Corporal Sambo: Duty Done [Sharon Hollingsworth]

In my last blog post I wrote about the time of Joe Byrne's burial at Benalla Cemetery. In this post I am still focusing on the Benalla Cemetery, but this time the subject is Queensland Native Police (Black Tracker) Corporal Sambo who died in Victoria during the Kelly hunt.

In the Royal Commission Sub-Inspector Stanhope O'Connor gives details of arriving in Victoria with his troopers and the subsequent death of Corporal Sambo:


#1073  You met Captain Standish, you say, in March 1879? - The 6th of March 1879 at seven p.m. I was accompanied by six black troopers, and by one senior-constable, a white man. The names of my men were - Senior-Constable King, Corporal Sambo, Troopers Hero, Johnny, Jimmy, Barney, and Jack. I requested permission from Captain Standish to halt for the day, as one of my troopers named Jack was very ill. This Captain Standish granted at once. On the 8th March 1879, at nine a.m., Captain Standish, I, and my men left Albury for Wodonga, Victoria, where Captain Standish directed my party to remain for further orders. Captain Standish and I proceeded to Benalla, arriving there at two p.m. On Monday the 10th Senior-Constable King and the six troopers arrived at two p.m. from Wodonga at Benalla. On the 11th of March, Captain Standish ordered us out on our first trip, but had me sworn in previously a member of the police force of Victoria.

#1074  And your men? - No; only myself and my senior-constable. The black trackers do not take the oath ever; they are enlisted. We left Benalla at eleven a.m. on the 11th in company with Superintendent Sadleir and five or six Victorian constables....

#1075  I and my party returned to Benalla on the 18th of March at 5.50 p.m., owing to the fact that the party was not sufficiently supplied with necessaries, and that one of my troopers, Corporal Sambo, got very ill.

#1076  What do you call necessaries? - Blanketing and clothing.

#1077  Provisions? - We were not supplied sufficiently with those. I consider necessaries everything.

#1078 Food and clothing? - Food and bedding would be better. He was so bad, indeed, that I had to send him back to head-quarters on the 15th.

#1079 What do you call head-quarters? - Benalla. I always called that head-quarters; and on the morning of the 18th we met Constable Bell, who informed me that my trooper was dying. This man died on the evening of the 19th of congestion of the lungs. I do not attribute any blame to the Victorian authorities in this matter. In fact, Captain Standish showed my men every kindness.

Interesting that he mentioned about Trooper Jack being sick upon arrival and not Sambo. In The Maitland Mercury  Hunter River General Advertiser of March 29, 1879  it tells of Corporal Sambo catching a cold while on the steamer to Sydney and that when he arrived in Victoria he was "somewhat better, but it returned in the field, and he had to be sent to the barracks for medical treatment."

The article went on to say that:

"His lungs, were, however, greatly diseased, and the doctors were unable to save his life. Sambo had one regret paramount to all others, the leaving of his mentor, Inspector O'Connor, whose life, we hear, but with what truth we do not know, he saved in Queensland on two occasions. His black companions cried when they heard of his death, but only one of them, said to be a brother of deceased, went to the cemetery with Inspector O'Connor to see him buried..."


I am not sure how long Sambo had served under O'Connor as I don't have access to his Service Record, but the earliest mention (in a book called "Reminiscences of Queenland: 1862-1899") I could find of him being a Corporal under O'Connor was from 1874. Surely the association predated even then. I am wondering about it being said that one of the other trackers was his brother. Had not read that anywhere else before. I wonder which one it was?


In the PROV Archives there is correspondence between Superintendent Sadleir, Asst. Commissioner of Police Nicolson, and Commissioner of Police Standish. Nicolson was all for burying him as a pauper even going as far to say that "I would call attention to the fact that by obtaining a justice's order the cemetery fee of 20 pence cannot be charged." (That is shades of them trying to stiff Dr. Turner out of 4 guineas for attending to Trooper Jimmy who was wounded during the siege, while at the same time no expense was spared for the treatment of Superintendent Hare's wound.)

Standish disagreed with Nicolson and said he "did not see why he should be buried as a destitute person.." He said "The Queensland Native Trooper was doing regular duty as a constable under the Vict. Govt. and his illness..was contracted while he was on active duty in the ranges."

It seems that Nicolson had his way! An unmarked pauper's grave it was. Corporal Sambo, aged 25, was laid to rest on March 21, 1879 at the Benalla Cemetery. His grave was not marked until 1993.

                            [photo courtesy of Michael Ball]


John Molony in his book "[I Am] Ned Kelly" said of Sambo:

One of them, called Sambo, longed for the far places and the familiar places of his people in the north. He fell ill, pined away and died, to be buried in another's tribal grounds, and it was fitting that
he was put to rest as a pauper for he had come owning nothing and his spirit left the northeast as it had come.

At some point within the last few years (per the Benalla Cemetery online archives, but I can find no further information elsewhere) Corporal Sambo's remains were exhumed and taken back up North to be buried among his people.

He was home at last!