The Mayne Inheritance

by Rosamond Siemon

  Earning a pound a week as a slaughterman gave young Mayne some reasonable independence. Close to the boiling-down works, other settlers offered cheap lodgings for the artisans and labourers employed there or at the nearby tannery or workshops ancillary to Campbell’s factory. Many of the recently arrived Irish labourers who dossed in these houses proved congenial company in the evening hours, usually dissipating their wages with the boisterous mob at Sutton’s Bush Inn. Very few had wives, and there was almost no unattached female company. It was a rough workingman’s world.

  Contrasted with the poverty and social restrictions of his youth, this new life gave Patrick a feeling of freedom; he could relax in the homespun camaraderie at the Inn. Licensing laws were lax and often disregarded, and drinking was the leveller common to all classes. The man who tethered his horse outside, or the bullocky who left his shambling team to graze some distance away might be the squatter, his son, or a trusted employee. It was impossible to tell. They all wore sweat-stained moleskins, red or blue flannel shirts and cabbage palm hats. Sometimes when a man spoke he might be recognised as a toff, but the chance of company in some sort of civilisation and the release of prolonged loneliness led many such travellers to roister uninhibitedly with the noisiest labourers. For a poor Irish immigrant this place had a smell of opportunity; it was a place where he could mix with all-comers and unrein his fierce energy and ambition. Strong on ambition, young Patrick also had an innate efficiency and business sense.

  His employer, John Campbell, was soon deep in debt to the now financially embarrassed and pressing Kangaroo Point entrepreneur, Evan Mackenzie. In addition, Campbell was experiencing production difficulties at the boiling-down works. This was temporarily solved when he sold some land he had purchased earlier and was able to set up his own new boiling-down works on the downstream side of Kangaroo Point. It had a new wharf to accommodate ships and a tidal creek to swirl away the stinking effluent. But within a year Campbell’s finances again deteriorated to a point where he could not meet the wages of some twenty of his staff. Without wages, Mayne and the other employees were destitute. They had nothing to fall back on. On 7 October 1846, with their pay six weeks overdue, some of them took Campbell to court to recover their money. Patrick was owed £6.1.3d. In November he had to sue Campbell again, this time because his employer’s promissory notes for £10 and £2.13.4d had been dishonoured. Campbell’s insolvency was complete when his creditors forced him to sell and the new owner, Richard J. Smith from Sydney, took over on 27 February 1847.

  Without pay, it had been a lean and difficult three months for the lad from County Tyrone, but he gained something from the experience. In Ireland, land was everything and here in Australia it was the same. For Campbell, land had temporarily provided a bulwark against trouble. But with insufficient land to give him long-term security, Campbell’s entrepreneurial bubble had burst. It was common talk that despite Campbell’s failure, the Kangaroo Point boiling-down works provided a new product and was valuable to the pastoral industry. Patrick knew that he was becoming a proficient butcher, and despite the monotonous routine, this was a trade he could follow anywhere. He did not seem to mind the fact that, except when an animal broke loose and they enjoyed the chase, the daily routine was soulless. Day after day he and his fellow butchers, William Lynch and George Platt, stunned the sheep with an axe, placed it over the blood gutter and cut off its head. The hind legs were cut off for sale at sixpence apiece, and the rest of the meat chopped into slabs and the bones broken. Other workmen jammed the pieces into large steam boilers to cook before the tallow could be drained off into wooden casks. There was little waste. The blood and remnants were fed to the waiting pigs—these, in turn, when fully grown, were dragged squealing to the assembly line for the same butchering. The three men were usually kept busy all day—but they had time to talk. They developed a companionship that extended late into most evenings, after the all-pervading smell of bloody meat had been washed away.

  By his early twenties the daily manhandling of heavy beasts had increased Patrick’s muscular strength. The promise of developing into a strong man, so evident in his youthful frame, was fulfilled; and he presented not only as good-looking, but as an agreeably powerful young man. Brute force was in that body and in the hard, mocking slit of his mouth. But its threat was diverted and somewhat softened by chin-length dark curling hair that framed his large, dark-eyed, mobile face.

