Without knowing the precise depth of burial, the best guess is that Babies A and B were buried in the winter months of July or August when the Makins lived in Burren Street. Sydney’s summer temperatures had not yet set in when they were discovered in October and the six inch covering of soil, together with their wrappings, had kept the babies from greater decomposition. As the spring temperatures started to warm the ground, the rate of decomposition would have gradually increased. This created the unpleasant smell that had hung around the backyard of 25 Burren Street when Mr Mulvey tried to rent his house to unimpressed prospective tenants.
CHAPTER NINE
Constable James Joyce: Joycean fictions and the art of deceit
6 January 1849–14 May 1912
The man who pursued John Makin into an early grave and was almost single-handedly responsible for uncovering the stench of the baby-farming trade in Sydney was born on 6 January 1849 in Surry Hills, Sydney to John and Jane Joyce.1 He appeared to lead a conventional married life with several children and a successful police career. But Joyce became so obsessed with the Makin case that he may have influenced witnesses to give particular testimony. Was Joyce the type of man to massage the evidence?
Joyce joined the Sydney Metropolitan Police Force as a probationary constable on 18 February 1879 at the age of 30 after some time spent as a stonemason, his father’s occupation. Very little is known about Joyce before he joined, although he was living in a small town near Armidale, New South Wales when he married. He returned to Surry Hills, his place of birth, sometime in 1877.2 With receding dark hair, light blue eyes and a handlebar moustache, he was thickset and five feet ten inches tall, just the right height and build required for catching the thieves and conmen of the inner city and frightening unsuspecting baby farmers when he knocked at their door.
After three months on probation, he became an ordinary constable. He was promoted to first class constable on 1 August 1881 and then senior constable on 1 June 1885. On 1 January 1902 he was promoted to sergeant. All up, he was a police officer for 30 years before his retirement on 18 February 1909 at the age of 60, when he was discharged on a police pension. Three years later he was dead.
The Newtown police force was once described as a ‘first-class set of men, obliging, full of zeal, and actuated by the one desire to do their duty’.3 Although this comment was written in 1912, the year that Joyce died, it is a fitting epitaph to the obsessive man who brought the Makins to heel.
At the age of 43 and the pinnacle of his career, James Joyce stumbled upon his most famous case the day he drove to Burren Street to inspect the drain-diggers’ discoveries. However, his name often appeared in the newspapers in relation to various chases and arrests. In one article headed—
SENSATIONAL CASE OF
SHOOTING
A WOMAN SHOT AT PETERSHAM
AN EXCITING CHASE
POLICE USE THE REVOLVER
THE WOMAN’S HUSBAND ARRESTED
—Joyce was lauded for his bravery when he captured James Maslin who, after shooting his wife three times in an upstairs apartment in Petersham, escaped with a crowd chasing him for close to a mile. But he ‘was brought to bay with a revolver fired’ by Joyce when Joyce cornered Maslin, still armed, in a cow paddock in Annandale. In a few seconds, however, Joyce turned from threatening Maslin’s life to protecting it when Maslin ‘was rushed by the crowd’ and both were almost overwhelmed in the onslaught.4
Family secrets
Like the Makins, Joyce had secrets. Rather a lot, as it turned out. A chance glance at one of the many family history trees of the descendants of James Joyce led to the discovery of his secret family life.5
On 31 December 1869, James Joyce, a 20-year-old labourer, married a very young Miss Margaret Connor, who was aged either 13 or 14 years. They were married in the house of Mrs Mary Connor in Bendemeer, a town about halfway between Armidale and Tamworth in northern New South Wales. Mrs Connor gave her permission for the marriage to take place, although the marriage certificate incorrectly stated that Margaret was 16. Pregnancy is the likely reason for the marriage of a 13- or 14-year-old girl to a 20-year-old man, although no birth certificate could be found for a child born to James and Margaret in 1870.
