1. Early life

2. Return to New South Wales

3. Native Police
    Maranoa Region operations  Bowen operations  Dalrymple operations 

4. Later life

5. References

John Bye Durnford Marlow (1829{{Snd}}27 February 1903) was an officer in the paramilitary Native Police force in the British colony of Queensland. He served in this corps for fourteen years and was stationed at frontier sites such as the Maranoa Region, Port Denison and on the Burdekin River. He conducted many punitive expeditions against Indigenous Australians resulting in the indiscriminate deaths of hundreds{{Nbsp}}of these people. Marlow, by leading armed escorts of troopers, was also intrinsically involved in the expeditions which led to the establishment of the towns of Cardwell and Townsville.

Early life

John Marlow was born at Bytown, in the British province of Upper Canada in 1829. His father was William Biddlecomb Marlow, a captain in the Royal Engineers. His grandfather was an admiral in the Royal Navy. After some initial schooling in the Scottish Highlands, Marlow travelled with his family to the colony of New South Wales, where his father's regiment had been posted. At the age of thirteen, he arrived in Sydney on 14{{Nbsp}}February{{Nbsp}}1842 on board the Sir Edward Paget. Ludwig Leichhardt was also a passenger on this ship and the Marlows remained close friends with the explorer, Leichhardt later naming a river in their honour.^[1] Marlow remained in Australia while his father was sent to serve in the Flagstaff War in New Zealand against the Maori.^[2] After this war concluded in 1846, Marlow returned to England with his parents.^[3]

Return to New South Wales

While in England, Marlow married Martha Bonter, the daughter of a clergyman and returned with her to New South Wales in the mid{{Nbsp}}1850s. He took up a position as a manager on a pastoral station at Furracabad station where he became close friends with a future Premier of Queensland in Arthur Palmer.^[4]

Native Police

In 1860, Marlow was appointed to the Native Police as a second{{Nbsp}}lieutenant. The native police was a mounted paramilitary force utilised at this time by the Government of Queensland to subdue Aboriginal resistance to British colonisation. The mode of operation of this force was indiscriminate massacre, usually described euphemistically as "dispersal".^[5]

Maranoa Region operations

By 1861, Marlow was promoted to full Lieutenant and was stationed at the Bungil Creek barracks near Roma. He and his troopers were soon ordered to disperse a group of Aboriginals who were spearing stock to the south along the Balonne River near Tootherang pastoral station. Once there, Marlow found a large group from whom he confiscated their spears and utensils. His troopers later burnt these and also took their women. The remaining Aboriginals then left, but Marlow did not like their demeanour and decided to follow them up and disperse them. His troopers tracked the group toward the Warrego River and shot them in the resultant skirmish.^[6]

Later that year, Marlow was ordered to set up a new Native Police barracks on the Maranoa River to the west. This he proceeded to do, and while his troopers were constructing the housing, they were approached by local Aboriginals intent on defending their land. A fight ensued and although Marlow received a head wound from being hit by a waddy, the troopers were victorious, killing thirteen{{Nbsp}}people. A message was sent back to the Bungil Creek barracks for assistance in following up the survivors and consequently further dispersals later occurred.^[7]

Bowen operations

In 1863, Marlow was transferred to Bowen in the Port Denison region of Queensland, where he replaced fellow Native Police officer Walter Powell.^[8] Not long after he arrived, his two-year{{Nbsp}}old daughter died of diphtheria.^[9] Bowen at this time was very much a frontier town, with frequent incidents of frontier conflict occurring. For instance, Korah Halcomb Wills, a resident and future mayor of Bowen, detailed in his memoirs how he participated in a punitive expedition with the Native Police inland from Port Denison in around 1863. He described not only the massacring of local Aboriginals but also how he personally kidnapped a young girl and cut the head and limbs off a dead Aboriginal man to keep as anatomy specimens.^[10] The violence continued after Marlow's appointment, with troopers under his command "clearing the blacks off McLellan's station" near the Burdekin River after two{{Nbsp}}shepherds were killed.^[11]

