Alexander Tolmer's Reminiscences South Australian Advertiser, 12 February 1883 MR TOLMER'S REMINISCENCES. Mr Alexander Tolmer's long-promised story of his life, here and in the old world, has at last made its appearance in two handsomely-bound volumes, full of interesting accounts of the author's experiences from his boyhood up to the present time. An autobiography is commonly a somewhat hazardous experiment, as the writer may fall into the error of exaggerating the importance of his own achievements, and taking it for granted that to the public the scenes through which he has passed will be as interesting as they were to himself. The questions anyone undertaking to launch such a work upon the reading world should first endeavour to have satisfactorily answered are whether the incidents of his life are of an exceptionally sensational and interesting character, or whether they will deservedly attract special attention on account of their connection with public events, or because they are interwoven with historical associations. In Mr Tolmer's case these questions could all undoubtedly be answered in the affirmative, before he resolved upon offering to the public his 'Reminiscences of an Adventurous and Chequered Career at Home and at the Antipodes'. The work is published by Messrs Sampson Low, Maraton, Searle, and Rivington, of Fleet Street, London, and is issued to the subscribers whose names were obtained beforehand at 10s. 6d., but we understand it has been discovered that the price was fixed too low, and that the work will not be obtainable by the general public so cheaply. Mr Tolmer has properly described his career as an adventurous one, and his character and tastes were in his youth just those of one who was tolerably certain to find his sphere in the army, the navy, or some young colony where there was plenty of excitement and hard healthful work. To him fresh air and active exertion were necessary to make existence endurable; danger and hard knocks came as matters of course and gave zest to life. Australia, and this colony certainly, in days gone by owed much to men of this temperament who were real pioneers when there were many hardships to endure and many perils to be faced. Mr Tolmer has no English blood in his veins. His father was a Frenchman, of German extraction on the male side, and was one of the great Napoleon's veterans, who, however, grew tired of the Empire when the little corporal was sent to Elba, and consequently on Bonaparte's return had to take refuge in England with his wife, a French woman, who died on British soil two months after the birth of the author, who was her only child. Mr Alexander Tolmer was educated in France and England, and obtained a mastery of the languages of both countries, but seems to have been less attached to severe studies than to the 'light fantastic toe,' to music, in which divine art he became accomplished, and to muscular Christianity. It is not surprising that his father, who had embraced the profession of a teacher of languages, found it impossible to persuade him to follow the same walk in life. To cure the boy of a propensity to go to sea, Mr Tolmer, sent him for a voyage or two, during which he got more kicks than halfpence, and afterwards he enlisted in the volunteer force that went to Portugal in 1833 to fight the battles of Donna Maria against Don Miguel. The force was under the command of Colonel Bacon, whose wife, the late Lady Charlotte Bacon, so well-known in this colony, accompanied him to Portugal, and remained in the country till the close of the war. Having a good seat in the saddle to begin with, Mr Tolmer joined the Lancers, and became a perfect horseman. skilled in the use of flic lance, and an accomplished swordsman. His account of his service in Portugal is not only full of exciting and entertaining anecdotes, but gives an instructive sketch of the dynastic struggle then going on in that country, and describes to a considerable extent the habits of the people. To the mind's eye of the reader are brought vivid representations of the dare-devil British and the brave Caladores, beleaguered for tresses, fierce conflicts in streets, in cornfields, on bridges and on vine-clad hillsides; the retreat, the rally, the splendid cavalry charge and glorious victory, with its harvest of blood and death and suffering. Mr Tolmer had his share of 'moving accidents by flood and field,' and of 'hair breadth escapes.' He was wounded several times - once seriously in the breast and in a besieged town was, with his comrades and the civilians, reduced by starvation to eat dogs and cats and other choice viands, such as the Parisians were obliged to devour a dozen years ago, when the victorious Germans sur rounded their beautiful city. The war over, Mr Tolmer was offered a commission in General De Lacy Evans's army about to take the field on behalf of the Queen of Spain, but declined, having had enough of campaigning for a time. He returned to England and then went to France to study, but finally resolving not to