James McAuliffe was a native of Carlow, Ireland. A compact 5 ft 3 ¼, he had brown hair, hazel eyes and a ruddy and freckled complexion. He was educated enough to read and write and was married with two sons and a daughter when, out of desperation or foolishness, he stole some clothing. Brought before the Bench in Cork City on 10 June 1836, he was sentenced to 7 years’ transportation to Australia. On his convict indent, he was described as a cordwainer and a ‘tolerable’ shoemaker (according to the traditional use of the terms, a cordwainer made new shoes of new leather, whereas a cobbler repaired shoes).
His physical description indicates that he spent a fair amount of time around tattoo artists –
On 31 December 1836, his ship, the Earl Grey, arrived in Sydney with McAuliffe and his fellow transported Irishmen. McAuliffe served his sentence and received a Certificate of Freedom on 31 July 1843. His certificate was annotated “Brisbane 29 March 1844,” and it was in the newly opened settlement that McAuliffe, deprived of his wife, children and country, began a career as a cobbler, occasional shepherd and constant drunk.
In 1846, the Moreton Bay Courier began publishing, and James McAuliffe’s attendance in the Courts gave them a story for the second ever issue:
AN INCORRIGIBLE —At the Police-office yesterday, a man named James McAuliffe, whose strange vagaries have obtained for him the sobriquet of the Cranky Cobbler, was placed at the bar, charged with drunkenness and disorderly conduct. McAuliffe is well known as the most noisy individual in the district. He was fined twenty shillings and costs, and in default of payment was committed to the cells for forty-eight hours.
The following year, McAuliffe, mislabelled Edward, did his best with his Irish charm and no doubt, a raging hangover after a night on the grog and in the cells, and sweet-talked Captain John Clements Wickham into allowing him his liberty. I imagine the “good Captain” was smiling behind his imposing whiskers at the performance.
One individual named Edward McAuliffe, better known by the sobriquet of “cranky cobbler,” and whose tippling propensities hare made him somewhat notorious, was placed at the bar charged with being drunk and disorderly and assaulting the constable in South Brisbane on the previous evening. McAuliffe made an earnest appeal to the Magistrates, begging they would not send him to Sydney, as he had property on the way to his intended place of residence in the bush, which he would lose if he were committed to gaol. “You can either do me a good turn or a bad one,” said the cobbler, coaxingly, to Capt. Wickham, “but, don’t send me to Sydney, there’s a good Captain.” He then made a rambling statement respecting his abilities as a shepherd, and the masters he had served, one of whom he said on account of his good conduct “had given him toleration to draw rations free gratis.” The cobbler ended his harangue by assuring the Magistrates that if they let him off this time, he would never trouble them again. The Bench sentenced him to pay a fine of twenty shillings and costs and told him that if he committed himself in the like manner again, he would most certainly be sent to Sydney Gaol under the Vagrant Act.
In 1848, McAuliffe was before the bench for absconding from service. He wanted to appear respectable, so he dressed in what might have been the fashion some forty years earlier and offered to donate wages owing to him to charity. That didn’t work out.
Case the third -George Thorn v James McAuliffe, better known as the Cranky Cobbler or absconding. The plaintiff merely wishing to get rid of such cranky subject requested that the agreement should be cancelled, which was accordingly done. The prisoner, in the most approved style of the Brummel school, returned his grateful thanks to their Worships for their lenity, and, feeling confident that he had actually, transgressed against “the Act in this case made and provided, requested that, out of any wages coming to him, ten shillings should be appropriated for the benefit of the Benevolent Society. To this seemingly liberal offer; his master demurred, stating that “the boot was on the other leg,” which left the Cranky Cobbler’s donation a mere thing of imagination.
By 1849, the Bench lost its patience. An intolerable nuisance? What on earth had the man been doing? It did get him a free trip to Sydney, though.
A GOOD RIDDANCE. A man named William McAuliffe, and who, under the soubriquet of “the Cranky Cobbler,” has long been known in this district as an intolerable nuisance, was on Monday last sentenced to three months’ hard labour in the House of Correction, as an incorrigible drunkard, and an idle and disorderly character.
Look if you’re going to write something that critical of a man, get his name right.
In 1857, McAuliffe, back in Brisbane, was given the opportunity to compare the conditions in the Queen Street Gaol, Brisbane with the experience of Sydney’s gaols.
VAGRANCY. At the Police Office, yesterday, that unfortunate wright, James McAuliffe, better known as the ‘Cranky Cobbler,’ was placed at the bar, charged with wandering about the streets without any visible or lawful means of support. The defendant, who is one of the most incorrigible persons in the district, and who has been fined five or six times within the past six months for inebriety, and dealt with on three different occasions as a vagrant, informed the presiding Magistrate Joshua P. Bell , Esq, that he was under engagement to proceed to Mr. North’s station as a shoemaker; but it appears that he had framed the same reason on other occasions, and now it was not listened to. The Bench sentenced him to be imprisoned for six months in Brisbane gaol, and expressed a hope, that at the expiration of that period he would come out a better man.
He didn’t, poor chap.
AN OLD OFFENDER. James McAuliffe, an old offender, was sentenced to three months hard labour in Brisbane gaol, for having no visible means of support, or lawful fixed place of residence.
By the 1860s, McAuliffe had run out of people willing to hire a middle-aged, bad-tempered drunk with a long criminal history. He didn’t have a home or a job, and the law was not kind to men in this situation. The long-intended move to the country was the only option.
DRAYTON POLICE COURT: Friday, November 1. Before A. D. Broughton, Esq., P.M. James McAuliffe, for drunkenness, was fined the sum of 20s.; in default, 18 hours in the lock-up.
In 1862, McAuliffe succeeded against a charge of illegally milking a cow. It was a bizarre win, but no doubt it occasioned a little post-hearing celebration. Presumably no-one could tell with any certainty whether the cow had been milked, and by whom.
IPSWICH. James McAuliffe, defended by Mr. Collins, was charged with unlawfully using -that is, with milking a cow, the property of Adolph Nantschen, for whom Mr. Chubb appeared. The plaintiff failed to prove the fact, and the case was dismissed.
Once more, McAuliffe appeared in the public record as being before the Bench for drunkenness, and then, silence. I suspect he died not long after. The best match I can find in the records for James McAuliffe, is the death of a man of that name in 1869. If this is the Cranky Cobbler, he was 63 years of age. A life of hard labour, unhappiness and drink took its toll.
- Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1846 – 1861), Saturday 27 June 1846, page 2.
- Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1846 – 1861), Saturday 21 August 1847, page 2
- Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1846 – 1861), Saturday 9 December 1848, page 2
- Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1846 – 1861), Saturday 10 November 1849, page 2
- Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1846 – 1861), Saturday 10 November 1849, page 2
- North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser (Ipswich, Qld.: 1856 – 1862), Tuesday 24 March 1857, page 3
- North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser (Ipswich, Qld.: 1856 – 1862), Tuesday 24 March 1857, page 3
- Toowoomba Chronicle and Queensland Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1875), Thursday 7 November 1861, page 5
- Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1861 – 1864), Tuesday 11 March 1862, page 2
Moreton Bay and More 