A century ago, the Queensland city of Ipswich was the centre of an international kidnapping intrigue. I told a version of this story on West Bremer Radio.

Samuel Glyde Davies was born on Jersey in the Channel Islands in the 1870s. At the turn of the century he lived on Harlin Road in Ipswich and worked at Bayard’s department store (photo above, Samuel possibly back row fourth from left) which locals remember was next to the Commonwealth Bank in Brisbane Street. Bayard’s closed down in 1982 after ninety-nine years in business. The building was demolished in 1986 but Samuel’s story remains.

His father-in-law was Henry Lowe who was the first settler in the Gatton district and one of the founders of the Congregational Church there.

His brother-in-law Walter Lowe lived in Ipswich and worked at the railway stores department. The brother-in-law left to be a solicitor in Sydney but died from a severe attack of typhoid fever, and his only son, Lawrence, was killed in the First World War.

Samuel’s sister Kathleen Davies was married to a Melbourne produce merchant by The Reverend Thomas Malyon who was one of the best-known Baptist ministers in Australia. That produce merchant was subsequently convicted of selling adulterated horse feed, in other words he bulked up oats by adding husks.

One of Samuel’s brothers was Major Sydney Stephen Davies. He received his officers commission in the artillery in 1911, served overseas in the First World War and at Thursday Island. At one stage he was in command of Fort Kissing Point in Townsville and also Fort Lytton in Brisbane.

But another of Samuel’s brother is where it gets really interesting.

The Reverend Charles Freeman Davies in 1904 joined the China Inland Mission and that’s where he met a fellow missionary who had gone out from England a year earlier. She was destined to become his wife. They married and remained as missionaries in China.

In about 1923 when the Reverend was returning home to Australia on leave, a party of Chinese bandits stopped him on the road, forced him to kneel and one held a huge knife over his bowed neck while the others robbed him and his party.

This was during a period of extreme unrest in China as warlords fought to control the country, eventually descending into civil war. And so it got even more interesting for Reverend Davies.

In 1926, when the army of the warlord General Wu-Peifu attacked Chow Kiakow in Honan Province where Reverend Davies and his wife were working, bandits looted the city.

Their mission, which included a girls school, was awakened at daybreak by rifle shots. Mrs Davies and a Miss Ethel Poppins, who was another foreign missionary from Fairfield in Melbourne, had just enough time to be hidden in an outhouse. Reverend Davies was dragged off by bandits.

All the mission buildings were set on fire. The outhouse in which the women hid was built of brick, and so was essentially fireproof. The ladies remerged three days later and Reverend Davies was released. Their lives had been saved by a toilet.

The bandits returned and this time Reverend and Mrs Davies and Miss Poppins were marched out at rifle point with the rest of their household. But the women could hardly stand, and on Reverend Davies plea they were released.

The bandits departed the city with Reverend Davies and thousands of other captives, many of whom would be tortured and killed. They left about two thousand people dead in the streets. It was nothing short of a massacre.

Reverend Davies was held for ransom of £5,000 and one hundred revolvers. The bandits insisted that it be paid or Reverend Davies would die. This was around two million dollars in today’s money, and an even more extraordinary amount given the spending power in China at the time.

After days of anguish, Ipswich’s Samuel Davies received a telegram stating what he yearned to hear, that his brother had been released. There’s no indication whether it was a negotiated release or if the ransom was paid.

The brother pastor hightailed it back to Queensland and conducted a successful ministry in the Rosalie Baptist Church in Brisbane and then the Chatswood Baptist Church in Sydney.

This had been a global news story with a number of the updates coming from communiques to Ipswich. And so ended Ipswich’s notoriety as the information source for an international kidnapping intrigue.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION TOLD LIVE ON RADIO.

Photo credits:
Staff in front of Bayard’s, Brisbane Street, Ipswich 1934 – Picture Ipswich.
Bayard’s, Brisbane Street, Ipswich c1925 – Picture Ipswich.
The Reverend Davies – Herald, Melbourne, 27th September 1926, page 7.
Wu Peifu with sword – Wikipedia Commons.
Rosalie Baptist Church corner of Fernberg Road and Ellena Street – State Library of Queensland.