Next month is the 150th anniversary of the return of a girl who had been lost in the bush for fourteen years. This extraordinary story starts with the loss of a little girl named Bessie Downing from Callandoon station near Goondiwindi, Queensland, in 1860. I told a version of this story on radio 4WK.

Living at the station was John and Mary Downing and their eight children. In July of 1860, the place was the scene of a huge gathering of Aboriginals for a big corroboree.

Two of the Downing children – six-year-old Willie and three-and-a-half-year-old Bessie – wandered out into the bush while they were playing and were lost. Willie was found two days later on a nearby run, but nothing bar some tracks could be found of little Bessie. “Old Beranga” from the local mob tracked Bessie for two miles but wouldn’t go any further because he wanted to go to the corroboree.

Stories spread that Bessie had been rescued and taken away by visiting Aboriginals, others were that she had simply perished in the bush. Whatever the case, her disappearance became Australia-wide news and a profound and enduring mystery. The illustrations shown below and at the top of the page appeared in Brisbane and Sydney publications decades later.

Her father John Downing wrote to the newspaper, pledging all the money he had for his daughter’s return. He offered a £100 reward which was around two years wages back then.

Mother Mary held onto the belief that her daughter had been adopted by an Aboriginal mob. On several occasions she was buoyed by news of children with fair skin seen in camps in Queensland or New South Wales. She even wrote a pamphlet advertising her cause.

Years passed, and everyone except mother Mary gave up hope. The family moved to Warwick. It was there that a credible report reached them that a girl answering the description of Bessie was living with a small party of Aborigines at Millie near Narrabri in New South Wales.

A son John Downing Junior set out from Warwick on horseback leading a pack horse. The Warwick police magistrate Philip Pinnock telegraphed ahead and police in the Tenterfield district found the girl they were looking for.

She answered the description having blue eyes and light auburn hair, as well as certain identifying marks on her body. It was the unanimous opinion of local residents, who had known the girl for thirteen or fourteen years, that this was likely the lost Bessie Downing.

John and the girl set out on their journey north back to Warwick. The Aboriginals with whom the girl had lived, threatened to follow and kill both of them. A police escort was provided for the early stage of the journey to guard against an attempt at rescue or worse.

John rode the pack horse and the girl was mounted on his saddle horse. They returned to Warwick via Sandy Creek. The parents John and Mary couldn’t bear waiting at their home for their daughter’s arrival, so they and two other two sons rushed out to Sandy Creek to meet the returning children.

As the story goes, it was in April 1874 that Bessie Downing, who had been lost for fourteen years and was now seventeen years of age, was reunited with her parents at a point about five miles from Warwick near Sandy Creek on the Goondiwindi road.

After affectionate scenes that you’d expect, the reunited family returned excitedly together to the Downing home.

Mary Downing, however, had immediate doubts about the identity of the girl. It wasn’t long before Mary was certain that the girl taken from the Millie Aboriginals was not her daughter.

The unfortunate girl was sent to work at Frederick Brushaber’s Harmony Hotel at Sandy Creek. She became an epileptic and passed away in a mental hospital.

Mary Downing eventually reconciled to the fact that her daughter Bessie had died in the bush all those years ago. Some of the older Aboriginals said that Bessie was taken by dingoes. In her family bible Mary wrote that Bessie had gone “to Heaven on July 13, 1860.”

Mary saw out her days living in Warwick at “Glanville Dale” on the Stanthorpe road. She passed away in 1917, just three weeks short of her ninety-fifth birthday.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD LIVE ON 4WK.

Photo credits:
The Lost Girl of Callandoon – Smith’s Weekly, Sydney, 3rd July 1937, page 17.
Homestead, South Callandoon Station near Goondiwindi – The Telegraph, Brisbane, 7th February 1924 – page 4.
Bush Tragedy – Truth, Brisbane, 3rd September 1950, page 22.
Philip Pinnock formerly Brisbane senior police magistrate and sheriff of Queensland – The Queenslander, 3rd August 1912, page 27.
John Downing Junior headstone, Warwick General Cemetery – Find A Grave added by Shelley on 14th April 2022.
Frederick Brushaber’s Harmony Hotel, Sandy Creek c1873 – State Library of Queensland digitised from The Queenslander, 5th September 1935, page 22.