Marlow was commissioned in January{{Nbsp}}1874 to provide the armed escort for George Elphinstone Dalrymple's expedition to Rockingham Bay to establish a settlement there, which was later named Cardwell. The local Aboriginal people were advised to "clear out" and some were "set upon [...] and rather cut up" by the expeditionary force.^[12] In April of the same year, Marlow with Acting Sub-Inspector Kennedy and 8 troopers, provided the armed escort for Andrew Ball's initial expedition to survey the future town of Townsville. Marlow's troops conducted several "dispersals" on this journey, resulting in the deaths of at least twenty-four{{Nbsp}}local people and the abduction of around fifteen{{Nbsp}}Aboriginal females who were taken back to the barracks on the Don River, five miles from Bowen.^[13]

Marlow's detachment was later augmented to twenty{{Nbsp}}troopers which were utilised in "prompt retribution" against Aboriginals whose lands had been taken up as Inkerman Downs and Jarvisfield pastoral stations under the ownership of Robert Towns.^[14][15] Marlow together with sub-Inspectors Iceley and F.M. Thompson, also conducted a number of large punitive expeditions to the south of Bowen which resulted in massacres at Strathdon station, Proserpine, Goorganga, Bloomsbury, St Helens and in the mountainous region behind the coastal plains.^[16][17] Marlow's zeal in performing his duties was rewarded by the Government of Queensland with a promotion to a chief-inspector, but he declined the position and stayed with the Native Police detachment at Bowen.^[18]

In 1867, Marlow was involved in an extensive search mission of coastal areas for several shipwreck survivors. Reports indicated that the castaways were living with Aboriginals and as a consequence Marlow in conjunction with Inspector John Murray of the native police based at Cardwell conducted exhaustive and intrusive searches of every Aboriginal camp they could find between Townsville and Hinchinbrook Island. These camps were ransacked and groups of Aboriginal people were rounded up in an attempt to extract information. The mission was unsuccessful in finding the shipwrecked sailors.^[19][20]

Dalrymple operations

With the opening of the Cape River goldfields in 1868 the authorities decided to move the Native Police barracks from Bowen to the new settlement of Dalrymple about 80 km west of Townsville. Marlow was placed in charge of this new barracks and accompanied by his troopers and Queensland Police Commissioner, David Thompson Seymour, he provided the first Gold Escort from the goldfields to Townsville.^[21]

However, with the removal of the barracks from Bowen, Aboriginal resistance in this region re-intensified, exemplified by prominent pastoralist Sidney Yeates having to abandon his sheep station. Both the Police Commissioner and Marlow advised that they were no longer able to provide adequate protection from the Dalrymple base. Marlow instead offered the solution of rounding up the entire coastal Aboriginal population and forcibly detaining them on offshore islands. This was later enacted during the twentiethth{{Nbsp}}century as government policy, resulting in the Palm Island Aboriginal detention facility.^[22] Pastoralists in the Bowen region were unhappy with the lack of repressive measures with some seeking to embarrass Marlow publicly with evidence of sexual misconduct perpetrated by his troopers.^[23] Further misfortune followed Marlow with an immense flood of the Burdekin River destroying the town of Dalrymple, Marlow's house and the police barracks being washed away.^[24]

For the remainder of his placement at Dalrymple, Marlow took on a more administrative role managing the gold escort duties of the native police and investigating cases of murder, missing persons and riotous behaviour on the goldfields.^[25] He retired from the native police in 1873.

Later life

From 1874 to 1876, Marlow returned to Bowen as a resident, where his house was damaged during an intense storm.^[26] In 1876, he moved to the Brisbane suburb of Kangaroo Point where, in quite a large departure from his previous career, he became chief inspector for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.^[27] He remained in this position until 1885, when he became employed as a health inspector.^[28] Marlow continued in various posts for the Board of Health until his death in 1903. Mount Marlow at Cape Pallarenda near Townsville is named after him.^[29]

References

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• 2012 Philippine floods
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• 2012 Philippine Piper Seneca PA 34-200 crash
• 2012 Philippine Piper Seneca PA 34-200 Crash
• 2012 Philippine Plane Crash
• 2012 Philippine plane crash
• 2012 Philippines air crash
• 2012 Philippines earthquake
• 2012 Philippines flooding
• 2012 Philippines Moonsoon flooding
• 2012 Philippines Olympics
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• 2012 Phillip Island 300
• 2012 Phillip Island 6 Hour
• 2012 Phillip Island Superbike World Championship round
• 2012 Phoenix Mercury season
• 2012 PHS
• 2012 Piala Indonesia
• 2012 Piala Indonesia Final
• 2012 Piazza di Siena
• 2012 PIFL season
• 2012 Pinstripe Bowl