By Irma Walter, 2020.
Michael Mullins was convicted on 19 August 1850 in the Central Criminal Court, London, of robbery with violence. A woman in the company of three men abused and then assaulted a young woman at a fish market and pushed her to the ground, before one of her male companions stole her money – a half-sovereign and half a crown. The victim identified the man by his bleeding finger that she had bitten.
Mullins was also identified by a policeman present in the Court as having a previous conviction recorded against him in January 1849 for larceny, for which crime he had been gaoled for four months. Mullins was found guilty of the second crime and transported for ten years.[1]
On 30 June 1852 he arrived in WA on the Marion, aged 19, described as a poulterer, single, 5’4½”, with dark brown hair, blue eyes, oval face, a fresh complexion, of slender build, with no marks. On the voyage Surgeon Superintendent Le Grand recorded Mullins as received from Pentonville Prison, his religion Protestant, and of good character.
Mullins received his Ticket of Leave on 14 May 1853.[2] In 1854 he was employed by Wallace Bickley, Henry Prinsep’s agent at ‘Paradise’ in Dardanup, where an unfortunate gun accident shattered his left hand. He was taken into Bunbury but there was no doctor in the town to treat him, since Dr. Brydges had left for Albany.[3] The Resident Magistrate George Eliot acted quickly, sending down to Busselton for a Mr Bryant (Bryan?)[4], who was not a trained doctor, more likely a chemist’s assistant, and had never before performed such an operation. Eliot then sent a man out to Marshall Waller Clifton at Australind for a tourniquet and later rode out there himself to borrow the equipment needed to amputate the hand. The following day chloroform was used to sedate the patient.
[Chloroform, or trichloromethane, was originally designed by an American chemist as an insecticide in 1831. It was first used as an anaesthetic by a physician in Scotland named Sir James Young Simpson in 1847.[5] Just two years later in 1849 it was recorded that another Scottish surgeon used chloroform here in Western Australia during an operation to amputate an Aboriginal man’s leg, following an attack with a spear. It was said that his companions had previously attempted to use a rusty old knife to remove the offending limb and were amazed that he felt no pain during the operation.[6] This pioneer surgeon was Dr John Ferguson, who arrived at Australind on the Trusty in 1842 and first settled with his wife at ‘Wedderburn’ in the Wellington District, before deciding to resume his profession in Perth, when offered the position of Colonial Surgeon in 1846.[7]]
The following newspaper article describes the events leading up to the amputation of Mullin’s hand:
BUNBURY.
A sad accident occurred on Wednesday, the 20th ultimo, at Paradise, to a ticket-of-leave man named Mullins, in the employment of Mr Bickley, Mr. Prinsep’s agent. Being employed in shooting parrots with one of the cheap guns imported to the colony, it burst, and shattered his left hand in a frightful manner. On the poor fellow being brought into the depot, there being no surgical assistance at hand, Mr. Eliot sent off to the Vasse for Mr Bryant, who, though not a regular practitioner, has had much experience as assistant in a dispensary. In the state, however, in which the wounded man was, when amputation might become necessary, Mr Eliot after procuring a tourniquet, rode up in the middle of the night to Australind to obtain the loan of Mr Clifton’s set of surgical instruments, and on the following day, he and the Rev. Mr [Henry] Brown came to the praiseworthy resolution that they would themselves, if Mr Bryant did not arrive, before certain symptoms occurred, under take the responsibility of performing the operation of amputating the hand. In the evening, however, Mr Bryant arrived, and on the following morning, after the patient had been put under the influence of chloroform, Mr Bryant (who had never before performed such an operation, though he had been present at many), assisted by Mr Eliot and Mr Brown, skilfully and successfully amputated the arm above the wrist. The patient was so completely under the influence of chloroform, that he was not aware of the operation till all was over, and he in bed. We are happy to add that he is going on well.
This accident is another proof of the necessity of providing proper medical aid in a district where there are so many ticket-of-leave men, for whose lives the Government are responsible, to say nothing of the inhabitants generally. Surely, if the proper representatives had been made, the Home Government would readily have procured and sent out duly qualified professional men for duty at the Convict out stations, which would have been a general boon to the inhabitants, We consider it also the duty of the Government to provide a proper set of surgical instruments at each depot, even surgeons, whose services may be temporarily obtained, have seldom more than a small pocket case. On this occasion, had it not been for the instruments which Mr Eliot was able to borrow, the life of this unfortunate man might have been lost.[8]
Marshall Waller Clifton of Australind recorded the event in his own journal:
29 March 1854
Harry Woods came up at our Dinner Time for my Tourniquet and after we were in bed George Eliot came up for my Instruments in consequence of a TLM having shattered his hand by the burst of a Gun at Paradise.
