Boots are an essential part of a policeman’s uniform. In previous centuries as today, they were mandatory but not standard issue, so each constable had to purchase their own boots. In the late 1880s, the cost of production went up and the prices were raised by a quarter. A typical pair of boots would cost up to 20 shillings, or half of an ordinary policeman’s weekly wage. In Queensland, between the 1870s and 1890s, a police constable’s pay started at £122 per annum, or roughly £2 10s per week.
Queensland Police Museum has a pair of knee length black leather boots, which belonged to Inspector Patrick William Ferguson (AF3376, GA220).
Patrick William and Robert Ferguson (sitting, note his signature moustache), PM1567
The boots were donated to the collection in 2007, in good condition. These are made from stiff blackish (dirty) leather with 2 striped cotton pull tags attached inside top of both boots. The right boot has leather laces in a straight left to right pattern (broken at top and bottom) and the left boot has leather laces in a crisscross pattern (broken at top). The soles of both shoes are well worn; both boot heels are made up of 7 layers of hardened leather held together with a horseshoe shaped piece of metal and 17 iron nails each.
Before emigrating to the Australian colonies, Patrick William Ferguson served with the Royal Irish Constabulary between 1879 and 1886. He was 17 years and 7 months old at the time of application and listed ‘shoemaker’ as his trade. Constable Ferguson was from Athlone, County Roscommon. It was a common practice for RIC men to be stationed away from their home counties, so for his first placement Ferguson was transferred to Cork, then Kilkenny in 1884, and finally Belfast in 1885. Ferguson resigned in February 1886 ‘to emigrate’, thus missing the most violent and deadly rioting of the century that was about to erupt in Belfast a few months later.
FERGUSON RIC Service Record, RIC HO184, NA UK
Ferguson joined the Queensland Police Force on 30 June 1886. He married Isabella Campbell Angus only six months later, which was unusual as policemen had to serve for two years before applying to the Commissioner of Police for permission to get married. The Royal Irish Constabulary had a much longer wait period of 10 years. Constable Ferguson’s first posting was Toowoomba in 1887. He proceeded to steadily move up through the ranks, retiring in 1921 as an Inspector First Class in charge of Brisbane District.
Patrick William Ferguson’s younger brother Robert Ferguson also emigrated from Ireland and joined the Queensland Police in March 1908. He spent most of his police career in Brisbane and retired in 1935, in the rank of an Inspector and an Officer in Charge of the Police Depot.
The article was researched and written by Dr Anastasia Dukova from the best resources available at the time of writing. The Queensland Police Museum hours of operation are 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month. QPM is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane.
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‘FROM the VAULT – Police Boots’ by the Queensland Police Service is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 2.5 Australia Licence. Permissions may be available beyond the scope of this licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/legalcode