The Black&White of the Thin Blue Line Rockdale Police Station in the Press 1890s-1960s By Karen Pentland To my Dad, a dedicated Police Officer until the end. Cover illustration Rockdale Police Station 1914 Swftnsw.sdp.sirsidynix.net.au. (2016). [online] Available at: http://swftnsw.sdp.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/search/asset/182176/0 [Accessed 8 Apr. 2016]. 2 Contents Introduction 5 Detective Robson 112 Constable Lambert 157 Conclusion 207 Baby Farming Case 6 Constable Wearin 118 Constable King 159 Appendix 209 The Beginnings 7 Constable Jackson 120 Constable Williams 161 Footnotes 211 Turn of the Century 9 Constable Dunworth 121 Constable Cole 162 Bibliography 247 Second Decade 19 Constable Leonard 123 Constable Browne 162 Rockdale Outrage 28 Constable Wirth 124 Constable McClung 163 Nineteen Twenties 33 Constable Stear 125 Constable Court 164 Percy Carratt 43 Constable Walker 126 Constable Howell 164 Runaway Mad Horse 48 Constable Langworthy126 Constable McMahon 165 Bronya Disaster 51 Constable Wilkinson 127 Sergeant Taper 166 St. Elmo 55 Constable Harrowsmith128 Constable Grigg 168 The Thirties 60 Constable Hale 129 Detective Wightley 169 Alfred Norman Peach 70 Constable Gilherd 131 Detective Mitchell 172 A Boy in a Sack 73 Sergeant Caban 131 Detective Ramsay 173 Wall Murder Suicide 80 Constable Colless 133 Sergeant Hillier 174 A Deadly Gas 88 Constable Kinkade 134 Constable Chaseling 178 Closure and after 92 Constable Stephenson139 Detective McLachlan 179 Constable Joyce 95 Sergeant Gorman 143 Detective Bluett 182 Constable Spencer 96 Constable Hanley 144 Sergeant Shearer 184 Constable McTaggart 96 Constable Carney 146 Constable Phillips 184 Constable Hewitt 97 Sergeant North 147 Sergeant Small 185 Constable Newell 98 Constable Cowden 148 Sergeant Jones 187 Sergeant Rogers 100 Sergeant Bridge 148 Sergeant Norton 188 Constable Herbert 100 Constable Boyd 148 Constable Cooper 189 Detective Hawe 101 Sergeant Hibbard 149 Detective Brown 189 Detective Jones 102 Constable Hall 149 Constable Martin 193 Constable Scott 102 Constable Harrison 150 Constable Reynolds 194 Constable Brodie 104 Constable Gee 150 Constable Gilmour 196 Constable Hogan 105 Detective Arnold 152 Constable Brotrherson197 Constable Garden 105 Constable Allard 153 Constable Green 200 Constable Whitney 106 Constable Collard 154 Constable Towers 202 Sen. Constable Irvine 108 Constable Peters 155 Constable Wood 203 Constable Robertson 109 Constable Wilson 155 Constable Horder 203 Constable Brown 111 Constable Vogan 156 Constable Taylor 205 3 4 Introduction The policemen and women of New South Wales are often in the media with thecoverage of the work they do. As the daughter of a late, long serving Police Sergeant and the cousin of a current acting Police Inspector, I have grown up immersed in the culture of the thin, blue line. I have friends who have joined up, studied, experienced and left the force. I have even taught students who have first joined somewhat surreptitiously, due to their family connections and home location. I have sat at dinner tables, regaled by tales and exploits, long into the night. I have attended the funerals of those who have fallen in the line of duty and the annual memorials held in different states and even countries half a world away. The Force had its origins in the early days of convict settlement, being an integral part of our society and has developed through many stages to become the modern police organisation we see today. Policing today uses the press, the radio, the television, the general Internet and even Facebook to connect with the people they serve. The New South Wales Police Force is divided into eighty Local Area Commands (LAC's) across the State of NSW, which covers an area of 801,600 square kilometres. From its early beginnings in 1789 with the establishment of a night watch corps, a dozen of the best behaved convicts, there have been a constabulary presence in this State. This was expanded in 1810 by Governor Macquarie, with a system of districts and ranks. However, the disparate sections of the Force often worked in isolation until in 1862 the Mounted Police, Foot Police and Water Police united into one group, numbering eight hundred and thirty four in the ranks. A further change in 1926 created the Commissioner of Police role, at time of writing held by Commissioner Andrew Phillip Scipione APM. In 1990, the Police Forces were amalgamated into one organization now named the New South Wales Police Force. It is the third largest police organization in the English speaking world, with 16,000 employees and 13,000 sworn police officers. (1) However, this is the story of the policemen of the now defunct Rockdale Police Station, as