The trail of a man who fled Toowoomba, Queensland, in 1864 following trouble over a woman led 700 kilometres north to Rockhampton. I told a version of this story live on radio 4AK.

In July 1864, Henry Dagge was in Toowoomba charged with manslaughter.

Staring down at him from the bench of the Supreme Court criminal sitting in Toowoomba was Justice Alfred Lutwyche who was the first judge of Queensland’s supreme court. If not for a lack of self-restraint in some of his judgements, Justice Lutwyche would have been the first chief justice of Queensland.

Prosecuting Dagge was Ratcliffe Pring who was a lawyer, politician and the Queensland’s first attorney general. He felt certain that he could prove that homicide had been committed.

Defending Dagge was another lawyer and politician Charles Blakeney. He was the son of a Church of England minister, and grandson of an Archbishop and primate of Ireland. Shortly after this case, he would be appointed as the first judge in Queensland’s western district court.

A few weeks earlier, Dagge had been in the Fitzroy Hotel in Roma. This was a big new shingled roof hotel. The owner and licensee was Mr. Thomas Reid who just a couple of years earlier was a storekeeper in Dalby when his young wife died and left him along with three children. Eight weeks later he was married again, sold up and left town to go into the hotel business in Roma.

Dagge and a man by the name of Arthur Hall were in Reid’s Fitzroy Hotel at Roma, when some jealousy arose between them in respect to a servant girl there.

Dagge went outside and threw a sardine can back at Hall. He then upped the ante and threw a bottle which struck him rather forcibly on the head and fractured his skull. Hall lingered for two days before passing away.

Our man Dagge appeared certain to face a long term in gaol because there were two eyewitnesses. They were two German immigrants named Frederick Grossman and William Schaffer both of whom swore they saw Dagge throw the bottle.

Dagge’s defence attorney Blakeney had it covered though. He carefully explained to the jury that the witnesses’ testimony could not be relied upon because they were mates and were German.

The jury retired for just a minute or two and then returned a verdict of “not guilty”.

The judge Justice Lutwyche was shocked and told Dagge as much. The judge advised him to be very careful throwing bottles in future because his escape this time had been a very narrow one.

Dagge took the warning to heart and left the district as quickly as he could. In fact he pretty much vanished off the face of the earth. However, I tracked him down to Rockhampton where he lived out his days in total obscurity, dying alone with £755 – $300,000 in today’s money – to his name.

The widow Mary McMahon who Dagge appointed to be executor of his estate, and who I think was his landlady, she didn’t see fit to use his money to erect a headstone. I’ve found Dagge’s last resting place in Rockhampton, and sadly it’s an unmarked grave.

So this was the age-old story of two men drinking at a hotel on the Darling Downs, they quarrelled over a woman, one killed the other with a bottle, and the killer ended up in the South Rockhampton cemetery buried by a thankless landlady.

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

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHEN I FOUND DAGGE’S GRAVE

Photo credits:
Henry Dagge row South Rockhampton cemetery – Harold Peacock 2025 20250407_163640.
Alfred Lutwyche c1865 – e280931880 Queensland Art Gallery.
Ratcliffe Pring – State Library of Queensland.
Charles William Blakeney c1865 – State Library of Queensland.
Inside of a bush tavern in Queensland c1875 – State Library of Queensland.