This is the unusual story from 120 years ago when a Darling Downs undertaker was taken down by the premier’s wife. I told a version of this story live on Darling Downs radio 4AK.

In 1905, Thomas Cambey (depiction above), with a particularly long and sad face, approached a Warwick undertaker. The tragic news was that Cambey’s mother Mrs. Margaret Kidston had died at Murray’s Bridge on the Warwick to Killarney Road.

Warwick’s esteemed Dr. Arthur Phillips had attended the dying lady, as had the respected Reverend Father James Horan. Mrs Kidston was the sister-in-law of The Honourable William Kidston who was then the treasurer, and soon to be the 17th premier of Queensland.

Cambey wanted only the best for his mother. He ordered three mourning coaches and a hearse at a total cost of £15. That’s over $20,000 today. Cambey wanted to do the right thing and pay a £1 deposit, and so he tendered a cheque he had for £2 18s 7d, and received in exchange the undertaker’s cheque less the £1.

The undertaker that he engaged was Mr. Frederick Reimers who was the longest serving undertaker on the Darling Downs.

Reimers had first arrived in Warwick in about 1866 and learned his trade working under the local undertaker and cabinet maker. Reimers soon set up business for himself as an undertaker, as well as cabinet making and house furnishing manufacturing. Carpentry was often a trade pursued by undertakers because it was profitable to make their own coffins, and also as a way to make money between funerals. Death and carpentry paid well because Reimers built his own two-storey premises on the corner of Guy and Grafton streets in Warwick. The site is one of variety stores today.

For the funeral of Mrs Kidston the sister-in-law of the soon-to-be premier, Reimers made all the necessary arrangements. That included having the plate engraved to be attached to the coffin. It read, “Margaret A.H. Kidston, aged 74 years, died January 15, 1905.”

Everything was ready for ten o’clock on Tuesday the 17th of January 1905. That’s when the funeral was to leave Murray’s Bridge for the Warwick cemetery.

Thing only thing was, it was all a big lie!

Reverend Father James Horan, who it was claimed had visited the dying woman, knew nothing of it. He was one of four Irish brothers who all became priests, and just four months after the alleged death of Mrs Kidston, the priest himself would be dead.

Dr. Arthur Phillips, who supposedly attended the woman, also knew nothing about it. He himself would die following an appendix operation and that despite being treated by every single doctor that Warwick possessed and the leading doctor from Toowoomba.

The death of this Mrs Margaret Kidston was a fraud, although two years earlier there was a Miss Margaret Kidston who was the 22-year-old daughter of the future premier, and she died after an operation. She was certainly not the alleged death in Warwick.

Even the real identity of Thomas Cambey was in doubt. Cambey claimed that his family lived on the Pikedale Road, six miles from Stanthorpe. In reality he was a twenty-eight-year-old habitual criminal from New South Wales, Thomas Cambey, alias S. H. Adams, alias H. Campbell, alias John Kidston. He was a native of Tenterfield, and his father, so Cambey eventually said, was a squatter in the Inverell district.

Cambey was quite a good-looking man, a decent height of six feet two inches tall, dark complexion, a small brown moustache, and a dimple on his chin. He was rather well dressed, wearing a dark coat and vest, white sweater, brown tweed trousers, and a brown felt hat. Perhaps he looked a bit too good, and there was something a little too rehearsed in his grief. Cambey actually worked as a shearer, and sadly was addicted to drink.

He pleaded guilty to falsely obtaining the sum of £1 18s 7d. He was sentenced to what seems a harsh six months’ hard labour in Brisbane’s Boggo Road gaol.

As for Mr. Frederick Reimers the undertaker who was taken down, he passed away in Warwick a decade later, but his business continued to live on thanks to his sons under the name of “Reimers Brothers” for at least another quarter of a century.

And the premier William Kidston, he enjoyed a useful political career, and his wife who was the real Mrs. Margaret Kidston, she died just five years after the first time that she died in Warwick.

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

Photo credits:
Depiction of Thomas Cambey, 1905 – Copilot_20250616_210044.
Horsedrawn hearse and undertaker, c1892 – State Library of New South Wales.
Mrs Kidston and William Kidston, Pier Hotel, Cleveland, c1906 – State Library of Queensland.