Tom Coward
Profile:
Earliest/Latest known date
1864 - 1879
Date of Birth:
07-Jul-1834
Date of death
05-Jul-1905
Place of birth
Market Lavington, Wiltshire, England
Officer’s reason for departure
Resigned 'under threat of dismissal' 1877 but had already left by 1876 (possibly under the hint of scandal)
Location of grave
West Terrace cemetery, Adelaide
Marriage:
Millicent Deagon (m. 1879)
Rank/Position:
Acting Sub-inspector: 1864 - 1865
Sub Inspector: 1865 - 1871
Acting Inspector: 1872 - 1874
2/C Sub-Inspector: 1879 - 1880
“Mr. Coward is a particularly aggressive individual. He holds most pronounced views on a variety of subjects, and he expresses his opinion in a manner that can only be regarded as forceful. As a matter of fact Mr. Coward prides himself on his plainness of speech, and he would not even call a spade a spade in the ordinary sense of the term. He might, if he were unduly excited, use an expletive to emphasise the importance of the occasion.”
Postings:
1875: Byerstown
1875: Normanby Diggings
1874: Endeavour River (aka Cooktown)
1873 - 1874: Hughenden (aka Flinders River)
1873: Oak Park
1872: Bellenden Plains (aka Murray River)
1871 - 1872: Cashmere
1870: Cardwell (town)
1869 - 1870: Norman
1868 - 1870: Burketown
Biography:
Thomas Coward was a difficult man, who seemed to alienate almost everyone he worked with. In 1876 at Byerstown there was animosity between Thomas Coward as Warden and Sergeant George Devine. In the same period there was also animosity between Coward and Alexander Douglas: 'Mr Douglas was a great enemy of mine and did everything he could to annoy me while I was his superior officer', and between William Armit and Coward: 'I have never spoken to Mr Coward and am not likely to do so after the way he treated me up north' (QSA847037 1880 Minutes of Evidence taken before Board of Enquiry into charges against Alexander Douglas, In letter 81/296). Similarly Richard Crompton, when Coward walked into his camp, told him: 'I do not wish to have anything to say to you after the way in which you treated me when stationed on the Lynd' (QSA564704 1871 Letter from Richard Crompton to John Marlow 21 October, Thomas Coward Police Staff file). Coward certainly had a temper, and was accused by several of his camp keepers (including John Kenny and Thomas Lonergan), as well as others, for losing his temper and using 'disgusting' language: ‘I dont [sic] think the inspector is as bad as his touing [sic] but indeed he has a bad one when he comences [sic] but I let him blow away[.] I find it better than to give him impudence[.] [I]t is well that I have good patience.’ (QSA563784 1871 Letter from John Kenny to Eliza Kenny 5 April, John Kenny Police staff file). He was suspended in 1871 pending the results of an enquiry into his use of abusive language at Cashmere to Thomas Longeran and William Parish, the Cashmere Telegraph operator. As part of this enquiry Matthew Fitzgerald additionally accused him of the ill-treatment of troopers at Cashmere, which was 'often times without cause ... and a disgrace to humanity' (QSA564704 1871 Letter from Matthew Fitzgerald to John Marlow 20 November, Thomas Coward Police Staff file). In summarising his enquiry into these accusations John Marlow excused Coward on the grounds of a previous head injury: 'In the early part of the year 1865 Mr Coward in the Execution of his Duty received a very dangerous wound on the Head, and as in all his explanations he states that his temper was at fault. I trust that the Honorable the Colonial Secretary will take into consideration the wound in question' (QSA564704 1871 Letter from John Marlow to Colonial Secretary 4 December, Thomas Coward Police Staff file). This wound was apparently caused by an Aboriginal prisoner who 'in an attempt to escape, split his head with a tomahawk, but Coward, notwithstanding, secured him and obtained promotion' (Truth 21 June 1908, p3).