  Once the slaughterhouse had transferred to R.J. Smith’s more stable ownership and wages were paid on time, life at Kangaroo Point again settled into a comfortable routine of working, drinking at the Bush Inn, and, because Patrick had the Irish gift of the gab, endless talking. At day’s end there was a carefree atmosphere amongst this group; its robustness suited the energy he expended. He made special friends of Mathew Stewart and his wife Honoria, who had a small cottage near his lodgings. Stewart’s goal in life was to become a publican. He occasionally made a little profit from the chickens and illegally kept pigs he raised in his tiny backyard. When the pigs strayed beyond his fence, damaging neighbours’ gardens, he and Honoria brawled with their equally quick-tempered neighbours. On occasions the police were summoned and the Stewarts were fined. Most of the settlers lived their lives at flashpoint. There was a certain defiance of authority and convention and not a lot of respect for the law. Brawling and drunkenness were common problems in the colony and often involved women. And what might be an explosive release of tension for those settling an argument with their fists was also good sport for the onlookers.

  With no banks, very little cash was available, so most men’s wages took the form of promissory notes, which were soon lodged with the publican. He gave back another I.O.U. or some cash for necessities, and ticked up a steady flow of alcohol until the balance cut out. It was not unusual for out-of-town men to sell their produce and buy provisions, then hand the promissory note to the publican. They then existed in a blissful alcoholic daze until lack of credit balance brought sober morning and a long trek back to the crow-shattered silence of their selection. From where he lived at Kangaroo Point, such distant selections suggested no promise of wealth to Patrick. Although he had been a farm labourer, he was satisfied to gaze across the river to the dark shadows scoring the dense, scrub-covered slopes of the hills, then turn back to the cosy huddle of people, talk and argument. That distant view was alien. He liked to confront others with his always definite views. For him, opportunity lay in the town. He was quick-thinking, wanting instant results. Not for him a lonely, patient battle with capricious seasons.

  Strangers with money came and went. Drunken men were often robbed. That was life in the raw settlement of early Brisbane—as it is now in any metropolis. Wise men kept silent about any wealth they were carrying. But once the drunken sawyer, Robert Cox, accused his friend William Fyfe of stealing his money, speculation spread rapidly amongst the crowded patrons of the Bush Inn. Money was something most of them would have liked to get their hands on; their lack of it was chronic. On 26 March 1848, more than one hotel patron would have taken a sudden speculative interest in Robert Cox, the stranger, from out of town.

  Patrick Mayne said he was not drunk on that night. The evidence indicated that at intervals during the day he had been drinking. His later business life shows that he habitually made long-range plans and did not have too much respect for others’ property. On learning that Cox had money, it would be in keeping for him to cease drinking and begin planning. He was also a man who could not bear to be thwarted and was prone to react viciously with his fists, and on later occasions with a whip. He had neither respect for the law nor fear of it; when confronted by it, he could, if he chose, maintain an arrogant detachment.

  What is difficult to understand is the utter savagery of his attack on the hopelessly drunken Robert Cox. It seemed the act of a demented man. Carving up the body like a sheep was one thing; butchery was his daily work and he was doubtless desensitised to such routine actions. But the macabre placing of the parts with
no attempt to hide his crime, flaunting them in view in different locations and then propping up the head so that it would stare at those who found it, was bizarre. Even throwing the intestines down the well was no haphazard disposal. Many houses had wells and kept such foodstuffs as meat and butter in their cool, dark depths. These foodstuffs were clearly protected by a weighted, fly-proof cover topping the well. This would have had to be removed for the Bush Inn’s meat and butter to receive their hideous decoration.

  As news of the murder spread and local folk gathered at the scene, where was Mayne? Hiding in terror at the realisation of what he had done, or remorseless and resting after a busy night? Was he agitated, or so sick with revulsion that his mind obliterated the frightful experience from his thoughts?

  Violence was part of the male culture and one could speculate on circumstances which might have triggered such brutality. If he had planned a robbery and found no money, his frustration and anger could have boiled to a pitch where he lost control. But new money did come into his hands and he must have contemplated the deed to be carrying the bone-cutting instruments.

  Evidence at the inquest strongly implied that Cox and Fyfe, who had been prisoners together, had a homosexual relationship. But even if Cox had propositioned the large, muscular, twenty-three-year-old Mayne, he was obviously not capable of more than the proposition in his drunken state. And in a rough colony with its dearth of women, where homosexuality was common, it is difficult to imagine that righteous indignation would trigger such butchery.

