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A Self Accused Murderer
An old man named Richard Harvey Gordon, working on Maxwelton Station as a cook, gave himself up to the police at Cloncurry on the 18th January for a murder which he states he committed on January 18, 1855. His statement is that on that date he had a dispute with his mate, Henry Edward Batlett, in reference to a claim they were working at Back Creek, Taradale, Castlemaine District, and he shot him dead and placed the body in a drive.
He left Victoria soon after, and had never been back since. He says his reason for giving himself up is that his life has become a burden to him.
Gordon has been examined by the doctors who declare him to be perfectly sane.
- Background
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The township of Cloncurry was established in the early 1870s to serve a remote and isolated area in the far north west of Queensland. It was officially declared a Country Post Office in 1871, and in 1872 a general store and a hotel were opened. Early transportation was by horse, bullock and camel teams, and later by Cobb & Co coaches. A rail link to the east coast was not opened until December 1908. Cloncurry prospered in the 1880s, when prices for pastoral produce remained buoyant and mining activity increased.
A police contingent of 4 men and an Inspector had been stationed in tents at Cloncurry from 1870, but it was not until 1880 that a permanent Clerk of Petty Sessions was appointed, and Cloncurry's first Police Magistrate was appointed in 1882. At that time there were still no permanent police quarters, and the lock-up was a slab hut with a bark roof. In 1883 the Department of Public Works called tenders for a timber building to serve as a Court house, police quarters and lockup. This was completed in 1885, and the first Court sat in March 1900. From 1907 this building was used for police purposes only and was demolished in 1965.
Courtesy of the Queensland Heritage Register
