James Kirkwood was a successful man in Brisbane town. The place had only been open to free settlement for a decade, but the young Scot had made his name as a horticulturalist and market gardener. His produce always won prizes. He had a wife, four dear little children and a home in South Brisbane.
Then he discovered the Book of Revelations, and life was never the same.
Apocalyptic visions filled his head, and he decided to leave town before the fires of hell took over the hamlet of South Brisbane.
ABERRRATION OF MIND. – A case of supposed aberration of mind on the part of a market gardener named Kirkwood, residing at South Brisbane, was reported to the Police on Thursday. It appears that Mr. Kirkwood left his home, crossed the river, and was subsequently seen wandering on foot near the station of Mr. Skyring, several miles away, where he declared his intention of proceeding to a neighbouring hill (Mount Sampson at the Pine River) for the purpose of witnessing the approaching conflagration of South Brisbane. Mr Sneyd, Chief Constable, proceeded in search of him yesterday, but was unable to discover any further traces of him. Two mounted men were left near the Pine River for the purpose of renewing the search this morning. The unfortunate man is believed to be labouring under religious mania.
Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1846 – 1861), Saturday 13 August 1853, page 2
Kindly locals kept an eye out for him, and Mr Lade of Kedron Brook found Kirkwood, starving and wandering in the woods. Mr Lade brought him to town to see Dr Cannan.
When Kirkwood was brought before the Magistrates, he declared his intention to bear witness to the end of days. The Moreton Bay Courier reporter knew of a few people in the town of Brisbane who had begun experiencing a particular kind of religious mania, and without naming names, suggested that they had fallen under the spell of “the wild and rabid exhortations of an individual who flatters himself that the mysteries of the Book of Revelations have been revealed to his sight, and that it is his mission to announce their speedy accomplishment.”
The ravings of the anonymous doom-sayer had found an enthralled audience in Mr Kirkwood, and others easily swayed or disturbed. James Kirkwood thought he was a martyr to the cause of the end of days. Drs Cannan and Hobbs examined him and found a disturbed man who was unable to look after himself. The Bench remanded Kirkwood in custody to see how his particular illness would best be treated.
On 23 September 1853, having missed the advent of the “destroying angel”, Mr Kirkwood struck one of his gaolers in the eye. The following day, the Bench returned him to gaol under further restraint and looked into the option of a Lunatic Asylum in Sydney (Brisbane was too small at the time to have one of its own).
And that is how the market gardener from South Brisbane was sent to Sydney to commence treatment at the Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum. In those days the facility at Gladesville was still new, and had not developed into the sprawling, scandal-ridden campus of later times. However it’s unlikely that patients received much in the way of enlightened treatment by modern standards.
In August 1854, Kirkwood escaped from Tarban Creek and found his way overland to Moreton Bay. He was so close to home – a few miles away on the Cowper’s Plains Road when he was caught and put in Brisbane Gaol, to await his return to Sydney.
James Kirkwood earned his release from Tarban Creek, and for a few years returned to family and anonymity. In winter 1857, he travelled to Sydney on another crusade, and began pasting up crudely-made posters headed “Thus saith the Lord,” predicting the destruction of certain parts of Sydney by divine earthquake. Dr Rutter, Police Surgeon, declared Kirkwood to be of unsound mind.
Tragically, Kirkwood was again in the care of the Asylum when a tragic accident happened at home.
INQUEST.-On Monday last an inquest was held by the Coroner (K. Cannan, Esq.) on the body of a little girl named Margaret Kirkwood, daughter of Mr James Kirkwood of South Brisbane, who had been found dead in a well the day previous. It appeared from the evidence that the deceased went down to the well with a small bucket to bring water; as she had frequently brought water from the well previously no attention was paid to her remaining a long time away; suspicion being at last excited by her not coming back, a female named Caswell went to look for her, and found the child in the well floating on the top of the water. It is supposed that she dropped the bucket in the well and in endeavouring to reach it fell in herself. She was quite dead when taken from the water. The jury returned a verdict of accidentally drowned. The circumstances of this case are the more distressing as the mother of the child was confined only a few days before, and is in very distressed circumstances, and the father is at present a lunatic in Sydney gaol.
Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1846 – 1861), Saturday 19 September 1857, page 2a
A few years of peace followed. James Kirkwood returned to his wife Ann, was once again producing prize winning fruit and vegetables. The family grew, and survived a scare when their little boy suffered a snake bite:
SNAKE BITE. – A little boy, the son of Mr. J. Kirkwood, of South Brisbane, was bitten in the foot by a snake on Sunday last, but very little was thought of it at the time, as the reptile was only 18 inches in length. In half an hour afterwards, however, catalepsy set in, and medical aid had to be summoned. Under the treatment of Dr. Emmelheim, the lad soon recovered, and is now free from all the ill effects which might be supposed to ensue from such a bite. We are informed that the remedy applied was arsenic in brandy, taken internally.
Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1861 – 1864), Tuesday 3 September 1861, page 2
Arsenic in brandy? Taken internally??
The following year, James Kirkwood took out an advertisement in the Empire (Sydney) warning of the apocalypse in wicked Sydney again, but by 1864, it seemed that Kirkwood had found purpose and stability.
Mr. James Kirkwood, of South Brisbane, gained the first prize for the best collection of fruit, including two sorts of bananas, three sorts of melons, a variety of grapes, quinces, three sorts of peaches, mulberries, passion fruit, and pine apples. He gained second prize for vegetable marrow; and amongst his exhibits was a fair specimen of bees’ wax.
Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1861 – 1864), Friday 15 January 1864, page 2
Alas, the old mania bubbled to the surface, and in 1865 Kirkwood paused in Melbourne, apparently on his way to the Old Country, and papered the southern city with tracts.
He returned to Brisbane, and fathered little Agnes in 1866, then James Kirkwood’s turbulent life came to an end at sea near Tenerife aboard the Young Australia in 1867. He was 45.
Ann and her surviving children remained in Brisbane.
Moreton Bay and More 