A Supreme Court judge’s wife remains gruesomely and deeply entrenched in Queensland history. I told a version of this story live on Ipswich’s West Bremer Radio.

The judge was Edmund Sheppard. He was born in 1826 at Taunton, Somerset, England, where he was called to the bar. He migrated to Australia and practised as a barrister in New South Wales before going to Queensland in 1867 to be firstly a Metropolitan District Court judge. In 1874 he was elevated to be a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland.

Judge Sheppard was a regular at the Ipswich courthouse and presided over some of its wildest cases. Just one example was in 1869 when Judge Sheppard presided in a case involving Captain Annesley Eyre, formerly of the 90th Light Infantry.

Captain Eyre’s horse, saddle, and bridle were all stolen while it was tied up for just forty-five minutes in front of the old Tattersalls Hotel on the corner of East and South Streets in Ipswich. The notorious Heffernan family, who had arrived from Ireland fifteen years earlier, provided fabricated evidence against the accused, who was the related and equally notorious William Stanley. The Heffernans had it against Stanley because his evidence had been central in a conviction of one of the Heffernan boys for stealing a mule.  Judge Sheppard saw through the pile-on and ordered that one of the Heffernans be charged with perjury. But that charge went nowhere when it was dismissed due to a total lack of evidence, because there was nothing but lies being told.

In any case, it was Judge Sheppard’s wife Mrs Mary Grace Sheppard who was central to a gruesome story and remains deeply entrenched in Queensland history to this day.

Mrs Sheppard’s father Charles Murray Esq was a senior barrister in New South Wales. Her brother Charles Murray Jnr was a judge on the New South Wales district court.

In December 1868, a man called Davidson drowned in the Brisbane River while trying to swim after a ferry he’d just missed. The police searched for his body for two days without success. On the third day, Mrs Sheppard, who was on the eve of giving birth, boarded the same ferry boat to cross the river from South Brisbane. She was in the company of two other passengers, and an unnamed government officer who provided the authoritive record of ensuing events.

They were a short distance out, the punt was coming in from the south side, when suddenly, at the stern of the boat “the body of Davidson rose from the river, head-first, shot up until breast high… glared for a second with those ghastly, glassy, staring eyes, turned over on its back, and floated away.”  

The second it rose, the officer, with remarkable presence of mind, instantly caught Mrs. Sheppard by both arms to prevent her turning around to see the body. He held her for at least a hundred yards, speaking to her softly, and telling her he would give a clear explanation later. The judge afterwords deeply thanked the officer, expressing a belief that the officer had saved his wife’s life.

In fact that was probably true. You see, not long afterwards Mrs Sheppard gave birth to a baby boy, got puerperal or childbed fever as a result of the birth, and died of heart disease, at just 29 years of age.

The son who was unborn on the gruesome ferry crossing, he went onto graduate with first‑class honours from Cambridge University and become a well-known mathematician and actuary.

Meanwhile, poor Mrs Sheppard was buried in the old Paddington cemetery, and today she is one of those bodies that remains untraced from underneath Queensland’s beloved sporting ground Lang Park.

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

Photo credits:
The Judges Wife Who Saw the Dead Rise – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
Mr Justice Edmund Sheppard c1874 – State Library of Queensland.
Panorama of Ipswich from Limestone Hill taken by Pochee closer detail of first section of panorama Ipswich 1865 – Picture Ipswich.
Judge Charles Edward Robertson Murray – The Daily Telegraph Sydney 10 Jan 1923 – repaired with Copilot.
Suncorp Stadium – Austadiums website.