Some people equate seeing an accountant with a visit to an undertaker, but ninety years ago this one accountant proved to be one of the greatest, bravest and perhaps most exciting of all time. I told a version of the story live on West Bremer Radio.

It was Friday the 29th of November 1935 and “Don’t move” was the order given to the accountant and pay clerk in the Whitwood Colliery office (pictured above) at Dinmore in Ipswich, Queensland.

The accountant was Peter Roy McKelvie, one of the bravest and best accountants in Ipswich history because he didn’t flinch even though this wasn’t the sort of debit or credit that he’d been trained to do.

It was payday and McKelvie had just finished counting the money and filling the pay packets for the miners outside. The man giving the order to “Don’t move” was a masked bandit with a blackened face, and he was pointing a loaded revolver straight at McKelvie.

The accountant followed instructions and scooped a number of pay envelopes into a sugar bag that the bandit then took, left the office and ran away through the Dinmore scrub outside.

But McKelvie wasn’t an accountant to be trifled with. He immediately grabbed the office revolver and rushing outside, he could see the bandit who was north of the office, running towards Brisbane Road. The accountant raised the office revolver, took careful aim, and fired four shots. This is probably the one thing that made McKelvie more of a normal accountant, because all four shots missed the target and the bandit got away.

Now the manhunt was on for a dangerous armed assailant on the run with stolen cash totalling £169 8s 7d. Melkelvie was a good accountant and knew the missing funds to the penny.

But the thing is, although the bandit’s face was partially hidden, McKelvie easily saw through the bandit’s feeble disguise of a blackened face and brown sunglasses. He knew the man and recognised the man’s voice, build and gait.

McKelvie identified the perpetrator as “Hughie”. His full name was Hugh Chomley Tite, who was a miner at McKelvie’s Dinmore Colliery. McKelvie had known Tite for all seven years he’d worked there and had handed him his pay packet probably over three hundred times.

The great Ipswich detective Nobby Clarke was called in. Nobby had played a key role in the arrest of Ipswich’s Tin Opener Burglar four years earlier. On this occasion following a tip-off, Nobby was dispatched to Moggill Ferry where he picked up Hughie Tite.

Tite still had shoe polish on his face from the robbery. It was across his eyebrows, on his ears and throat, some had rubbed onto his shirt and hat. Nobby asked Tite why his face was blackened, and Tite gave the implausible explanation that he’d been drinking tea from a billy can. That would have been quite a vigorous cup of tea if the explanation was true.

When Tite and the accountant McKelvey faced one another back at the police station, it was clear they were well acquainted. “Are you sure it was me, Roy?” Tite asked.

“Yes Hughie,” McKelvie said, “I’m positive.”

With the evidence mounting, and the reliable accountant McKelvie as the star witness, it appeared to be an open and shut case. But there was some public sympathy for Tite. Not long ago his mother had died in 1932, his future father-in-law died in 1934, in 1935 he married his first cousin Ivy from Silkstone, and now three months later he was driven to crime.

Tite himself was confident that he’d get off. He insisted that no Ipswich jury would convict him because he’d lived in Ipswich all life and worked as a coal miner. He was convinced that the coal miners would stick by him.

At the Ipswich courthouse on Tuesday the 3rd of March 1936, the jury incredibly returned with a verdict of not guilty. It was greeted with cheers from the gallery. The coal miners had indeed stuck by their man.

Hughie Tite remained in his job at Whitwood Colliery and was still there ten years later when he was half-buried by coal.

The detective Nobby Clarke continued his surge into legendary status in the Queensland police force, while the accountant Roy McKelvie, brave though he was, finished his days quietly as a registered tax agent at Eastern Heights in Ipswich. He passed away almost fifty years ago.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON WEST BREMER RADIO.

Photo credits:
Mine office at Dinmore – Truth, Brisbane, 22nd December 1935, page 19.
Peter Roy McKelvie – Truth, Brisbane, 22nd December 1935, page 19.
Hugh Chomley Tite – Truth, Sydney, 22nd December 1935, page 12.
Detective Acting Sergeant Arthur Nobby Clark 1934 – Queensland Police Museum.