A 19th century bullocky from County Limerick, Ireland, lived a colourful life and saved his best for the Queensland city of Ipswich. I told a version of this story live on Ipswich’s West Bremer Radio.

The Irishman Owen Lambert arrived in Sydney in about 1841 as a free immigrant aboard the former convict ship Eleanora which burned to the waterline just a year later. He went to work in outback Queensland, settled in south Queensland, and for pretty much the last thirty years of his life made his living by travelling with his team of bullocks from Warwick through Ipswich to Brisbane, and back again.

His best mate on the bullock trail was Edward Collins who was a former transported convict from Worcester in England. Collins was at first transported to Sydney, but he re-offended was re-transported to the then-notorious Moreton Bay, and that’s why he joined Lambert in modern day Queensland.

In true bullocky tradition, Lambert lived what you could call a colourful life. East of Ipswich in Brisbane he was convicted of drunkenness a number of times.

West of Ipswich, Lambert’s life was even more adventurous. In Toowoomba he collected more drunk and disorderly convictions, including one time with a significant fine for the crime at the time of twenty shillings which today is around $1,500.

Another time, Lambert almost lost his livelihood and his ownership of eighty working bullocks. Lambert allegedly built up a debt of more than £108. But in court it was shown that he could neither read nor write, and of course kept no accounts what-so-ever, so I think he got off on sympathy and a bit of Irish luck.

In 1862, Lambert’s adventures became deadly when there was a dual fatality on one of his jobs after leaving Ipswich on the road to Warwick. Lambert’s dray was accompanied by another owned by a Brisbane sawyer Andrew Evans. Evans and a young woman Alice Coe were asleep on top of his dray load of three tons of iron when a wheel caught on a stump. Evans was thrown off, broke his neck, crushed by the iron load, all of which killed him instantly. Young Alice, who was beside him, lingered for just a moment as she died in her husband’s arms.

Less than a year later in 1863, Lambert was this time riding on top of his own dray load of wool, when passing through Spicer’s Gap on his way to Ipswich. The wheel hit a rock, throwing Lambert off. He survived, but the woman he was riding beside was not so lucky. She was Mrs Margaret Collins the sixteen or seventeen stone wife of Lambert’s best mate Edward Collins. Mrs Collins fell with her full weight on her head and was killed instantly. There’s a memorial to her at Spicer’s Gap today.

While all this carnage was going on around Lambert all around Ipswich, he saved his best for the city of Ipswich itself.

That’s because in 1861, Lambert appeared before the Ipswich police magistrate who was the veteran of Waterloo, Colonel Gray. Lambert was convicted of indecently exposing himself right in the middle of town on Bell Street. Colonel Gray had no tolerance for Lambert or his exposure and so handed down the enormous fine of £6 or around $8,000.

Lambert passed away in 1887 at the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum on Stradbroke Island. He was sixty-nine years old.

So the bullocky well-known in Ipswich and across south Queensland, surrounded by bullock dray deaths, and who saved his best public exposure for Ipswich, had simply faded into obscurity – but we remember the Irishman here today.

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

Photo credits:
Bullock Team Pulling a Wagon Loaded with Wool Bales – Museums Victoria.
Cribb and Foote London stores, Bell Street, Ipswich,1850s-1860s – Whitehead Studios via Picture Ipswich.
Memorial, Spicer’s Gap, Boonah Shire – Spicer’s Gap Memorial Inscriptions Kerry Raymond and David Horton.
Colonel Charles George Gary – Jubilee History of Ipswich, 1910, page 58.