Henry Alford and “The Tiers”

Henry Alford and “The Tiers”

 

Mount Lofty Ranges, 1912
Image courtesy of the State Library of South Australia, SLSA: PRG 280/1/16/278, Public Domain

 Long before the Adelaide Hills became one of the favourite holiday destination of residents in Adelaide, trying to escape the heat, and enjoy the scenic beauty of iconic locations such as Handorf, Mount Lofty, Stirling and Balhannah. The Adelaide Hills, known in the early days of South Australian settlement as “The Tiers” was home to “Duffers”, vagabonds, ruffians and other nefarious people.
 

 South Australia, in particular, Adelaide, was the only South Australian settlement not founded on the back of convict labour. It was a colonial utopia, designed for good, hard-working, salt of the earth people. It didn’t take too long before it was overrun with the escaped convicts, army and navy deserters, runaway sailors and opportunists.
 This “underclass” of people needed to hide away from the Police Force which was starting to establish itself, and to do so, hid in the Adelaide Hills, in log cabins, hidden away in nooks and crannies, caves and lonely gullies…
 These underhanded criminals could plan their raids, plunder the city, and return to their mountain caves, knowing the likely hood of being caught by the fledgling police force would be minimal.

 Duffers (cattle rustlers) would hide in the hills, steal cattle from local farmers and slaughter them in hidden pockets in the hills. The hides would be burnt and the meat pickled, taken to Port Adelaide, or other seaports, and sold to Sea Captains, who would turn a blind eye to where the meat came from.

 The establishment of the South Australian Police Force in 1838 saw Henry Inman selected as the Superintendent. The South Australian Police Force is the oldest in Australia and the 3^rd oldest in the world.
 One of the first constables was Henry Alford, who had come to South Australia on-board the schooner John Pirie in 1838 in the employ of the South Australia Company. Alford would go on to work for the SA Police for 16 years. Within his duties, he once escorted 33,763 ounces of gold from Victoria to South Australia. He was also crucial in arresting a lot of bush-rangers which raided Adelaide from “The Tiers” in the early days of the colony.

 One of Alford's most written about conquests were the arrest of a rogue known by the name of “Spearman”.

 Spearman was a bushranger with a predilection for highway robbery, and holding up farmers. One farmer a masked bushranger held up happened to recognise the voice of his assailant from an earlier legitimate business transactions, and reported to Alford that the masked bushranger he was looking for was Spearman.

 Alford and two troopers assigned to him, went into the Adelaide Hills looking for Spearman, they were pointed in the direction of where Eagle-on-the hill stands today.
 The three police officers found a shanty hut, and snuck up too it quietly, and listened to the conversation between the occupants.
 The conversation inside the house between Spearman and his wife went something like this:
 Spearman; “What did you do with the plunder?”
 Spearman’s Wife; “I have sewn it up in my stays”

That was enough evidence for Alford and his men, they snuck away and rode up the next morning to Spearman’s hut. Spearman, who was readying to leave for Mount Barker was taken by surprise and was arrested, along with his wife.

 Both Mr & Mrs Spearman took offence to being arrested and asked for what reason was Alford doing so, his reply “For having stolen plunder in your possession!”
Mrs Spearman protested the arrest and asked if she could change her dress before being taken to gaol.
 Alford, with a wry smile, said “No, I prefer you as you are!”

 Both were sentenced to gaol, with Mr Spearman being sentenced to transportation and hard labour in Van Diemens Land (Tasmania). Henry Alford would eventually become an Inspector in the Police Force, and after 16 years of service, retired to become the publican of the Glynde Hotel until his death in February 1892. He was buried at the West Terrace Cemetery.

