STANDISH

The Chief Commissioner of police, Frederick Charles Standish. (1824 to 1883).

That Standish was a pall-bearer at the funeral of Robert O'Hara Burke.

THE " DIFFICULTY " BETWEEN CAPTAIN STANDISH AND CAPTAIN MACHELL.

Daily Southern Cross

November 3, 1876

(courtesy of The National Library of New Zealand)

THE " DIFFICULTY " BETWEEN CAPTAIN STANDISH AND CAPTAIN MACHELL.

Sundry differing accounts hare been given regarding the horsewhipping
affair in the Melbourne Club, in which Captain Machell was the active
operator and Captain Standish, the Chief Commissioner of Police, the
comparatively passive operatee. A private correspondent in Melbourne
sent us the following version, of the facts of the case, as narrated
almost in the language of Captain Machell himself, who is represented as
having himself told the story to our correspondent: "The facts of the
case are these: On, the 3rd of October Captain Machell dined at the
Melbourne Club with a friend. Sitting at the same table was Captain
Standish, who by the way, is looked on as the 'show' man. of Melbourne,
and is generally deemed bumptious, and sometimes insolent in his
manners. Standish began by asking Machell if he had been poaching up
country (alluding to a short shooting trip from which Machell had just
returned). He then, after some remarks about shooting, said to Machell,
'At least my hand did not tremble as yours did, like an aspen-leaf, when
shooting pigeons lately,' etc, etc. Machell then challenged Standish to
ride 'cross country, shoot, and in fact, to compete with him in any
manly exercise. Upon this, Standish called Machell, 'a d–d offensive
beast.' All this occurred before six or seven other men, and the two
principals never were on intimate terms that would warrant familiarity ;
to say nothing of the unwarrantable rudeness of such a speech as this.
Machell told Standish that if he did not apologise he would thrash him.
Next morning Machell went to the club, and asked if there was any letter
for him from Captain Standish, and finding there was none, he went in
search of and found Standish, and three several times asked him to
apologise in writing. This he refused to do, and said Machell, in
telling the story, ' I gave him a most severe thrashing.' Of course,
there has been a big row about the affair, which is to be settled at a
general meeting of the club on 10th November. Most people think Machell
in the right, his only fault being that the whipping was too severe, and
that the club being private, was not the place to settle private
disputes. But the question I here arises, if offensive expressions are
uttered in the club, and refused to be apologised for when apology is
justly demanded in the same place, why should not the same ground be
made the arena of retribution also? This is my own private view, and
perhaps may be a trifle in favour of that muscular Christianity which
promptly resents an injury. As Rhoderick Dhu says : What cared I though
the traitor stood, On highland heath or Holyrood ? But be this as it
may, that is the position of affairs, and there is this in addition :
This is the first row Machell has been in here, while Standish has been
in many, and had them mostly overlooked or easily atoned for. He has
been collared this time by Machell, who has been heard to say, 'Standish
will never again tell me that my hand trembled.'"

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Otago Witness, August 4, 1883

(courtesy of The National Library of New Zealand)

THE LATE CAPTAIN STANDISH.

His Extraordinary Career Described.