reported in the press of the time, over the first seventy years of its existence. Here are some of the crimes they dealt with, the big and the small and the stories of the men and their families, walking the thin blue line of police work. “Culpam poena premit comes” 5 The Great Baby Farming Case The coroner was busy, when on 15 Dec 1892 the inquest of an unnamed baby resumed. The remains had been found buried in the rear yard of a house in Alderson Street at Redfern. John Makin and his wife Sarah Jane, along with their two of their four daughters, Blanche and Florence, were being held in custody under suspicion of their involvement in the Baby E’s death. This was a gruesome case for all involved, including the police officers who had found the baby. Constables Griffin and Keramli from Newtown Police had discovered the shallow grave on the morning of 11th November the same year. The Makin family had lived in the house from early December 1891 until the end of January 1892. Two doctors were present in the court; Doctor Frederick Milford had examined the remains of an infant and stated the child had been dead from six to twelve months and had been between two to six weeks old at the time of death and a Doctor Marano corroborated his evidence. An open verdict was returned by the jury, with the Makins declining to give any evidence in their defence. Dramatically, a second inquest was then held regarding another child, Female B, whose fabric wrapped body had been found in the yard at the rear of a house at 109 George-street, Redfern by a Constable Brown. The Makin parents were then charged with being complicit in the death of the child of an Amber Murray, with the two girls charged on suspicion. The Makin family’s silence was not boding well for them and it would be the evidence of the dead babies’ swaddling clothes that would be their downfall… as well as baby clothing proffered to local pawn shops. Sadly, the Makin’s had been running a baby farming business, paying money to mothers promising adoption of their illegitimate babies by loving parents…themselves. They sought to profit by taking in babies for childcare payments and found it easier to kill the children and deceive the parents in order to continue receiving money. Four babies and a pram had been noticed at the George Street house. A maid, Clara Florence Risby, had offered her female baby to the Mr Makin, who had used an alias of S. G. McLachlan when paying Risby £5 and signing a receipt in that name. (2) Makin promised a comfortable life for her child, with Risby being able to visit her at her new home in Rockdale. Makin later denied all knowledge of Clara and her child at the courthouse and Clara Risby never saw her daughter alive again. On the 22 December 1892, the great baby farming case concluded when 6 the jury brought in a verdict of wilful murder against the elder Makins; in all fourteen babies were dug out of the eleven backyards of their houses. Upon sentence of death Mrs Makin, “broke down utterly as her doom was pronounced, but John Makin preserved the cool, unmoved attitude which has: characterised him all through.”(3) However, at the last moment, her sentence was commuted to imprisonment. Her husband John Makin was executed inside Darlinghurst gaol on Tuesday 15 August 1893, denying his guilt to the end. On 29 April 1911, Sarah was paroled from the State Reformatory for Women at Long Bay in response to the petition of her daughters. Sarah Jane Makin passed away on the 13 September 1918. The Makin case and the hard work of the police, raised the community awareness regarding baby farming and initiated the Children’s Protection Act of 1892, to bring the care of orphaned and destitute children under state control. Left: Wikipedia. (2016). John and Sarah Makin. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_Sar ah_Makin [Accessed 3 Apr. 2016]. After the visibility in the press of the Makin case, it was decided that there started to be a need for a regular Police presence at Rockdale. The Beginnings On Boxing Day 1894 there had also been an outbreak of hooliganism at the Moorefield Hotel which led to the Alderman and Mayor of Rockdale to write a letter to the Minister of Justice, requesting 7 him to facilitate the erection of a Police lockup in Rockdale. There had not been a policeman between Sans Souci and Cook's River on Boxing Day. Surplus labour was available to build the lockup and Alderman H. Cook had sold a piece of his land to provide the site. Sergeant McColl received a letter back stating that lockups would be erected at Rockdale, Kogarah, and Marrickville as soon as possible. The Boxing Day debacle had led to Alderman G Duigan reporting the matter to the Inspector-General of Police.