Hector Neil McLarty

Last updated April 06, 2019

Hector Neil McLarty (15 March 1851 – 24 November 1912) was a Western Australian Police officer, and customs detective. During his service as a police officer he accompanied future Premier John Forrest on two expeditions and was in charge of the officers attempting to capture the Fenian escapees on the Catalpa.

John Forrest, 1st Baron Forrest of Bunbury was an Australian explorer, the first Premier of Western Australia and a cabinet minister in Australia's first federal parliament.

Fenian was an umbrella term for the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Catalpa rescue was the escape, on 17–19 April 1876, of six Irish Fenian prisoners from what was then the British penal colony of Western Australia.

Personal life

McLarty married Elizabeth Campbell in March 1875. They had six children: three boys and three girls. The eldest, Campbell McLarty, was one of the pastrolists to open up the north west of Western Australia for graziers. Roy McLarty received the Military Medal at Gallipoli and went on to become the Chief Executive for the AMP Society. His youngest son, Duncan Keith, was killed in action on 25 September 1915 during the Battle of Loos.

Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, and the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres, and the second-largest country subdivision in the world, surpassed only by Russia's Sakha Republic. The state has about 2.6 million inhabitants – around 11 percent of the national total – of whom the vast majority live in the south-west corner, 79 per cent of the population living in the Perth area, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated.

Pastoral farming is a form of agriculture aimed at producing livestock, rather than growing crops. Examples include dairy farming, raising beef cattle, and raising sheep for wool. In contrast, arable farming concentrates on crops rather than livestock. Finally, Mixed farming incorporates livestock and crops on a single farm. Some mixed farmers grow crops purely as fodder for their livestock; some crop farmers grow fodder and sell it to pastoral farmers.

The Military Medal (MM) was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other arms of the armed forces, and to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for bravery in battle on land. The award was established in 1916, with retrospective application to 1914, and was awarded to other ranks for "acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire". The award was discontinued in 1993 when it was replaced by the Military Cross, which was extended to all ranks, while other Commonwealth nations instituted their own award systems in the post war period.

The youngest of his daughters, Muriel Eileen McLarty, was the oldest surviving McLarty to attend the National Trust of Australia official opening of Old Blythewood homestead near Pinjarra by Governor Wallace Kyle. Old Blythewood was built by Hector McLarty's father John in 1851 and was given to the National Trust by the McLarty family in 1974.

The National Trust of Australia, officially the Australian Council of National Trusts (ACNT), is the Australian national peak body for community-based, non-government non-profit organisations committed to promoting and conserving Australia's indigenous, natural and historic heritage.

Pinjarra is a town in the Peel region of Western Australia along the South Western Highway, 86 kilometres (53 mi) from the state capital, Perth and 21 kilometres (13 mi) south-east of the coastal city of Mandurah. Its local government area is the Shire of Murray. At the 2011 census, Pinjarra had a population of 4,255.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Wallace Hart Kyle, was an Australian who served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a senior commander and later as the Governor of Western Australia. Born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, Kyle was commissioned into the RAF in 1929, and, having seen service in the Second World War and the Malayan Emergency, held a number of senior positions, including Vice-Chief of the Air Staff and commander-in-chief of the RAF's Bomber Command and Strike Command. He was made governor of Western Australia in 1975, a position in which he served until 1980, later returning to England, where he died in 1988.

Police Officer

Hector McLarty joined the Western Australian Police in June 1868 at the age of 17 years. In March 1870, as a police constable, he was part of John Forrest's expedition to survey a route for the first overland telegraph. The expedition plan was to start at Esperance tracing the route of John Eyre's previous crossing from Adelaide, South Australia to Esperance. They arrived at the Dempster farm in Esperance in April to replenish before commencing the successful expedition, returning from Adelaide by steamship in September 1870. Between August and November 1871 the same expedition party returned to Esperance explore pastoral land they had identified north-northeast of Esperance during the first expedition.

Esperance is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, on the Southern Ocean coastline approximately 720 kilometres (450 mi) east-southeast of the state capital, Perth. The urban population of Esperance was over 10,000 as at the 2016 Census. Its major industries are tourism, agriculture, and fishing. The Shire of Esperance is home to 13,477 people.

Edward John Eyre was an English land explorer of the Australian continent, colonial administrator, and a controversial Governor of Jamaica.

McLarty was promoted to sergeant on 25 May 1874 while assigned to Perth's central police station. On 17 April 1876 McLarty led a group of 8 men, 2 pensioner guards from Perth and 6 police constables from Fremantle, in pursuit of the six Fenian prisoners that had escaped from the Fremantle Prison. They boarded the Georgette in Perth and steamed out of the Swan river in search of the Catalpa. Unsuccessful, they returned that night to Fremantle to refuel. Recommencing the search the following day, they succeeded in finding the Catalpa, and firing a shot across at the vessel they ordered it to stop or they would sink it. The captain of the Catalpa pointed at the United States flag and indicated that they were in international waters and that such action would be an act of war. The Georgette then returned to Fremantle; in his report on the incident McLarty wrote of the frustration and humiliation of letting the Catapla sail away.

Fremantle Prison, sometimes referred to as Fremantle Gaol or Fremantle Jail, is a former Australian prison and World Heritage Site in Fremantle, Western Australia. The six-hectare (15-acre) site includes the prison cellblocks, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages, and tunnels. It was initially used for convicts transported from Britain, but was transferred to the colonial government in 1886 for use for locally-sentenced prisoners. Royal Commissions were held in 1898 and 1911, and instigated some reform to the prison system, but significant changes did not begin until the 1960s. The government department in charge of the prison underwent several reorganisations in the 1970s and 1980s, but the culture of Fremantle Prison was resistant to change. Growing prisoner discontent culminated in a 1988 riot with guards taken hostage, and a fire that caused $1.8 million worth of damage. The prison closed in 1991, replaced by the new maximum-security Casuarina Prison.

In 1883 McLarty moved to Albany, Western Australia. While there he sent a telegraph to Esperance instructing Lance Corporal Truslove to intercept suspected bushranger James Cody, who was accused of stealing two horses. When Truslove caught Cody he refused to stop; Truslove then shot Cody. Taking him to Dempster property in Esperance for treatment, and despite the aid of a doctor giving instructions via telegraph from Albany, Cody died ten days later. At the age of 33, Hector McLarty retired from the police force on 29 February 1884.

Albany is a port city in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, 418 km SE of Perth, the state capital. Albany is the oldest colonial settlement in Western Australia, predating Perth and Fremantle by over two years.

Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term "bushranger" had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under arms" as a way of life, using the bush as their base.

Later career

Hector McLarty moved his family to the timber town of Canning Mills in the Darling Scarp. There he worked for the Western Australian Government Railways on the Eastern Railway, while his wife was the Postmistress for the town during the early 1890s. McLarty then took up a position as a detective with the Western Australian Customs on 1 July 1895. As part of the Federation of Australia the WA Customs service was amalgamated with similar services in the other States to form the Australian Customs Service, Hector remained with the ACS until he retired on 30 June 1911.

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References

Richards, Ronald (2003). The McLarty Family of Pinjarra (soft cover ed.). Nedlands, Western Australia: J.D.McLarty. ISBN 0-9750632-0-0.

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