LEST WE FORGET

Constable William Dwyer, c1877

Constable William Dwyer was sworn in on December 11, 1877 and was then transferred to Taroom in central Queensland. During his time there, a notorious aboriginal known as Wild Toby roamed the district. Toby was a big, powerful aboriginal, an elusive, fearless and daring scoundrel, with no respect whatever for white man’s law or property. For many years he caused great trouble and fear in the district. In September 1882, Wild Toby was arrested by Constable Edwards for kidnapping a grazier’s daughter. He was interred for the night in the station storeroom and chained to a log but still managed to escape. On September 25, 1882, a warrant was issued for Toby’s arrest on a charge of attempted murder of one James Anderson of Wandoan.

On January 24, 1883, Senior Constable Wright, Constable Dwyer and a tracker left the Taroom Police Station in pursuit of Toby who was reportedly camped at Juandah Station (about 2 days ride from Taroom). Late on January 25 the patrol saw a fire coming from what they believed to be Toby’s camp but due to the late hour they stopped to camp for the night. At daylight on the 26th, the patrol made its way towards the camp and when closer, saw Wild Toby. The patrol rode single file into the camp with Wright in the lead.

Without warning to his colleagues, Dwyer got off his horse and charged at Toby, grabbed him by the neck and put a revolver to his head. But Toby had no intention of surrendering and Dwyer could not hold onto him as he was covered in pig fat and was slippery. As Toby leapt to his feet with his tomahawk, Dwyer’s gun was knocked out of his hands and Toby lunged at Dwyer with his tomahawk. Wright got off his horse and fired two shots at Toby but that did not stop him from hitting Dwyer in the head with the tomahawk. Wright then managed to shoot and kill Wild Toby.

Constable William Dwyer died half an hour after the attack from his massive head wound. He is buried in the Juandah cemetery.

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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 Friday 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

“The murder of Constable William Dwyer, 1883” 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… Continue reading →