The Ratbag Encyclopedia

Family history, Western Australian history, or just history

Tag: Maitland Brown

Evil bastard.

  • A Trial on Trial

    A Trial on Trial

    The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    Geraldton in 2011. It would be fair to say the port did not look like this in 1876 and does not look like this today.

    There was no doubt he did it.

    Geraldton, Western Australia, January 3, 1876: A man had just murdered his spouse. It was his second marriage, they had two young children together and a third was on its way, but they were far from being a happy couple. His business acumen had deserted him and money was tight. He drank a lot now — and they were packing up to move house yet again. He had been drinking that day and they had been arguing yet again. Then he produced the shotgun. He threatened to shoot his wife.

    The removal-man took the weapon away from him, telling him him he “was mad.” The gun was hidden in a locked room and his wife was given the key. How scared she was is not entirely clear: earlier she had dismissed the concern of the removalist by saying “Take no notice of him.” It was probably to the relief of everybody when he went out to the pub.

    He returned later in the afternoon and the couple engaged in their last childish argument together over the affordability of a pair of child’s shoes. Bridget Mountain was their domestic servant. For most of that day she had been occupied in the kitchen which was slightly separated from the main house across a court yard. About 4 o’clock she heard her mistress cry “Oh! Bridget! the gun! the gun!” The servant girl ran to the kitchen doorway which her mistress was running toward — then a shot rang out.

    The sound drew the next door neighbour outside, and caused the master of the nearby government school to look out his window. Both saw the man in the yard with the shotgun raised to his shoulder aiming at the kitchen door. Bridget saw him too and felt the shot particles that hit her in the leg. The wife cried “Bridget, I’m shot! I’m dying!” as she fell through the kitchen doorway. Bridget caught her and closed the kitchen door. What her mistress did next makes sense only if she realised the eldest of her two children was still outside with the husband who had just shot her. One deliberate minute later she opened the kitchen door and stepped back outside. The door slammed shut and then a second shot rang out. Both the schoolmaster and the next door neighbour witnessed the man raise the gun and fire the shot which killed his wife. He aimed for her head, the top of which he blew off. Also watching as her father murdered her mother and unborn sibling was their two-year-old daughter. When the police constable arrived, the man was holding the child in his arms and was seated next to the body of his wife. “I’ve done it.” he stated. After being allowed to whisper something in the ear of the corpse, he was lead away unresisting to the police lockup.

    He had been charged on the spot with murdering his wife. That was also the conclusion delivered by the inquest in Geraldton held the very next day. The man was held in custody in the lock-up until he could be shipped down to Perth for his criminal trial which was scheduled to be held in the Supreme Court in Perth three months later. While in custody he admitted to his gaoler:

    “I wish to God this had never happened; for the sake of them that’s gone ; but what’s done can’t be undone.”

    The Herald (Fremantle, WA : 1867 – 1886) Sat 20 May 1876 Page 3
    The Supreme Court as it was in 1876 [SLWA]

    No common criminal?

    On 10 April 1876, when his first trial began, one thing was never questioned, he had killed his wife in the circumstances described above. But this was a colony where who you were was infinitely more important than the gravity of the crime you had committed. This man belonged to a culture where it was considered an insult to his society for a trained lawyer to mount a defence for an aboriginal prisoner. It had shaken that same society to the core when a white man had recently been found guilty by a magistrate of manslaughter of an aboriginal man and sentenced to a couple of years in gaol (that magistrate was promptly sacked). But the prisoner in the dock was not an aboriginal man, and he had the most expensive legal team a scion of the colonial gentry could afford. Most crucially, the man on trial for his life was called Kenneth Brown and he was the older brother of Maitland — probably the most popular white man in the colony. A verdict of guilty was by no means assured.

    Sunday Times, 12 May 1907 p12

    Maitland Brown was also a killer — and in open celebration of the blood on his hands he was the undisputed hero to a significant proportion of settlers, particularly the elite property owners of whom he was an exemplar. His reputation was made by the ruthless extermination of a number of aboriginal people he had deliberately gone to their country to destroy. A career in politics beckoned. By 1876 he was virtually a one-man opposition party to the Governor and Government of the day. If responsible government had existed in the colony at the time (ironic, as Brown opposed this system at this stage of his career), he would have been elected unopposed head of that new government. When his brother shot his wife and unborn child to death Maitland was at the apex of his influence. The question was how far was he prepared to leverage his popularity to save his family’s honour (and his brother’s life). The popular perception that Maitland Brown was all powerful in the colony of Western Australia was about to be tested against the reality of that perception.

