Eighty-nine years ago a Queenslander fled to Geelong in Victoria for some Divine intervention. I told a version of this story from the AFL Grand Final in which Brisbane Lions play Geelong, live on Ipswich’s West Bremer Radio.

In 1929, Alfred Victor Bates, known as Victor, was living in Canning Street, North Ipswich when at the age of twenty-one he bought his first car. He got it from a John Faulkner motor garage proprietor in Brisbane Street in Ipswich, and if you walk down the street now and look up, you can still see the name “Faulkner Motors” still on the buildings.

Like a lot of young blokes getting their first car, it can end in disappointment, and for Victor it was spectacularly so. That’s because less than a year after Victor purchased his car, he was driving along Doncaster Road towards Brisbane Road, when he smelt burning rubber. The fuel pump caught fire, the lights went out, and the car ran off the road into a tree and burst into flames.

Victor escaped without injury but the car was a write-off. He still owed £90 on the car but fortunately it was insured for £100 so Victor got out of it ok, although it would have been disappointing all the same for the young fella.

Victor then got married to Doris Clem whose grandfather built the Brassall Methodist Church and was an alderman on the Walloon Shire Council. And that’s when the trouble started.

You see come 1936, the world was in the depths of the Great Depression. Victor and Doris were living in Ginn Street, Ipswich. He had a job at the Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company in North Ipswich as a card fettler, which in the textile industry is someone who removes waste, lint, and short threads from the carding machine, and he was not particularly well paid. He was also treasurer of the holiday club. And that’s when Victor just disappeared.

Police were suspicious and tracked him south to Victoria and he was arrested in Geelong. He was then extradited back to Ipswich where he was to face justice.

He was charged with absconding with funds belonging to the Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company’s employees holiday club. In fact, he was charged with stealing the enormous amount of £605 5s 11d which was enough to buy a couple of houses back then.

Victor was brought back to Queensland to face a criminal sitting of the Circuit Court in Ipswich. The presiding judge was Mr. Justice Edward Douglas whose father was the Queensland premier John Douglas after whom Port Douglas is named after, and was also the grandnephew of the Marquess of Queensberry who is famous for the first rules of boxing.

This is the amazing part, because Victor’s is possibly the only criminal case in Australia ever conducted in a Sunday school. You see while Ipswich’s courthouse was getting some renovations, the court was incredibly held of all places in the Congregational Sunday School at 86 East Street. (Pictured below and top of page.)

The Sunday school’s founder and superintendent for twenty-two years was Mr James Clarke Cribb who was a member of the Queensland legislative assembly, and ironically director of Ipswich’s Woolen Company.

Victor clearly benefited from divine intervention because although the jury’s verdict was “guilty”, he was convicted of stealing a far lesser amount of £247, and the verdict came with a recommendation to mercy. Justice Douglas handed down a sentence of two years imprisonment, but this was modified to just a suspended sentence with a good behaviour bond. All Victor had to do was give the money back!

So thanks to the Divine intervention after leaving Geelong and being tried in the Ipswich Sunday school, Victor never went to gaol and enjoyed a very productive life, including in the Second World War serving Australia in the Middle East, Darwin, and the South West Pacific.

The old Congregational Sunday School where the case was held is today the heritage-listed Uniting Church Central Memorial Hall in Ipswich. A recommendation to anyone is if you ever get into trouble then you should go to Sunday school. It worked for young Mr. Bates who was tracked down and arrested in Geelong all those years ago.

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

Photo credits:
Uniting Church Central Memorial Hall, Ipswich – Google Maps 2025.
Faulkner Motors, Brisbane Street, Ipswich, 1959 – Whitehead Studios via  Picture Ipswich.
Staff working the weaving loom at the Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company, The Terrace, North Ipswich, 1935 – Whitehead Studios via Picture Ipswich.
Justice E.A. Douglas – Morning Bulletin, Rockhampton, 28 August 1947, page 4.
Congregational Sunday School c1908 – Picture Ipswich.
Alfred Victor Bates QX7404 WW2 enlistment photos – National Archives of Australia.