Groundbreaking crimes from the archives
Within the sandstone walls of the Justice & Police Museum are countless stories of crime, courage and justice – some famous, many forgotten. Explore two fascinating stories from the Water Police Station and the Water Police Court, part of the historic complex of buildings that form the museum, and meet the people who left an indelible mark on Sydney’s history.
The Bridge Street affray
In the early hours of 2 February 1894, the Water Police Station’s charge room and cells echoed with the angry voices of Charles Montgomery and Thomas Williams. The two men were charged with ‘Malicious Wounding with Intent to Murder’ and other felonies, and their violent actions that morning would ultimately lead to their execution. They would also permanently change policing across Sydney, as all Metropolitan police were thereafter issued with firearms.
Montgomery and Williams and a third, unidentified man had been trying to break open a safe in the Union Steamship Company Office in nearby Bridge Street when they were disturbed by police. The three men tried to escape on foot. A number of police attempted to intercept them, but on each occasion they were battered and bashed about the head and arms with long iron bars the offenders were carrying. At the intersection of Bridge and Phillip streets, the three men split up. One continued east along Bridge Street and was never found, while Montgomery and Williams ran down Phillip Street towards the harbour. They did not realise that they were running straight towards the Water Police Station.
Several police attempted to apprehend them in the street but they too were beaten to the ground with savage blows. More police poured out of the station, and after a long and violent struggle, Montgomery and Williams were finally overpowered and carried back to the station.
The incident received wide publicity and generated much sympathy for the injured police officers. Previously, only police in rural districts had been routinely armed, but after the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Fosbery, petitioned Parliament, legislation was immediately passed authorising all members of the NSW Police to be issued with firearms to ‘prevent the escape of felons and to place them on an equal footing with armed criminals and malefactors’.
A first for fingerprints
When petty thief Henry Hunter broke into the residence of Alfred Macartney Hemsley at 69 Macleay Street, Potts Point, in December 1903, little did he realise that he would soon become the first person in NSW to be identified by fingerprints in a criminal court.
Hunter, alias John Miller, was initially arrested by police on 23 December 1903 for being in an enclosed area at 71 Macleay Street for an unlawful purpose. His movements had been heard next door by Hemsley, who alerted the police. The following morning, Hemsley noticed that an upstairs window of his house had been interfered with and that there were some fingerprints in the dust on the window sash. The police were called back, and the pieces of wood containing the fingerprints were cut out of the sash by a carpenter.
On 29 December, Senior Constable Wilson of Darlinghurst Police charged Hunter with ‘Breaking and Entering Hemsley’s Dwelling House with Intent to Commit a Felony Therein’. Hunter, who was already in custody on the previous charge, seemed surprised. Wilson informed Hunter that fingerprints had been found in the house and that he was going to endeavour to prove they were Hunter’s.
Hunter appeared in the Water Police Court before the Stipendiary Magistrate, Mr L Donaldson. Two fingerprint experts – Senior Sergeant Walter Childs (who in 1930 became Commissioner of Police) and Ernest Sloane – identified the fingerprints on the window sash with prints taken from the accused’s fingers. Hunter was committed for trial, and on 11 February 1904 he appeared before the Sydney Court of Quarter Sessions. Faced with such damning physical evidence, he pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude.
Reference:
Stuart Pendlebury, Justice and Police Museum, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996.
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