    Among Equals

    Maitland F[#$]ng Brown

    The legend of Maitland Brown’s omnipotence was very much reinforced by the outcome of the first trial. The jury failed to reach a verdict, a miss-trial was declared when a sole member of the panel refused to go along with the majority’s wish to acquit Kenneth Brown on the grounds of his being of unsound mind. A significant amount of gaming the system had gone into play to engineer this near-win for the defence. The population of Western Australia was still quite tiny, and only a small subset of this population — men with a certain quantity of money or real estate — were eligible to serve on juries. The size of the population was such that everyone in this category would know everyone else — related by family, friendship or business ties. The defence did not leave this to chance — half the names on the roll they objected to, until the only ones left were exactly the subset of the population who would do anything for Maitland Brown, their hero — even pervert the course of justice.

    Some of the supposedly confidential deliberations of the jury members were leaked into the public domain during the weeks that followed — and it appears that Maitland Brown’s supporters had overplayed their hand:—

    “He was ready to listen to reason [the hold-out juror], but when the leading spirit among the eleven, in a last attempt to convince him said, ‘Don’t think of the prisoner, he is a scoundrel; think of the family.’ He replied, ‘If that is your best argument I have nothing more to say.’”

    Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser Fri 30 Jun 1876 Page 4
    The Weld Club in 1874. The tossers on the front verandah may well include jurors in Ken Brown’s trials. [Battye Library]

    The names of the twelve jurors are all known, but in the reverse situation of the member of the firing squad randomly given a blank (so as to assuage his conscience that he did not fire the killing shot), the identity of the man with a conscience remains a secret. His name belongs to one of the following: George A. Letch, Dennis Brennan, William Britnall, John D. Manning, James R. Mews, John Allpike, Walter Easton, William Rewell junior, Alfred Minchin, Henry W. McGlew and James Manning. Captain George F. Wilkinson was foreman of the jury as well as being a foundation member of that exclusive Perth club for gentlemen: The Weld Club. Maitland Brown was also a member, as was an unidentifiable member of the second jury who was on record bloviating at the bar or at the billiard tables:

    “… He would not agree to a verdict of guilty, whatever might be the evidence…”

    Gippsland Times (Vic. : 1861 – 1954) Thu 29 Jun 1876 Page 4

    The jury of the second trial comprised Selby J. Spurling (foreman), Thomas Connor, George W. Smith, James Allpike, Thomas Jones, E. W. Haynes, William Coombs, Henry Caphorn, William Smith, Alexander Cumming, Charles Watson and Reginald Hare. It may have been more than just the failure of the previous trial that spurred the prosecution to make their case out more aggressively — In the intervening month, six Fenian political prisoners had broken out of Fremantle Gaol and made good their escape by sea on an American-flagged ship. A colonial vessel hastily commissioned as a gun boat gave chase, but when reality dawned that recapturing the escapees would also start a war between Great Britain and the US, the colonials backed down and the prisoners got away. There might have been a begrudging acceptance before this that the brother of Maitland Brown might be allowed to get away with murder. — but now a second public official humiliation could no longer be stomached.

    Escape of the Fenian Prisoners [wikipedia commons] Oops!

    This time the attorney general explained in great detail how the evidence raised could not excuse a murder and called further witnesses attesting to Kenneth Brown’s sanity. The defence likewise upped the ante. They called the aged mother of Kenneth and Maitland to the stand. The palpable embarrassment leaps off the page of the court transcripts as she testified that madness ran in her family and that her own mother allegedly tried to kill someone. Expert witness after expert witness was called to confirm this assertion, even Maitland Brown himself took the stand. In 1876 the Supreme Court occupied a barn-like structure on the same site as the building that replaced it at the beginning of the 20th century. It was formerly the government commissariat for Perth, but where the sacks of corn or gunpowder were once stacked, as many members of the public who could cram the galleries were there to watch their justice system in action. It may be that an increasing number of them did not like what they heard. Maitland Brown, even on the witness stand, was consistent in his guileless honesty (or gobsmacking hubris, if you prefer). He (in rather more words than less) attributed his brother’s mental decline to the fact that he had made a match with someone of significantly lower class than himself. The weekly newspapers covered both trials in minute (to the point of being libellous) detail. That was the contention of the defence who attempted to bring writs of contempt of court against a couple of them. The judge dismissed this action.

