Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930 - Flipbook - Page 71
Despite Dwyer’s confidence, the evidence of other witnesses pointed towards
his guilt. Inspector Russell from the Postal Department’s Irregularity and Missing
Letter Branch explained that on 22 April he had received ‘certain information’ with
reference to money orders and had issued telegrams to alert all post offices in
Sydney about fake advances from Laurieton. Order numbers corresponded with those
originating from Oxford Street Post Office. The Court heard that only postal
officials like Dwyer would have access to official envelopes and blank postal orders.
Examples of Dwyer’s handwriting were provided by his employer and these matched the
forged postal orders and envelopes. More damning for Dwyer was a communication
which he had earlier submitted to the Comptroller of Money Orders detailing how a
fraud could be perpetrated on the Savings Bank Department. He had done this in an
attempt to impress his superiors of his ability to counter potential fraud. Now,
he was accused of planning the exact same enterprise.
The jury found all three guilty with ‘a strong recommendation to mercy with
regard to Craig, as they thought he was a tool of the others’. Chief Justice Darley
sentenced Craig to one year hard labour. Miller — described as Dwyer’s ‘dupe’— was
given two years. The judge gave Dwyer seven years penal servitude — a punishment
which his counsel contended would ‘blast’ his client’s young life. The Chief
Justice, however, rejected the counsel’s application for a less severe sentence,
stating that Dwyer’s punishment would act as a deterrent to others.
As his sentence was longer than three years, Dwyer fell into the class of
prisoners considered most dangerous and intractable. Under the Crofton system,
which was introduced into NSW prisons in the 1870s, such prisoners served the first
nine months of their sentence in solitary confinement. As a ‘first timer’, Dwyer
was transported from Darlinghurst to Goulburn Gaol — a humiliating event which he
re-told many years later: He and four other shackled prisoners made their way
through a crowded Central railway station onto the train. People stared in silent
horror while others jeered and lunged at the convicts. The first stop on the way
to Goulburn was Campbelltown, where his family were now living. Fearing that his
father would try to meet the train during its stop, Dwyer — profoundly ashamed of
his situation — pleaded with the guards to close the carriage shutters. As the train
stopped at Campbelltown, Dwyer heard the desperate calls of his father seeking out
his son.
Dwyer served three years in Goulburn Gaol and the remainder of his sentence
on a ticket of leave reporting once a month to police. During his incarceration,
Dwyer had begun to write and with the support of a sympathetic prison guard, his
manuscripts were sent to the Bulletin, which published his work anonymously until
his release. A free man after seven years, Dwyer left Australia for London to
pursue his dream of becoming a fiction writer.
James Dwyer does not appear again in the NSW Gaol Photographic Description
Books, 1870-1930. He found great success in the United States and Europe as a
best-selling fiction author until his death in 1952. Dwyer buried his past as a
convicted forger and ‘dangerous’ prisoner until late in life when he published
his autobiography, Leg-Irons on Wings.
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