One day ninety years ago an infamous nude escapologist arrived in Warwick, Queensland, but he was far more than that. I told a version of this story on radio 4WK.

At around midnight on Friday the fourteenth of September 1934, several shots were fired in the main street of Warwick. That’s because another prisoner had escaped from custody, which wasn’t all that unusual for Warwick.

In 1902, two prisoners escaped by climbing over the Warwick gaol wall. One of them was Richard Clements with nine or ten aliases. He’d been sentenced only a couple of hours earlier to nine months imprisonment for vagrancy and obscene language. He was picked up on a train in Stanthorpe, but the first place he went after escaping was the Harp of Erin Hotel in Warwick. That’s the old timber building built in 1876 that’s still there on the corner Wood and Wantley streets today.

In 1910, it was a prisoner named Harold Fraser. He escaped by climbing over the same gaol wall. He was spotted at Dalveen but no more was seen of him after the night train passed through heading over the border.

In 1931, it was seventeen-year-old Charlie Morrice and eighteen-year-old Ernest Clark who climbed the wall. They’d stolen a saddle which blew the last chance they were given by the judge in the Warwick courthouse. (Pictured top of page.)

The 1934 incident with shots fired in the street involved a prisoner of a different ilk. His name was John Sleeth. He’d been caught in the act of burglary but evaded both capture and the police bullets. He was subsequently arrested at Ballandean sixteen miles away and locked up in the Warwick gaol.

John Sleeth was well-known to police, so he was also placed in leg irons. They definitely didn’t want him to get away. But escape he did by using the handle of a cell bucket to remove twenty-five bricks from his cell wall, and walking through the door of the adjoining cell which had been left open. Sleeth then climbed the same prison wall that had served previous escapees so well.

He was recaptured and this time sent to Boggo Road Gaol in Brisbane. But he attempted a goal break from there as well. One morning while awaiting trial, all of the window bars but one in Sleeth’s cell were found to have been sawn through.

That made it five gaol breaks in five years for Sleeth, in addition to a number of escapes from constables even before they got him behind bars. His escapades had been at Albury in New South Wales, and in Queensland at Townsville, Rockhampton, Warwick, and now Boggo Road.

Sleeth became infamous as the “Phantom figure of the penitentiary”. It seemed as if he went to gaol for the sole objective of trying to get out. However, this time at Boggo Road, the governor took extraordinary steps which increased Sleeth’s infamy.

Firstly, Sleeth was never allowed to occupy the same cell two nights in a row.

Secondly, he was required to take each of the three meals a day in the nude. That was to make sure that he hadn’t concealed any files, hacksaw blades or other implements that might help in another escape attempt.

After both the morning and midday meals his clothes were given back to him, but after the evening meal he was left starkers to spend the night in complete nudity. In the morning, he was again given his gaol clothing until breakfast time when the daily routine started over. 

So next time you feel that you just need to get away, you better think twice about unintended consequences. You might be required to eat in the nude just like the Phantom of the Penitentiary after his visited Warwick ninety years ago.

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

Photo credits:
Warwick Court House with clock tower, August 2020 – Murray Waite, Creative Commons, State Library of Queensland.
Harp Of Erin, the Former Oddfellows Home Hotel, Warwick – Buddy Patrick, Flickr.
Alfred John Sleeth who escaped from Warwick gaol last night – Telegraph, Brisbane, 19th September 1934, page 18.
Main gates of the Boggo Road Gaol, Brisbane – State Library of Queensland.