    After three days of evidence and a careful summing up by the judge, the jury was sent into isolation to consider the verdict. A few more days later and it was clear that this jury was not going to come to an unanimous verdict either. As was the case with the first trial, the defence had made any number of objections against potential jurors who might not have taken to heart that Maitland Brown was their peer as much as his brother was. It was a successful strategy (in the short term) for it bought the defence time. By the end of the sessions the list of suitable jurors on the roll had been exhausted and ordinarily wouldn’t have been regenerated until the next sitting of the court — in another month’s time. But rejecting jurors wholesale who didn’t meet the defence’s criteria of “friendliness” carried with it an increasing risk the more times a conclusive victory eluded them. The same family, friendship or business ties that bound those they had accepted were near identical for those they rejected — those who now realised that the family of Maitland Brown who heretofore they may have admired, or at least been neutral towards, had as good as said they were not to be trusted. Then there were those members of that class Kenneth Brown’s late wife belonged to. Ordinarily, they would not have been called to serve on a jury, but they were present in the gallery in great numbers.

    The judge called for a third jury to sit in a trial that would start the same day the old one closed. The defence challenged the remaining dozen men in the juror’s-book and when it was over only ten had passed muster — too few for a trial. It seemed that it was all over for another month. The attorney-general made a suggestion. The Judge concurred. The doors of the courthouse were shut, so as not to allow any of the gallery visitors to escape, and officers of the court also headed outside to sweep the nearby docks. The judge was Sir Archibald Burt, chief justice of the Supreme Court. He may have been a fellow member of the Weld club, drinking along side Maitland Brown and any number of the jurors called to date, but he was also a lawyer, and one thing no member of that profession can ever tolerate is having the piss taken of their office. An ancient ritual called a tales was called.

    Telling tales

    Two special jurors were sworn in by the court — then in turn, they called members of the public in the courthouse (or just passing outside) to the stand, and questioned them rigorously as to whether they were eligible to be a member of a jury. Each of the tales, both of them, was a miniature trial in its own right, with cross-examinations by the defence, prosecution and the learned judge. By the end of the process the full jury compliment of twelve were empanelled. They were Rice Saunders (foreman), Michael Benson junior, James Green; Harry Williams, Frederick Tondout; John Urquhart, Sydney Chester, Francis Armstrong junior, Frederick Platt and Alexander Halliday; with John Summers and James Snowball the two dragged in off the street.

    The evidence of the third trial was a carbon-copy of the second. The conclusion of the jury was not. Kenneth Brown was found guilty of wilful murder by unanimous decision. He was promptly sentenced to death.

    Sunday Times, 12 May 1907 p12

    Twelve days later behind the walls of the Perth Gaol, Kenneth Brown was hanged. His brother Maitland stood by him on the scaffold while he died. From the moment of the “guilty” verdict onwards, legend supplanted fact as far as the fate of Kenneth Brown was concerned. Such was the influence Maitland Brown was supposed to exert that the prison guard was doubled around the gaol in the days up to the execution lest the wardens could be simply bribed to let their prisoner go. Maitland himself was only supposed to have been allowed to see his brother before the end on giving his personal word of honour to the Governor (of the Colony of Western Australia, not the governor of the gaol) that he would not aid his brother’s escape. Even so, long after the body of Kenneth Brown had been returned to his family for a private inhumation, the story arose (and was believed to be true by even Kenneth Brown’s own descendants) that he escaped the gallows with his brother’s help, and made his way to America, much as the Irish political prisoners had so recently successfully done.

    In reality, Maitland Brown’s fortune had been largely spent by the time of the conviction on exorbitant legal bills accrued by the defence. Politically, he was now damaged goods and he resigned his place on the Legislative Council after the third trial. He would return to politics in future years, but he was no longer the universal hero of the colony he once had been. He never stood for office once responsible government was introduced a decade-and-a-half later. The affair publicly revealed the fault lines in Western Australian colonial society that had been baked into it since it creation nearly half-a century ago, but maybe this was something that could only be discussed openly in a neighbouring colony —

    “[…]‘trial by jury was on its trial in this colony.’ It is almost impossible for any one who has not resided here to understand how the small population of this place is united and connected by relationships or by mutual interests, how little public feeling there is, and how greatly private feelings or interests guide the actions of people in matters great and small. The country wants new blood and increased commerce with the outer world, from which it has been so long excluded […]”

    The Argus, Tue 27 Jun 1876 Page 7

    However, in the Fremantle Herald, a local paper despised by the local elites for if no other reason than it was founded and written by expired convicts (the very bottom of the heap) felt confident enough to editorialise —

    “Public feeling, which in the first instance was quiet, was roused by the challenging of the jury and the extravagance of the defence; […]”

    The Herald, Sat 17 Jun 1876 Page 2

    Crime and retribution

    One member of the public so roused, was so indignant that the legal system of his home town was being subverted, made his opinion known to the world at large, and if the following memoir of him can be believed, influenced the court on the course of action that they followed in the third trial —

    “Dyson pere it was who was so insistent, during the trial for wilful murder of the scion of a celebrated W.A. family, that some of the first and second juries which had disagreed had been got at, that when a third trial was about to commence the judge suddenly issued an order to police and warders to go out into the public street, preferably down towards the waterside, and bring in a dozen working men in their shirt sleeves for choice to act as a jury. This was done and the accused man was promptly found guilty deservedly and executed.”