30 March 1854
Just as I had dressed and My horse was ready for Me, I received a note from Annette putting me off the fishing party as Eliot & Brown probably would have to perform an Amputation of the Man’s hand.
31 March 1854
Sent Joey to Bunbury & received letter from Eliot stating that Bryant, He and Brown had performed the operation. [9]
Considering the circumstances, it is not surprising that Mullins experienced ongoing problems with his wound. A second amputation was later found necessary, performed by the surgeon at the Convict Hospital in Fremantle after Mullins was admitted on 18 May 1854, described as a plasterer, aged 22, and his condition on admission was ‘Very Bad’. He was finally discharged on 23 August 1854. Full hand-written medical reports of further treatment of Michael Mullins’ arm can be found in the convict records.[10]
Mullins received his Conditional Pardon in November 1856.[11] He formed a business partnership with a James O’Dell in Bunbury. They employed one Ticket of Leave employee.[12]
Western Australian Almanack and Directory, 1868.[13]
How long the partnership lasted is not known. In 1868 a dissolution of the partnership was advertised:
NOTICE.
This is to certify that we the undersigned have this day dissolved partnership by mutual consent, and hereby give notice that all accounts due to the late firm are to be paid to M. Mullins.
MICHAEL MULLINS.
JAMES ODELL.
Witness. — Michael White.[14]
Bunbury, Jan. 13, 1868.[15]
O’Dell went to Fremantle where he set up business as a General Dealer & Bootmaker, employing three Ticket of Leave men.[16] In 1881 Mullins decided to set up his own boarding-house in Bunbury:
I, MICHAEL MULLINS, retailer, now residing at Victoria Street, in the town of Bunbury, do hereby give notice that it is my intention to apply at the next Licensing Meeting to be holden for this district, for a Boarding and Eating House License, in the shop or rooms which I now occupy, or, intend to occupy, situated at Victoria Street, Bunbury, and not now licensed.
Given under my hand, this 18th day of October, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one,
MICHAEL MULLINS.[17]
Whether this business got off the ground is not known, A few months later on 31 May 1882 Michael Mullins left WA for South Australia on the Macedon.[18] No further details are known, apart from the following advertisement which may have a connection:
WANTED — Situation in gentleman’s family, as COOK and BAKER, Address JAMES KING, c/o Mrs. Mullins, Bunbury.[19]
[1] Central Criminal Court Records, Ref. No. 18500819-1424, at https://www.oldbaileyonline.org
[2] Convict Department Registers, Character Book (R17)
[3] Inquirer, 15 March 1854.
[4] Note: A Hannibal Bryan described himself as a medical practitioner at the trial of Bridget Hurford for the murder of her husband at the Vasse, during which he exhibited ‘an amount of ignorance and queer qualities which received a severe castigation from the Advocate General’. (See Perth Gazette, 5 October 1855.) In 1889 Hannibal Burnham Bryan was registered in WA as a medical doctor. (Western Mail, 2 February 1889). He died at the age of 92 in 1904.
[5] https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/ether-and-chloroform
[6] Inquirer, 28 March 1849.
[7] West Australian, 11 April 1928.
[8] Inquirer, 12 April 1854.
[9] P Barnes, JM Cameron, HA Willis, The Australind Journals of Marshall Waller Clifton 1840-1861, Hesperian Press, Carlyle, WA, 2010, p.473.
[10] Convict Establishment, Medical Journal by Patient, 1853 – 1854 (M13) and (M18)
[11] Government Gazette in Perth Gazette, 7 November 1856.
[12] Rica Erickson, Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians, p.2354, at http://www.friendsofbattyelibrary.org.au
[13] Stirling & Son, Western Australian Almanack and Directory, 1868.
[14] Note: Michael White was a baker and boarding-house keeper of Bunbury.
[15] Inquirer, 22 January 1868.
[16] Rica Erickson, Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians, p.2354, at http://www.friendsofbattyelibrary.org.au
[17] West Australian, 1 November 1881.
[18] Convict Department, General Register (R21B)
[19] Herald, 4 March 1882.