As Queensland approaches the rainy season, this is a reminder not to pick up just any umbrella, because in the 19th century you could have been sent to gaol. I told a version of this story live on Darling Downs radio 4AK.
In 1884, a woman by the name of Alice Todd was charged with stealing an umbrella. She appeared in the Brisbane City Police Court before the assistant police magistrate Mr William Day. His brother was the English judge Sir John Day who was well known for sentencing criminals to lashes. A Brisbane property owner Mr William McFarlane had left his umbrella on the veranda of his house in Adelaide Street one afternoon and it was gone by the next morning. At about noon the police arrested Alice on a charge of drunkenness and the umbrella was discovered in her possession.
Back in 1884 they were tough on crime. When Alice was found guilty of stealing the umbrella, it wasn’t the lashes that she got but rather the extraordinary sentence of one month’s imprisonment with hard labour.
Hard labour seems a bit excessive for stealing an umbrella, but in Alice’s case there is a bit of a back story which was the problem. Of interest to people of the Darling Downs is that Toowoomba was actually seen as part of the solution.
Alice Todd was constantly before the courts on charges of drunk and disorderly, and using obscene language in public. She made multiple appearances for vagrancy, which is having no lawful means of support. It remained a crime in Queensland until 2005.
Alice was also in the news even when not being charged. Such as the time that she fell in front of a cab, which back in those days was a horse and carriage. On this occasion iwas driven by the taxi driver Charles Johnson who had previously been charged with carrying a dead body in his cab. But in his encounter with Alice, she remained very much alive, and he was exonerated of all blame because Alice was of course drunk at the time.
Alice had other convictions for things like destroying a pane of glass in a boarding house, and so she led a full and varied criminal life. Across just a ten-year period, she recorded around fifty convictions which has to be at world record pace.
In the midst of all those convictions, in 1887 is when a number of surprising events occurred. Alice was again in the Police Court, charged with drunkenness, and in her statement to the magistrate she said if she was let off, that she would leave town that afternoon. The magistrate kindly and surprisingly abstained from imposing the usual penalty, and Alice was allowed to depart.
However, Alice proceeded to celebrate her freedom and that same afternoon, she was again locked up. The next morning when Alice was brought up before the same magistrate, she looked rather timid and trembling for fear of what was to come next. This time instead of being sent to gaol, Alice was surprisingly ordered up to Toowoomba for a change of air for a term of three months.
Evidently, the fresh air up in Toowoomba failed to change the ways of Alice Todd, because her career continued at that world record pace.
But she is worth remembering because of the unique Toowoomba sentence that she was given. And because she is a warning to all of us as we approach the rainy season, in 1884 Alice was given one months’ imprisonment with hard labour – for stealing that umbrella!
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY ON 4AK.
Photo credits:
The Umbrella Offender – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
Sir John Day in 1903 – Wikipedia Commons.
Police Court Elizabeth Street Brisbane 1920 opened for business 1876 – State Library of Queensland.
