There was a mysterious death in Goondiwindi during the 1917 federal election that has never been explained. I told a version of this story on Darling Downs radio 4AK.

It happened 109 years ago last week on the 22nd of April 1917. Queensland’s commissioner for public health Dr. John Moore was in Goondiwindi at the time. He had gone out from Brisbane to investigate a mysterious disease in Goondiwindi that had claimed a number of lives, but he insisted that there was no cause for alarm. Dr Moore would later visit Ireland where he himself contracted a mysterious illness from which he never recovered.

The unexplained death being questioned here is that of businesswoman Mrs Mary Theresa Bushell. She was seventy-three years of age when on a Sunday morning was found dead on her bedroom floor by her son Victor. Mrs Bushell had blood about her face and head, she had suffered a compound fracture of the jaw and other external injuries, and she had attended a political meeting the night before. The police remained tight-lipped as they allegedly thoroughly investigated the matter.

Detective Senior-sergeant Thomas Head came from Toowoomba to lead the investigation. He had previously been awarded the King’s Police Medal for Bravery and would later be attached to the retinue that accompanied the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, on his royal visit across Australia. Detective Head insisted nothing about Mrs Bushell’s death was suspicious.

But still, relatives of Mrs Bushell, refusing to believe that a simple fall in her bedroom had caused the woman’s massive physical damage and death, demanded a post-mortem.

Mrs Bushell and husband Joseph moved north from Gunnedah, New South Wales, to Goondiwindi in 1884. The husband ran the Royal Hotel until his death after just one year. His father was a transported convict from Warwickshire in England. Mrs Bushell took over the hotel business and her Goondiwindi ventures expanded to include the Royal and Queensland hotels, coaches, and mail contracts. One son Victor was a well-known jockey and horse trainer. Another son Walter, better known as “Perry”, was a Goondiwindi alderman and would be the oldest registered horse trainer in Queensland.

But Mrs Bushell’s life also had its fair share of tragedy and strange deaths. Her son Walter and a grandson Tim died in quick succession and were buried on the same day. Another son Joseph Junior suffered a particularly long and painful death, while another grandson Leslie was just sixteen when he was struck and killed instantly by lightning.

And of course the death of Mrs Bushell herself was mysterious and unexplained.

She was found dead wounds on the floor of her bedroom at Goondiwindi having suffered extensive head wounds. She had attended a political meeting the previous night. The funeral was delayed so that her eldest son Walter could attend. The family demanded a post-mortem examination which was carried out the morning of the funeral. She had suffered a compound fracture of the jaw and other external injuries, which cast further doubt over the cause of death, the family asking how could violent injuries like that have happened from say a simple fall in her bedroom? But still Detective Senior-sergeant Head said there was nothing to see here.

This all happened in the lead up to the explosive 1917 federal election. The Queensland premier T.J. Ryan was heckled when he spoke at a rally in Goondiwindi the same week that Mrs Bushell was killed, and the fiery federal election was run and won just two weeks later by the prime minister Billy Hughes.

A few months later, during campaigning for the contentious second referendum for the introduction of conscription during the First World War, the prime minister stepped onto the platform at the Warwick railway station and into a maelstrom of protestors. It was alleged that the Queensland police did nothing to quell the angry mob. An egg was thrown at the prime minister that down in folklore as the egg that founded the Australian Federal Police.

The unexplained death of Mrs Bushell occurred in the same pressure-cooker environment, it was never investigated by the Queensland police to the satisfaction of the family, there was no coronial inquest, and she has never been publicly thought of since then.

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

Photo credits:
The Body Beneath the Ballot – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
Dr John Irwin Moore – Brisbane Courier, 8th June 1928, page 15 – repaired with Copilot.
Detective Senior Sergeant Thomas Head – Brisbane Courier, 5th January 1914, page 7 – repaired with Copilot
Studio portrait of Queensland Premier TJ Ryan in London – State Library of Queensland.
Billy Hughes, 1908 – National Library of Australia.