Haycock goes bankrupt

This is a second out-take that didn't fit my upcoming Australia: a Social History.  The work began with The Big Book of Australian History, which went through four editions under the National Library of Australia's imprint. but as they have lost the plot, I am going my own way.

This version is 2.5 times the size of the original version. Soon, I will be seeking a publisher...

* * *

The man identified by Henry Brown as W. W. Haycock, appears to have usually used the name George Washington Haycock. Brown later called Haycock one of those who had been convicted of no crime, but who, nonetheless, “have found themselves in scrapes which have compelled them to leave their own country”. As we will see later, that was not his real name, but “Haycock” began to take a prominent position in local affairs around Bendigo (or Sandhurst, as it was then called) in 1856. He was a trader, and one of the town’s principal merchants. Nothing could be done, Brown said, unless Haycock agreed to it. The American was admired, and he helped many less successful traders, but Brown took an instinctive dislike to him. Brown thought the praise given to Haycock seemed unwarranted, but still the man did well.

Then, one day, Brown found he had been right to trust his instincts:

…we were astonished one day by receiving the following communication by express,—

“Confidential. Melbourne.” “Haycock, we believe, has bolted; we inclose a draft of Two Hundred and Fifty Pounds, payable at his office in Sandhurst, which he gave us a week since, obtain the money if possible, remit to Melbourne, and keep this communication a secret, for we may be mistaken.”
— Henry Brown, Victoria As I Found It, 228 – 9.

The message came from a good friend, so Brown went seeking the money, only to be told Haycock was in Melbourne, there was no money on hand, and that Haycock would return in two or three days.

Brown pushed them, saying the order was made payable on demand, and in the end, Haycock’s credit being so good, his clerk went out and borrowed the money from other firms. A week later, the news was all over Bendigo, and people who had been caught out feared going bankrupt. When Brown told his friends he had no dealings with Haycock, they reminded him that other firms would also “go smash”, but Brown had settled up accounts with all the at-risk houses during the previous week.

One American store and hotel-keeper had made a great deal of money, but having injured himself, placed all of his savings in Haycock’s hands, on the promise that the men would meet in Melbourne, where Haycock would pay over the cash. Then he headed for Melbourne to take a ship home to retirement, but the money never came. He missed his ship, and feared that Haycock and his money were on board. Then another American told the truth about Haycock, and the man realised he had lost everything.

The truth-teller knew Haycock was an assumed name, because the two had grown up in the same small town. He was liked, did well, and when a fire almost ruined him, his friends helped him get going again. Then, one day, Haycock bolted, running off with a large amount of money, and people began wondering if his fire had been suspicious.

He went to the American “Slave States” where he married a lovely girl, the daughter of a planter, but three days later, he deserted her and went to California. His brother-in-law caught up with him there and abused him for deserting his wife, at which point they agreed to duel. Haycock’s first shot pierced his brother-in-law’s heart. People were furious, so he cleared out again, and the narrator came across him, working a neighbouring claim near Bendigo. When he addressed Haycock by his real name, the man asked him to keep his secret and use only his new name.

“Haycock” said he was a reformed character. The narrator saw no use in “outing” him, when he was so poor. Soon after, though, he put up a small tent and began buying old tools, such as broken picks, damaged cradles. He would mend these and sell them, did well, and soon Haycock was well-known as an agent, cattle dealer, and general merchant.

All this time I watched his conduct narrowly, and could see nothing amiss, besides he was a sad man, and in the midst of his success, it seemed to me, that his former crimes weighed heavily upon him; for many of you will remember how rare was his smile, and a laugh proceeding from those lips, I think, you have none of you ever heard.
— Henry Brown, Victoria As I Found It, 234.

Brown said everybody just assumed that Haycock had run off with all the money, but after he was found drowned, it emerged that he had got a barber to shave off his long beard, and pawned a pistol. He must have wandered the countryside, hungry and fearing his creditors, people said.

Later, some gentlemen of Bendigo and elsewhere were summoned to Geelong to confirm that the exhumed corpse of a drowned man was Haycock. The statement below, taken from the pages of The Argus, has been abbreviated by the deletion of some irrelevant legal formalities.

