Sentencing on a colonial frontier: Judge Therry's decisions at Moreton Bay

Abstract

This article outlines the operation of the circuit courts at Brisbane in the 1850s and three frontier attacks which resulted in the arrest and trial of several young Indigenous men. Therry was the presiding judge in the trials of three of these men at three separate assizes; they were R v Mickaloe for the murders of William Boller and William Waller in November 1851, R v Mickie for the murder of Mary Shannon in May 1853 and R v Dundalli for the murders of William Boller and Andrew Gregor in November 1854. Roger Therry’s personal background is surveyed to try to resolve the discrepancies in the sentences he handed down in these cases before drawing some conclusions about the contribution of these events to contemporary studies of the frontier.