The Mayne Inheritance (6 page)

Schelling was a herdsman at Mayne's bullock paddock, next to George Parsons' farm at Milton. For almost two years Schelling's accommodation had consisted of a large box about 150 yards from the waterhole in the paddock, which was some six feet deep. It was part of the watershed that fed Western Creek. The waterhole was his laundry tub, his bath, his water supply—and his death bed. He was a melancholy man who suffered fits of depression, a good target for a bully. It does not take much imagination to accept that on his pitiable days Schelling would have been a source of irritation to Patrick, provoking intimidation and constant harassment from his belligerent employer. Appearing to be frank and open, Mayne told the inquest into Schelling's death that his employee was
‘‘terrified of him''. Ten months earlier, an attempt by Schelling to hang himself from a tree had been aborted when the neighbouring farmer, George Parsons cut him down. On that occasion Mayne had remonstrated with his employee, giving him a tongue-lashing. Such castigation would have done nothing to ease Schelling's suicidal depression. He was clearly a nuisance to Mayne, but still under bond. Two weeks before his death, when Mayne was killing a bullock (and quite likely accompanying it with a verbal attack on Schelling), the terrified man had begged his boss not to hang him. On 9 February 1858, one of Mayne's labourers was sent on an errand to the German but could only find his shoes by the waterhole. He hurried back to Queen Street, where Mayne suggested that Schelling had drowned himself. The two then returned to Milton, and with George Parsons' aid Schelling's fully-clothed body was dragged from the waterhole, and with it a spare pair of trousers. Patrick suggested he may have been washing them.

At the inquest next day, Dr Barton gave evidence that the body did not present the appearance of death by drowning. There was more rigidity of the limbs than he would have expected, and the forearms were flexed on the arms. There was an unusual congestion about the face, with a good deal of frothy blood about the mouth and eyes, as well as dark marks on his posterior. Since Schelling had a brother of unsound mind in the Brisbane Hospital and there was no evidence to show how he had died, the case was closed without further investigation.

Perhaps the need to manhandle Jacob Schelling's body from that watery grave triggered disturbing thoughts in the dark recesses of Patrick's mind. The inquest over, he walked up to the solicitors Little and Rawlings to make his will. He was thirty-three, wealthy, with a young wife and three very bright and lively children. His will provided a very generous £100 each to the brother and three sisters he had farewelled in Ireland, and demonstrated his enduring care for his wife, Mary. She was to inherit £300 a year in half-yearly instalments, and if she remarried she would still receive £100 a year, which in those days, would have provided adequately for her needs. He gave total power to the executors and trustees of his estate. They were the influential merchant and entrepreneur, George Raff, and Patrick's cousin, Joseph Darragh, whom he had sponsored in 1850, and trained and employed in his butcher shop.

Darragh's wife Eliza had spent those years as Mary's servant. Like Patrick, Joseph Darragh had been a farmhand at Cookstown, but after three years' training with Patrick, he opened his own butchery at Kangaroo Point and was soon on the road to wealth. He was a singularly cruel and uncaring man. After twenty-three years of ill-treating his wife, the mother of his eleven children, he violently threw her into the street and began to cohabit with a young local girl, Mary Merritt. Although he owned property valued at £20,000 he abandoned Eliza with no means of support.

In 1858 Patrick could not have foreseen the final outcome of the Darragh marriage, but as both Joseph and
Eliza had worked and lived on his premises, he must have known something of his cousin's constant ill-treatment of her. Women at that time were frequently held in contempt; knowing Patrick's own explosive temper and penchant for cruelty, one can only speculate about how he treated his own wife and children.

Raff and Darragh were appointed guardians of both the person and the inheritances of Patrick's children—his boys until they turned twenty-one, his daughters during their ‘‘minority and discoverture''. This clause, which embraced spinsters, divorced wives or adult widows, was common where large fortunes were concerned; it is particularly interesting in the light of Patrick's death-bed confession, and the directive that none of his children was to marry.

Whatever Patrick's role in Schelling's death or any disturbing thoughts he may have had after it, they were quickly put behind him as his business activities claimed his time and continued to fill his coffers. Rents came in from two hotels, the Sawyers Arms and the Lord Raglan, from shops, houses, and farmland, and from the auctioneer R. Davidson, who hired his stockyard in Elizabeth Street for periodic stock auctions.

For Patrick Mayne, the zest in life came from being on the scene, in the thick of things. A number of the more affluent colonists had built substantial English-style stone, brick or timber houses set in small farms or large gardens;
it was not the beauty of nature that gave him joy but action, talk and money-making. At no time did he try to change his home from the hemmed-in Queen Street shop site to one of the less central but more fashionable town boundary areas. In fact, in 1858 he advertised for rent a cottage in four acres of good garden adjoining the town boundary and the Brisbane River. It was one of an unknown number of properties he bought and sold in those years. In the same advertisement he sought a tenant for a dwelling in Edward Street.