    Sunday Times, Sunday 24 April 1927, page 14

    This Dyson pere is, of course, James Dyson, until recently Perth City Councillor and still an elected member of the Perth Road Board. There is no contemporary evidence of him ventilating his opinion at this time, but seriously — knowing what is known about his character, what were the chances of him remaining silent if his temper was riled? And James Dyson had cause to have the judicial system fresh on his mind. His son had just been gaoled for theft. Andrew “Drewy” Dyson had a somewhat unique vantage point to observe what subsequently unfolded while he served six months hard labour in Old Perth Gaol. Drewy might not have heard his father speak publicly on the subject — but he might have heard Maitland Brown and the defence team discussing his father… If James Dyson had so publicly set himself against the family of Maitland Brown and his influential friends what then were the consequences?

    Old Perth Gaol

    One year later, first Dyson’s Corner then Dyson’s Swamp, the bedrocks of his family’s economic security, went up for sale. James failed to be re-elected to the Perth Road Board, thus ending his civic career. His marriage failed and the husband of one of his daughters repudiated their marriage. He was forced to move into the residence of his eldest son Joseph.

    Fifty years or more after the trial and execution of Kenneth Brown, the tale of Dyson’s alleged influence on the proceedings was published. It came to light during reminiscences on the occasion of death of James’ most famous son Drewy. The Sunday Times article is uncharacteristically coy about the identity of “the scion of a celebrated W.A. family” who his late father helped send to the gallows. Something else was going on at about the same time.

    A child of Kenneth Brown, a daughter from his first marriage to the daughter of the Colonial Chaplain, Frederick Wittenoom, was attempting to run for the WA parliament for a second term. She was not successful in that year, 1927, nor would ever succeed again. If the coded message of her family’s shame in Drewy’s obituary was a bit of political gaming and did influence the vote in anyway, it would be the second time a Dyson had interfered with the political fortunes of this influential family. Edith Dircksey Cowan (nee Brown)’s place in Australian and Western Australian history was assured in any case. She was the first woman elected to any parliament in the Commonwealth. She has a university named after her and her face is on the Australian $50 note. She was also a founder (in 1926) of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society.

    Money talks.

    Is it any wonder the Dysons were effectively wiped from the living memory of Australian history?

  • I hate Maitland Brown

    I hate Maitland Brown

    Historians are not supposed to ventilate opinions like this. Actually, when studying for my degree we were also not supposed to write in the first person (Is there not an “I” in history?). I don’t believe we as historians have any licence to make things up. I also don’t believe we have any right to ignore evidence we find inconvenient to our beliefs. That’s why this particular article I have found so hard to write. But I do not love Maitland Brown, and on re-examining the evidence on which I base my opinion I am able to sharpen the focus of my intense dislike.

    His parents arrived in the Swan River Colony in 1841, the same year as the first of the Dysons. Maitland Brown was born on the family property Grassmere in the York district east of Perth in 1843. At age twenty-three he was appointed the youngest magistrate in Western Australia’s history for the Greenough district. At age twenty-eight he was an unelected member of the Legislative Council nominated directly by the Governor for the first session of representative government in the Colony. Not re-appointed due to his fierce independence, he was elected in his own right as representative for Greenough, and then, when he felt that his evolving opinions did not match those of his electorate, changed seats to represent the region of the Gascoyne. In the run-up to responsible government that was finally achieved by Western Australia in 1890, it was widely believed that he would be the Colony’s first premier, being de-facto leader of the opposition to the Governor’s administration.

    Instead, in 1886 he resigned to become regional magistrate for the Geraldton District, a post he held until shortly before his death in 1904.

    Tosser

    He was easily one of the most popular identities in the colony during most of his lifetime, enjoying the respect of those in the highest authority even if they did not always appreciate his — at all times — brutal honesty. That honesty of opinion could be indistinguishable from arrogance. But it can be difficult to disentangle the arrogance, pomposity and outright xenophobia actually perpetrated by Brown from that ascribed to him by his enemies or exhibited by the attitudes of his champions.

    A statue was erected in his memory on the Esplanade in Fremantle a decade after his death. It was in commemoration of the event that made him famous not only in Western Australia but across the British Empire. This monument was recently (2017) brought back into public attention by a controversy that broke out the other side of the world, concerning memorials from the American Civil War that celebrated the slave-owning class that lost that particular conflict (even though they — arguably — won the peace). The argument was that they should all be removed. 

