In honour of the hot weather we thought we would see what the collection gave us under this theme. The life of an operational police officer is always fraught with danger. Sometimes you just don’t know what the day will bring.
An armed Mounted Police patrol sets out from the Georgetown Police Station, in this group are Sub-Inspector Tompson; Senior Constables John Kincaide; Patrick Bowen, O’Donnell, Brennan and Dwyer, along with several first nations police troopers, c1875.
Constables George Doyle and Stephen Millard, and Aboriginal Tracker Sam Johnson staffed the lonely Lethbridge Pocket Police Station. Their task was to check the seemingly endless cattle duffing and horse stealing exploits of the locally based, gun-toting brothers, Patrick and James Kenniff. In mid-March 1902, a warrant was issued for the brothers’ arrest. Constable Doyle, Johnson and local property manager Albert Dahlke made up one party searching for the men. On Easter Sunday morning, 30 March 1902, Constable Doyle and his men found the Kenniffs leaving an isolated pocket in the ranges. Within minutes Doyle and Dahlke were both dead…shot by the fugitives. Tracker Johnson, although chased by the killers, managed to escape, ride to Mitchell and raise the alarm. Four days after the killings, Doyle’s troop horse was found with his packbags draped across its back. In the bags were found the burnt and pulverised remains of George Doyle and Albert Dahlke. The Kenniff brothers evaded capture for three months and were finally caught on 23 June 1902. Both brothers were sentenced to death for murdering Constable Doyle and Albert Dahlke. Patrick Kenniff was hanged in Boggo Road Prison, Brisbane, on 12 January 1903 but his brother’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
This information has been supplied by the Queensland Police Museum from the best resources available at the time of writing.
The Police Museum is open 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month (Feb-Nov) and is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane. Contact: E: museum@police.qld.gov.au
“FROM THE VAULT – Out of the frying pan and into the fire” 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