That year Mary had been pregnant since April. Cooler, dust-free river air away from the stinking open drains and privies of the town buildings would have been more comfortable for her during the sweltering summer before their daughter, Mary Emelia, was born on the last day of December, 1858. Another pleasant area would have been the site of ‘‘Dara'', which Patrick snapped up a few months later. It had a most desirable location but the simple house, with its mud walls did not seem to Patrick to match his affluence and self-esteem. When the Church subsequently bought ‘‘Dara'', the parishioners were no more enamoured of it as a desirable home than Patrick. They considered it too crude a building for their Archbishop. In 1890, with Dunne as Archbishop, they raised £8,000 to build an elegant, three-storied Italianate mansion, the second ‘‘Dara''. Unfortunately, this architectural gem was not to remain a part of Brisbane's colonial heritage. A later Archbishop, James Duhig, blew it up to make way for the foundations of his special project, the never-to-be-built
Holy Name Cathedral. For decades the site was a sleazy haunt for the homeless. Now, as Centenary Place, it is an up-market area of high-use home units. Of this fillip to town trade Patrick would have heartily approved.

1859 was a landmark year for the northern portion of the mother colony of New South Wales. It was an even more lively and satisfying year for politically ambitious colonials in the area. The separation movements, initially led by the squatters and taken up by J.D. Lang, a member of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, eventually succeeded with the hesitant Colonial Office in London. On 10 December 1859 the Colony of Queensland, with almost 30,000 inhabitants, was established. Patrick Mayne had added his name to lists at separation meetings, but of more immediate importance to him was the agitation for Brisbane to be incorporated as a municipality.

For nine years, ever since he had become Brisbane's new butcher at the age of twenty-five, and made his presence felt, he had been increasingly active in civic matters. He was now thirty-four, still belligerent, still handsome, and wealthy and successful. By remaining at the heart of things in Queen Street he knew everyone and they knew him. His large presence and colourful lifestyle made him ever-popular with the socially cohesive Irish community and he was known in the town as a man who worked for town improvement. If Brisbane was to become a municipality, he wanted to bring his vitality to a role on the council.

Patrick shared this political interest with George Raff, ten years older, a highly respected and a socially prominent merchant who planned to stand for the first Queensland Parliament. Other than wealth, business, and a desire to work the levers of power, the two men appeared to have very little in common. However, the fact that Mayne made Raff an executor of his will and was associated with him in a few business ventures suggests that for some time he had seen the older man as a mentor whose standing in the community enhanced his own. At this time there was clearly a political alignment between the two. Raff counted on Mayne and his Irish following for political support, and on his cooperative financial support for politically important causes such as the National School Fund.

In June 1859, a fund was opened to subsidise the under-funded secular Brisbane National School, and Patrick, along with many others, donated £2. W.A. Duncan, the Customs Officer, who represented the Catholic interest as a patron of the school, was leaving and another Catholic was needed as his replacement. George Raff, already a patron, and astutely aware of the uneducated Mayne's political aspirations, was probably instrumental in ensuring a second donation, this time of £100 from Patrick. Mayne was publicly hailed as a generous donor, made one of the patrons, and, as such, was invited to replace the Catholic Duncan on the temporary Board of Education. He then took practical action to demonstrate his belief in the school. Nine-year-old Rosanna remained with her
teacher, but his first-born son, Isaac, aged seven, was enrolled at the Government's Normal School, a forerunner to that near Adelaide and Edward Streets. In that act Patrick was now seen as a supporter of the needs of all the town's children, not just those of the Irish Catholic immigrants.

Perhaps it was on Raff's advice that he curbed his larrikinism and avoided trouble with the law. From June 1858 until August 1860, well after both local and Queensland Government elections had been finalised, he managed to stay out of court. But the brutish characteristics in his nature were always there; he could not suddenly become docile. The press record suggests that he still threatened people with his whip, but for that period, he apparently did not use it.

By the time the heated debates on incorporation had resolved themselves and the municipality of Brisbane was proclaimed (7 August 1859), thirty-seven candidates were ready to contest the nine aldermanic seats. Five weeks later the town's businessmen were runaway winners: John Petrie (builder and contractor), Patrick Mayne (butcher), T.B. Stephens (tanner and fellmonger), Joshua Jeays (architect and builder), A.J. Hockings (seedsman), George Edmonstone (butcher), Robert Cribb (baker and land agent), and two innkeepers, George Warren and William Sutton. Of the 1,519 votes cast, John Petrie, educated, able, and possibly the most respected man in the settlement, topped the poll with 325 votes. Patrick Mayne, with little respect for the law, but a wealthy patron of the school with a glib Irish tongue and boundless enthusiasm and energy, achieved
274. At last his name was high on a public list, proudly second instead of being at the tag-end, and ahead of the educated, socially accepted and wealthy T.B. Stephens, who had become part-proprietor of the
Moreton Bay Courier.

It had not been easy to find nine good men who wanted this unpaid responsibility. On election, Petrie contented himself with promising to discharge his duties faithfully. Mayne declared that he would concentrate on work rather than talk, and was sure that his election reflected the appreciation of the community for the work he had already done. Stephens implied that he had not solicited election, but would accept office as a matter of duty. ‘‘Honest Bob'', Robert Cribb, known for his simple tastes, austere habits and personal kindness, was further down the poll. Petrie and Cribb were men for whom Patrick and the townsfolk had great respect. Petrie appears to have kept a business length away from Mayne, but Cribb, more charitable towards his fellow men, offered the Maynes neighbourly concern at several times of need.