The Battle of Broken Hill Part II

The Battle of Broken Hill Part II

Captured Rifles and flags - Photo: Broken Hill Historical Society

  With dead and wounded falling everywhere on the back of the train, “Tiger” Nyholm grabbed his rifle and began firing back at the two men on the hill. An alert was also raised, which went back to the Police Station at Broken Hill, some 3 kilometres away.
 Inspector Miller, in charge of the local police, sent a message to Lieut. Resch who assembled a squad of local military enforcement and volunteers riflemen. The men, now posse, set out towards the scene of the attack. Sergeant Gibson noticed two men climbing among the white quartz rocks just past the Cable Hotel, and halted to make enquiries as to if they had witnessed anything.
 The two men opened fire, and shot Mounted Constable Mills in the groin and thigh.  A gun fight broke out. The military and police force took cover, and slowly surrounded the bottom of the hill the two where the two men were hiding.
 The public in town, hearing the volley of shots, grabbed their rifles, men old and young, made their way out to the gun fight, and opened fire at the two men.

The gun fight lasted until 1pm, when the police, military and citizens rushed the mountain, shooting the men dead. Their two bodies’ lay ten metres apart, one, shot through the temple was very much dead, but the other man was still breathing, and clinging on to life, even with 16 bullet wounds in his body – he died on the way to hospital in the back of an ambulance.
 Such an outcry of rage was to come from the events that the public did not want the men buried in their local cemetery – police later removed the bodies and disposed of them in secret.

So who were the two men who undertook the first terrorist attack on Australian soil?
 Badsha Mahommed Ghul (1874 – 1915) was an ice cream vendor and Mullah Abdullah (1854-1915) was an Iman and Halal butcher – both men were from a region, known at the time as India’s North-West Frontier, which is a location now found within the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Picnic train at Broken Hill - photo provided by SLSA PRG280_1_15_1017

 Ghul had traveled to Australia and found work as a cameleer, but business was not good, so he found work in a local silver mine, but with the outbreak of the Great War, was fired after all German contracts were cancelled.
 He instead bought an ice cream cart from a local Italian, and became quite well known as the friendly sweet vendor in the town.
 Mullah Abdullah on the other hand was an older man with a grudge. He still wore his traditional clothing, and due to an old leg injury, walked with a hobble that slowed him incredibly. Local kids feared him, but also made fun of him, sometimes throwing stones at him and running off, knowing he could never catch them.
 He had been living in Broken Hill for 15 years and was seen in the local Islamic community as a religious Iman, sharing in daily prayer, and acting as the local Halal Butcher in Ghantown.
 He came in to dispute with the local Sanitary Inspector, Cornelious Brosnon, for not being a unionist and for what was considered his “barbaric practices”.
 Brosnon prosecuted Abdullah in 1914 for not slaughtering animals at the abattoirs as was the current established practice. He was ordered to pain a fine of One Pound, or face 7 days in gaol – he chose to pay the fine, but never forgot or forgave Brosnon. He was again fined only months later for not having brands on sheep he had slaughtered, this time he face 3 months gaol, or a fine of 3 pounds, of which he could not pay.
 In a state of despair over his prospects, further tragedy struck him when a fire broke out in his uninsured two room house, which burnt to the ground, with all his possessions. Now a broken man, with no belongings and no purpose, he turned to his neighbor and friend, Ghul for comfort.
 Ghul recounted to his friend that the Sultan of Turkey had only recently called a Jihad on Australia’s allies who were going to war in Europe, he urged his friend that they would have great afterlives if they killed as many Australian’s as possible for their country and God.
 They concocted their plan, and with a Snider-Enfield carbine, a Martini-Henry Breech-loader rifle, a pistol and homemade bandoleers, they set out toward Silverton on the 1^st of January 1915, to begin their war on Australia.

Billy Hughes - 7th Prime Minister of Australia

The aftermath of the day’s events were swift and dramatic, townsfolk rushed out to the train carriages and took souvenirs of bullet casings, they destroyed the ice cream cart for souvenirs, then set the local German Club on fire, cutting up the local fire hoses so it could not be extinguished.  The drunken mob soon headed towards Ghantown, ready to take their anger out on the rest of the local Islamic community. They were stopped by a small military force, bayonets ready, who blocked their path – the mob soon broke up and headed home.
 The attack soon become national headlines right across Australia, causing outrage and viscous attacks at Muslim sites around the country. Billy Hughes, the 7^th Prime Minister of Australia declared that all “enemy aliens” must be incarcerated for the length of the war.  

