He was born at sea in 1855, and grew up in the Irishtown district of Ipswich. By 15 he was called a hardened criminal by the newspapers. When Patrick Long boarded the Hulk Proserpina in 1871, his parents were no longer in the picture, and although the hulk was supposed to be a reformatory and industrial school, there was little chance of reforming Patrick.
It all started so trivially. He was 12, and he got together with his friend Cornelius Lachlan and they gave little Wilhelmina Deagon a shove. They didn’t expect her to take them to Court. She wasn’t even hurt. The Magistrates looked at the three furious children before them, the prosecutrix and defendants, and decided to let the boys go with a stern admonition.
The next time Patrick Long saw a courtroom, it was his first and only encounter with the right side of the law. On 18 April 1869, Eliza Ward was found guilty of what the Queensland Times called a ‘trifling’ assault on Long, and was find 1s., with 6 s. 4 d. costs of court.
Brief experience as a victim of crime gave Patrick a little pause because he didn’t re-offend until 1871, when he was found guilty of stealing one shilling’s worth of peaches from the yard of Mr Martin Callaghan of Irishtown.
It sounds like the sort of jape Tom Sawyer might have tried out:
Martin Callaghan, deposed that he was going home to his house in Irish Town on Friday morning last, when he perceived defendant at some distance from him , watched him displace two palings from the fence, and enter his (complainant’s) garden, where he commenced picking peaches from the tree, and hid them in his Crimean shirt.
Six months after nicking Callaghan’s fruit, Patrick Long graduated to proper crime – stealing a saddle from a timber splitter named Edward McGuire. At a time when the horse was the way people got about on a regular basis, this was serious stuff.
Young Patrick didn’t take kindly to being apprehended, and told Callaghan he’d stolen peaches from him before and he would again. The Bench was stern, but forgiving – perceiving that the boy might have done this through hunger – and fined Long 1s. with 6s. 4d. costs of court.
“All right,” said 16 year old Patrick when taken into custody, “I was tired of riding bare-backed.” He hadn’t been subtle about his interest in the saddle, and paraded around Irishtown with it in broad daylight. He pled guilty on 12 September 1871, and was sent to the newly opened Reformatory Proserpine for 9 months. It didn’t really have the desired effect.
In February 1873, Patrick and a younger boy from a similarly parent-free environment, Samuel McLeod, stole horses and saddles at Ipswich and then led the constables on a chase that covered 400 miles and most of south-west Queensland.
The Bench sentenced McLeod to the Proserpine, and Long (who was 18) to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour, and a recommendation to the Colonial Secretary that Long have “the hardest labour imposed upon him, and the strictest discipline exercised towards him.”
Long had evidently been expecting much worse than that, because wen the sentence was passed, his face lit up with a relieved smile, and he winked to the gallery.
Sadly, two years with lard labour at the Petrie Terrace Gaol, imprisoned with everyone from murderers to bushrangers (including William “Podgy” Troden) appeared to have had little reformatory impact on Patrick Long.
It was clear that Patrick Long loved horses. He loved other people’s horses. He probably loved other people’s horses so much because his busy schedule of gaol time and court appearances meant that having one of his own was impossible to achieve.
He had one month of freedom after his two years, and then found himself back at Brisbane Gaol for six weeks’ hard labour, and the opportunity to pose for this rather cocky mug shot.
Of course, he’d stolen a horse, the personal mount of Mr Colin Peacock, grazier, of Purga Creek with the stated aim “just to have a spurt out of him, and return him home in the evening.”
A likely story.
SOURCES:
Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld.: 1866 – 1939), Saturday 5 June 1875, page 9
Brisbane Courier (Qld.: 1864 – 1933), Wednesday 2 June 1875, page 2
Brisbane Courier (Qld.: 1864 – 1933), Saturday 1 May 1875, page 7
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Tuesday 27 April 1875, page 3
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Tuesday 20 April 1875, page 3
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Thursday 13 March 1873, page 3
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Thursday 13 February 1873, page 2
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Saturday 8 February 1873, page 3
Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld.: 1872 – 1947), Thursday 6 February 1873, page 2
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Tuesday 4 February 1873, page 2
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Saturday 1 February 1873, page 3
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Thursday 14 September 1871, page 3
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Thursday 7 September 1871, page 3
Brisbane Courier (Qld.: 1864 – 1933), Friday 3 February 1871, page 3
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Thursday 15 April 1869, page 3
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908), Thursday 13 August 1868, page 3
Suitable Reform image: The Independent.
Robbing Orchards: The British Library.
Queensland State Archives, Digital Image ID 18507.
Moreton Bay and More 