This year is the 130th anniversary of one of the most moving funerals in Dalby history. I told aversion of this story live on radio 4WK.

The funeral was for John Jessop who arrived on the Darling Downs in the 1860s. He had pastoral selections at Greenbank, Durah, Daadine and Chinchilla. He was the official starter of the Northern Downs Jockey Club and was one of the best pigeon shots in Queensland. Jessop was a Dalby alderman, Dalby mayor, and for twelve years represented Dalby in Queensland parliament.

His most trusted friend was Jerry Sweeney who one of the best-known men in the district. Sweeney was compositor on the Dalby Herald and later proprietor of the Golden Fleece Hotel. This was one of the oldest hotels in Dalby and catered especially for drovers and station hands. Sweeney even hosted there the first marsupial skin sales in Dalby.

Sweeney’s wife was well known in her own right, having in the 1870s performed an act of heroism by diving, fully clothed, into a flooded river to rescue someone being swept away in the water.

Back to the mayor John Jessop whose life was one of success and tragedy. He and his wife Sarah had eleven children but suffered their fair share of sadness.

Jessop was first elected to parliament in 1882. In the middle of an election campaign the following year, his youngest daughter Isabella passed away at just fourteen months old. A month later he was re-elected to parliament.

In 1887, Jessop was in Brisbane for a sitting of parliament when he received the awful telegram that his youngest son Robert aged just 3 ½ was missing.

The whole of Dalby joined in the search. Word was also sent to all adjacent country residents, and all available help was despatched to look for the little boy, the residents of Loudoun, Bon Accord, and other places joining in the search. As the possibility of finding the boy alive faded, the nearby creek was dragged in every likely place but nothing was found.

Eventually with all hope gone, Jessop made the awful decision to have the creek dynamited in the hope of raising the body.

Eventually three days after disappearing, the body of the unfortunate little fellow was discovered in a well 60 feet deep in Jessop’s yard.

When Jessop’s own time came eight years later in 1895, he was fifty-four years old and his funeral must have been one of the most moving ever seen in the district.

Jessop’s instructions were carried out to the letter. He had expressly stipulated that his remains should be carried to the grave in his own buggy, drawn by his favourite horse, and driven by his best friend Jerry Sweeney.

The funeral cortege made quite a sight as it extended for over half-a-mile to honour the man who had swayed the destiny of Dalby for more than twenty years.

Today the last resting place of the mayor and member of parliament – and that of his two young children – is marked by a headstone which has fallen on the ground.

You can still read it, but it’s a shame it’s not still standing like it was 130 years ago shortly after the old white horse took the mayor for his last drive.

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

Photo credits:
Old white horse in a meadow with dandelions – Royal Horse website.
Politician John Shilleto Jessop, c1890 – State Library of Queensland.
Dalby’s original Golden Fleece Hotel – Queenslander, Brisbane, 21st February 1903, page 419.
John Shillito Jessop, Dalby Monumental Cemetery – Find a Grave by ClubHerron 2020.