The Dr gets it again.
Bracewell, David (18031844)
by J. H. Hornibrook
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, (MUP), 1966
David Bracewell (1803?-1844), absconder, was born in London. He was convicted at the Middlesex Gaol Delivery on 14 September 1826 for assault with intention to rob, and sentenced to be transported for fourteen years. In June 1827 he arrived at Hobart Town in the transport Layton and in December was sent to the penal settlement at Moreton Bay. Although his behaviour was good, he found the discipline so harsh that he absconded next May for five days. Despite a penalty of 150 lashes, he took to the bush again in 1828 and 1829. While working with a survey gang at Eagle Farm, he absconded again, this time for six years. He fell in with various Aboriginal tribes and later claimed that he had come within reach of the party searching for survivors from the Stirling Castle wrecked on a reef near Wide Bay in May 1836. However, the official record of the rescue made no mention of him, but gave the credit to John Graham. Bracewell returned to Brisbane in May 1837 and resumed work with the surveyors. Fearing that the impending closure of the penal settlement would mean his transfer to Norfolk Island, he absconded for the fifth time in July 1839. Again he lived with the Aboriginals until near Wide Bay he was accepted by the Carbaraks tribe as a long lost relation, and given the name Wandi.
In May 1842 Bracewell was found by a party led by Andrew Petrie who was exploring the coast near Wide Bay in a whale-boat. The same party also found James Davis, 'Duramboi'. Both absconders gave themselves up when promised that they would not be punished; their reports of land and knowledge of the Aboriginals so impressed Petrie that he recommended their appointment to the Border Police. After their return to Brisbane, Bracewell was given work at Wolston near Goodna, on a property owned by the humane Stephen Simpson, crown lands commissioner, but while felling timber on 28 March 1844 he was crushed by a tree.
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, (MUP), 1966
James Davis (1808-1889), absconder and shopkeeper, was born in Broomielaw, Scotland, and at 14 was apprenticed to his father as a blacksmith at Old Wynd, Glasgow. Convicted two years later for stealing 2s. 6d. from a church box in Surrey, he was sentenced to be transported for seven years, and in August 1825 arrived in New South Wales in the Norfolk. His next appearance in court was at Patrick's Plains, where in 1828 he was charged with robbery and sentenced to three years at Moreton Bay as a doubly convicted felon. He arrived there on 18 February 1829 and absconded six weeks later with a companion. Their reasons remain unknown, although the commandant, Captain Patrick Logan, was notorious among convicts as a strict disciplinarian, excessive in use of the lash. The escapers soon met a party of Aboriginals whose chief, Pamby-Pamby, claimed Davis as his dead son returned to life as a white man. The mate was also protected but later killed for a breach of tribal law by destroying an Aboriginal grave in the branches of a tree.
As Duramboi, Davis took easily to tribal life. An honoured guest, he was allowed to move freely from one tribe to another, his travels taking him hundreds of miles from Brisbane. He had learnt the languages and customs of many tribes before he was found at Wide Bay in 1842 by Andrew Petrie and with difficulty assured that he could return safely to Brisbane as the convict settlement had ended. He had to relearn the English language and accustom himself again to work and clothes. He was employed at first by Dr Stephen Simpson, the land commissioner in Moreton Bay; later he set up as a blacksmith at Kangaroo Point. In 1864 he opened a crockery shop in George Street, Brisbane, where he made money, although literate enough only to sign his name. He had married Annie Shea on 3 November 1846. After her death in 1882, he married on 28 July 1883 Bridget Hayes, a widow of 49, born in Sligo, Ireland. He died on 7 May 1889.
His rehabilitation into acquisitive society included reform; from his accumulated estate the Brisbane General Hospital received 750 in 1889 and another 1100 in 1911. He guided settlers to good land in the Wide Bay area, and some public benefit came from his thirteen years with the Aboriginals. He was occasionally employed as a court interpreter, and in 1866 petitioned the governor to raise his salary to the 20 paid to Chinese and German interpreters, but his request was refused. He gave descriptions of some Aboriginal rites, but remained stubbornly reticent about one supposedly obscene ceremony.