  Such speculation is idle. The cold-blooded murder and robbery of Robert Cox was committed by Patrick Mayne and proved rewarding. How else could Patrick, who drank the surplus of his weekly wage, afford to marry, and the following year purchase and stock a Queen Street house, shop, and butcher’s business?

  In hindsight, the evidence at the inquest clearly showed Mayne’s cunning and careful planning as he deliberately implicated the innocent William Fyfe as the murderer. It took a cool head to return a day later to the cook’s hotel bedroom and plant blood, most likely sheep’s blood from the slaughterhouse. Incompetent police work and scant knowledge of forensic science protected him. There is no evidence that Mayne recognised murder and mutilation as an immoral act; no sign of remorse. In inflicting such violent indignity on his victim was he achieving a superiority that he craved and had never had?

  Knowing of his deathbed confession, it is chilling to re-read his articulate and damningly precise testimony of his own and others’ supposed whereabouts on the fatal night. Such a calculating man would not be foolish enough suddenly to produce unexplained money. He was wise enough to hold back until public memory of all the incidental witnesses at the trial faded. He was helped in this by temporarily dropping from view.

  Good as the busy slaughterhouse was for the economy of Brisbane town, the effluent from it attracted sharks upstream and cast a stinking pall over Kangaroo Point and cross-river areas such as North Brisbane. The townsfolk objected frequently and loudly. Soon after the murder, R.J. Smith was pressured to move his works elsewhere. He decided to take it several miles upstream to the north-west bank of the Bremer at its junction with the Brisbane River. The area was called Moggill and the move had several advantages. Kangaroo Point land attracted good prices for homesites, whereas land at Moggill was not only cheaper, it was closer to the source of Smith’s supply from Ipswich, Long Pocket, Fassifern Valley, and Redbank where the stock route from the Darling Downs and the Brisbane River Valley converged. The surrounding scrub could provide abundant fuel for his steam boilers, and the hides and tallow could be easily barged down to the main shipping wharf at North Brisbane. In early October 1848, lock, stock, barrel and staff were moved.

  The new site was opposite the parish of Goodna, well away from the sensitive noses of complaining townsfolk—and far, too far, from the workmen’s leisure haunts in crowded hotels. Many of his employees were bonded; they hated the move. The quiet bush had no calming effect on their tempers. To them the isolation was little better than prison. Within weeks there was rebellion and violence amongst the workers. James Millar, bonded to his employer, downed tools and threatened his boss with an axe; Smith had to carry a pistol for protection until Millar’s continued violence saw him sent to gaol in Sydney. Three others absconded; once caught, they too went to gaol. Patrick Mayne, free of bond, kept his distance from trouble and maintained his low profile until it suited him to move.

  He had found lodgings at Moggill and made a new set of friends: Darby McGrath from Waterford, Ireland and his brother John, a former convict; and Patrick Pacey, an Irish tailor and political rebel who had come on the same ship as John—the Waverley. They had taken advantage of a new land regulation designed to provide fresh meat for Moreton Bay, which allowed them to squat on land there. Once the convict settlement had closed, people were encouraged to take up a square mile (640 acres) of land within the settled districts for pastoral purposes only. The rent was an affordable ten shillings a year but they could not enclose the land, build on it or cultivate it.

  The McGraths and the Paceys, none of whom could read or write, remained lifelong friends with Patrick Mayne, a friendship which included the Stewarts from Kangaroo Point. They witnessed each other’s weddings and christenings and several times in later years Mayne stood surety for Mathew Stewart when he sought a liquor licence. They all prospered, but Darby McGrath was the smart one. He became a land speculator and in fairly short time one of Moreton Bay’s wealthy men. He purchased land from Moggill to Aspley, a shop in North Brisbane, claimed brother John’s widow’s grazing land near the rafting ground at Moggill (there were no children to inherit), and then set himself up as a gentleman at Willowbank, in the Ipswich area.

  Looking at the Crown Land sales over the next ten years it seems that he was something of a mentor for Patrick Mayne’s own land deals. They often attended sales together, with Darby buying the choicest, most expensive blocks and Patrick taking up the adjoining, cheaper allotments. Patrick Pacey, the former Irish political rebel, who was ultimately declared innocent of his crime, followed the pattern of many colonial men of ambition by buying a shop in Queen Street. He also acquired some twelve hundred acres south-west of Gold Creek, in the Moggill area.

