A seemingly innocuous trial at the Toowoomba courthouse in 1864 brought together amazing characters in Australian colonial history including Riley the Bushranger. I told a version of this story live on radio 4WK.

It was July 1864, and the law courts across the whole colony of Queensland were overflowing. Busiest of all was the Toowoomba assizes where two particular men were charged with larceny.

This followed events on the evening of Friday the 8th of January 1864. That’s when four horses with their saddles and bridles were stolen from Talavera Station, the property of W. B. Tooth, Esq. The next day Constable Francis was dispatched along with a Mr. Bygraves to hunt the felons. If you were an aspiring thief, these were the wrong people to cross.

You see, the property owner was William Butler Tooth who was a politician and pastoralist, and was notoriously litigious. He had acquired runs in the Wide Bay, Burnett and Darling Downs districts, including Clifton near Allora, and stations from Murrumbidgee and Darling Rivers to Gulf of Carpentaria. Before Queensland separated from New South Wales, Tooth represented Queensland’s Moreton, Wide Bay, Burnett, Maranoa, Leichhardt and Port Curtis districts in the New South Wales parliament. A cousin was the 1st Baronet Sir Robert Lucas-Tooth who would later be a major backer of the Mawson Antarctic Expedition Relief Fund that rescued the Australian explorer following a series of calamities

The men that Tooth sent in pursuit of his stolen property included Edward Lay Bygrave who was a lofty Englishman and superintendent of Tooth’s station.

There was also Constable William Francis who was a founding member of the Queensland Police Force. He’d work in places like Surat, Roma, Warwick and Ipswich, rise through the ranks to Senior Sergeant, and become famous for catching bushrangers. That included the bushranger Ned Randall who Francis tracked for over 320 miles before overtaking him. He also arrested a man believed to be the notorious Captain Thunderbolt but he was released by a magistrate before a positive identification could be made. Thunderbolt was shot dead not far away in northern New South Wales three months later.

Constable Francis and Mr. Bygraves went in pursuit of the stolen horses. After tracking them 150 miles to within sight of the Queensland-New South Wales border, they overhauled two men who gave their names as William Goldfinch and Robert Falkner. Constable Francis presented his revolver and ordered them to stand. Goldfinch made for the scrub and the constable chased him. Mr. Bygraves faced Falkner and promised to shoot if he didn’t surrender, Falkner surrendered.

It was at the Toowoomba courthouse on Saturday the 16th of July 1864, before Justice Alfred Lutwyche who was the first judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland, that the charges were heard. Goldfinch and Faulkner were accused of horse stealing at Roma, they pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to a lenient two years hard labour in Brisbane Gaol.

Justice Lutwyche warned then that if they came before him on similar charges again, he would show no mercy and sentence them to a minimum of five years hard labour in the road gangs.

After Goldfinch served his sentence, it appears that he distanced himself from Justice Lutwyche and moved to South Australia. His only disturbance came when his plough was said to have been stolen by a cow. The cow got her horns caught under the handles, the cow and plough then rolled down an embankment together for a swift getaway.

Goldfinch’s partner in crime Robert Falkner proved somewhat more interesting. “Robert Falkner” was an alias used by the notorious John Burns, alias Shiels, alias George Brownlow, alias Phillips, alias George Dixon, alias Riley the Bushranger, alias “The Hairy Man”. The latter name was because later in his career, he was invariably described as a very dirty man with a profusion of unkempt hair over his face and trailing down his back.

Confusion over the bushranger’s identity would lead to the wrong man being shot dead, and an innocent man being sentenced to two concurrent sentences of fifteen years hard labour.

Falkner, Burns, Riley the Bushranger, The Hairy Man, or whatever his name was, it appears first faced justice in the Toowoomba courthouse in 1864. The bushranging career of “The Hairy Man” could have been nipped in the bud if only his Toowoomba sentence was not as lenient.

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

Photo credits:
Bushranger Morgan at Round Hill Station, 1864 – State Library of Victoria.
William Butler Tooth – State Library of Queensland.
Death of Thunderbolt – wood engraving by Samuel Calvert 18 June 1870, State Library of Victoria.
Alfred Lutwyche c1865 – e280931880 Queensland Art Gallery.