Researching a former cemetery led me to uncover the cursed colonial family of Queensland’s inspector of orphanages. I told a version of this story live on Darling Downs radio 4AK.

Charles Colville Horrocks came from Manchester, England, having been a captain in the British Army. His uncle was the man responsible for the iconic British fashion style of Horrocks long clothes. Charles married the daughter of an Irish police magistrate against the will of his uncle, which cost him a fortune. In around 1873 he arrived in Queensland where he held the posts of Secretary of the Queensland Medical Board and Inspector of Orphanages until 1896.

Despite this service in public health and child welfare, his own family appeared to be cursed, with his children destined never to have children of their own, and there may have been good reason for it.

Horrocks’s official roles meant that he was regularly visiting the Darling Downs and elsewhere across the colony, and the 1890s depression meant that he was always busy. In 1891, Horrocks reported that the colonial government was taking care of more orphans and neglected children than ever before, which he blamed on the depression, with many fathers having taken to drink and deserted their offspring.

In 1896, Horrocks was in Toowoomba on behalf of the Queensland Medical Board to prosecute Harry Westwood Cooper for working in Pittsworth as an unlicensed doctor. As it turns out, the man was probably also a notorious bigamous and bogus baronet. Still in Toowoomba, in his role as inspector of orphanages, Horrocks also prosecuted Michael Collins with neglecting to provide for the maintenance of four children now in the orphanage. This was probably the same Michael Collins who had previously been charged in Toowoomba with murder.

That same year of 1896, Horrocks passed away and the unusual step was taken to advertise that every state child who had been placed with families was invited to his funeral. About 100 of the children actually turned up. That happened exactly 130 years ago last week.

But there’s more to the story of Charles Colville Horrocks which makes me think his family was cursed or at least genetically flawed.

Horrocks had thirteen children of his own, which was a total that definitely proved to be unlucky. Of the thirteen children, nine of them died as infants. Three of those children were buried together in the old Paddington Cemetery which I think is a record, and that’s how I came across him while researching who’s buried at the old cemetery which today is Lang Park, the home of rugby league.

The four children who survived to adulthood, or near-adulthood, were deemed never to marry or have any children of their own. Well one daughter Madeline did, she had a child out of wedlock, but the baby died at just nine months of age, and Madeline herself died just twelve months later. The reason that there were to be no Horrocks grandchildren may have been because of the high mortality rate, but also perhaps because of a darker secret.

You see, it was one of the remaining children who brought devilish shame to the family. His name was Francis Charles Horrocks. In 1892 Frank was just seventeen years old when he lured into the bush another young lad of a similar age.

It was at Mooraree, the Brisbane suburb of Murarrie as it is today, that Frank attacked the other boy with a hatchet, killing him in the most gruesome of circumstances. Frank was convicted and sentenced to hang, and at just seventeen he became the second youngest person known to be legally executed in Queensland history.

It was said that Frank had always been uncontrollable, and as he advanced in years went from bad to worse.

The heartbroken inspector of orphanages buried his apparently insane or possessed oldest son, who was still just a boy, in the South Brisbane cemetery. The grave today remains unmarked.

So Charles Colville Horrocks, the Secretary of the Queensland Medical Board, Inspector of Orphanages, record holder for burials at Lang Park, regular visitor to centres across Queensland, was fated not to have his questionable genetic make-up continue beyond his own children.

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

Photo credits:
The Horror Horrocks Curse – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
Alexandra Children’s Home, Coorparoo, Brisbane – The Queenslander Pictorial, 22nd June 1918, page 22.
Harry Westwood Cooper – The Sun, Sydney, 6th April 1913, page 11.
Francis Charles Horrocks – Queensland State Archives.
Beam that held the hangman’s noose, Boggo Road – Sir Harry Gibbs Legal Heritage Centre, Supreme Court Library.