We, Thomas Kirk Newton, of Melbourne, gentleman; Thomas Disher, of the same place, gentleman; James Boone, of Sandhurst, doctor of medicine; Decimus Prothero, of Bathurst, New South Wales, gentleman; Sumner Cummings Fraser, of Sandhurst, drover; and Robert Hadin Smith, of Melbourne, articled clerk, severally and respectively do solemnly and sincerely declare that we have this day exhumed and carefully examined the body said to be that of the late George Washington Haycock, late of Sandhurst aforesaid, and that the said body is that of the said George Washington Haycock, beyond doubt or dispute…

(Signed) Thos. Kirk Newton, Thomas Disher, James Boone M.D., Decimus Prothero, Sumner Cummings Fraser, Robert H. Smith. Declared at Geelong, in the colony of Victoria, this 30th day of September, A.D. 1856, before me (signed) Charles Ibbotson, J.P.
— The Argus, 1 October 1856, 5.

Some people had their doubts about the identification, and at least one of them said so, rather forcefully, in this curious letter, signed ‘Vox’. According to ‘Vox’, the report signed by Newton, Disher, Boone, Prothero, Fraser, and R. H. Smith was not only puerile, but childish, not creditable to those gentlemen. The writer was not prepared to accept their identification.

Let six men of only common sense examine the disputed body, take the height and weight, a plaster cast of the face, a few photographic likenesses, some of the hair, and general and particular description of his body; give this to the public, and they will determine for themselves. If this is not enough, seal up the body in a zinc shell, and forward it to Bendigo, where I am disposed to believe there will be found some Bendigonians who can determine the question.
— Bendigo Advertiser, 15 October 1856, 2.

Without some effort, “the majority here will continue to believe that the body in question is not that of G. W. Haycock.” One of those pilloried, Decimus Prothero, was a wealthy grazier from Bathurst, and he had “had dealings” with Haycock. One of these dealings was a mob of 12,000 cattle that crossed the Murray into Victoria in late August 1856, about the time Haycock ran off. In all probability, Prothero had lost money in those dealings.

Prothero did not appreciate the tone of the letter, and having identified ‘Vox’, he took the law into his own hands. Before we look at the ensuing court case, here is a fact that the Bendigo Advertiser added when they reprinted the letter: one of the six gentlemen in the statement was Haycock’s “medical attendant” (in other words, Dr Boone), and he recognised the body by certain scars that it bore.

So Prothero was right to be annoyed, though he may have been just a little robust in his actions, but ‘Vox’, alias Hutchison was hardly a model of rectitude in making his comments! In the following report from the Mount Alexander Mail, one reference may need explanation: “Professor Sands” was a well-known hairdresser and barber. Prothero appeared before Messrs. M’Lachlan, Hunt, and Emmett, at the police office, Sandhurst, to answer a charge of having, the day before, assaulted Dr. Hutchison. He entered a plea of guilty. Hutchison said he was standing on the previous afternoon outside the Shamrock Hotel, when the defendant came up and asked if his name was Acheson, and he said it was not. The defendant went away, then returned to ask if his name was Hutchison. He confirmed this, at which point Prothero pointed to a folded newspaper that he held. Was he the author of a letter in that paper? At this point, we switch to the published account.

Complainant said that if his name was attached to any letter in any paper he certainly was the author of it, but if his name was not appended to it, he should decline to answer any question put by a mere stranger in the public streets. Defendant then seized complainant by the beard and plucked it out, and one of the bystanders then interfered and took the defendant away…

The defendant here explained that he had acted upon strong provocation. He had been in company with some other gentlemen, to Geelong, for the purpose of identifying the body of G. W. Haycock, and had done so, and having stated that he considered the body to be absolutely and truly that of Mr. Haycock, a letter had appeared in the Bendigo Advertiser calling his word into question, and this letter he had ascertained was written by the complainant. He did not deny the assault: he certainly had pulled the Doctor’s beard out, and now begged to return it to him.

(Defendant here drew from his pocket the complainant’s beard, wrapped in paper, and suggested that Professor Sands would stick it on again for eightpence.)

The bench found that a most unwarrantable assault had been committed, that free speech ought to be allowed without risk, and Mr Prothero was to recollect he was not in California. The defendant was to be fined £10, or in default of payment ten days’ imprisonment. The fine was immediately paid. Haycock’s disappearance may well have cost Prothero dearly, because Prothero himself disappeared from the Australian scene rather oddly, the following year, after this announcement in the Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal:

Sir, I write to request you to be good enough to insert in your next publication the fact that I, finding my affairs in a state of hopeless entanglement, have gone to England for the purpose of seeing my friends, who are rich and respectable, and who will, I believe, do anything to avert dishonour from the family. My absence will, I hope, be no more than seven months.

“Your obedient servant, DECIMUS PROTHERO.
— Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 7 October 1857, 3.

He seems to have stayed in Britain.