Constable Thomas Joseph CallaghanPrint Page

The memorial commemorates Constable Thomas Joseph Callaghan, who died of thirst in 1888, while travelling on official business between Whitula Station and Windorah.

Windorah, December 3. Constable Callaghan left Whitula station for Windorah on Thursday last, and has not been heard of since. Constable Lows and a tracker started in search of him on Friday, with Mr. Wall, manager of Whitula station, and Sergeant Williams and two trackers followed on their tracks on Saturday. Callaghan was tracked to within six miles of Windorah, when he turned and struck towards Eulbertie. No word has been received from the search party since Saturday evening. Up to the time Callaghan's tracks had missed all water.
Darling Downs Gazette (Qld), 5 December 1888. 

Two or three years ago a constable named Roberts, a young man totally inexperienced in bush lore, and quite ignorant of how to strike across country, perished of thirst while doing duty in the west beyond Windorah, and at the time a great outcry was made at the thoughtlessness of the department in sending such men, who were only fit for duty in the large towns, out to the back blocks, where he was liable, while doing duty, to get into situations out of which it would take experienced bushmen to extricate themselves. But it seems that the department had forgotten the former circumstance, and still send out unsuitable men. Poor Callaghan, who was found dead last week, forty-five miles from Windorah, and twenty miles ifrom Whitula, from which station he was going to Windorah, the distance being only thirty miles, was another victim of departmental carelessness. The tracks made by the poor fellow while wandering about showed he was as completely out of his element as a new chum from the rural districts of England would be. They call it "murdered by the Government" out at Windorah. 
Queenslander (Brisbane),  29 December 1888.

Location

Details

Dedication