 
 The Locomotive Engine that was involved in the conflict, the “Y 12” with build number 3536, is now thought to be the engine that resides in South Australia, National Railway Museum Port Adelaide. The engine saw over 70 years of service pulling ore carriages from mines around Broken Hill and Silverton

http://www.smh.com.au/national/silver-city-showdown-20141031-11f9se.html

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/92600076

The Battle of Broken Hill - Part I

The Battle of Broken Hill Part I

Whilst this week’s story does not take place in South Australia, it does have a connection to our State, read on to find out more!

 Every New Year’s Day the locals of Broken Hill were treated to a picnic in Silverton, which included a train ride on one of 40 open ore carriages. The event was hosted by the Manchester Unity Order of Oddfellows annually. The 1915 event saw around 1200 people taking part, spread across the 40 open carriages being pulled by the “Y 12” steam locomotive.

 There was a happy party atmosphere on board the train and as it rounded a large sweeping bend, the train passed an ice-cream cart, painted white, with red words on the side reading “Lakovsky’s Delicious ITALIAN ICE CREAM. A Food fit for Children and Invalids” with a little red Turkish flag flying from the top of it.
 Two men wearing turbans were spotted on a rise across from the train line,  gunshots were heard. The picnic goers cheered with delight, thinking it was a salute to the glorious day they were above to have, until, people around them began to fall, wounded or dead.

 Once it was realised that the gun shots were not celebratory, but deadly, parents flung themselves over their children to protect them from the oncoming volley of bullet fire.

Alma Cowie, pictured 1911,

 killed during an attack at Broken Hill Jan 1^st 

1915 Photo: Broken Hill Historical Society

Among the happy picnic goers, included 17 year old Alma Cowie and her boyfriend Clarence O’Brien, who were sitting together enjoying the train ride, dressed in their Sunday best, like all the travelers, and waiting to eat their packed picnic and cool homemade lemonade, after playing picnic games with the other revelers.
 They both stood up to get a better view of what was happening. While standing there, another loud gunshot sound cracked through the air, and something flew past the ear of Clarrie, he turned to Alma, only to see her falling to the floor, with the top of skull opened and bloody.

 The War in Europe, which Australia had entered only months before, had just come to Australia, and claimed its first causality.
 The train kept chugging on down the line while the two men took pot shots at the distressed passengers.

William Shaw, a sanitary worker and his family were on another carriage, William was soon another of the casualties, and his daughter, Lucy who was shot in the elbow, amongst the wounded.
 A cameraman, riding a motorcycle behind the train, Mr Alfred Millard, who intended to photograph the picnic event was shot dead, and another bullet, which missed it mark with the train passengers, killed a man named Jim Craig, who was out chopping wood.
 Amongst the shot and injured were Thomas Campbell a 70 year old tinsmith who was shot in the side.
George Stokes – a 14 year old boy who was shot in the shoulder and chest.
 Alma Crocker (wounds unknown).
 Rose Crabb – who was shot through the shoulder.
Constable Mills, who received bullet wounds to the groin and thing.
 Beryl Lane - who was shot in the jaw, and 23 year old Mary Kavanagh who was shot through the base of the skull.
  There would have been further casualties if it was not for the heroic effort of the train guard Eric “Tiger” Nyholm who was a crack shot with a rifle, and had begun shooting back at the men on the hill.

Some of the victims of the murderous attack by two aliens on New Year's Day. From left to right — Master Geo. F. Stokes, wounded on the train; Mr Thos. Campbell, who was shot at his own door; Miss Alma P. Cowie, who was killed outright on the picnic train, being shot through the head; and Senior-Constable Mills, who was wounded in the battle with the police. Conlon Studios.

All up, six people lost their lives that New Year’s Day… next week’s, The Haunts of Adelaide will include the fate of to the two assailants and the connection to Adelaide.