The following is a copy from the news report of the government inquiry into the conditions of the police services
in Australia in 1835.
This section of the report covers the district of Goulbourn.
Reports for the remaining districts (Van Diemens Land, Maitland,Windsor,Bathurst,Paterson,Argyle, Wollongong,
Patricks Plains, Ivermien and Yass Plains) can be found at Genseek's Police History
The Committee (consisting of the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney General,
Mr Berry, H.H.M'Arthur, and Mr Bell ) was appointed to "..enquire into and report upon the establishment
and strength of the Police Force and all it's branches, to what extent
it may be expedient to maintain it, and the expense it will occasion, and
to enquire into the capacity and condition of the Gaols in the colony,
and to report what additional buildings appear to be required, and
the probably expense of providing them.." .
presented by © J.Fawcett (Genseek) 2002 |
"Tuesday 2nd of June 1835.
Lachlan McAlister, Esq, J.P, called in and examined:
I was between four and five years acting as Police Magistrate
at Goulburn; that district consisted of the whole country southward
of the districts of Bathurst and Bong Bong; its population amounted
to at least four thousand person.
There were then four constables in the district, one of whom
acted as lock-up keeper, nineteen mounted policemen.
When I took charge of the district, I found in it a stone
lock-up house, twenty six feet by ten, that building before I left
the Bathurst district, became a heap of rubbish, in consequence of its
very bad construction, although not built before 1827 or 1828.There is
now a small log building in its place, in which the prisoners are
confined; an average twenty persons are usually confined in that prison,
but I have had as many as thirty in it at one time.
I did not consider the nineteen policemen sufficient; from the
exceedingly harassing duty they had to perform over a country extending
more than two hundred miles south and west of Goulburn.I am of opinion
that thirty mounted policemen would enable me to control the whole of
the district. I would also require a clerk of the Bench, six constables,
one of these to act as chief constable, with a higher salary, and two
scourgers in addition.
I would strongly recommend that the mounted police should be
made a permanent force, by retaining if possible, the efficient men
of that body, when their regiments leave the colony, as a period of
eighteen months or two years sometimes elapses before a recruit is
qualified to perform his duty efficiently, and more especially before
he can attain such a knowledge of the country as to enable him to
traverse the bush safely and expeditiously.
These observations apply to the officers as well as the men.
I would also recommend that the mounted policemen should be armed with
rifles instead of carbines, which have been found indufficient in
practice. In various encounters which I have had with bushrangers, I
always found that muskets gave them a great advantage over the police
men armed with carbines, which do not carry sufficiently far or true.
My pay at Lieutenant of the mounted police was eleven shillings
and six pence per day, two and sixpence a day for forage allowance,
and fifty pounds when unprovided with quarters.
In recommending that the two scourgers should be stationed
in the Goulbourn district, I should mention that one should be mounted
and always accompany the officer in command of the mounted police.
I am quite of opinion that much mischief occurs from escorts
being partly composed of constables and soldiers, from an opinion
amongst the latter, that no responsibility rests with them, even if
prisoners escape, provided they obey the orders of the constable who
has charge of the party, however ill calculated these orders may be
for the safe custody of the prisoners.
It sometimes happens that the civil officer,under whose
orders the party is placed, is a scourger only. I have always avoided
mixing the escorts in this manner; and in consequence no instance
has occurred of a prisoner sent by me under escort having made his
escape. The insecurity of the lock-up houses between Campbelltown
and Goulbourn is so great, that I have been obliged also to send
the mounted police to escort prisoners, with orders not to deliver
them into the custody of any lock-up keeper between those two
stations.
The most harassing duty of the mounted policemen,when I had
charge of them in Goulbourn, was serving subpaenas for the Court of
Requests. On one occasion, for the purpose of serving subpaenas on
parties whom they had themselves previously apprehended on a charge
of horse and cattle stealing, they had to travel an immense distance,
in consequence of these people being vagabonds wanderig through the
country without any fixed residence.The subpaenas in question were
for the purpose of recovering the fee of the attorney who had
defended them on their trial in Sydney for the above mentioned crime.
On another occasion, I was called upon at Bathurst to serve
a subpaena from the Supreme Court, at a distance of seventy miles,
when I only had one man in Barracks.
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