become a teacher of languages, as his father wished, he again went back to England, joined the 16th Lancers, was appointed riding-master and drill instructor, made a clandestine marriage, and finally being disappointed in obtaining a commission was advised to come to South Australia. Old colonists had a great dread of ship yarns with which, when ocean voyages were not so common as they are now, they used to be dreadfully bored, each newcomer forgetting that there is, generally speaking, a considerable sameness about experiences at sea. In describing the voyage of the Brankanmoore, however, Mr Tolmer is never tedious. It was long and varied in incidents, and his gift of narrative is pleasantly exercised. At St Jago, through the misconduct of a fellow passenger, he got into a row with the Portuguese; on board ship he thrashed the first mate, knocked the carpenter down, and kicked the second mate in the abdomen - and served them right. Arriving in Adelaide in February, 1840, Mr Tolmer presented to the Governor, Colonel Gawler, a letter of introduction from Colonel Brotherton, His Excellency's companion-in-arms at Waterloo, and was at once appointed sub-inspector of police. Afterwards he became successively inspector, superintendent, commissioner, and police magistrate. Then he established the gold escort from the Victorian diggings to Adelaide, and here his fame culminated. Afterwards he disagreed with some of his subordinates, and called for a board of enquiry, which resulted in his being removed from his position as commissioner and replaced in that of inspector, Major Warburton succeeding him in the higher office. Afterwards Mr Tolmer was made superintendent, but he had a trying time of it from the period of Major Warburton's appearance on the scene. To the general reader the long account of the disagreements in the force from this time, December, 1853, till Mr Tolmer's connection with the force ceased, between two and three years later, with all the voluminous correspondence relating to these unhappy disputes, will be somewhat wearisome; but Mr Tolmer felt it his duty to vindicate himself from the charges brought against him, and to demonstrate that throughout he had been most unjustly treated. How far he has succeeded in these objects is a question on which we need not pronounce a decided opinion. According to his own showing there were faults on both sides. There was evident justification for Major Warburton's charges against Mr Tolmer of want of tact and temper in dealing with other officers, and want of fair consideration for their feelings; but these very faults the Major exhibited in his conduct towards the officer he rebuked and complained of. But whatever errors Mr Tolmer committed, he paid a heavy penalty. Having by his eminent services, in critical periods of the colony's history, laid the community under a deep and lasting debt of obligation, he was superseded by a gentleman who had no claims upon the public, and who never afterwards by success in the management of the police force justified his appointment. The force, however, is highly efficient now, and we need not dwell on that unsatisfactory portion of its history. During Mr Tolmer's connection with the police their duties were of the most arduous character, calling for qualities of no common order on the part of officers and men. Our small population was invaded by convicts, many of them of the worst possible character from the older colonies. They came by land and sea; along the banks of the Murray or by way of the Coorong, singly or in companies; each overland party with sheep or cattle contributed a few burglars or a murderer or two from the parent colony; while felons of all kinds and degrees sailed from Van Diemen's Land for these shores. Nearly all the prisoners at each gaol delivery were men who had left their country for their country's good. Had our police been insufficient then the consequences to the scattered population of South Australia would have been most appalling, and it was truly providential that there were such men as Tolmer and Alford, and others who served with them, to grapple with the evil. They took pride and pleasure in their work, and the greater the toil and danger involved in their pursuit of criminals, the more they seemed to enjoy it. The ordinary 'detective's album' becomes nauseating, but in the accounts of the pursuit of brigands among the mountain ranges, across plain and river and through the scrub and forest of a new wild country, there is a romance and exhilarating excitement not to be found in the vulgar pages of the Newgate Calendar. In those days the police of this colony were renowned throughout Australia. A gang of bushrangers and murderers, on whose heads heavy prices were set by the Government of Van Diemen's Land, and who had baffled for three years all the efforts of the constabulary of that island to capture them, were taken by Mr Tolmer and his men on Yorke's Peninsula a few weeks after the miscreants had landed there, and soon afterwards ended their