    Maitland Brown’s own memorial was amended late last century to reflect the reality that since the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, opinions (if not the facts on which those opinions were based) had changed about what made Brown a popular hero. The changes on Maitland Brown’s memorial were held up as an example of the right way of dealing with such an issue. Here is the amendment:

    THIS PLAQUE WAS ERECTED BY PEOPLE WHO FOUND THE MONUMENT BEFORE YOU OFFENSIVE.
    THE MONUMENT DESCRIBED THE EVENTS AT La GRANGE FROM ONE PERSPECTIVE ONLY:
    THE VIEWPOINT OF THE WHITE ‘SETTLERS’
    no mention is made of the right of aboriginal people to defend their land or of the
    history of provocation which led to the explorers’ death.
    the ‘punitive party’ mentioned here ended in the deaths of somewhere around twenty aboriginal people
    the whites were well armed and equipped and none of their party was killed or wounded.
    this plaque is in memory of the aboriginal people killed at la grange. it also commemorates all
    other aboriginal people who died during the invasion of their country
    LEST WE FORGET MAPA JARRIYA-NYALAKU

    Brown was among the first generations of settlers born and — critically — educated during the Colony’s early years. The first settlers in the Western Australia could shoot Aborigines and steal their land (not necessarily in that order), then agonise about the morality of what they they had done, even as they loaded down their freshly cleared properties with sheep and cattle to an extent that soon the land was over-grazed and exhausted. Then they would have to start again in a new district, and new round of dispossessions. The Brown’s property in the York district was one such example. Pastures new were next found in the Champion Bay District (Geraldton and Greenough). Glengarry and Newmarracarra were the properties occupied by the Browns. But soon even this district was showing signs of exhaustion. The teenaged Maitland first came to prominence on an expedition into the Pilbara district commanded by Frederick Gregory where he got a river named after him.

    Four more horses were safely landed this morning, and we were returning to the vessel for another pair when a party of fourteen natives made their appearance at the camp. At first they came boldly up, but on a gun being discharged as a signal for my recall, they appeared much alarmed, although they would not go away. […] I therefore tried at first to make them understand that we had taken possession for the present, and did not want their company; they were, however, very indignant at our endeavours to drive them away, and very plainly ordered us off to the ship. It was very evident that our forbearance was mistaken for weakness, and that mischief was preparing. I accordingly took hold of one of the most refractory, and compelled him to march off at double-quick time, when they all retired to some rocky hills overlooking our camp, from which it was necessary to dislodge them. Taking Mr. Brown with me, we climbed the first hill, which made them retreat to the next. Resting ourselves for a few minutes, and taking a view of the surrounding country, we were just on the point of returning to the camp, when we observed three armed natives stealing down a ravine to the horses, evidently with hostile intentions, as they shipped their spears on getting close enough to throw; we did not, however, give them time to accomplish their object, as we ran down the hill in time to confront them, on which they took to the rocks. Seeing that it was now time to convince them we were not to be trifled with, and to put a stop at once to what I saw would otherwise terminate in bloodshed, we both took deliberate aim and fired a couple of bullets so close to the principal offender, that he could hardly escape feeling the effects of the fragments of lead, as they split upon the rocks within a few feet of his body. […]

    Journal of Francis Gregory, 17 May 1861

    However it was Brown’s bushmanship rather than his bulletship that then gained him the notice and respect of the powers-that-be.

    Thus it was that in 1864, aged only twenty-two years of age, he was appointed by the Governor to lead the expedition to find three explorers gone missing in the Kimberly region. The country was south of present day Broome, near Bidjydanga (which is the reclaimed name of a settlement the colonisers insisted on calling LaGrange) One of the missing men was James Harding, who had been a colleague and friend of Brown on Gregory’s expedition. Harding stole the name of Ngurin, a river sacred to both the Yindjibarndi and Ngarluma people in the Pilbara.

    During the 1980s a dam on that river also bearing his name destroyed many sacred sites. The cruel irony for the custodians of this land was that because the sites were sacred, they were not permitted to discuss them with the uninitiated. Even then, betraying a sacred trust to white anthropologists would probably have not saved their country from the politicians in Perth, heirs as they were of Maitland Brown.

    From the journals recovered from the bodies of Panter, Harding and Goldwyer by Brown, it is clear that the three had barged into a sacred ceremony of some sort for the local Karrajarri people and rather than obeying the message clearly received by the intruders to go away, the intruders fired shots at them instead, forcing the locals to flee. With the sublime arrogance that only nineteenth century men of European extraction could possess, they seemed incapable of perceiving this might be provocative, nor that retaliation could possibly be meted out to them for this infraction. Hence, a few nights later, the three were bludgeoned to death in their camp as they slept.

