be the brother of Wilckens evaded capture.
Frederick William Gessner purchased the freehold of the hotel in 1916, making several improvements and additions to the timber pub.
He died in Melbourne on July 16 1926. He was buried on July 17 in Oakleigh Cemetery with Jessie his wife, who had passed away on the March 21 the previous year.
PHOTO - FRED