It appears that James and Margaret’s first child, Elizabeth, was born in 1872 in Grafton, New South Wales while a son, James, was born in Tenterfield in 1873. Another son was apparently born before 1880 but no record of his birth could be found. From 1880 to 1899 Margaret gave birth to eight more children when she and James moved to Sydney; all except one were born in Newtown: Thomas (b.1880); Mary (b.1883, d.1884); William (b.1886, d.1886); Milbra (b.1887); Walter James (b.1893); Harry Herbert (b.1894); Rita Doris (b.1897) and Ella Agnes (b.1899). As the informant for all these births, Joyce had a poor memory, variously reporting his wife’s age as 37 in 1893, 40 in 1894 and 42 in both 1897 and 1899.
Newspaper reports show that Joyce served at Newtown police station from at least 1881, when it was reported he was assaulted by Thomas Donohue in the execution of his duty.6 Local census directories reveal there was a James Joyce living in Newtown from 1882 to 1907, while the birth records of his children state they were born to James Joyce, police constable, and Margaret Connor.
However, other family history trees revealed that, at the age of 43 years, James Joyce married Miss Agnes Bath on 30 September 1892 at the Wesley Parsonage, 81 Pitt Street, Redfern. At the time, Agnes was 35, a domestic servant born on 21 April 1857 in Walcha, New England, the daughter of Priscilla and William Bath, a labourer. Walcha is 50 kilometres from Bendemeer, the birthplace of Margaret Connor, Joyce’s first wife. Strangely, Agnes’ and Joyce’s marriage certificate states that the usual place of residence for both bride and groom was New England. It stated that James Joyce was a labourer even though he was serving as a constable at Newtown police station at the time of this marriage, about to begin the biggest investigation of his career. Was he also involved in a shady, cover-up job of his own?
It is possible that the James Joyce who married Agnes Bath was a different person to the man who had married Margaret Connor. However, before their marriage Agnes and James had produced three children between 1877 and 1882: Jane Evangeline (b.1877) and Annie Dolly (b.1879) were born in Surry Hills while Mary Minnie was born in O’Connell Street, Newtown in 1882, close to Newtown police station. Jane’s birth certificate states her mother was Agnes Beath, aged 21 and born in Bendemeer, while her father, James Joyce, was a 28-year-old labourer, the same age as Constable Joyce. Annie’s birth certificate states that her mother was Agnes Barth, aged 24 and born in Walcha, and her father was James Joyce, a 30-year-old stonemason. Mary’s birth certificate reveals her father was James Joyce, a 32-year-old police constable and her mother was Agnes Connor, aged 29 and born in New England.
The certificates of these three children also state that Agnes and James were married, although no marriage certificate could be found for Joyce and Agnes Bath until 1892. Since Joyce was the informant for each of his children’s birth certificates, it appears he was covering up his illicit liaison with Agnes Bath by pretending they were married and by changing her name to Connor on Mary’s birth certificate.
While two men by the name of James Joyce could have been living in Newtown at the same time, the household census taken every year in Newtown reveals only one, a constable, who was living in Newtown between 1882 and 1899. James Joyce lived in a number of streets in Newtown until he finally settled at 29 Australia Street in 1892, the year he married Agnes.7 It does not appear that Agnes Bath and Margaret Connor were the same person since birth certificates exist for each of these women. It is also doubtful that one woman could have given birth to a child called Mary Joyce on 6 December 1882 and, seven months later, to another child called Mary Joyce on 2 July 1883. Even after Agnes’ marriage to James Joyce in 1892, four of his children with a mother called Margaret Connor continued to be born between 1893 and 1899.
Twelve days after Agnes and Joyce married, Agnes’ new h
usband would become embroiled in the most infamous case of his career, although something more surprising was in store for the new Mrs Joyce. When Joyce married Agnes in September 1892, he stated he was a widower. But Margaret Connor was very much alive and well. So alive and well that Margaret Joyce bore a son, Walter James, eight and a half months after James and Agnes married. The birth certificate for Walter, born on 19 May 1893, states that his father, Senior Constable James Joyce, aged 44 years, was married to Margaret Connor and gave the more or less correct date of their marriage (29 December 1869). At the time, he and Margaret were living in Fitzroy House, 29 Australia Street, the same street as the Newtown police station. The most curious evidence linking James Joyce with both Margaret Connor and Agnes Bath comes from the birth certificate of Joyce’s son Harry, who was born in 1894. While his birth certificate states that Margaret Connor was his mother, online records of his birth state that Agnes Bath was his mother.
