George V. Britcher ⁵⁹⁹

   Cause of his death was murdered by natives.

  Research Notes:

Brian & Pam Andrew note:
The Sydney Morning Herald - 26 January 1883
BRISBANE, THURSDAY (25th)
The police report that the body of George Britcher has been found murdered by the blacks on the mail track between Boulia and Cloncurry.

The Brisbane Courier - 25 January 1883
The Winton police had reported to the inspector that George Britcher had been found murdered by blacks, twenty miles from Chatsworth station, on the mail track between Boulia and Cloncurry.

Australian Register - 22 August 1883
Murder of Mr. George Britcher by Queensland Blacks. - We have been favoured with the following extract from a letter addressed to Mr. H. S. Britcher, of Charleville, Queensland, by Mr. P. Sheahan, Manager of Chatsworth Station, near Winton, Northern Queensland, touching the murder of his brother, Mr. George Britcher, who was formerly a resident of this colony and an early pioneer of the Far North, he having assisted the late Mr. Stephen Jarvis in forming Mount Margaret and the Peake stations Messrs. Levi & Co. some twenty-one years ago. He erected the first crushing machinery on the Barossa Diggings, and afterwards started in Hindley-street as an auctioneer.
Mr. Sheahan writes, under date March 6, 1883, as follows :- " Yours of February 20 to hand re your brother. There was no inquest I was present at his burial. Circumstances point to the murder being committed by the blacks, and the blacks themselves have told me of five who followed him up and killed him. There was a cut in the side of the skull, made by a tomahawk, and when he received the blow must have tried to jump up and got a hit with a 'mullah - mullah' on the forehead, as the skull was broken there. From what I can make out of the blacks and gins, he was camped on the Hamilton for dinner, and as he was saddling up, some blacks came to him and gave him directions as to his way over here. They then went back to the camp and made up the plan to follow him up and kill him. He must have camped very early in the evening, as it is not more than fourteen miles from where he had dinner to where he was killed, and he had been chopping all sorts of marks on the trees around his camp. He had a large "B." cut very high up on the side of one of the trees, and "George Britcher" on another. His saddles, &c, have never been found. I have been told by the tribe that they were burnt, and also his papers. The only clothes that were about was the shirt he had on, a pair of braces, and his boots and socks. A singular thing, but it seems to be the case in every murder committed out here by the blacks, that they never take the boots of a man they kill, even if he has them on when they kill him. They take them off and put them down by the side of the nearest tree. I dare say you know how they trapped the Inspector who went out to dress them down. They know a good deal more than people give them credit for. I will bring in his remains here as soon as things get a bit easier on me."
A notice of Mr. Britcher's being murdered by the blacks appeared in our Queensland telegrams in the early part of the present year. He is supposed to have met his death in June, 1882. He went out to take up country between the Diamantina and the Hamilton. Mr. Britcher's father suffered the same fate on the Murray, near Lake Victoria, while bringing cattle overland from Sydney between thirty-five and forty years ago.

George married Jane Barclay Mackay on 27 Apr 1871 in St Pauls, Adelaide, South Australia.²⁵⁴ (Jane Barclay Mackay was born on 1 Feb 1848 in Gawler, South Australia and died on 6 Mar 1913 in Adelaide, South Australia ^254,599.)