(From the Daily Telegraph.) Recent advices from Australia announce the
death of a man upon whose life the late Dr Draper, the author of that
remarkable book, "The Intellectual Development of Europe'' might, had he
been alive and known its circumstances, have been tempted to moralise
curiously. " The career of individual man," wrote Dr Draper, "is of a
mixed nature. In part he submits to free-will impulses ; in part he is
under the inexorable dominion of law. As he advances in life he
insensibly changes his estimate of the relative power of these
influences. In the confidence of youth, he imagines that very much in
under his control ; in the disappointment of old age, very little.
Towards the end of his days he finds that the things he has secured are
not the things which he expected. He sees that a Supreme Power has been
using him for unknown ends ; that he was brought into the world without
his own knowledge, and is departing from it perhaps in a far-distant
land against his will. Of those frequenters of the Turf who remember the
Derby in its best days as, for instance, in Toddington's year, when
three-and-thirty starters came to the post there are still a few left
for whom the once familiar name of Fred Standish will awaken some
suggestive echoes. From 1848 until 1852 no backer of horses was better
known or more liked upon English racecourses than "the Bombardier" as
Admiral Rous always called him who had entered the Royal Artillery full
of youth, spirits, and hope, in 1845 to bid his native land a long and
final farewell in 1852. It will be recollected that in that year, so
fatal to backers, a chestnut pony named Daniel O'Rourke, who had run
nowhere in the Two Thousand, won tho Derby in a sea of mud against one
of tho strongest fields ever marshalled at the historical startingpost
where, to the discomfiture of Mr Greville's Alarm, the Libel played such
fantastic tricks in 1845. Among the horses vanquished by Daniel O'Rourke
were numbered those two magnificent specimens of the thoroughbred,
Stockwell and Kingston ; nor, judging by the example that Stockwell made
of the Derby winner when they both met in the Doncaster St. Leger, would
it be easy to compute what weight would have brought them together in
the September of 1852. Suffice it to say that the Derby victory of
Daniel O'Rourke drove Captain Standish forth from his native land into
the unknown wilderness at the Antipodes from which he was never destined
to return.
Being of an elastic and sanguine temperament, and gifted with a frame of
iron, the exile bated not a jot of heart or hope, when he landed at
Melbourne. He had 200 pounds in his pocket, and, in addition, possessed
faculties which, according to the witty Lord Chesterfield, are of far
greater value than the best letters of introduction in the world. Good
humour beamed from his open and engaging countenance, and his manner and
address were such as the Faubourg St. Germain, where much of his boyhood
had been passed, imparted to the adherents of the "vieille Cour" which
in France succeeded to the disturbing influences of the Great Napoleon.
The gold mania was at its height when Captain Standish landed in
Melbourne in the autumn of 1852, and, like every other male in the
Colony, from 15 to 65 years of age, the new-comer or, in Australian
parlance, the "new chum" soon found his way to the diggings. His 200
pounds vanished long before the pick which he yielded manfully had
struck upon a nugget of gold ; and with hardly a shoe to his foot the
once graceful and popular Royal Artillery captain found his way back to
Melbourne. Those were the days when every able-bodied man who cared to
work, and had no skilled labour at his command, could easily get
employment at 10s a day by breaking stones upon the road. Reduced to
this shift Captain Standish has often written, since that date, to
friends in England, avowing that even then his gay spirits never left
him Fortune, who, thus far, had not smiled upon him in life, owed him a
good turn; nor was it long in coming. One day an old brother officer of
Captain Standish his name was Captain Clarke was riding into Melbourne,
when his eye fell by the roadside upon a face and form which seemed to
him familiar. Addressing a few words to the stranger, Captain Clarke
soon recognised his old friend, to whom, being himself an official in
the employment of the Victorian Government, he at once gave a helping
hand. Fortunately Captain Standish, being a member of the old Lancashire
family of that name, which has never abandoned its ancient faith, was a
Roman Catholic ; and, therefore, no exception to his appointment as
Chief of the Melbourne Police was offered by the Irish voters. He had,
moreover, been on the staff at Dublin Castle from 1848 to 1850, and his
manner and address were of that cheery kind which finds most favour with
Irishmen. Although he started in life with very different surroundings
at the other end of the globe, Captain Standish had now entered upon the
