This week I went on the road to find missing persons, a solicitor who vanished 134 years ago with his servant, and I found them both! I told a version of this story live on West Bremer Radio.

The solicitor was William Henry Miskin who the 1870s to 1890s became Brisbane’s leading solicitor. He was also founding president of the Toowong Shire Council, president of the Geographical Society, president of The Royal Society, and on the board of Queensland Museum.

An interesting legal case he had was in Ipswich when he liquidated the assets of an Ipswich convict which included the convict’s own teeth. For well over a decade Miskin lived in and owned the historic home in Toowong, Brisbane, called “Dovercourt” which today is being meticulously restored and is haunted by Ipswich-born ghost.

In 1891, Miskin vanished along with his pregnant twenty-one year old servant girl. Miskin was forty-nine years old at the time, which means their age difference was about the same as Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski.

Both of them seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. But what really happened was that they had run off together to America to have the baby. Miskin only re-appeared two years later when he returned to Brisbane to finalise his divorce. He then disappeared again and out of the sight of the gossipy Brisbane socialites.

I tracked Miskin 700km north to Rockhampton which is where he hoped to live out the rest of him life in relative obscurity. But he could not avoid headlines there either.

In 1898, there was a fire that destroyed Miskin’s law offices in Fitzroy Chambers on Denham Street, Rockhampton. Nothing of his was covered by insurance, and the only thing that he saved were a few books and papers.

In 1904, as cashbox went missing from the Rockhampton branch office in the Ipswich Woollen Company, which backed onto Miskin’s office.

The Ipswich Woollen Company years earlier had built Queensland’s first and biggest woollen mill in North Ipswich. It was so important to Ipswich that its opening attracted the governor, premier, multiple government ministers, and not one, but three mayors.

In the missing cashbox was £4 in cash, some cheques, and a number of cut sapphires, although what gemstones were doing the Ipswich company’s cashbox remains a mystery.

The next day the branch manager of the Ipswich Woollen Company received a letter in which the missing cheques were returned. An investigation by police was launched to search for the typewriter that was used to address the envelope. This led straight to a typewriter in Miskin’s office, where the cashbox was found and it still contained the cash and sapphires.

Miskin had employed the eighteen-year-old Leslie Wood who was handed over to police. Under interrogation, Wood admitted everything. He came from a good family, his father was a senior employee of the Australasian Steam Navigation Company, and his grandfather an engineer in Melbourne.

I can’t find a record of conviction, so Miskin may well have got his employee off. In any case, Wood moved to Brisbane where he and his mother lived in a house called “Minto” on Gladstone Road, Highgate Hill, and the house is still there today.

But it’s what happened to Miskin that has never been fully traced to its finalisation before.

Miskin passed away in Rockhampton in 1913. His illegitimate son born in America reportedly walked out of the funeral halfway through when he discovered the circumstances of his own scandalous birth.

This week I found Miskin’s gravesite and headstone at the South Rockhampton cemetery and visited for the first time. Miskin is buried there, along with his servant girl.

So now I’ve been able to complete Miskin’s journey from the courts of Ipswich and Brisbane, via Dovercourt in Toowong, and finally to the Rockhampton cemetery. It was actually quite an emotional experience at last discovering and visiting his final resting place.

“Dovercourt” is the title of a book I published a couple of years ago, and Miskin features quite prominently.

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

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHEN I DISCOVERED MISKIN’S GRAVE.

Photo credits
Discovering William Henry Miskin, South Rockhampton Cemetery – Harold Peacock, 2025, 20250407_172311.
W.H. Miskin – Queensland Naturalists, 2006, page 44.
Dovercourt – Ross Monks, 2021.
Ipswich Woollen Mills, Joyce Street, East Ipswich, 1920s – Picture Ipswich.
Minto Colonial Hostel – Trip Advisor, 2025.
William Henry Miskin, South Rockhampton Cemetery – Harold Peacock, 2025, 20250407_171438.