It seemed it would be impossible to resolve this mystery until a search of the ‘in memoriam’ notices of Joyce’s demise at the age of 63 on 14 May 1912 revealed more intriguing information. When Joyce died suddenly in his home in Livingstone Road, Marrickville, he appears to have left a trail of children who grieved for many years after his death. In 1912, there was, however, only one death notice:
JOYCE—May 14, at his residence, Brooklyn, Livingstone-road, Marrickville, James, beloved husband of Agnes Joyce, aged 63 years.8
Although there was no mention of his surviving children that year, in the years that followed many ‘in memoriam’ notices were published. One year after his death, on 14 May 1913, five such notices appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald including:
JOYCE—In loving memory of our dear father, James Joyce, who departed this life on the 14th May 1912. Inserted by his loving daughter and son-in-law, Dolly and Louis O’Neill.
JOYCE—In sad but loving memory of our dear father, James Joyce, who departed this life 14th May 1912. Inserted by his loving daughter and son-in-law, Milbra and Ted Nickless. Fondly remembered.
JOYCE—In sad and loving memory of my dear father, who departed this life May 14, 1912, aged 63. Inserted by his loving daughter and son-in-law, Jennie and Ernie.
JOYCE—A tribute of love to the memory of my dear father, who departed this life on May 14, 1912. Inserted by his loving daughter and son-in-law, Tom and Minnie.
A glance at these notices reveals a surprise—while Dolly, Minnie and Jennie were the daughters of Agnes, Jennie being the nickname of Jane Evangeline, Milbra was the daughter of Margaret.
In 1914, only one in memoriam notice appeared, from Milbra and her husband Ted,9 while in 1915 five more notices appeared,10 as if the rest of the family had been stung into action by Milbra’s lonely notice from the year before. They included ones from ‘his loving wife, Agnes, and daughters, Rita and Ella’, ‘his loving son and daughter, Harry and Minnie’, ‘his loving son, Walter’, ‘his loving daughter and son-in-law, Milbra and Ted Nickless’ and ‘his loving daughter and son-in-law, Jennie and Ernie’.
These notices reveal that Rita and Ella, whose mother was Margaret, were living with Agnes and considered Agnes to be their mother while both Harry (the son of Margaret) and Minnie (the daughter of Agnes) referred to themselves as the son and daughter of James Joyce. For the first time, there was also a notice from Walter, Margaret’s son who was born eight and a half months after Joyce’s marriage to Agnes.
In 1917, the final in memoriam notices appeared from ‘his loving sons, Walter and Harry (on active service)’, ‘his loving daughter and son-in-law, Milbra and Ted Nickless, and children’ and ‘his loving daughters and son-in-law, Rita, Minnie and Ted’.11 All of these notices suggest that some of the sons and daughters of James Joyce saw themselves as one family, with Rita, Harry and Walter being the children of Margaret while Minnie was the child of Agnes. With no evidence that Joyce had divorced Margaret before he married Agnes in 1892 and with children born to Margaret after Joyce married Agnes, Constable James Joyce, a Roman Catholic, was a bigamist with two wives and nine children living with him, a somewhat expensive enterprise on a constable’s salary.
All of this information does not even begin to tell the more intriguing story of when the two wives found out about each other, their reactions when they did and how they apparently tolerated living in the same house with the same husband, since Margaret’s last three children were born in the Australia Street house in Newtown in which Agnes was living. It is possible that Margaret died after the birth of her last child and Agnes agreed to bring up her youngest children, Walter, Harry, Rita and Ella. But no death certificate could be found for Margaret Joyce. Perhaps Constable Joyce had his own missing person’s story to tell.
