Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930 - Flipbook - Page 69
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DA R L I N G H U R S T
GAO L
FORGER, UTTERER,
AUTHOR
James Dwyer
F O R G E RY A N D U T T E R I N G
James Dwyer, a 25 year old postal official born at Camden Park —
the ‘great feudal estate’ of the Macarthur-Onslows — was
photographed at Darlinghurst Gaol on 17 June 1899 the day after
he had been convicted of forgery and uttering.
Dwyer, Assistant Postmaster at Oxford Street Post Office
in Sydney, and two others, Frederick Peter Craig, a printer
aged 63, and Joseph Miller, a boilermaker aged 29, had been
found guilty of having forged a postal order and advice for
the payment of money for the sum of £10 with intent to defraud.
They were tried by Chief Justice Sir Frederick Darley, at
Central Criminal Court on 15 and 16 June 1899.
The Court heard that on 24 April 1899 police acted on
intelligence to apprehend Miller in Newtown. In his pockets
were twenty-two £10 postal orders. Caught with the suspect
orders, Miller confessed to his involvement in the plan. Dwyer,
he said, was the instigator of the scheme and had asked him to
arrange the printing of sixty-five blank postal orders. Miller
knew printer Craig, and recruited him for the job. Craig,
however, denied taking part in the scheme. Miller supplied the
newly printed postal orders and advices to Dwyer. Marked as
originating from Laurieton in mid-north NSW, Dwyer completed
the postal orders and used official envelopes to send the
advances to suburban post offices in Sydney where the orders
would be cashed. When presented with Miller’s account of the
events, Dwyer accused him of lying and trying to “fit him up”.
Dwyer was convinced that he, unlike Miller, had the ‘brains’
to get himself out of the situation.
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