    Maitland Brown had been given authority by the Governor to take any action he chose, so his first act was to kidnap an Aboriginal man as a translator. After that man escaped, he was recaptured the next day before Brown could carry out the threat to hang each night, one of the many other prisoners he had in custody, until he was returned. This Aboriginal man was quite unconnected with the killing but nevertheless could speak the dialect so he was put in chains. The two Aboriginal guides who eventually lead Brown to the bodies tried to run away and were both summarily killed by being shot in the back.

    Australian News for Home Readers (Vic. : 1864 – 1867), Friday 25 August 1865, page 1
    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, 19 May 1865, p. 2

    Panter, Harding and Goldwyer’s remains were repatriated to Perth where they would receive possibly the largest funeral the colony had seen to that date. But Maitland Brown still had further work to do. He continued to hunt those who might have been responsible for the death of the Europeans. Lockier Clere  (L. C.) Burges (junior) was a member of Brown’s expedition. He observed that

    “the Aborigines [of the Kimberley] were accustomed to fighting Chinese and Kanakas who had in the past raided the coast, […], and tried to carry off the native women.”

    [Cowan: p89]

    So Brown would have understood that the Aboriginal people of this region would fight to defend themselves. So when he blundered into a camp and realised that an ambush was being prepared for him, he did not retreat to safety but instead charged, rifle and pistol blazing.

    Afterwards, six Aboriginal men were outright dead and a further dozen so injured as “not expected to survive” (no white man later checked) so the death toll among the Karajarri from the settler records cannot be exactly estimated. One British horse was slightly injured. Brown had achieved all he had hoped for. Before he set out, he recorded his desires.—

    “[…]But I trust that throughout the whole trip there will be no necessity for capture — that not only amongst this lot, but also amongst all others we may meet, the guilty natives, if such there are, will either attack or resist us in such a manner as will of itself justify us in exterminating them.”

    [Cowan: p80.]

    So he did, and thus he became a hero and role-model for all the xenophobes in the land. As one of Brown’s victims expired before him, he would write:

    I had him questioned as to the names of the murderers of our late friends ; he said distinctly that he was one, and that B was another, but would not tell another name; he never uttered a groan, but died as he had lived—a savage.

    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, 19 May 1865, Page 3

    The journal of Brown’s punitive expedition was published unexpurgated in the local paper on his return to Perth. Some of the more thoughtful, including those in officialdom, did question Brown’s judgement, not only of his actions, but of the wisdom of so honestly telling what he had done. Nevertheless, Brown was now a local hero, and what was even more important, of a respectable family and a property owner to boot. He was appointed Justice of the Peace and a Regional Magistrate the very next year. His meteoric political rise (nearly) to the top had begun.

    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (WA : 1864 – 1874) Friday 21 February 1873 p3

    There was a rising cohort among the settler population that had been born in Western Australia and while they might identify as British, their place in Western Australia was all they knew, and while they might be only a tiny portion of a British Empire, in the western third of the Australian continent, it was here they would rule as the biggest fish in a very small pond. The path towards representational and then responsible government in Western Australia had begun.  As the native-born white-men’s authority increased, so did their intolerance for anyone who wasn’t them. They bridled under regulations imposed by outsiders, that seemed determined to thwart them murdering whoever they felt like. Maitland Brown was their champion when he defended former expedition member L. C. Burges’ right to have shot to death an aboriginal man in the north over the theft of a saddle. Burges was sentenced to five years imprisonment for manslaughter (remitted to twelve months). This conviction was considered an outrage by the colony at large. I’m not terribly proud to see James Dyson’s name on the petition for the conviction to be overturned. (It might be son Joseph, but I doubt it) Certainly no white man has ever permitted to be sentenced to a heavy penalty (even if he can be convicted for it) for this crime in this state again—  even to this day. Please, someone send me some evidence that I’ve got this wrong.

    Brown’s family arrived in the colony the same year as James Dyson, but with immeasurably more assets. They had the cold hard cash to buy their first property already established in the Avon valley on arrival, and the family connections to form ties to the land owning elite. Peter Cowan, in his biography of Maitland Brown, notes that while the landowning squatter class of which Brown was the epitome appeared wealthy on the surface, they still had to work extremely hard to maintain it. [p. 65] So they may well have done, but they still operated from a position of privilege denied to those who had nothing. Brown was an opponent of Responsible Government (versus Representative Government, which he participated in) as he did not believe non-property owners (i.e.: riffraff ) should have any citizenship rights at all.

    Brown eventually changed his mind on responsible Government and seemed destined to become the Colony’s first premier. But he did not. A combination of economic, family and personal issues combined— not to necessarily defeat him— but to induce him to chose another path, and as Resident Magistrate for Geraldton he virtually was the government of that district (according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography).

    Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 – 1954), Sunday 24 April 1927, page 14

    And now comes the reason I write about a subject I find so personally repugnant. At the very height of his (quite frankly) terrifying influence overt the public life of Western Australia, a scandal broke that demonstrated there were limits to even his influence, and that maybe not all white Western Australians were so enamoured with their hero. And it seems James Dyson might just have played a role in his downfall, just as Brown or his many supporters, in the aftermath, might have had a hand in his.

    So it might be concluded that partly due to my Dysons, Maitland Brown did not become Western Australia’s first premier. Instead we got the Forrest family.

    Oh f—.

  • All the girls love a soldier

    All the girls love a soldier

    The pensioner guard in front of their barracks in Perth

    In 1869, the last two companies of the British army were finally withdrawn from Western Australia. With the departure of the 14th Regiment of Foot, horrified colonists were faced with the terrifying prospect that they might have to pay to expand their own police force. There were the pensioner guards, of course, who were retired or invalided out former members of the British Army, some veterans of the Crimean campaign of nearly twenty years ago, who had been sent out as settlers to the colony in conjunction with the convicts, part of whose duty it was was for them to guard. But by 1870, these 4000 odd pensioners and their families were scattered throughout the colony, and while some in the Enrolled Pensioner Guard still looked good on parade in Perth, their increasing decrepitude gave cause for concern.

    Various volunteer militias had winked in and out of existence in various locations though out the colony over time. Since 1862 there was a volunteer force of riflemen in the city of Perth.

    Prussian soldiers of 1870. Look at their hats—no wonder they won— While the French were incapacitated by laughter, that’s when they shot ’em.

    It would have been nice to have been able to tie in the call to form a cavalry troop in the city with the worsening international situation abroad, but in May 1870, the Franco-Prussian War was a little way into the future, so I cannot ascribe the desire for a new cavalry unit out of admiration for the funky Prussian headgear. On 25 May 1870 various Perth worthies signed a petition to Frank DeLisle, a ranking officer of the Pinjarrah Mounted Volunteers and perhaps more pertinently, aide-de-camp to newly-arrived Governor Weld (and his brother-in-law). Weld also brought with him the beginnings of representative government to the Colony, and one of those new representatives had his signature on that petition. Maitland Brown was a murdering bastard, and one of the most highly respected squatters in the colony because of it. Also on the petition (the last name, in fact), was a young man of 25. He was Joseph Dyson, son of the timber dealer and Perth town councillor, James.

    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (WA : 1864 – 1874) Friday 3 June 1870 p2

    Any troop of calvary was by its very definition, something of an elite or prestige unit compared to the humble foot-soldier. This elite status was to a large extent built in to it’s very nature as only volunteers of some means would have owned the requisite horseflesh to seat their superior rumps upon.

    Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901), Wednesday 9 March 1870, page 3

    James Dyson was by now a horse owner of some note, he was regularly loosing track of them, or loosing races with them. All his sons must have been able to ride with various levels of proficiency. Andrew, Septimus and Octavius built careers around horse riding or horse ownership. George Towton, whose name was also on the petition, would become to be a race horse trainer of some repute. Aged only 17 in 1870, he was also the Dyson’s family’s next door neighbour in Perth.

    A Cornet?

    Nowadays we know it only as a musical instrument, but back in the day it was the military title of the lowest-ranking commissioned officer. DeLisle was Cornet of the Pinjarrah Mounted Volunteers so he was gazetted Lieutenant of the newly formed Union Troop of Western Australian Mounted Volunteers. “From Captains to Colonels” by James Ritchie Grant (1991) notes:

    …despite some initial doubts to its viability it was approved on the 19th July 1870

    (p51)
    The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wed 6 Jul 1870 Page 2

    This might be a little bit of an understatement. One of the delays in promulgating the new regiment was quite literally rain on their parade.  A new Cornet was appointed to the Troop, the gloriously named Cornelius C. Fauntleroy. It might have been there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians, for there were never more than fifty members of the troop and numbers fell as low as thirty at times:—

    THIS UNION TROOP OF MOUNTED VOLUNTEERS.—We trust that this Corps which gave so much promise of success on its first establishment, will not be allowed to collapse for want of attention on the part of the officers ; drill is neglected, one worst signs[sic], and unless the officers shew more zeal in the company, it will certainly come to an untimely end. To the officers we say, persevere and you will succeed.