career to which his best years were to be devoted. The passion for
horseracing, however, which he had first contracted in the old world,
was not likely to relax its hold upon him in one of the most sporting
communities that ever nested upon earth. He was among the original
founders of the Melbourne Club, in the city where he died, and where it
was always his delight to entertain Englishmen who brought letters of
introduction to him or with whom he chanced to make acquaintance in the
Colony. In many respects Captain Standish was admirably fitted to
discharge the duties of a Chief of Police. No man wrote a better letter,
or was gifted with more energy or sounder common sense. At the very
close of his command over the Melbourne police came the stirring episode
in which Ned Kelly, the " Ironclad Bushranger," and his brother played
such conspicuous parts. It may be remembered that on the 21st of April.
1880, a monument was unveiled in the centre of a little Australian town
named Mansfield, upon the east side of which monument were inscribed the
following words : "In memoriam Michael Kennedy, born at Westmeath,
Ireland, aged 36 years ; Thomas Lonigan, born at Sligo, Ireland, aged 35
years; Michael Scanlan, born at Kerry, Ireland, aged 35 years. This
monument is erected by subscriptions from the inhabitants of Victoria
and New South Wales; A.D. 1880." On its west front are recorded these
words: "To the memory of three brave men, who lost their lives while
endeavouring to capture a band of armed criminals in the Wombat Ranges,
near Mansfield, on October 26 1878." Captain Standish, as Chief
Commissioner of the Melbourne Police, was selected to make the
ceremonial speech on the occasion when the monument was unveiled, and
his words fell with all the more weight upon the ears of the crowd
assembled to listen, because at that moment the two Kelly brothers and
their accomplices, Hart and Byrne, were still at large. No long time,
however, was to elapse before vengeance overtook the desperate outlaws.
On the 28th June 1880, Dan Kelly, Stephen Hart, and Joseph Byrne
perished at a place called Glenrowan, and Ned Kelly, the leader of the
band, was taken prisoner, to expiate his guilt upon the avenging gibbet.
How many murders the Kelly gang had perpetrated there is no human record
to tell. The collective ages of the four chief assassins fall far short
of 100 years ; but in these days, when the majority of the lower classes
of Ireland are represented as sympathising with Joseph Brady, whose
dread doom awaits him on Monday next, it is satisfactory to reflect that
among the rank-and-file of the Melbourne police commanded by Captain
Standish many Irishmen were included who did their duty firmly and
faithfully, and in some cases gave their lived gladly in its execution.
Not many months after capital punishment had been inflicted upon Ned
Kelly, Captain Standish's connection with the fine body of men over whom
he had long held sway came to an end. They subscribed to give their late
head a parting present, and to many of his friends in this country
Captain Standish wrote to say that he should shortly pay a visit to the
scenes where, in his youth, so many of his happiest hours had been
passed. He anticipated with no slight pleasure the occurrence of an
opportunity for comparing horseracing as it now flourishes in England
with the pastime of which he had seen the birth and growth in the
Australian Colonies. As Sir Hercules Robinson who had been recalled by
the Colonial Office from New Zealand to assume the arduous task of
acting as Governor at Cape Town passed through Melbourne ho offered his
old friend Captain Standish the post of private secretary in South
Africa, which was declined. The dream of returning to England after an
absence of 30 years still haunted the old Royal Artilleryman ; but to
that dream it was not destined that effect should ever be given. He
would have found, had his wish been carried out, that changes far beyond
his calculation had taken place in the English form and fashion of
horseracing. When he last saw the Derby in 1852, it was easy the
Leviathan, William Davis, being then in his prime to back a horse to win
one hundred thousand pounds upon a very moderate outlay. The interest in
the great races of the year 30 years ago was, moreover, in Byron's
words,
Like the lava's flood That boils in Etna's breast of flame. If Captain
Standish had been spared, after the lapse of a generation, to revisit
Epsom racecourse on the Derby Day, and to see what gaps death had made
among his former friends and acquaintances, it is more than probable
that disappointment and gloom would have predominated in his breast, and
that he would gladly have returned once more to the Antipodes, with a
consciousness that from an Englishman he had been converted into an
Australian.

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The valuable casket pictured above was presented to Capt Standish.
(Pic Australasian Sketcher)

Captain Standish signature.