Through the moralistic eyes of the 1890s it would have been necessary for Agnes and Joyce to pretend they had been married for longer than they were and for Margaret’s children to refer to Agnes as their mother. When Margaret’s children Milbra and Walter died in 1918 and 1919 from the influenza pandemic that swept the world, their death certificates stated that their mother’s name was Agnes Bath, suggesting that Margaret was also dead by this time. In 1920, the year that Harry married, Agnes took the extraordinary step of applying to have his birth certificate amended to delete ‘Margaret Connor’ as his mother and insert the name ‘Agnes Bath’.
Agnes lived a long life with her and her husband’s secrets, dying at the age of 95 years on 21 June 1952 and outliving most of her and Joyce’s children.
CHAPTER TEN
More digging and the strange behaviour of the Makins
2–3 November 1892
When Constable Joyce investigated the Makins in 1892 he was newly married to Agnes Bath. By this time he had several children of his own, although he had lost a daughter in 1884 and a son in 1886 when the babies were very young. Perhaps it was these losses that drove Australia’s unknown James Joyce, his own grief remembered as he unwrapped the bundles containing the first two babies found in Burren Street. But with open verdicts pronounced by the jury in the inquest into the deaths of Babies A and B, it was not possible to lay any charges against the Makins. Spurred on, Constables Joyce and Brown continued to work ‘assiduously in the matter’,1 an understated way of saying the two men were obsessed with the case.
Joyce was disturbed by the evidence given by the Makins at the inquest. He probably recognised a pair of practised liars in Sarah and John Makin and heard the hollow sound of coaching in the evidence of Blanche and Florence. The presence of three babies in 6 Wells Street told him that the Makins were ‘professional’ baby farmers. So when the young, unmarried couple who called themselves Mr and Mrs Wilson turned up at Newtown police station, this was the break that Joyce needed. Rather than being in Melbourne with their baby as the Makins had testified, they were living and working nearby but without their daughter.
On 4 November 1892, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the police had received some information which justified their return to Burren Street. The information almost certainly came from Mr and Mrs Wilson who had read newspaper reports about the discovery of the two babies in Burren Street. In fact, one newspaper stated that the police had acquired a ‘mass of information’ from the public and tantalised readers with the teaser that there were some details that ‘it would be manifestly improper to mention at this stage’.2
Presented with key pieces in the Makin puzzle from Mr and Mrs Wilson, Joyce sought permission from Mr Mulvey to re-examine the backyard of 25 Burren Street. He was also keeping his eye on the Makins, because he knew that, early on the morning of Monday 7 November 1892, the Makins moved from Wells Street to Chippen Street, Chippendale.3
The first dig at 25 Burren Street
On the afternoon of Wednesday 2 November 1892, when Constables Joyce and Brown arrived with shovels to begin their methodical dig of the Burren Street backyard, Mr and Mrs Mulvey, who had returned to live in the house in August, probably looked on nervously, praying for the best and dreading the worst. Start
ing at the rear of the garden, the two constables dug adjacent to the open drain at a depth of about 18 inches. At 5.20 p.m. they unearthed a bundle—a female baby, aged about fourteen months, wrapped in a piece of white flannel with red and blue stripes and dressed in a pinned napkin.4
The dig continued the next day, this time with a third constable, Thomas Conran. At 9.30 a.m. a male child, about six months old, was discovered three feet away from the baby found the previous day. He was dressed in a coloured shirt and wrapped in a napkin and a piece of white flannel stained with drops of blood. An hour later, a third baby, a boy about three months old, was found wrapped in white calico. When later unwrapped he was dressed in a white napkin which was embroidered with the letter ‘F’ in one corner.
Then at 11.30 a.m. a baby girl, about two months old, was found dressed in a fancy white flannel dress which was embroidered and scalloped. She was also wearing a striped pinafore and striped petticoat. Another baby girl was found at 2.45 p.m. in a grave closest to the outhouse, dressed in a flannel wrapper twisted tightly around her body and a piece of thick woollen shawl. When this baby was retrieved from the earth, the five shocking discoveries made a total of seven babies which had been found in the backyard of Burren Street, including Babies A and B.
The five most recently discovered babies had been buried in what had been a poultry enclosure in two straight lines about the same distance apart and at a depth of about two feet, indicating a very methodical approach by the grave-digger.
The Baby Farmers Page 10