career on the gallows at Hobart Town. Other runaways from beyond our borders who took to bush ranging in this colony graced the scaffold in Adelaide, and many scores were sent back either to Sydney or Van Diemen's Land. Kangaroo Island was a refuge for some of the offscourings of the earth, but Inspector Tolmer routed the vermin out of this haunt, and returned them to the places from which they had fled. The natives also had to be dealt with in those days, and it was no easy matter to capture the wily savage in the scrub about and beyond Port Lincoln. The old story of the massacre of the crew and passengers of the Maria by the Coorong blacks, and the punishment of the ringleaders in that crime, is well told by Mr Tolmer. Who among us of middle age does not well remember Tolmer's escort, without which the Bullion Act would to a great extent have failed of its effect? This escort was proposed, organized, and managed by Mr Tolmer. It enabled South Australian diggers, who were of all classes of our society, to send their gold from Bendigo or Forest Creek to Adelaide and sell it at three pound 11 shillings, the price fixed by the Bullion Act, at a time when the price obtainable in Victoria was under three pounds. The danger to the escort party from bushrangers was by no means thrilling, and the perils from flood in the winter time were of no common order. On one trip the spring-cart was washed away after the gold had been taken out, and Mr Tolmer had to swim about a creek, down which the waters were coming in full flood, in order to save some of the horses, and then he dived and recovered successively six bags of the precious metal that were lying on the bottom of the stream. After leaving the police Mr Tolmer made an attempt to forestall the late Mr Stuart, the renowned explorer, in crossing the continent, but was driven back by drought. Afterwards he tried sheep farming in the Long Desert, but twenty years ago he received the appointment of inspector-ranger, which he kept till after the liberalization of our land system, he was appointed inspector of credit selections, which office he now holds. It says much for Mr Tolmer's energy and for his fine constitution that has outlasted so much work, worry, exposure, and bodily injury, that he is able to perform the laborious duties necessarily attached to his position. The 'Reminiscences' embrace many subjects and many incidents of a social, convivial, sporting, and humorous kind. One chapter is devoted to his thoroughbred mare Norah, probably the greatest trotter that was ever bred in this hemisphere. There is nothing in Mr Tolmer's Portuguese experiences more wonderful than some of the events recorded as having occurred in South Australia, and which are in the memory of many old colonists. The book before us brings back scenes in which some 'pioneers' who have long passed away were prominent figures; in fact, it is saddening to think how the muster roll has thinned of the writer's contemporaries. This of itself, however, makes the book more valuable, for it is an excellent addition to our records of the early days of the colony. Though making no pretensions to literary skill, Mr Tolmer has an easy but vigorous style, and considerable power of graphic description. Of his sanguine temperament some of the passages in this work afford amusing illustrations. He takes a real interest in what is going on around him, enjoys life, appreciates scenery, loves a good horse, and possesses in a high degree the faculty of fighting his battles o'er again, of realizing and reproducing bygone scenes in which he has played a part. We can confidently recommend this book as one that will well repay the reader, and as being worthy of a place in every library. Not everyone was of the same opinion. Sergeant TA Naughton wrote a long article in the Register of 16 December 1885, giving his account of a manhunt in the Adelaide with Henry Alford. It was succesful and they caught a gang of cattle thiefs in the act. Unfortunalety one of them did escape. At the end of the letter he stated that 'Alford and I, through whose exertions this gang was broken up, never got the least thanks, not to say reward, and forty-five years after Mr. Tolmer reproaches me with the accusation that I should have been punished for letting the man go. This is the way Mr.Tolmer rewards the men who did the police work by which he built up his reputation, while the Parliament gives him 1,000 pounds for writing a book that bristles with false oods. Had Mr.Tolmer adhered to the truth I would be content to let my acts and myself sink into oblivion. But although I am three score and twelve I will not allow him to write falsehoods in connection with my name. l am, Sir, &c, T.A. NAUGHTON (Formerly Sergeant of Mounted Police. Tolmer's Obituary *** If you would like to find out more, please go to HOME PAGE for more information. Thank you for visiting Flinders Ranges Research, We hope you enjoy your stay and find the information useful. This site has been designed and is maintained by FRR.