Queensland’s First Cops Were Underpaid… and Convicts
Story by Brisbane Times.
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QUEENSLAND’S POLICE officers may number about 12,000 today, but in the 1820s when the penal colony of Moreton Bay was first established there were only a handful of police constables, and they were all convicts.
In fact, Brisbane’s first couple of chief constables were convicts and the main job of early police was locking up drunks.
These were just some of the fascinating facts about Queensland’s first police officers revealed by Dr Anastasia Dukova, a visiting fellow with Griffith University’s Harry Gentle Resource Centre, at the Queensland State Archives.
The new Harry Gentle Resource Centre was started in April to research and publish information on Queensland’s history before it became a state in 1859.
“People think nothing much interesting happened (before then),” said Griffith University professor Regina Ganter.
“But everything that became Queensland was put into place.”