  It was at Moggill that Patrick, a Catholic, met a young Irish servant girl, Mary McIntosh, a Protestant from Kilkeshan in County Clare. Her soldier father, William McIntosh, was dead. Her mother, also called Mary, was a housemaid and remained in Ireland. She had carefully placed her twenty-year-old daughter under the protection of Timothy and Mary O’Donnell, farm workers from Kilkeshan who, with their two small daughters, were migrating to Sydney in the Bounty ship Champion. The O’Donnells were Catholics and had in their charge four other young servant girls. They left Liverpool on 12 February 1842. Like Patrick, who had sailed five months earlier, Mary McIntosh had received enough elementary education to be able to read and write. Her certificate showed that she was a housemaid, strong and with good bodily health and had been baptised at Clonlea.

  The little group of friends at Moggill knew Patrick as a big, handsome, hardworking butcher at the boiling-down works, keen to get his foot on the next rung of the worldly ladder. He may have seemed worldly and older than his twenty-four years, and he must have been very attractive to Mary—who, to her dying day, concealed the fact that she was almost three years older than he was. In a society in desperate need of marriageable women, and where marriage conferred some status on a female, it was most unusual for a young housemaid to remain single until she was twenty-six. Whatever Mary’s reasons for remaining unwed during her first six years in the colony, she was feminine enough to want to pass herself off as a younger woman. It was a short courtship; on 9 April 1849, just a year after the Cox murder, Protestant Mary and Catholic Patrick went into Brisbane to be married by Father James Hanley. In that pluralist society, noted for its gender imbalance, which fostered homosexuality, most colonial priests had a soft policy on mixed marriages. Dispensations were rea
dily given. Mathew and Honoria Stewart stood as their witnesses at the little Catholic church, converted from a former convict barn in Elizabeth Street, not far from where Fr Hanley had his cottage at Gardens Point.

  For the young couple it was back to the leafy solitude of Moggill. Very soon Mary was pregnant with their first child, Rosanna. In July, when Mathew Stewart finally achieved his goal and purchased the licence of St Patrick’s Tavern at Kangaroo Point, his friend Patrick Mayne had had enough of life and work in the country. He was ready to move back to Brisbane town.

  3

  Law Courts & Land Deals

  On 29 September 1849, the little-known slaughterman Patrick Mayne suddenly announced to Brisbane town that he had purchased the business of Queen Street butcher, James Newbould.

  He returned to a far busier town than he had left a year earlier. The area had been given a social and numerical boost by some 420 of John Dunmore Lang’s Scottish immigrants who arrived on the Fortitude (21 January) and the Chaseley (1 May), and 84 more were on their way in the Lima (3 November). They were mainly Scottish Calvinists, better educated, better dressed, and more soberly behaved than many of the populace. The numbers meant more customers for trade. Some opened shops, offering a wider variety of goods. New buildings that filled the gaps in the network of straggling streets gave them a more established appearance, but business rivalry between North and South Brisbane remained just as strong. There was no clear indication of where Brisbane’s commercial strength would eventually reign.

  Perhaps precipitantly—trade had been depressed—the sole Queen Street butcher, Newbould, had decided that two years of struggle was enough; he wanted to move. His business was not advertised for sale and there is no indication of what Mayne paid for it, but a reasonable guide lies in a similar sale at the time by Thomas Dowse, the local auctioneer. Because of pressing difficulties, Dowse sold his house and attached business premises in Queen Street for £240. This amount falls well within my calculations of the amount of money stolen from Cox when he was murdered. As a single man, Patrick had barely managed to stretch his pound a week to provide his lifestyle. With two to house and feed, there could have been no saving during the past year. Now he had money and became a man of the town. As a man of property he was on the electoral role and the jury list. His property was four shops up from the banana plantation at the corner of Queen and Edward Streets. It was a small, dark, almost windowless shop extending at the back to cramped living quarters with a semi-detached kitchen, and beyond that was a narrow backyard. Here Mary, like every good village wife, kept chickens and a vegetable patch. The Maynes’ education and ability to read and write was minimal, but Patrick had maximum self-esteem as his own boss.