In 1864 one of the great frauds in Queensland legal history was discovered sitting in the police court at Surat and brought to Toowoomba. I told a version of this story live on radio 4AK.

There was a crime wave sweeping across the colony of Queensland in 1864. Even the first supreme court judge of Queensland Mr. Justice Lutwyche commented about the large amount of crime in the district and noted that most of the criminals had come from New South Wales.

Because of the large workload, in Surat south of Roma, when the police magistrate and some other justices were late for court, it caused a genuine problem. Fortunately, there was a Mr. John Livingstone on hand, he announced himself as a magistrate and took his seat on the bench.

When the police magistrate and others did finally arrive, Livingstone declined to resign the chair on the grounds that it was always accorded to him on whatever bench he sat, because he was in fact the first magistrate appointed when Queensland separated from New South Wales five years earlier.

Mr. Livingstone smartly rapped the offending magistrate and justices over the knuckles and said that it was his intention to communicate the matter to the executive of the government in Brisbane.

He ordered the magistrate and justices to leave, which they did, and he then conducted the court’s business himself.  Mr. Livingstone continued to sit on the bench at Surat for perhaps the next five or six weeks and committed to trial two men for horse stealing.

Mr. Livingstone settled into his honourable position in Surat and resided in the local hotel where he was in the habit of shouting champagne for everyone. He was writing cheques and even bought a number of houses.

But then the floods came to central, south and south-west Queensland. These were the floods of March-April 1864 which were Queensland’s worst ever floods recorded up to that time.  It coincided with a cyclone in which a ship was wrecked off the coast of Fraser Island when eleven people were drowned, and there were more drownings across the state.

The disaster brought government officials to town and it was discovered that magistrate Livingstone was in fact an imposter. Despite his aristocratic airs, Livingstone was not a squatter or a justice of the peace as he had claimed, he didn’t have any money and wasn’t a magistrate at all. While he sat as magistrate, he’d even run up debts of £800 which is more than $1 million today. If it wasn’t for the floods, his time on the bench could have continued ad infinitum.

It turned out that Livingstone had been a barman at the Queen’s Arms Hotel on Ruthven Street in Toowoomba. The publican there at the time had previously been fooled into recommending credit to a future mayor from Brisbane.

Livingstone was arrested and when he was received at the Toowoomba lockup, the keeper asked how he was to designate him in the books, Livingstone said to put him down a gentleman.

And so on Wednesday the 19th of July 1864 in the Toowoomba courthouse, the self-proclaimed magistrate of Surat was convicted on three charges and Justice Lutwyche sentenced him to two years and four months hard labour in Brisbane gaol.

But the fake magistrate’s career didn’t end there.

In 1866 a Ben Roland arrived in Warwick and represented himself as being in charge of 10,000 sheep to be driven to Victoria. At the same time, he began advertising with placards that he wanted eight men for the job. He obtained goods for the journey to the value of £80. But it was soon discovered that Roland wasn’t who he said he was. In fact, he was the self-proclaimed magistrate John Livingstone who had been released from Brisbane gaol just weeks earlier.

This time Livingston was admitted into Toowoomba gaol after being sentenced to twelve months imprisonment, which ended his career.

But an impressive career as an imposter it was – sitting as the magistrate at Surat, committing two men to trial for horse stealing, swindling over $1 million, and shouting the whole town of Surat to champagne.

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

Photo credits:
Surat Police Quarters c1877 – State Library of Queensland.
Alfred Lutwyche c1865 – e280931880 Queensland Art Gallery.
Charlotte Street from the corner of George Street, Brisbane, during the 1864 flood – State Library of Queensland.
Cobb & Co mail coach crossing Surat bridge Balonne River in flood 1917 – State Library of Queensland.
Old Brisbane Gaol c1890 – National Library of Australia.