Labour Australia

Coombemartin Station (Qld) 'perjurers', 1894 [Maloney is far left, top row]

Queensland Police Museum, PM0270

Thomas Moloney, also known as Thomas Maloney (1862-?) shearer, gaoled trade unionist 

Birth: 1862 in Victoria. Marriage: unknown. Death: unknown. Religion: Catholic. 

• Arrived in Queensland overland from Victoria in 1887.
• A shearer, with no fixed place of residence, he worked in the Barcaldine district for the following seven years, including at Evesham station, Longreach.
• Was residing in Rockhampton and present with striking shearers at Robert Christison’s Coombemartin station on 20 July 1894 when a shooting occurred. Gave evidence for the defence in the trial of Charles Prior at the Circuit Court, Rockhampton in September 1894, alleging that Inspector Carr held a revolver with smoke coming out of it when Charles Ashford had been shot.
• For that evidence he, and six other men, were arrested and charged with perjury. On 26 November 1894 at District Court, Rockhampton, judge Granville Miller sentenced him to imprisonment with hard labour for four years, despite police evidence of his previous good behaviour.
• Prison records describe him as a shearer, 32 years of age, born in Victoria, could read and write, stout, 5 feet 11½ inches (181 cm) in height, with brown hair, brown eyes, freckled arms, with “middle joints of fingers right and left hand rather large”. His weight on admission was 13 stone 2 lbs (83.5 kg). He gave his religion as Roman Catholic.
• In St Helena Island prison Moloney worked in ‘the gangs’ as field labour. Following petitions for clemency he was discharged, weighing 12 stone 1 lb (76.7kg), on 4 June 1897. On release he received £8 3 shillings from the Prisoners’ defence account.