    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (WA : 1864 – 1874) Fri 25 Nov 1870 Page 3

    The members of the Troop finally gathered at the pub to elect some NCOs (Non-commissioned officers) and not a moment too soon, for one of it’s first official duties was imminent, to be a guard of honour to their leader’s brother-in-law, the Governor, during the opening of the first session of (semi)representational government:—

    At ½ past 1 p.m, a guard of honour, consisting of the Enrolled Force, under the command of Capt Finnerty, and the Union Troop, under that of Lieut. DeLisle, assembled in front of the Council Chamber, to receive His Excellency the Governor and suite.
    On His Excellency leaving Government House a salute of 17 guns was fired, and on the arrival of His Excellency at the Council Chamber, the military presented arms, and the band played the National Anthem.

    The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wed 7 Dec 1870 Page 3

    Shooting things off at ceremonial occasions would be the raison d’être of the Regiment.

    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (WA : 1864 – 1874) Fri 24 Feb 1871 Page 2

    In February of 1871, the decision was made to wield a big stick and institute fines for non-appearance on parade. As far as carrots went— Their fellow volunteers in the Rifles received an annuity for good service of about 16 shillings, a nominal amount but better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. I have yet to find evidence that their mounted brothers ever received the same compensation. However, there was always the side perk that the girls apparently loved a man in uniform… as was illustrated by a display the Troop put on for the inhabitants of Guildford, a few miles up the Swan River, in May 1871:

    GUILDFORD.
    From our own Correspondent.
    This town was enlivened on last Wednesday afternoon by the Union Troop and Guildford Volunteers, who numbered in force, and went through their various evolutions in a creditable manner. It is seldom the Guildfordites have the opportunity of witnessing such an array of horsemen in military uniform, and a considerable amount of eagerness to have a glimpse prevailed ; especially (may I be permitted to say?) amongst the fair sex, to whom the attractions of a soldier are ever predominant. I hear that it is the intention of the above Troop to have alternate meetings once a month in Perth and Guildford ; which should have the effect of producing more energy, and augmenting the numbers of each.

    The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA : 1855 – 1901) Wed 10 May 1871 Page 2
    The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (WA : 1864 – 1874) Fri 29 Sep 1871 Page 2

    Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more…  Later that month, nearly on the first anniversary of the meeting that started it all, they paraded for the Queen’s birthday public holiday (This being H.M. Queen Victoria, of course). There was another special meeting of the troop held in a pub in September, where it was decided to change the days they assembled together and paraded.

    And that was nearly the end of the story of the the Union Troop of Volunteer Cavalry.  In June 1872 DeLisle was replaced by a Captain Blundell, a man with an appropriately absurd string of first names. C. C. Fauntleroy’s name was already silly enough, so he was retained as Cornet.

    The Herald (Fremantle, WA : 1867 – 1886) Sat 29 Jun 1872 Page 3

    Blundell was an British army officer with Artillery experience, so less than a month after his appointment the Cavalry troop were no more, replaced in name, but not in purpose, by the Western Australian Troop of Horse Artillery. Firing canon at celebrations was their primary activity, budgets being such that practice shots in anger were limited to one firing a year. Never the less, all mocking aside, this volunteer force did survive in various iterations to eventually be rolled into the new army of the Australian Commonwealth in 1903 as the No1 WA Battery Australian Field Artillery.

    1872 was a year of economic problems in the west. To balance the books, the government abolished the tiny stipend paid to the Perth Volunteer Rifles, and presumably the other units as well. Their Captain resigned in disgust and the whole regiment was disbanded for ‘insubordination’. This may be significant for the Dyson story for the following reason—when it came time for the volunteer’s rifles to be collected, one could not be accounted for. An Enfield rifle issued to Private William Elsegood was not returned, and if the matter was ever resolved, record of it is not surviving in the official correspondence. It was still missing by November… [pdf]

    This W. Elsegood could be one of two people: William James Elsegood was 27 in 1872, a carpenter and builder who would go on to construct part of the overland telegraph line to South Australia; or his father, William Hunt Elsegood,  52 years of age,  a carter in town, but before that a Lance Corporal in the 96th Regiment of Foot. Elsegood was posted to the colony back in 1847 but stayed on as a civilian to raise a very large family. He had a daughter called Mary Ann, who was born in Perth, and by 1872 was aged 19.

    Mary Ann suddenly gave birth to a son on the 17 August 1872. A few weeks later she married Joseph Dyson in Perth on 2 September. Note the order of events. The child was named Joseph Dyson junior.

    Now, there are a lot of gaps in the record. We know Joseph Dyson had something to do with the setting up of the Union Troop of Cavalry, but there is no evidence as yet for (or against) him actually being a member of the troop, and if he was a member, how long did he serve? But I would like to think that a gallantly attired cavalryman might have caught the eye of the teenaged daughter of an old soldier…

    …then later on the father (or the brother) used the display of a bit rogue ordinance that just happened to be in their possession to ensure the young buck did the right thing. Nearly a literal shotgun wedding? The romantic in me likes to think so.

    …continued.