The 1871 Queensland election riot in Warwick involved a range of characters, and questions were asked about the police. I told a version of this story live on Darling Downs radio 4AK.

In 1871 about 2,000 people gathered around the Warwick courthouse waiting to hear the result of the Queensland election. When the winner was announced, supporters of the loser, the newspaper publisher James Morgan, turned into an angry mob and things got nasty.

A melee broke out that lasted well into the night, with rocks thrown and people knocked to the ground, kicked and punched almost to the point of death. The fighting didn’t stop until shots were fired at the old Criterion Hotel.

Commentary at the time lamented that the police could do nothing with only four constables against the whole riotous mob. But I’ve looked into those constables who were there, and it could be said that policing in Warwick at the time was perhaps less than successful.

In charge of the Warwick police the day of the election riot was Sergeant Robert Grayson. Although he was lauded in some respects, he holds the record as the least successful constable for searches in Darling Downs history.

Sergeant Grayson was one of the unsuccessful searchers for the lost girl of Callandoon. That’s when three-and-a-half-year-old Bessie Downing went missing from Callandoon station near Goondiwindi. Sergeant Grayson failed to find her and the disappearance became Australia-wide news.

Seargent Grayson was then unsuccessful searching for Mrs Elizabeth Mandall who disappeared from Emu Creek after she boarded the coach from Warwick to Toowoomba. Sergeant Garyson failed to find her too and another disappearance made headlines around Australia.

Sergeant Grayson himself later disappeared when he couldn’t find his way home one night. It was weeks until his body was found in the Condamine River at Warwick.

One of the policemen who reported to Sergeant Grayson at the election riot was Constable Matthew Fitzgerald. He was a mounted constable of very diminutive stature who everyone called “Little Fitz”.

One of Fitzgerald’s big cases was charging a Chinaman called Ah Fat on suspicion of being a lunatic. Another was when he chased a number of young boys who had tied tin kettles to the wedding cart of Sergeant Grayson’s daughter, but they got away because Fitzgerald was too short to catch them.

Constable Fitzgerald later became an unsolved crime scene himself. That’s when he suddenly dropped dead after eating his wife’s jam tart that was laced with arsenic. His wife was never charged.

During the election riot, Sergeant Grayson and his constables did succeed in rescuing two men from the mob, and a number of the policemen received some pretty severe blows in doing so. One of those was probably Constable Richard Murphy who later on, out near Stanthorpe, was beaten within an inch of his life with a stirrup iron. Policing was pretty rough work back then.

Following the riot, there was some unfair criticism that they should have sworn in say 150 special constables as soon as they saw trouble brewing, and that the whole thing would have been stopped in five minutes or not happened at all.

But suffice to say, that day in 1871 was a blight on Warwick’s law and order, and a bad day in the lives of Sergeant Grayson, Constables Fitzgerald and Murphy and the others.

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

Photo credits:
1871 Warwick election riot – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
James Morgan – State Library of Queensland.
The original Criterion Hotel, Warwick c1886 – State Library of Queensland.
Little Fitz chases the tin kettlers, Warwick, 1880s – Harold Peacock with Copilot.